Battle of the Blogger Tournaments II

Impresario Al has certainly outdone himself with the latest Blogger Tournament setup, featuring some incredible prizes from Full Tilt. Read more about it here.

Bob Lassiter

Bob Lassiter (September 30, 1945 - October 13, 2006)




A year has passed. I'll never forget you, tampa, my good, close, personal friend.

Shhhh!!

As you all know, I mainly play live poker. This is because I have no internet access at the shelter, and needless to say I don't own a PC or laptop. In fact I have maintained this blog by regularly posting from a public library, no small feat I can assure you. I wish to take this opportunity to thank the kind staff at the Sunrise Library for their support over the last few years.

So if you are a blogger and reading this, chances are high that it's not from a public library. If that's the case, I encourage you to take part in Bodog's Poker Blogger Tournament in which Bodog is adding a total of $600 in bonus money.

Date : October 9, 2007 (and each Tuesday through November 6, 2007)
Time : 8:35pm ET
Tournament Name: Online Poker Blogger Tournament
Entry Password: bodogblogger
Buy-in + fee: $10 + $1

Blogger Freeroll

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: 3936578

Profit targets in NL cash games - part I

Conventional wisdom has it that our current winnings should not be a factor when standing up from a poker session, and that we should stay at the table as long as conditions remain favorable and tiredness will not affect our play. After all, isn't poker one long session?

I will show in an upcoming post that, under certain circumstances, it is better to book a profit.

On an unrelated note, I spent a few days camping on Mount Charleston. As you can witness, the recent heavy rains have resulted in some luxuriant growth.

1 out and the armchair theorists

Apparently Change100 made a slight error in one of the many hundreds of hands she reported at the WSOPE under severe constraints of time and pressure. Instead of 14 outs, she wrote 15 outs. This was noted in a thread on 2+2 and Change100 responded :

Excuuuuse me for saying fifteen outs not fourteen in the 30 seconds I had to write up that hand before some other dude across the room went all in.

Vanessa indeed said she was a favorite, and I believe I reported that in quotes, though I might not remember it exactly, seeing as I wrote up hundreds of hands that day.

You guys really need a new hobby. I dare any of you to try my job for one day and see how you fare. Tournament reporting is nowhere near an exact science, but we do the best we can.

Dmadmonks, a very low-limit nobody with no significant posting history other than a few inane one liners, replied with :

not our fault you suck at your job

Now such a stupid remark does not even warrant a response, but I like Change100, so I had to add my 2 cents worth :

That's why she's being paid to jet around the world covering events in Europe and Australasia (and of course the US) while you futz around at online $0.25/$0.50 Pot Limit Omaha.

The flush chaser

Live $1-$2 NLHE. A rainbow T 8 6 flop gives me the nut straight. Not feeling particularly threatened, I check the $10 pot, hoping others will bet for me. It is checked around. Turn is 8c. Seat 3 bets $10, seat 4 calls and I raise it to $50. I only get 1 caller, seat 10. The river is Kc, making a possible runner runner flush. I go all-in and lose my $200 stack to seat 10's Q3c. I put him on 3 8's at best. The flush chaser is a genial 20 something year-old tourist who is the only one at the table wearing shades. He seems pleased with his catch and thankfully no-one comments on his play.

About 20 minutes ensue and, having rebought, I have about $200 in front of me (in the 5 seat). The 3 seat is UTG and raises to $15. I call with 88, seat 7 calls as does flush chaser in seat 10. The flop is

J 4 8 rainbow

UTG makes a continuation bet of $30, I smooth call, seat 7 folds and flush chaser calls. The turn is

Jc

There are now 2 clubs on the board and the pot is about $150. UTG checks, I look at flush chaser somewhat worried, saying "Just in case you have 2 clubs, I'm betting $100", and push a stack of reds over the line. Without batting an eyelid he puts me all-in and I call for my remaining $55. The river is

9c

Flush chaser jumps up from his seat with a loud "Yeah baby", and proudly exposes A3c. Afraid that he may have overreacted, he adds as an afterthought "Shit man, this is the second time. I'm sorry man." If there's one thing I despise it's slowrolling, so I table my 88 face-up immediately after he shows but it takes a few seconds and the rest of the table to bring him down to earth and break the bad news that his flush isn't enough.

Flush chaser remains silent for the rest of the session.

How to screw up your image for life

On rare occasions poker brings out the best in human behavior. More often than not, it brings out the worst. I just witnessed an undignified exhibition of douchebaggery by an ex-dealer named Kyle Morris on ESPN's 2007 WSOP Main Event coverage.

After cracking Daniel Negreanu's aces with K9s, Morris acts like a 10-year-old when he jumps up and loudly asks the crowd for approval and applause. An ex-dealer should know better. In a subsequent hand, Morris rivers a flush against Negreanu's straight and by his actions and table talk, probably starts believing that he actually is a match for Daniel.

Earlier, Negreanu makes a reference to Rocky 3 as a source of inspiration, so when he is finally eliminated and leaves the table, Morris cannot hold back and lets go with "Sorry Mr. Balboa, try again next year."

One can only be left with the impression that Kyle Morris, who finished 540th for a $25k prize, is a little pipsqueak with a big chip on his shoulder.

Poker Tables at Cardroom Supply

The following is a paid review :

At the shelter we play poker on a cardboard box. I dream of the day when I'll be able to entertain my few friends on a real poker table using real chips. Judging by what Cardroom Supply has to offer, this day may not be that far off. They are one of the largest poker product dealers around, having been founded in 2003 by Lee Weber, and offer a wide range of poker accessories including Kestell and Weber poker tables, gaming chairs, Kem and Copag cards, and a variety of poker chip sets.

Cardroom Supply offers a wide selection of tables in different wood grains and colors which will match both any decor and budget, from the standard folding table to the higher end expandable tables made out of solid wood such as birch or mahogany.

They are offering free shipping on all purchases over $100, and if you purchase any table over $250 before the end of September, you will receive a 500pc 11.5 gram suited poker chip set free of charge.

If you're in the market for anything related to poker accessories, do yourself and ultimately your poker playing friends a huge favor, and check out Cardroom Supply for all your poker product needs.

What's happening?

I'm currently reading Anthony Holden's Bigger Deal, kindly sent to me by Decker. It's an entertaining read and I'm learning tidbits I never knew about the poker world. I highly recommend it.

On the philanthropic front, some local Las Vegas businessmen have taken pity on our living conditions here at the shelter and have pledged to replace our antiquated and uncomfortable bunks with some state-of-the-art stuff, pictured below.

Parents of the Year

Walking the floor

As a much needed form of regular exercise, I will often spend 1 or 2 hours pacing up and down the floor of a large strip casino. This is usually done between the hours of 7 and 9am, 6 days a week with a rotating list of 10 different casinos. Of course it's not really about the exercise, but rather the opportunity to find lost coins, chips and any other valuables dropped by the previous night's revellers. Here is a sampling of this week's booty:

Aces holding up

Hoyazo has had an incredible run with pocket aces, having them hold up 41 times in succession.

Btw the actual best part about my play on Sunday was the 4-for-4 I went with pocket Aces. This brings my total since I started using pokertracker to 41 wins in 41 times dealt pocket Aces. Average pot size is still over $85 won per time dealt the best starting hand in holdem. And keep in mind, this is over 13,500 hands, meaning that I should have been dealt pocket Aces my 1/221 of the time, representing 61 times I should have been dealt pocket Aces over this stretch. I have gotten them 41 times.

At first glance this seems like an outlier event. After all, if we assume (for simplicity) the aces to be 80% heads-up favorite preflop, then the probability of having them cracked at least once in 41 hands is 99.99%. But after a little thought, it becomes apparent that this run, while freakish, is not as improbable as originally stated. Do you see why?

If it's not one thing, it's another

I've been scrambling to scrape up the $29 to renew my poetic license, which expires at the end of the month.

The lure of the big catch

I have all but abandoned MTT's, both live and online. A brand new copy of Harrington on Hold'em Vol II has been lying unread in my shopping cart for over a year. I got through Vol I fairly briskly, but that's because of its relevance to cash games. Nevertheless, the blogosphere is a supprepository of valuable information for those wishing to hone their MTT skills.

Hoy, a successful though somewhat laconic tournament player, wrote a fine post on MTT resteals. Blinders then countered with an equally fine rejoinder. As a non-interested party, I found the whole thing fascinating. Any more exposure and I may be tempted to brush the dust off HOH Vol II.

I do, however, have a minor philosophical nit to pick with one of Blinders' assumptions:

I assume that the stealer's range is ahead of the restealer's range. You don't resteal with a big hand, that would be a reraise value bet, and not a "resteal". So we can eliminate all of the big hands from the restealer, but none of the big hands from the stealer, as he could legitimately have a big hand. The stealer here has at least a top 50% of hands range.

If we can "eliminate all of the big hands from the restealer" (value bet argument), then by the same logic we should be able to eliminate all the big hands from the stealer, as this wouldn't be a steal. I therefore fail to see why "the stealer's range is ahead of the restealer's range", given that they are both really "stealing".

WSOP coverage

I'm about 10 miles away from all the action at the Rio and it's 1:30am. The final table of the WSOP Main Event is now down to 3 players.

The great team at pokernews.com is keeping me abreast of the situation. I can't thank them enough.

The Diagnosis?

Existential musings

I enjoy reading the existential musings of Short-Stacked Shamus, replete with interesting material and quality writing which I highly recommend. In a recent post, Shamus discusses the new blind structure for the 2007 Main Event:

However, once WSOP officials released the structure sheets for the events, everyone learned that along with doubling the starting stacks, the blinds would start out doubled as well, rendering the change less meaningful. I don't say "meaningless" because having twice the chips does make a difference, even if the blinds have been doubled, because we are talking about a no limit tournament. For the limit tournaments, doubling the starting stacks and blinds/betting limits makes no difference whatsoever. But when we're talking NL, having twice the stack there in Level 1 will most certainly influence how (some) players will approach the start of the tournament.

What puzzles me is why Shamus differentiates between limit and no-limit. I can't see why this new structure would influence the approach of some players at the start of the tournament.

Sunday $500K

This morning I decided to use up 5,000 Full Tilt Points by playing in a SNG where the winner gets an entry into Sunday's $500K. As luck would have it, I took it down and now face the prospect of playing in my first "big" online MTT.

ROI

lightning36 asks :

I saw your Waffles vs Chad ROI comment. Is there an explanation for the math that even a former social sciences major can understand??

We multiply each month's (1+ROI) as seen below. As a point of reference, I experienced my last positive ROI month in March, 2004 (8.35%).