Poker

PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

Oh, and this:

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 3681909

I'm not dead.

Yeah, it's been a while. A while as in last time I blogged, we hadn't told anyone we were having a baby (she's 15 months old now), US players weren't effectively shut out of the online poker world (somehow, Poker Stars gets past that problem), and I was actually playing poker regularly. I'm back to playing at least a few times a week (along with live game tournies every few weeks, lately), so I might actually post here again.

Whether or not anyone is reading is a totally different thing...

Liveblogging - WWdN: Donegal Invitational

3:27pm - Half hour til we start. Exciting!

3:32pm - This is the first time I've been able to play in on of Wil's tournaments...most have started while I'm still at work. I like the "homegame" feel Wil's said it's got...He's liveblogging it too, I'll post the address as soon as I get it.

3:58pm - I'm at table 15. 127 players.

4:00pm - Cards in the air. AQ of spades to start. A on the flop, and I take the first pot. Rock!

4:02pm - Wil is live blogging at http://www.cardsquad.com/2005/11/04/live-blogging-the-wwdn-donegal-invitational/.

4:06pm - I've taken a couple pots with moderate bets. Let's hope this keeps up.

4:10: pm - Lots of Simpsons references in the nicknames. Wil's fans like things Wil likes...not surprizing. Another pot bought. I'm the chip leader at my table.

4:19 pm - Wil just took out a guy with QQ in hand to his 10-10 in hand, with a Q-x-10 on the board. Ouch.

4:24 pm - I really should pay attention. two people at my table now have way more than I do, and one guy is gone. I'm not doing poorly, but it'll be a long tournament (I hope).

4:31 pm - I'm not hitting any flops. I'm down to exactly $1500, though i'm probably playing the 44 I've just been dealt...4 on the flop...won with a fold. Whew. Ok. Nice to win one while I'm writing about it.

4:39 pm - Big hand, and called a semi-bluff. Back up to almost 3k, in 21st out of 93.

4:49 pm - I'm not trusting myself today. I'm playing plenty agressive, but I'm letting people bluff me (well, I think they are). My stack's good, but could drop quick.

5:00pm - We're on break. I'm down to 46th out of 68 with $1,875 in chips. I need to pick it up a bit. Top 18 pay today.

5:09pm - Liveblogging interupted by dinner planing for tomorrow. In the meantime, I doubled up with a couple of good hands and good plays. Back up to $3,300 and 21st place.

5:13pm - Wil's moved tables three times, I haven't moved yet. Completely unrelated, I've had the small blind folded to me three times.

5:16pm - heffmike will be the death of me in the tournament. Especially with his huge stack.

5:21pm - Well, heffmike DID take me out, but it wasn't his fault. I was trying to show off with the hammer (7-2 offsuit) against what turned out to be AK, and got called, raised, and busted when no help came. That left me with only T369, and my A-3 of hearts couldn't be heffmike's 6-6. Oh well, next time I won't be so stupid with a horrible hand.

Weird Omaha Hand

I have 6-2-10-10, and the board is K-4-10-4-Q. People have been betting like idiots since half said they thought this was a "no limit" Omaha table. I bet into it with my 10s full. Finally we turn them over. Someone's got KK, someone's got QQ, and someone else has 44. My 10s full of 4s was 4th best.

That's weird, even for Omaha.

Liveblogging on Poker Stars charity event

7:18 PM 9/12/2005
Got to the tourny late because I was working, but the girlfriend played great poker, and just about doubled my stack. About 10 minutes in to playing myself, though, the guy to my right starts raising all-in every hand. After he does this three times in a row. The forth time he does it, I have A-A, so I call, and he turns up 9-10. I'm in great shape until the flop, which comes 10-9-x. The board doesn't pair anything else or bring an ace, so I lose about 2/3rds of my stack.

That was a blow, but two hands later I was holding 10-J with a Q-K-A flop, so doubled up. Just split a sb check three ways when the board showed two pair. Trying to get back into the swing, about T500 below average.

7:23 PM 9/12/2005

Lots of players didn't show (which tends to happen at a tourny with a big advanced notice like this one), so there are currently three players sitting out, blinds dwindling. In about 45 minutes, they'll all go out at the same time as their stacks disappear. That'll be interesting. I've got three on my left, so if everyone behind me folds when i've got the button or just after I do, I can take the blinds. Nice...

7:30 PM 9/12/2005

We're on break, I'm about T300 under average. I'm watching Wil's table too, and he's just about at Average. Haven't checked to see if other Team PokerStars players are here, playing, though I've heard Evelyn Ng is. She's not bad to look at. Stats at the break:

Stack: largest 43135, smallest 5, average 3230
Your current position is 290 out of 1027

7:36 PM 9/12/2005

Cards in the air. ruffryder25 (the player to my right) is still buying pots. The annoying guy who just went out was replaced with someone with T15000. yikes.

7:40 PM 9/12/2005

ruffryder25 just got busted when his Kh-Qc got bested by TheJim08 (the new, huge stack)'s Kc-Qs. Ouch.

In other news, my draw sucked, and i'm down to T1200 when my A-5c didn't come up with a third club or a 7 on the turn. I folded before the river when the new guy's bet would have put me almost all-in.

7:48 PM 9/12/2005

All-in with Q-Q, two other players (including a guy who's all-in I called). They had a K and A in their hands, respecivly, and a A came on the flop. No queens followed. I'm out in 642nd place out of 2212. Not a bad showing, but no prizes. Glad to help the hurricane victims, though.

Best finish to date

The last few nights I've found myself at my computer around 9:30pm, when PartyPoker has a $5+$1 Omaha hi/lo tournament. I'd say about 90% of tournaments on the site are "Hold 'em" of some sort (as that's the popular game), so I enjoy being able to play in a low limit but still large tournament for my preferred poker game. Monday I placed 54th out of 470 or so players, with 50 places paying. Always tough going out that close to the bubble. I played again Tuesday, this time placing 60th out of 500, with 60 places paying. Not a big win, but a good showing and a small return on my money.

Yesterday I tried again. I signed up for the tournament then realized I'd promised someone some of my time offline, and raced to unregister. It was too late, but I figured I wouldn't be gone more than a half hour, so I set it to "post blind and fold", meaning it'd keep me in, but not delay the other players. I got done early and came back to find I hadn't even been hit with a blind yet, so I sat down to play. Started a little loose, and lost a couple hands before I won one, which is normal for me.

I tightened up and started winning, keeping a bit above average most of the way toward the bubble (50 places paid out of 450 entries), pretty sure I'd make it when we were down to 150 or so players, with my stack around 5k to the tournament average of 2500 and blinds at 50-100. Lost a big hand at 70 players, but knew I could keep in if I just didn't call anything without the nuts on the hands I was already blinded in for.

For those of you who don't play tournaments online, play really slows down as you approach the bubble, as no one wants to do something stupid and miss out on getting their money back. You're still looking to bolster your stack, but sometimes it's safer to just sit tight until you know you'll be making some money. The last 10 people eliminated took about 25 hands (giving everyone the blind at least twice) - it's even slower in Omaha hi/lo than in hold 'em because of split pots. Once you get past that bubble, play speeds up dramatically, as people start playing loosely again (50 players down to 40 players took fewer than 10 hands).

At the bubble I was just above average, but soon lost some hands and was just hanging on, happy with where ever I'd go out. But as I played my strong hands, I kept winning at least half the pot, never getting above average again but keeping myself from being forced all-in on the blinds. The tables kept breaking up, and I found myself in the top 30, then top 20, and literally amazed when we were down to two tables and I still could survive the 500/1000 blinds without too much problem. I knew I'd have to make a stand, but I got the cards when I needed to, and hung on to make my first final table in a large tournament.

I should set the stage - by this point it's about 1:30 AM, and I'd been playing for almost 4 hours. I'm tired, but excited - payouts are tiered for 40-50th, 30-40th, etc. until the final table, where they start to really increase. 50th place made $12, and even up to 11th-20th only made $19 or so. But 10th brought in $22, then $35 for 9th, up to several hundred for first and second place. Every time someone went out, I made another $10-$20 bucks, not bad for a $5 buy-in.

At 7 people left, things got interesting. Two stacks were safe, well over 100K. two others hovered around 80k, I had 35K, and two more had about 10k. They were suffering the full wrath of the blinds every time they went around, but as is the nature of a split pot game, they were surviving pretty well. One finally went out and bam, I'm bringing home at least $90. Very quickly another went out and my minimum is up to $135. Starting out I was happy just to place in the money, and once I had, I was expecting to go out pretty quickly up until the final 14 or so, when I was pretty sure I'd make it to the top 10 if I played tight. Now I'm the short stack but in the final 5 out of 450.

Unfortunately, I'm a very short stack. I took a couple losses, and my 30k isn't much with 6000/12000 blinds. One other guy had about the same size stack, and raised to 24000 with me in the big blind, holding 2d-3d-3s-jh. Not a great hand, but a good shot at low, a suited connecter, and a small pair. I raised him all in. I had 3k more than he did, but he took the pot with a two pair better than my two pair, no low, so I was looking at a 3k stack in the 6k small blind. It was all rags to me, and I went out in 5th place and got that $135, 20+ times my investment. Hard to go wrong with that.

Another poker story...

Picture it: Pechanga, yesterday. I'd just won a big hand, and got moved to a new table when ours got broken down. I'm in the #1 seat, and the first hand I get is A-A. The button's at the #5 position, and the guy in the #8 seat raises to 1000. #9 folds, #10 goes all in with about 1200. I raise all-in with 4300 to get people out of the way, and #2 and #3 fold. #4 calls my all in (he has less), #5, #6 and #7 fold. #8 (who had raised to 1000 to start) asks for a chip count, and calls me (he's got more than I have). We turnover:

#1 (me, 4200, all-in): A-A
#4: (2000, all-in): 10s-Js
#8: (4200, has me covered): 6-6
#10: (1200, all-in): Ad-8d

I'm looking good at this point, with the 6s my only really issue. The dealer does some math and lays out the stacks. Unfortunately, the flop wasn't so kind:

7s-8c-9d

Now, all of a sudden, I'm losing to #4, #10 has a pair, and #8 has a straight draw. The turn is a 9c. I have #8 and #10 bested at this point, and I resolve that I'll lose to #4, but still get enough back that it won't be a big deal. I even had a chance to do more: an A or 9 on the river would give me a full boat, and I'd beat all three players. The river, however, had other plans, and was the 5d. That gave #8 a straight as well, and since he had me covered, I was out. People at the table honestly felt sorry for me, with such a bad beat.

What'd I learn? That even the correct play bites you in the ass sometimes. If I had only called, at least these three other players would have been in, maybe more (thus decreasing my chances). A-A is a great starting hand, nothing more, and the more players you're facing, the bigger your chance of getting outdrawn. I was probably near chip average with the 4300 at that point, maybe a little low, but with A-A, I had a great chance to take out a couple players and increase my stack. Alas, the cards didn't fall that way. I'd probably play it the same way every time.

Saturday action

A roundup of today's poker online...

- $10+$1 single table omaha tournament, with a third place finish, including this rather impressive flop.

- $20+$2 multi table omaha tournament, with a lowly finish. Couple of bad beats.

- A new format for Party Poker, the shootout tournament, where you play down individual tables, then the top 3 from each move on to the next round. Placed third in the first round (to make back a bit more than my buy-in), third again in the second round (for another $10.29), and 4th in the 3rd, finally losing. Not a bad day.

Speed Tournament

Wow, long time since my last post...

Played in my first speed tourny in a long while - got 41 out of 1100, mostly because:

- I got moved to a low table after a few good wins
- Got behind the button as the blinds got high (to make it in the money),
- Got behind the button again after 3 different people went out in front of me, so I didn't have to pay the blinds at all (BB was 20 times my stack at that point)
- Moved tables right before the BB got to me (when it was about 60 times my stack)
- Got moved into the BB when I switched tables again (which is fair, but sucks). My K-3o lost to a 6-4o that hit a straight. Such is poker.

I probably should have gone out around 100, making $0.60 more than my buy in. Instead, beause of pure luck (which is more important than skill in the speed tournys), I beat out 1059 other players, and made $13.80 more than my buy in. Not bad for a few hours of fun...

My partypoker stats from pokerprophecy.com

Below are my stats from Pokerprophecy.com, a site which monitors every single table tournament on Partypoker.com and reports them from their own custom software. I think I'm doing pretty well...

For best results, a Player should have 20 or more games played to get an idea of their skill level. If so, here is how we suggest you analyze the data:

Players Win Percentage 40% or higher - Player is a Pro
Players Win Percentage 35 to 40% - Player is Very Good
To qualify for a win, a Player must finish in the money, 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

And so on. I'm happy with that, I just wish Party Poker itself kept stats for all games played, at least letting me see my own.