JK's Blog

Moved blog over to new site

2012-01-30T05:15:00.000-08:00

To my new coaching site. Feel free to check out my blog and the site if you wish. http://www.stackemcoaching.com/blog/author/johnkim.html

I explain why I've been away for a couple of months. I'll be blogging on a regular basis again. Hope you guys enjoy!

Transitioning online to live poker webinar

2011-08-26T13:23:00.000-07:00

Just thought I'd let everybody know I'll be presenting a webinar this Sunday at 2pm pst over at dailyvariance. The topic will be transitioning from online to live poker. I have spent many hours in both and I'll go over what I think are vital stuff when it comes to making that transition. This webinar will be fairly different than the video series I made...I'll be going over a lot more conceptual stuff and a bunch of new stuff as well. Here's the link....

http://www.dailyvariance.com/transitioning-online-to-live-poker/

The presentation will be an hr long then I'll be doing a Q&A after. Hope to see some of you guys there!

Thoughts on Girah scandal (DIH also)

2011-08-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

I've been following the Girah scandal like everybody else. I've read tidbits of threads in the forums and DIH's blog posts including his farewell from poker. I'm sure there is more than meets the eye (I, like everybody else would love to hear more from Jungleman, although his involvement seems innocent....so far).

I think CR did the right thing in letting DIH go. This is a business and CR needs to maintain a certain image/brand going forward. I don't know DIH, never met him, never spoke with him, but I do know from his writings and videos he's an intelligent guy and understands poker at a high level. With that said I try to reserve judgement until all the facts are out but it's hard to ignore all the dirt out there and DIH's involvement w/ Girah. It looks even worse now that he's "retiring" from poker.

Read the rest....

Thoughts on Girah scandal

Maximizing ev, Maximizing Life

2011-07-29T12:50:00.000-07:00

As I sit here and write this, I have tears flowing down the side of my face. I've encountered the toughest obstacle I've faced in my life up to this point. I guess I can be grateful that it took so long (38 years). The news was grim today as doctors told us my dad has 6 to 12 months left to live.

Shortly after the Wsop main event we found out my dad has stomach and liver cancer but did not know the severity of it until he had a biopsy done. The last couple of weeks were filled with fear and sadness due to uncertainty of my dad's official condition, yet clinging unto hope that the doctors would come back with news that somehow it's treatable and he would be able to beat it.

Well that hope is almost dashed out with today's news. I guess I'm trying to hope somehow someway my dad has a chance, any kind of chance, even though doctors are telling us there isn't. It's not just for me, heck I cry for my dad, I cry for my mom who has relied on my dad her entire adult life, I cry for my wife who is probably closer to my parents than me and sees my dad as her own, and I cry for my only daughter, 10 years old, who loves her grandfather like any child can. When I spoke to my dad after finding out he had cancer, he said he's at peace of living a long and fulfilling life of 69 years (maybe he was telling me this to ease my fear and sadness) but would like to have watched Nicole grow up and get married. I shed many tears thinking of that and will continue to do so.

I've been busy the last few weeks with the Wsop, a new start up poker venture, and dealing with my dad's health so I haven't had the chance to blog in awhile. Yet I feel like this is a good time to reflect on my emotions and express the thoughts I'm having. Yes I am forthcoming with my emotions but you can't blame me.

Knowing my dad's days are limited, I don't want to dwell on the negatives, I want to dwell on the positives. It's easy to curl up and go into a shell for awhile but what good will that do? I am a person of faith and I believe God has a purpose for everything. For those that follow me on twitter I said I believe in prayer and would welcome all those that wanted to do so for us. It is partially faith and partially self therapy that I write what I'm writing.

I comfort in the fact that my brother and I grew up to be good genuine honest people, and I give my parents all the credit for this. My dad knows this inside, even if he won't say it.

I got into poker full time 13 years ago and for a profession that had a certain type of stigma attached to it (over the years it's become a lot more acceptable and respectable) I managed to not only support myself well, but supported my wife and kid well. More importantly it didn't change me into a bad person, not one ounce. If anything it taught me how to manage money, how to work hard at something (and reap the rewards), and it gave a wonderful life to my family and me. My dad helped me in an indirect way by making me become the man I can be. And this I take comfort in.

Sure my parents were skeptical when I told them I was playing poker for a living in the beginning. After all, who's parents wouldn't, especially if they were religious, and especially if their son was already married with a newborn baby. It wasn't until a couple of years later they saw how well I was doing but more importantly how well I was taking care of my family, and not just from a financial perspective, and they started to come around. Eventually they became proud of their oldest son. They are proud of my brother also for other reasons. And this I take comfort in.

In poker we are ingrained with knowledge to seek and maximize ev. That's it. That will determine success. For a few that's all life is about. If that's you you are not living life. If that brings you utter and complete joy then perhaps you can argue you are living life, but you are not living a balanced life, which by all intents and purposes, is unhealthy. Also partying and drinking (or smoking pot) is not part of balancing life.

One thing I've prided myself in is living this balanced life, which almost to a degree seems like a myth for professional poker players. Even though I've lived this life I've made mistakes, I've been guilty of doing less desirable things, and I have regret of doing some things and not doing some things (nothing serious though).

With the news that my dad will no longer be with us within a year, I seek to change my life for the better. What I mean is that I want to live a life with meaning, with knowing that I went all out, with no regrets and that I gave myself the best possible life I could while doing everything I could to provide the best lives for those around me.

It'll be little things, medium things, and big things. Things like working out regularly, eating healthy (because God knows I haven't living in Vegas), attending church more often, spending more time with my kid, showing more affection for my wife, working harder in everything, cutting down my play time (eg video games and lurking 2+2), showing appreciation for those that deserve it, showing appreciation for the little things in life, and on and on.

I aspire big, not for others to see, but for myself to see. Sure it took a moving and sad moment in my life to drive me in this new direction, but again, I want to see the positives with today's news.

For those that read this, I challenge you to do likewise. I don't mean the things I mentioned for myself although they can certainly include them. Everybody has their own goals and things they'd like to achieve. Go achieve them. Start today. If you fall down, get right back up and keep going. Don't abuse anything (especially people) while doing so. Don't wait for a life changing moment to give you this epiphany (like me). Learn from me now.

Sure it's easy to say I'm realizing this in the face of mortality given my dad's condition. So what. I am right. The world would be a better place if we all aspired and sought action to maximize our lives and for others around us. In other words, live life to the fullest...don't think it, do it, just like I am doing from this point on.

All this I will tell my dad, and I'm sure it will bring a smile to his face. And this he will take comfort in.

New coaching site up!

2011-07-12T01:20:00.000-07:00

So this was a big week for me for a couple of reasons. I played the main event and busted midway through day 1. I am ok w/ my bustout because I played well but could not overcome being 2nd best every hand. The WSOP was slightly disappointing for me because I cashed 3 times for about $27k in 25 events or so but ended up losing about $38k overall. That's the nature of tournaments though.

I will be back to my regular cash game grind, live version, going forward and will continue blogging. I will be doing so at my new site

http://www.stackemcoaching.com/

where I coach, make audio sessions for subscribers to listen to, and participate in the forums actively.

I'm looking to help others improve their games and I think at the cost we're selling our coaching, it's affordable for just about everybody. We have some great coaches including myself, Joe Tehan (who I've talked about before), Matt Affleck, and Jared Tendler (who's an awesome mental game coach and who's coached numerous poker players, including a bunch of successful guys). We'll also be adding new coaches, guys that we handpick so rest assured they'll know their stuff!

Again, I hope everybody checks it out, whether you decide to subscribe or not, and I'll continue blogging like usual but it will be over there. Here is the 1st blog I put up over there the other day...

http://www.stackemcoaching.com/blog/post/its-mental.html

Best Father's Day Gift

2011-06-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

So I've since gone 0-7 in Wsop events since my last update. I feel like I'm playing well, just running like crap. I'm 0-11 in all ins in the past week over 7 events. I ran into aces twice for my tournament life (once with queens, another with JTs where I 3bet shoved w/ a lot of dead money in the pot), lost 7 flips (yes I lost'em all), lost as a 3-2 fav, also got crippled in the $2500 10 game mix w/ JT95 ds (during plo round) when almost all the chips went in on a KQ96 ssxx board and my opponent w/ JJT7 (w/ 3 spades) rivers the flush, and I finally busted in a hand when I was behind today.

Well actually the hand played out where I opr ep w/ QQ to 350 at blinds 75-150, get a mp caller, flop comes 732r, I bet 450, mp raises to 1250, I call w/ about 2500 behind because I was pretty sure he was putting me all in on any turn card and if I shove flop he folds a lot of hands he was going to shove turn with, turn 6, I check, he shoves, I call, he rolls over 66, gg me. Maybe I could've shoved flop and won the pot there but I felt like there was more value in trying to let him bluff off or valuetown himself by just calling his raise.

Anyway I am still showing a profit due to having pieces of 2 friends that made final tables at the Wsop. I'm not too concerned about my own results because I'm very critical of my own plays and I feel like I'm playing very well but things aren't panning out results wise. That's poker for ya. Also we are only at the halfway point of the Wsop and all it takes is one deep run.

Also I can't feel bad because I have the best family in the world. Since I was going to be busy all weekend with the Wsop and a new venture I'm working on (announcement coming soon) my wife, kid, and their friends went to San Diego, California to explore LegoLand and whatever else is fun out there. Sure it's Father's Day today but I wanted my wife and kid to have fun out in San Diego. Plus my 10 year old kid left this for me, and I must admit this is about the coolest thing I've ever received in my life (birthdays and Christmas's included)... a montage of sorts, of my life (I scanned each page of the booklet she left me next to my bed)...

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3 (sure she should've used "Accomplishments" but can't be too nitpicky)

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

Wsop bracelet or not, I win in life!

1 for 7 (so far)

2011-06-10T00:50:00.000-07:00

That's just how it goes sometimes. I don't think I'm off to a terrible start but it is disappointing to only have 1 cash through 7 events. Last year I started off 0-9 before I reeled off 5 cashes in my last 8 tournaments to show a profit. Let's talk about the good news, the cash. Well actually it ended in a tilting way...

It was the $1500 6max nl event. Before people say "yeah of course Nicolak is expected to cash in that, that's what he plays online all the time", I do think I have almost an equal chance in just about any form of poker except nl deuce and plo. It just turned out my only cash happened in this event. Day 1 was fun w/ a starting table of Frank Kassela and Cardrunner's Taylor Caby. Kassela isn't that good at nl (yeah I said it, and yes I know he ft'ed the $25k 6max nl event last year) but Taylor is obviously good.

Anyway I had a tough table throughout day 1 and day 2 and ended up busting in 43rd place (out of 2k entrants) for $7400 or so. I opr utg w/ AK and kid 3bets in mp and I jam and get called by ATo and the board runs off A24AT. I had the kid covered by 5k at 1500/3k blinds and ended up having 2 blinds after that hand and went bust next hand. Obviously it's disheartening to lose that way but that's variance for ya.

I will talk about an interesting hand I played on day 2. I have about 140k w/ blinds at 1k/2k/300. Some Pokerstars pro named Jose Nacho Barbero opr to 4500 on button, I elect to call w/ K8s in the bb (I considered 3betting but Jose was very aggressive and capable of 4betting light) and the flop comes...

Ks2cJs

It goes check check, turn...

Qs

I bet 6k or so, he calls, river...

Th

I check ready to give up thinking I just got rivered but Nacho bets 14k and I begin thinking (even in obvious spots like this where a fold seems automatic)....we know he never has flushes because he would've cbet the flop (especially since he's so aggro) so his range is capped to Ax while we can credibly rep flushes. I decide to c/r to 54k (initally I was going to make it 64k but thought 54k would be big enough to get him to fold Ax hands) and he tank calls w/ 99!

Sure it's risky trying to get him off a straight but I assumed he would be good enough to know I would take this line w/ flushes (he is a Pokerstars Pro, but I guess that's not always saying much). I don't know if he's good enough to realize I would take this same line w/ Ax hands as well (because again, we know his range is capped to Ax so I can profitably c/r in this spot w/ Ax to try to get him off of a chop) Also I was playing pretty straightforward up to this point. I guess I might've assumed he was a good enough hand reader and could figure this out, or maybe he just thought to himself "zomg I have a straight how can I ever fold it?!" Whatever the reason, he made the call and it dropped me down below avg. I talked to a few guys and they all liked my line and are amazed at the call he made (some even calling it a -ev call, I agree). I do think I should've went w/ my initial raise of 64k because he was counting down his stack before calling and I think the extra 10k would've made him fold. Oh well.

I bust and I hang out at the Rio trying to relay my sob stories to anybody that will listen...after all, that's what we all do...jk. I have a guy I have 10% of in the 6max and I rail him for awhile. They're down to 24 or so and he gets in over 300k w/ QQ vs the kid that won it last year (and who Pokernews is calling the king of 6max cuz he got a 2nd in the $5k 6max and a 1st in the $1500 6max last year...pfftttt) who's holding 99 and he rivers a 9 to bust my horse (he barely had him covered) and have a sizeable chiplead at that point (he ends up getting 3rd for over $200k). Talk about a double whammy that night!

I also played in the $1k nl which attracted over 4k entrants. I busted that one in level 2 when I called every street w/ AsJs on a 9s8c6s, Qh, 8s, and called all in at the river w/ the nut flush only to see him turn over 86. Standard.

Yesterday I played in the $1500 nl shootout and I love shootouts because the better nl players are at a bigger advantage. The last 2 years I finished 2nd and 1st on my 1st tables. This time I got hu vs. Paul "Gees" Volpes, some internet mtt pro who's ranked really high. I started out w/ 4k vs his 41k but managed to get it to 12k vs 32k when my AQ > his T8o aipf. At blinds 200/400 I opr to 850 w/ 44 and he shoved and I elected to gamble and called only to lose to J9s. I do think a better line would've been to limp so I can reraise all in had he raised from the bb there. I think that's one area of the game I need to work on, is the shallow stacks opening/raising/reraising range, but that's probably just memorizing a chart.

Today I played the $1500 Pot Limit Hold'em event and this had the shortest turnout at 760 entrants. I guess people are intimidated by not being able to bet more than pot (forcing people to play more flops), or the fact that antes never come into play. Anyway I pretty much lost a flip when I raised and called off w/ KQ on a JT3r flop and couldn't beat AJ at level 5.

The most important thing to realize is how well I'm playing. I think I misplayed a couple of big hands (including the last hand I blogged about, the 54s hand where it should've been a fold or 3bet preflop) but overall I am happy w/ my play. I would give myself an A- up to this point. Sure people can win a tournament playing like a F player and people can go a long time w/o ever winning playing their A game but hey, that's the risk we take when we play tournaments, especially at the WSOP where the fields are bigger.

Tomorrow is the $1500 Horse and I'm relieved to be playing a mix games event after all the hold'em events. I actually enjoy mix games more than hold'em. Heck, I'm almost to the point where I'd like the WSOP to be over so I can go back to my normal (post Black Friday) cash game grind (so I can actually start making money!).

Sometimes I'm not sure (WSOP hand)

2011-06-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

The setup is the $10k pot limit hold'em event. 250 entrants and it's accurate to say it's a tough field w/ very few weak spots. I get on a very tough table w/ 4-5 aggro Euro kids who know how to play + couple other young kids, Bttech, Jared Jaffee (who busted and was replaced by Sam Stein), and Rick Solomon (the dude that offered Pamela Anderson to pay her huge loss in a Vegas casino for a night of, ummm, fun...eventually they marry and divorce).

We start w/ 30k and I'm down to about 25k playing 250/500. Utg opr to 1200, I flat w/ 45s on the button, bb calls, flop J64r w/ 1 to my suit, chk chk I bet 1700 (to try to win it there, case can be made for checking but I like betting since bp is so vunerable and I should only have to worry about bb because utg checked which likely means he has nothing), bb folds, utg c/r to 4400 (he has me covered).

Now let's assess his range...1st of all, he seems like a young competent thinking player (although even some competent mtt pros don't seem to understand how to play postflop well) so I would expect him to lead w/ all jacks, overpairs, 66, 44 (to get value from jacks), 87, and some random air hands inc. AK. Given that he doesn't cbet flop means he's giving up or is slowplaying JJ, that's pretty much it. Well once he c/r's me I know he has JJ or air, and given that there's a lot more air in his range, mostly due to combinatorics, and his possible line of thinking being "well this good looking asian dude can be just trying to steal it on the button since we both checked to him and w/ the bb out of the way let me put him to the test and resteal vs his possible steal w/ my air + backdoor equity", I call w/ my bp (possibly the best hand) + backdoor draws + position.

Turn 9 bringing 2 hearts (not my suit), chk, chk (I just want to get to sd because my hand is likely good now but I can't stand another c/r so I elect to check), riv offsuit Q, he bombs 11k and I go into the tank. Once he checks the turn we can almost eliminate JJ unless he was going for a weird and rare c/r, c/shove line. Now I go through in my mind everything I just wrote and can't figure out what the heck he has or is repping. Again if it was a bad player, he's liable to show up w/ AQ, sets, AA, etc since they have no clue, but this kid wasn't bad. Also he wouldn't bomb the river w/ top pair type hands because he would know my most likely hand are busted draws or a jack so he'd value bet around 6-8k at the river.

The only hand I think he can have is A4s, T8, KT or air...but A4s is probably not in his range because he probably cbets that on the flop. Well if he backdoored a straight and it's either that or air I should call. My bp is pretty much equivalent to AJ (I won't totally discount overpairs since it's possible some mtt pros take this line).

Here are a few more reasons for calling (pros for calling)...

-He seems like a young mtt pro....probably not experienced in postflop play and just making plays for the sake of it to win a pot w/o having an idea of what he's really repping...this happens more often than you think, even in $10k's

-The field is tough and I don't expect guys to give chips away like they do in the smaller buyins so there isn't much merit to the "wait for a better spot" reasoning, so I need to seize the +ev spots, even if they're marginal

-I have a little over 10bbs if I lose and I can still come back

Here are my question marks on calling (cons for calling)...

-When he bombs the river like that, he's more likely to have the straight, as unlikely as it may seem from the flop on...so I'm not 100% sure if it's +ev to call...I think it is, but not as much as I thought it was at the time

-It's a big bet and chips saved are more valuable than chips won in mtts so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to call in a very marginal spot even though I felt it was slightly +ev

I asked a couple of very good players and they both thought it was a fold but I think they were putting more weight into the actual river bet size (and 'waiting for a better spot") than the entire hand (my thoughts on it anyway)

I elected to make a hero call and lost to KT. I don't feel bad about how I played the hand because my read was spot on and I went w/ it. Again I don't know if that's enough reason to risk most of my stack though.

In a cash game I almost always call since I feel it's +ev, but again it's different in tournaments where it's sometimes correct to pass on marginal spots, including very small +ev spots.

Sometimes I'm not sure .

As for the tournament I built my stack up from 6k to 32k (illustrating why calling isn't bad since I can come back) and got it in at the 400/800 level w/ TT from the bb vs a Euro kid in the co in an obvious squeeze spot (button had called as well and we were playing 7 handed w/ 5 more hands left for the night) and busted to QQ.

Thoughts and comments are appreciated (and yes you can tell me my call is bad as long as you give reasons why).

WSOP Start

2011-06-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

I just got home after busting the 1st event I played, the $1500 limit omaha 8 hi lo. I played 9.5 1 hr levels and busted during the last level of the day. I'm not that upset though for a couple of reasons. 1st is that I felt like I played really well, especially in a game which isn't my specialty. I know I'm +ev in this event but after playing today I feel like I'm hugely +ev in future limit om8 events up to a $5k buyin or so. This isn't to brag but to instill a self confidence in me going forward for this game. If there's one quality about me that has contributed to a lot of my longterm success, it's the ability to look at myself and assess w/ near certainty where I stand in relation to everybody else in poker.

When I reflect back on past om8 tournaments I play, I see the mistakes I made (just like I've done w/ other forms of poker)...this is a sign that I'm getting better and seeing what the right plays are. Today I felt like I played near perfect except for an obvious river value bet I missed (also compounded by not paying attention to my opponent's stack, so 2 missteps that led to 1 error). I might've made a couple of loose calls preflop but they weren't mistakes because they were situational and I felt the worse shape I could be was about even money.

I ran pretty bad during the last 2 levels, including losing 2 pots where I'm a big fav to scoop going into the river, instead had to settle for a chop when my opponents got there w/o much equity for half. I also folded some big hands including 2458 w/ 3 spades on a A77Q9 board where I turned a flush and just c/c'ed turn then c/f'ed river vs. an old guy where I'm close to 100% sure I'm beat; another hand where I c/f'ed to a 1 big bet w/ 3 big bets left on the turn w/ AJT2 on a J932 2 flush board vs another old guy and old lady (older people tend to "have it" a lot more in this game than other games), the old guy showed a set of 99s to scoop so I was right. My reads were spot on today and I took optimal lines whenever I played a hand so again I felt really happy w/ my play overall.

Anyway the 2nd reason I'm not upset for spending all day playing a tournament then busting late (like most others) is because I feel like I gain a little bit of experience every time I play, and the longer the better. Granted in nl tournaments I don't get that feeling much since I feel like I know almost everything I need to know (although picking up on tournament regs' playing styles and habits is valuable) but in other games I don't play as much I'm always observing and trying to gain that valuable experience.

As for the rest of the WSOP I'm planning on playing a lot of events and as long as I feel good mentally and physically I'm planning on playing pretty much every day. Since I'm a well rounded player I'll be playing in all sorts of events, mostly nl and pl hold'em but a lot of the mix game events as well. My ultimate goal is to win a bracelet or 2 (or more) and to know that I played the best that I can play.

I am sacrificing time that I could be playing the juicy cash games during the WSOP. I'm sure my hrly is higher playing cash games than tournaments but I just enjoy WSOP tournaments so much and I'm hungry for my 1st ever bracelet, so there's a lot of happiness and life ev associated w/ playing these WSOP events.

Also I posted in the CR forum but if I make a final table, anybody from here that come sweats me at a ft I will buy them dinner at my celebratory dinner (limited to $1k total for you guys, but not necessarily for the whole bill which will be bigger because of friends and family that will be there). Obviously I'll have to make a ft 1st which is not easy.

Other observations at the WSOP so far:

-Turnout so far doesn't seem affected by Black Friday. They had 128 for the $25k hu and a record # 925 entrants for today's $1500 om 8, granted it's only 3 events so far (other being employees' event which attracted a big # as well)...I'm sure the main event will be lower than years past though

-The featured table is a lot more elaborate...bigger and more eye catching....too bad only 3 events are supposed to be televised (WSOP rematches, $50k Players' Championship, and the $10k main event)

-Very few patches being worn, especially after yesterday when James Bord confronted John Juanda about FTP and security guards had to be called in...after all Juanda was wearing a FTP patch and was an easy mark; note: I wore a CR patch today, more brownie pts due my way from the higher ups at CR, even more so when I win my bracelet w/ it on ;)

-Lots of cash games going on...biggest I saw was a $200/$500/$1k PLO game and it was almost full

-Lots of railbirds as usual

-Phil Ivey is suing FTP (for $150 mil) and is abstaining from this year's WSOP (he isn't really boycotting it..that's just the wrong choice of words)...as for my thoughts on this, good for him, and a noble act from him, but put me in the boat that wonders if he did it for us, or because that was the only option he had for numerous reasons, including keeping that indestructible and and almost mystifying image he's always had...other theories were running around as well, including wanting to get out of his no compete cause

-Met Gakn29, a fellow CR vid maker today, nice guy...saw Mement Mori but not sure if he noticed me (or even knows me!)

Finally it looks like I'm getting a little more recognition with the poker media because I saw that PokerNews was updating my chip counts (1st time ever). For those of you that want to sweat me, follow on PokerNews or better yet, follow me on twitter located to the right of this blog (I update every couple of hrs, including stack sizes, notables on table, interesting or amusing hands, etc.)...after all, you may get a free dinner out of it.

Evolve

2011-05-18T18:43:00.000-07:00

As we all know, for online poker players in the US the landscape has changed dramatically. The reaction has been diverse. Some people have panicked, some are making contingency plans, but no matter what, if you choose to remain a poker player to some degree, you need to learn to evolve. After all the game of poker evolves. Whether you realize it or not, it's evolving everyday.

Besides control of mental state (tilt, focus, etc.), knowledge of the game (stats, numbers, probability, ev, HUD, concepts), hand and people reading skills (including ranges), and a lack of ego, one must possess a good sense of awareness to succeed in poker. This awareness involves what's going on in the short term, e.g. what's happening on your table in the present moment but also awareness involving the long term. This is understanding how the landscape of poker is changing, how the general strategy and approach of poker is changing, and making necessary adjustments to stay ahead of the curve. Basically one must evolve as a poker player to succeed over the long run.

I'll share parts of my personal voyage through poker the past 13 years to illustrate how poker changed and how I did my part in keeping up with the times allowing me to stay successful. After all, 13 successful years in a profession that swallows people up and spits them out defeated in many ways should make me a guru of sorts (obviously somebody like Doyle Brunson is the godfather of poker). Some of these tidbits I've repeated in the past but I think it's a good time to summarize them in one to get to the point at hand.

In 1998 I made the choice to stay in Vancouver, Canada while waiting for my new wife's immigration papers so she can come down to the US (I covered this in detail in a previous post here...basically the start of my professional career... http://nicolakpoker.blogspot.com/2010/09/road-trip-part-3.html ). I made a decision to play poker full time. I ordered almost every poker book I can get my hands on (which wasn't much at the time) including every 2+2 book and Super System. I read every Cardplayer magazine, every article in it, as it was the only poker magazine around at the time (I think). I knew I needed to learn as much about this game as I could if I wanted to succeed. Back then the only games spread were limit hold'em games. The learning curve was there but because it was limit, it wasn't as tough as nl would turn out to be.

Well I was beating the limit hold'em games good and made enough to support my new wife. Eventually we had a baby and I kept on playing full time while along the way befriending other players and discussing poker w/ them, in turn improving them and me. My wife became a winning poker player from the start as well (I like to think she had an awesome teacher/coach....me) and we bounced off ideas and strategy with each other. Back then there were no internet poker forums (well, not necessarily true...there was rec.poker but the info there was usually wrong when I reflect back on it), no training sites, and we had to rely on books and each other to get better.

During the turn of the century (sounds funny but it was the turn), internet poker was introduced. Again only limit hold'em games were spread so there really was no transitional period. Basically I applied what I knew about live limit games and did ok. Also since this was such a new realm, internet poker, people were cautious about it including me. I still maintained most of my hours playing live.

Well I maintained my 80/20 or so ratio of live/internet play for the next couple of years. Paradise Poker would change that. They seemed like they were the 1st reputable site and they spread a lot of games. Internet poker was starting to catch on like wildfire. I too decided I needed to start focusing more on internet poker because I saw the speed of hands being dealt and I knew that the more hands I play the more money I make. I knew being able to multitable would increase my hourly as well. I started off playing 2 tables then gradually increased the number of tables over the years. Yes years, for a couple of reasons...the early sites only allowed a maximum of 4 tables (I think) and I wanted to take my time in increasing the number of tables played as not to sacrifice my overall earning power (there is a point of diminishing returns when figuring the max # of tables to play). I focused on playing my A game even if I was seeing 2-5x the hands I was used to seeing (playing live).

Following Paradise Poker's success, other sites opened up including Party Poker. They introduced 6max limit games (maybe Paradise introduced them 1st) and I decided it would be wise of me to learn to play shorthanded. It would allow me to play more hands/hr (for a better hrly) and it would allow me to play more hands (which would make poker more fun). Around this time poker forums, notably 2+2, were popping up and I started frequenting those sites to read other people's thoughts on the game. I really didn't post but lurked and read as much as I could. This shortened my learning curve in playing shorthanded limit hold'em.

After this nl games were introduced, including cash games and tournaments. Up to this point I had never played a single hand of nl. I was intimidated at the thought of losing all the money I had in front of me in a single hand and chose to stick with limit hold'em (obviously this thought turned out fallacious in determining profitability in poker). I dabbled in some online nl tournaments because I could only lose the initial buyins in those. I had zero clue on what I was doing from a fundamental view, but I relied on my experience in hold'em in general and my hand reading skills to hold my own.

Well Chris Moneymaker would forever change the landscape of poker for good (or up to the present). I remember when he won and everybody was like "who is this guy w/ a cool sounding last name?!". A lot of new people got into poker because of him (everyday guy winning the WSOP main event and a million dollars) and a lot of limit hold'em players made the transition from limit to nl including myself. I realized nl was the future of poker and I needed to make the jump like everybody else.

I jumped into $5/$10 nl games from the start, as they were equivalent to the limit stakes I were playing at the time ($15/$30 to $30/$60 limit).

Tptk? no problem, get in 100bbs on the flop no matter the texture! Shove river? No way, that costs too much if I get called! Face a river shove? Fold because they must have it! AK preflop? Call the 3bet because it's only a drawing hand and I may not even flop a pair! Face a big turn bet w/ my fd? Call because I have a fd!

As you can see I was lacking in understanding the nuances of nl, not to mention the correct fundamentals. I was playing nl like I was playing limit!

I did well from the get go even though I really didn't know anything from a fundamental view. Again I relied on hand reading, not tilting, and just a general understanding of hold'em to do well. Slowly over time I began thinking about the game and how it differed from limit. Tbh I think coming from a full time limit hold'em background hindered me. Guys that were jumping directly into nl hold'em from scratch had a leg up on me because they had a clean slate to start with.

I was aware that this was the case and I made a conscientious effort to improve my nl game independent of my limit game. Along the way I increased the number of tables, going from four to eight, from eight to twelve. This caused a boon in my bankroll and I was making so much money that I started getting content. I started lowering my hours played. I went from grinding 40hrs/wk to 20hrs/wk which wasn't a bad thing for me because I had a wife and a kid and I wanted to spend more time with them. Also I pursued other interests, notably video games (it's the Asian in me).

Around this time we decided to buy a house because after all I was crushing the games and could make lots of money any time I wanted to (all I had to do was log in and start playing). I even won $250k in an online tournament around this time (which made the game seem easy for me). Fortunately I did a smart thing and paid off all our debts and invested most of that money for our future (although I've debated whether it might've been smarter to play higher stakes with it, probably so, but can't fault me for the path I chose).

Well now complacency set in...I blame that partially to the success I was having. I am sure this happens to a lot of poker players. I didn't spend much time learning the game because I was confident in my abilities and I was always doing well. I didn't move up in stakes because I was making plenty grinding 8-12 tables of $5/$10.

Come Oct. 2008 I was having my best year in poker, reaching close to half a million dollars in profits (mostly from cash games, almost all of it at $5/$10 nl 6max games, just playing 20 hrs/wk), and about this time I almost developed an ego (almost). Then I hit a 300k (maybe it was 400k) hands break even stretch over the next 4 months.

I mentioned I started getting complacent and my results started to show. I was complacent regarding my skill level. Cardrunners was introduced in 2005 and new players were flocking into the games armed with the knowledge they had acquired from training sites like CR and the new information being introduced in the forums. I was not one of the guys learning.

2009 rolled around and I was reeling from not making a penny the final 4 months of 2008 after doing so well the 1st 8 months. I decided to take a step back and look at the big picture. How were the games evolving? How did the players become so good? Better yet, what was I doing wrong and how can I get back on top? With a little push from some 2+2 regs that pointed out what I was doing wrong (some in a mocking fashion, others in a helpful manner), I decided I needed to reevaluate my game and figure out how to crush the games once again.

I hired a coach (turned out I didn't learn much...or maybe he wasn't as good as advertised), I started reading a lot on 2+2, and for once I started watching some videos on CR and other training sites. I really started thinking about the game when I wasn't playing (this was usually the most effective way I improved over the years). I needed to evolve because the games were changing (thanks Taylor Caby, and I don't mean that in a good way! ;) ).

I actually learned how to play nl after years of playing a limit style. After having a good 2009 I decided to set a very high monetary goal of a million dollars in 2010. I decided to start at $2/$4 nl and was the biggest winner at that limit across all sites in January (winning $40k, based on PTR). I was up $120k or so after the 1st 3 months and was crushing $5/$10 in March. In April I hit a nasty downswing where I started off winning $20k early on and was down $20k midway through the month.

Downswings are a great time to take a step back and reflect on your game. Again I really took improving my game to heart and figured out some things. A specific concept I realized was that it's sometimes better to take a passive line...sure it's simple, but after having been such an aggressive player for so many years (again limit hold'em teaches pure aggression and I guess that still lingered with me through the years), it was tough learning and applying that simple concept. Suddenly my game opened up and I felt like my eyes opened up as well. I could see things a lot more clearly in no limit. I could understand why certain players took certain lines and I had a much better understanding of what lines were optimal. I improved my nl game almost 2x.

Besides doing well in cash games I decided to enter the world of live tournaments with this new found knowledge. I had played in them sporadically in the past and have done ok, mostly WSOP events (a couple of $60k + cashes along w/ numerous smaller cashes). I entered 17 WSOP events last year and cashed in 5 of them showing a small profit (actually that's 4 of the past 6 years I've shown a profit at the WSOP from tournaments only).

I didn't win the million dollars as I had hoped but that's because again I decided to scale down my work to focus on my family and hobbies (golf and video games). I also decided to introduce myself to the poker world and started blogging, joined Cardrunners, joined PokerRoad as a cohost of a podcast, and started tweeting (check out Taylor Caby's recent blog about tweeting to find out useful ways to take advantage of Twitter... http://www.cardrunners.com/blog/Taylor/some-thoughts-on-twitter ). I decided to get to know my fellow opponents and the people that comprised the world of poker. Up to this time I had stayed behind a screen just focusing on making money, not caring about meeting others (it wasn't shyness or lack of social skills...I just chose to remain anonymous and focus on my family), and meeting up with a select group of Las Vegas friends from time to time.

I realized in order to improve my game even further I would have to start networking, to start meeting others, and talk poker with others, like I had when I 1st started playing poker back in my Vancouver days. Plus it's never bad to have more acquaintances and friends. I needed this to fully evolve into the best player I can be. Also this is the age of social networking so I wanted to take advantage of all my resources. I'm about as an easy going person as one can be and I'm very approachable so for anybody that reads this and ever runs into me, say hi and introduce yourself and I will do likewise :) . Just don't ask me for money!

Now this leads us into the present. With the occurrence of Black Friday Americans are very limited in playing online (the smaller sites that still cater to Americans are unstable at best) so one must make the choice of pursuing a new career or adapting to the new environment. Since poker is what I know best and I've been doing it for over a decade I am going to remain a poker player. I have the advantage of living in Las Vegas. I have plenty of experience playing live poker but it's been awhile since I played live poker full time. How will I cope with the new landscape of poker? How I've always coped whenever the landscape changed. I'll adapt, I'll keep figuring out ways to get better, and I'll keep crushing. I'll evolve.

*This post is geared for internet poker players but I think my general message is clear for everybody...the game is always evolving so keep getting better...evolve!

**I was going to split this post into 2 but decided the message is better served being read at once. Props to those that spent the time reading it, and thanks!

Live Poker Hands

2011-05-12T05:00:00.000-07:00

So I've been playing some live poker lately and will talk about a few interesting hands I've played (including beats...because I can).

The 1st hand I want to talk about was a hand I played last month at Mohegan Sun. It's a $5/$10 nl game w/ a $3k cap. At the time I had about $4k and a guy opr to $40 in the hijack, button calls, I call w/ 44 from the sb, and old guy in bb calls.

Flop Ah6s4s

Checks to the preflop raiser, he bets $115, button folds, I c/r to $340, bb snap calls, pref raiser 3bets to $900, I shove, bb snap calls for $3500 (which worried me a little that 66 could be in his range, but so could a bunch of other hands), prefl raiser tanks and finally calls for $2500...so I'm looking at a $10k pot at $5/$10...lol...never happens online, and I tell the others lets roll our hands over and see who needs what...both guys refuse.

Turn Qd, River 8d

By this point I open my hand, preflop raiser shakes his head and shows AKo, and the old guy just erupts and starts yelling "I won the lottery!" and shows 75o. He goes on for 5 mins (I kid you not..I really wish I could've recorded it) telling his buddies to bring him 10 racks or something while yelling out of excitement. Now this was the biggest game in the room and everybody comes over to see what all the commotion is about. Well things settle down and being the pro I am, I kick the old dude's ass...jk...I just take it in stride and the guy on my right apologizes for the old guy telling me "sorry man, you shouldn't have to go through that after losing that big pot"...I reply "nah, it's cool, it's almost worth paying him $3500 to see him act like that!"

The next hand illustrates why you should never have an ego. Some guy sits down on my right in a $5/$10 game at the Aria (in Vegas) and starts firing it in every hand. He's raising every other hand trying to take control of every hand. I can tell he knew what he was doing though so he wasn't a total maniac. Rather he was a guy (mid to late 20's) that felt like he was the best player on the table and could run over the table.

Anyway I start 3betting him often since I'm on his direct left and he doesn't fold to my reraise one time for 8 hands or so (most I won on the flop, couple of times I lost at the river). This is obviously because he feels like he can outplay anybody, including me, even oop.

Prior to the final hand I stacked him for $3k w/ 44 vs his AA where almost all the money went in on the river when I made a straight.

Now he opens in the hijack to $40 (again) and I 3bet to $130 w/ AK (again) right behind and he flats (again)...flop...

A75r

Chk, I bet $140, he c/r to $440, I flat thinking I'm usually good here but hoping a straight card doesn't peel...turn...

4 bringing backdoor fd

He checks, now I'm thinking at this point the 4 is not a very good card because 86 and 45 get there and pondered checking it back, but I decided that he's aggro and capable of making a play here often w/ 1 pr + straight draws or worse and thought inducing + protection was more +ev than checking back the turn so I bet $600 with the intent to call a shove, and shove he did for $2500 total and I took a couple of seconds before I called (after all this was the plan, and if he had better, so be it).

He asks me how many times I want to run it and now I feel a lot more confident my hand is best, I say I don't care, he says how about twice, I say sure, but yet we don't open our hands...anyway dealer burns and turns for a river card...

Offsuit Q

2nd run...

Offsuit Q

and I'm feeling good about winning the pot and he just tells me he missed, and I open my hand and scoop the pot. He gets up and leaves, having given me about $6k in less than an hour. This was a good example of a guy having too big of an ego and thinking he could outplay everybody...I don't care how good you are but being oop w/o initiative is a tough spot to overcome over and over (especially vs. a competent player).

Now I like to think I play all my hands well but occasionally I'll slip up and I did so here...

I'm in a $10/$20 nl game at the Bellagio last week and we have some famous players in the game including Antonio Esfiandari, Phil Laak, Brian Rast, and Brad Booth. The 1st 3 were waiting for the $10/$20/$40 game. I'm sitting about $4500 deep and get dealt 99 in the sb.

A kid in ep opens to $60, mp guy calls, Brad calls, Antonio calls, I call, bb calls making it 6 way to the flop...

AT9 all clubs

Talk about a dicey situation w/ deep stacks! I elect to check to evaluate (leading is probably ok too), and it goes checked around...turn...

6 of spades

Now normally I would lead here and think it's best but at the time I just felt like there are tons of aggro and tricky players here so why not let them make a play at it and I can c/r...right after the hand I realized it's still best to lead because I probably have the best hand, I can call a raise and evaluate river, and getting 3bet if I c/r gets really expensive.

Anyway the action goes I check, bb leads $200, preflop raiser raises to $450, Brad reraises to $950, 2 other guys fold, and it's to me...so I have to fold now, bb tank folds, preflop raiser calls...river

offsuit 4

It goes check check and the kid that raised the turn (not Brad) shows AK w/ nut club draw that missed and Brad just mucks! Well now the bb jumps out of his chair and says he folded the best hand with aces up and whines, while I roll my eyes knowing I folded an even better hand. Sure I misplayed the turn and it cost me but I can't understand what the heck Brad Booth is doing cold 3betting the turn and can't beat AK...at least bet the river and win the pot!

Finally I played this hand tonight at the Aria...$10/$20nl and I'm about $4500 deep. The game started 5 handed w/ King Dan (of the other training site), Ashton Griffin (or Ashman), Brent Roberts, another decent kid and me. Obviously it's about as bad as a live $10/$20 game can get (thanks DOJ) but I wanted to get bigger nl games going at the Aria and Dan and I said we would do so going forward (until online poker comes back).

Well Dan opens to $60, I 3bet to $180 w/ KK, sb cold calls, bb (a new player but a good aggro player) 4bets to $600, Dan folds, I elect to call to play ip and underrep my hand, sb now shoves for $5k, bb folds (what he said was AK after the hand), and now I need to decide if the sb can have other hands besides AA and after a couple of minutes I decide that his shoving range here is wider than AA so I call. He rolls over QQ and I roll over KK with no thought...I'll celebrate inside after I win the hand...flop...

Q45

turn and river brick out and I lose another $10k pot.

Now I can go on tilt and lose the rest of the $10k in my pocket but I decide they'll have to win it from me like the kid did w/ QQ...I wasn't going to give it away...and eventually I recovered everything and ended up winning $1500 for the night (a lesson in playing your A game no matter what).

Other than that I'm up a little bit since Black Friday (even though I should be up a lot but that's variance) and been busy working on a couple of side projects. The WSOP is right around the corner and I'm planning on playing a tournament heavy schedule so I'm trying to play as much cash games as I can. Hopefully I can run a little better, and if anybody wants to play some poker with me, look for me at the Aria (or Bellagio), and feel free to say hi...always cool to meet new people, something that I've missed out on hiding behind a computer screen for years.

Ballsy Call?

2011-04-29T05:22:00.000-07:00

So I'm playing the WSOPc $1600 nl main event on day 1 today and this hand takes place. I'm in the bb...obviously still unknown to the live poker world. I just thought I'd post it because it is somewhat educational for live tournaments...

Gates Eliminated with "Ballsy Call"

Posted 7 hours 10 minutes ago by http://www.pokernews.com/members/donpeters/">donpeters a�� Level 12: 600-1,200, 200 ante

Garry Gates

Action folded to Garry Gates in the small blind and he raised to 3,100. The big blind reraised to 7,200 and then Gates moved all in for 29,800. The big blind tanked for a couple minutes and then eventually said, "All right, I call," with 12,000 chips behind after calling Gates' all-in amount.

Gates turned over the with his tournament life on the line and the big blind tabled the , ahead but with a risky call.

The flop came down and gave Gates a gutshot straight draw to go along with his two live cards. The turn brought the and the river the . Both of those missed Gates after his whiffed the flop and he was eliminated.

"Pretty ballsy call," said David Williams to the player after the hand

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) I called because...
2) This guy was chummy w/ David Williams (who was on his right) so I assumed this guy knew how to play a little (eg not afraid to 4bet shove light for his mtt life)
3) I was kinda torn between 3betting and shoving preflop but had a semi plan to induce a shove by worse by 3betting but when it happened I decided to take my time to reevaluate (maybe some of you will say it's just a clear cut shove....probably won't argue w/ that much)
4) Even if I was wrong or I lose I still have 10bbs
5) You need to win a couple of these in multiday tournaments
6) I am a force to be reckoned w/ with chips...w/ less than 30bbs or so I'm just like any other good mtt player (most are proficient w/ those stacks)
7) Great for my table image (willing to 3bet light, gambling, reading people well, not being afraid of calling based on my read, etc.)

So as you can see, what seems like a "Ballsy Call" is actually a well thought out hand, even though it seems simple on the outside (raise, 3bet, 4bet shove, call, bvb).

As for the tournament I had a top 5 stack going into the last level and lost a flip for a huge pot AQ < JJ then another 18bbs to a shortie 77 < TT very last hand of the night.

Oh well, I start back up tomorrow w/ 25bbs, 87 players left and 54 itm...1st being $153k.

You can follow PokerNews to see how I'm doing...oh wait, they just list me as some random dude...nm.

Follow me on twitter at

http://twitter.com/#!/nicolakpoker

In other news my new video where I focus on transitioning from online cash game to live games is out at Cardrunners. I'm making it a series and the 1st one is pretty basic (aimed at those who never set foot in a live poker room...w/ some advice for those that have) but they will get more in depth in the later videos.

Thoughts

2011-04-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

After everything that's transpired the last couple of days, I've had some time to take it in and form some thoughts. Even though I have a family, own 2 Las Vegas properties (not necessarily a brag because mortgages are sky high from buying at the worst time possible) and owe some taxes (shipping it Monday) I'm pretty upbeat about everything. Maybe because I've always seen the glass half full. Also has to do w/ my strong religious faith.

I read this piece today and I agree w/ most of everything the writer says...

http://www.billrini.com/2011/04/16/fallout-full-tilt-pokerstars-pullout/

Although Black Friday is bad for the short term I think it's good for the long term. Sure some will disagree but I see a push for the legalization of online poker. If and when that happens everybody will rejoice and it will be PartyPoker all over again (not really but things will be much better than the status quo we were in).

In the meantime what are professional poker players to do? Well since I consider myself a well rounded poker player (I've stressed before it's beneficial to be good at many forms of poker including live poker) I can go play live for awhile until we have a clearer picture of what's in store for us. Also I've strategically placed my family in Las Vegas for times like these (well, that and home prices were much cheaper than in California at the time) so I can play poker in the casinos. I blogged about my live experiences and how "soft" I consider the games so I expect to do ok although I think I will have to double, maybe triple my hrs to match my income from online poker (even then I may not be able to match my online earning power..we shall see).

I also have experience grinding live poker 40hrs/week. This was over a decade ago and games were much different then (just limit games and very soft) but I've become a much experienced and a better player so I expect to do ok until online poker comes back.

As for others, I'm not them so I can't answer for them. I notice some fellow Cardrunners' guys increasing their coaching profiles so good luck to them. I'm not sure what's going to happen to the online mtt'ers that depended on mass volume to eek out a profit (I guess it's going to cost Sheets and Bax a lot of money too), the hu specialists (see what bumhunting gets you, not skillz that's for damn sure), sit n go specialists (gl trying to find sit n go's in live poker rooms or trying to make a living playing $110 sit n go's when they run...one at a time), the rakeback pros (Venetian and Wynn in Las Vegas pay back around $1/hr to play in their poker rooms...just think of it as a demotion guys), plo players (some rooms spread a $1/$2 plo game...or a $25/$50+ plo game...gl playing your A game in the small game waiting for the big game), and sponsored site pros (lol).

Most of the guys I've met that I played vs. online or heard about are really smart guys that probably won't have much of a problem getting a job. Others will probably move to another country and keep grinding online (probably applies more to mtt'ers than cash game players since the latter can just go live). A few will probably try to circumvent the US laws and install vpns and play on Euro sites from home. Some will move closer to live poker rooms and grind live.

I do think for poker players that choose to keep playing poker, this is a good time to broaden your game and knowledge and start learning other games and formats. After all, nobody has a clue if and when online poker will come back to the U.S. Even when it does it will help tremendously if you are experienced at many forms of poker. Trust me.

Which leads me to my last point...I'm probably going to start coaching live poker (all forms including cash games, tournaments, and mix games) and if anybody is interested, feel free to send me an email (nicolak4@hotmail.com) or shoot me a pm at Cardrunners. Next time I will discuss this in more detail.

Check my live graph...

Mohegan Sun

2011-04-12T21:53:00.000-07:00

So I'm at Mohegan Sun for a week of tournaments and live cash games. So far it's been about a break even trip for me. I'm up some in cash games and stuck in tournaments (usually that's how it goes). I played a $1k and the $5k main event. Unfortunately I busted midway on day 2 of the $5k. There was one very interesting hand where I could've played differently on day 1.

At blinds $150/$300 I opr to $700 w/ A6 of diamonds mp, aggro kid right behind 3bets to $1500, I call, flop QJ8 w/ 2 diamonds, chk, chk, turn blank, I bet $2k w/ intent of barreling every river except an ace and a ten (unless it was a diamond), river offsuit J, I bet $3800, kid raises to $8500 (we started the hands w/ about $30k each), and I think about 3bet shoving for my tournament life. After a few mins I figured it's too late to shove and fold, sigh.

Reflecting back on it I still think shoving is probably better than folding. If we think about villain's possible range it's capped at Jx that's not a fullhouse (because he bets flop w/ straights and 2prs+). If we think about what our perceived range is, it's uncapped to include straights and fullhouses and I think the villain realizes this which makes a 3bet shove profitable. What makes it actually tough to pull the trigger is that it's for my tournament life. There's a chance he hero calls w/ KJ or AJ anyways and I bust.

I decided to skip the $10k bounty shoot out because the structure sucks (got worse than last one in LA because producers wanted to reduce the amount of time it took for the winner to win his table so it becomes essentially a hyper turbo) and it didn't sell out which made the field incredibly tough. The possible tv exposure is nice but that's not worth $10k.

My buddy Joe Tehan (who I've blogged about before winning the NAPT LA) final tabled the $5k main event. Recently between him and I, it seems like one of us is final tabling every event we play together. He also happens to be one of Cardrunner's newest instructors. Some kid, Bryn Kenney's brother is chipleader and Vanessa Selbst is 2nd (she won this event last year...she's a sicko...having 6bet shoved 84s vs AA preflop and getting there late in day 2 to become chipleader). I laid 4-1 w/ a friend w/ 24 players left and her having about 12% of the chips that she wouldn't win this. Joe is 5th in chips heading into the televised final table tomorrow. 1st is $450k. Also wanted to mention Vincent aka Amurophil online is 3rd in chips. We've battled some in online cash games and he's got a good chance as any to win this. If Joe doesn't win I'm hoping he does. Should be a nice sweat tomorrow.

Other than that I'm in Uncasville, CT having a blast. The Mohegan Sun is huge...comparable to the big ones in Las Vegas (possibly even bigger). I'm realizing traveling costs a lot of money, especially from one coast to the other (well, from Vegas to the east coast), and traveling the live tournament circuit could get very expensive (this doesn't include the tournament buyins). For that reason I'm going to limit my travels to the western part of the US. Well I may come back out to Hollywood, FL in a couple of weeks for the WPT, mostly because high stakes poker is new there and the main event is expected to be softer than other places.

When I get back to Vegas I'm planning on grinding a lot online to make up for lost time. Also grinding live tournaments is a super tough way to make a living (not to mention it's not the most stable way). My 2nd video in my series "Quest for $100k" came out Friday on Cardrunners and the title sums it up...winning $100k in online cash games. So far I'm up $16k after 11k hands so my win rate is really good but my volume is really bad. Realistically I'd love to get to halfway done before the WSOP starts but in poker you never know. All I can do is play the best I can all the time and worry about results later, and I hope everybody follows that path ;) .

Reno Trip

2011-03-30T13:29:00.000-07:00

I went up to Reno this past weekend to participate in the $1090 "All In" main event and a televised $50/$100nl 6handed cash game at the Atlantis Hotel (not to be confused w/ the hotel w/ same name in the Bahamas). I guess you could say the trip went well, w/ winning the main event for $33k and being the big winner in the cash game w/ a $15k profit.

Even though my original plan was to play in the cash game, I decided to fly in a couple of days early to partake in the $1090 main event. I've been playing more live tournaments this year and for the most part have been enjoying the experience.

I'll summarize my tournament experience in the next few paragraphs but I would advise most to skip it and read my cash game experience which was much more interesting (skip down to ***Cash Game***) unless you like reading about tournament summaries.

***Tournament***

So I knew there would be tv cameras around because they told me the tournament, mostly the final table would be filmed so I wore patches from Cardrunners and FTP (because they offered to pay me per episode I was on...now only if I can get them to sign me!). Normally I eschew wearing anything that might peg me as some kind of poker pro but if I'm going to get paid for wearing stuff, I'm in (also if I'm representing a site I will agree to promote the site in any way if asked).

Well it turns out the main event was comprised mostly of locals and you can reenter as many times as you want if you bust before the 1st break. I didn't know that until about 30mins left for the break and decided to gamble to get a big stack. Well that didn't work out so well and I ended up having a 6k stack (from starting 20k stack) w/ 1 hand left before break and I decided to opr w/ T2s w/ the intent of getting all in at some point. Fortunately for me one guy had JJ and another guy had AA and I busted (not often you hear that as the truth) and I got the opportunity to rebuy w/ a new 20k stack.

Anyway I ended up running my new stack to the chiplead midway through day 1 and pretty much held it all the way to the win. I played well w/ my only big pots where I was all in (but had other guy covered each time) included KK vs. AJs aipf, KJ vs 99 on JT585 all in at riv (don't ask), QT vs A9 of diamonds all in on flop TT7 (all black), and A2 vs 99 all in on flop 345r.

When we were down to the final 13 (and 11 get itm) a couple of people proposed taking some money off the top to pay the 12th and 13th players. Normally I don't want to be the bad guy and don't object but this time I objected for a few reasons. I was a big chipleader and wanted to abuse the bubble, most of the players left really wanted to cash (easier to abuse), most of the players weren't very good, and it was getting late (around 2am) which meant most of the players were up past their bedtime (older people...lol). Also I was cl in a Wynn event a couple of weeks ago and I didn't object at the same proposal but after I busted I was regretting that decision because that was a time where I could've accumulated a bigger stack and maybe things could've turned out differently. I was not going to give up +ev spots anymore to be nice to everybody else. Anyway I ran my chiplead up from 500k to over 600k abusing the bubble and play ended for the night when we got itm w/ 11 players left.

The next day at the final table I happened to be the youngest player (I guess that means it was kinda soft?) and was on the direct right of Jennifer Harmon. Her husband Marco and her were invited pros and were bounties in the tournament. I happened to knock out one of the other bounties (the hotel owner..a Sasha Cohen ringer and a super nice guy) and won $1k for it (so got my 1st buyin back). The final six players would play on a televised final table. Well Jennifer busted in 8th which was bad for the tv producers hoping to land a good tv deal...at least they had me...lol (obv. a joke).

At the tv table I put a guy all in w/ 99 vs. his QQ and flopped a 9 to bust him. I had 900k to his 250k w/ blinds at 12k/24k so it was kind of standard (although my read on him was he usually has AJ+ or a big pair there but it was 5handed and I had plenty of chips, plus I'm allowed to get lucky once in awhile after being on the other end too many times this year, especially in bigger tournaments). After that I coasted to victory w/ the hu match only lasting about 4 hands (final hand got all in on turn w/ T4 on a 643T board vs 94..don't remember the river card since my opponent was drawing dead).

Balla Trophy:

***Cash Game***

I was excited to be part of this for a couple of reasons. It was going to be televised and we were going to play $50/$100 nl 6handed. I have played in live games that big before but not 6handed and obviously not on tv. I wasn't sure how big the game was going to play (whether there would be much straddling going on or stakes would be kicked up, as the producer said that would be a possibility) so I brought plenty just in case (about $100k).

We drew for seats and it turned out I drew the worst possible seat being on the direct right of Dan (DJK123) Kelly, the kid that won the WSOP $25k 6handed event last year. I'll get to that in a moment. We also had Brent Roberts, a prolific online cash game player, Dan Harmetz, a rich guy that won over $300k on High Stakes Poker on GSN, a pro from Phoenix named Jesse, and a local older guy named Mike (very friendly guy).

Everybody bought in for $25k except DJK who bought in for $50k (even worse for me since he's on my direct left). Early on I made a couple of betsizing mistakes and felt tilted from that (but it didn't affect my play). Very early hand, Jesse opens to $300 from co, Mike calls from sb, I have AJ of hearts from bb and consider 3betting to set a tone but elect to call since I really have no reads on my opponents; flop 885 w/ 2 hearts, chk, chk, Jesse bets $500, Mike c/r to $1500, I cold call, Jesse folds, turn J, Mike bets $2500, I call, river 9 of hearts making my nut flush, Mike checks and I bet $6k and he tank folds A8. Granted there was $9400 in the pot and a $6k value bet doesn't seem so bad but right after I bet it I realized it was too big. Every draw got there including fd and oesd and it's early on and players are probably going to be more conservative than curious. I felt like I costed myself $4500 (because that was a bet that was probably going to get called, and later he told me he would've called that amount).

About an hour later I raise to $300 w/ T9o from the sb vs/ DJK's bb and he calls, flop comes 986r, I bet $400, he calls, turn 7, chk chk, riv 5 making a 9 high straight on board and I bet $700 into the $1400 pot but accidently throw out an extra $1k chip making my bet $1700. He folds and I hit my head (figuratively) for my error in betting chips. Granted he might not have called $700 but I think he would have for the hopeful chop, so I think I cost myself $700 there.

At this point I'm up about $4k but thinking how badly I betsized those 2 hands and should be up another $5200 or so, not to mention it doesn't look all that good on tv. Anyway I decide to buckle down and make sure I don't make any more betsizing mistakes.

DJK made my day tough because he was 3betting more than the entire table combined and I was the person he was 3betting the most because he was on my direct left and I would open plenty of hands, especially in late position. I had to make some adjustments like tightening up (which I didn't like to do) and opening smaller ($225 to $250 vs standard table open of $300).

Finally we play this hand...Mike opens to $300 from co, I flat w/ QTo on button (for reasons I won't mention, although I considered 3betting), DJK 3bets to $1400 from the sb, Mike folds, and finally I elect to call in position (after having folded numerous middling hands to his 3bet oop). Granted this call is thin but I needed to play a hand vs DJK and I was in position. Flop comes T73 w/ 2 hearts, he bets $1800, I call, turn ace of clubs, chk chk, riv 9 of diamonds, he bets $4200 (?) I tank call and he shows me KTo...doh! The river call is super thin and I think folding was best (w/o knowing DJK's hand) after thinking about it. Once he checks the turn and bets the river it's always for value. He would've bet the turn w/ all of his bluffs. Now I'm not sure how thinly he value bets the river though, if his range includes QT or JT but I think he probably bets a little smaller w/ those hands in case he runs into a better ten. I also called because I folded every hand it seems to him up to that point and I wanted to let him know I would call w/o much (not sure if that's enough of a justification to call though). At this point I got stuck for the 1st time all day.

Dan Kelly ready to raise as usual:

I was never flustered or tilted in seriousness at any point though. I took it one hand at a time and made decisions that I felt were best....also I was on tv and was representing CR (and FTP) and I wanted to make myself, CR, and FTP look good!

I did offer $200 (then upped it to $300, then $400) midway through the day to everybody to change seats w/ me. No surprise everybody turned it out (who wants to be on the direct right of a constant 3better anyways).

Eventually I got up about $5k and everybody agreed to kick up the stakes to $100/$200 nl for the last 1-2 hrs. I admit this is the biggest I've played but again the amount of money didn't really affect my decisions, I just focused on the correct decision at every moment including bet amounts. Well the last hour I finally picked up a couple of good starting hands vs DJK (AK and AJs) and as always he 3bet me but I 4bet him w/ AK and he folded and I called w AJs ip and flopped an ace and won a decent pot.

I made a $100 prop bet w/ him that we would finish the final 16 hands within the last 30mins of filming and I won that pretty easily. I played every hand very quickly to try to win it, but didn't make any bad decisions in haste for that reason. Also on the final hand Jesse and Brent in the blinds decided to do a $5k flip (just shipping in $5k blind and letting the board roll out determining the winner) if everybody folded to them. Well everybody folded to them and I booked $100 w/ DJK and Mike each on Jesse winning and he ended up w/ 66 vs Brent's Q7o (talk about flipping for real) and winning.

So I ended up winning $15,300 which made me the big winner in the game along w/ another $300 in props (unless I miscounted DJK's stack at the end..I think he ended up about $10k winner). The producers told me they will have a tv deal in place within a month and I'll know the air times and channel then. They're telling me the content was great but I'm a little skeptical because I'll admit the table talk was not that entertaining. Maybe the poker content will be cool but we'll see. They also told me the show , called "High Stakes Hold'em", will have a different angle than other cash game shows in that they're going to have viewers try to play along and determine players' hole cards. Former WSOP player of the year Tom Schneider is one of the commentators for the show (along w/ one of the TV producers).

Racking up:

I didn't end up getting involved in any huge pots (that was saved for DJK and Jesse..many times over) but just played meticulously and won steady over the course of 12 hrs (long session w/ 15 min breaks every 90 mins). I did ask if I can talk about the hands before it aired and they said it was ok (hence my blogging about it). There were some other interesting hands but you'll have to watch it to see. They told me the series will be aired over 13 episodes and include the tournament final table. I guess since I won the tournament and was the big cash game winner I'm the man...lol...but seriously it was for me just about playing the best I can play, whether it was televised or not. I was highly critical of myself when I made mistakes and I made a couple but at least I'll learn from them and will play even better poker in the future (in front of or off camera).

Special thanks to Lana of Cardrunners for hooking me up w/ the invite to the cash game. It was a good trip and I hope I represent Cardrunners well when it airs!

Wynn Main Event

2011-03-24T03:34:00.000-07:00

Before I talk about this tournament, I want to say I am not becoming a live mtt pro even though I've been blogging about them this year. I'm just making them a bigger part of my poker routine for the 1st time. My main focus will always be cash games, mostly online. They pay the bills and always will do so. I will also focus on cash games at Cardrunners even though I'm probably pretty good at tournaments too.

Anyway this was a $5170 buyin main event at the Wynn in Las Vegas. I played in a few prelims leading up to this and have blogged and tweeted about them before. I managed to make a final table of the $1k buyin a few days ago but busted in a disappointing 8th place after being chipleader w/ 12 players left.

This main event had around 210 players and 1st pays around $300k. The structure of this tournament is amazing and probably a good reason a good cash game player like me made it to the final table (w/ somewhat relative ease). The levels were 90 mins long but the blinds went up slowly. I've always hovered around 80-100bbs+ until the last 2 levels of tonight. I can only think of the WSOP main event having as good or better of a structure (probably explains why I've gotten deep and cashed twice in 6 years).

Obviously a $5k main event that is not televised is going to have a tough field and I expected that going in but I'm confident enough in my game to know that I'm +ev.

On day 1 I got to play w/ Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler, Karina Jett, Scott Montgomery, Lee Markholt, Annette Oberstad, and CR's own Eric Lui. It was a pretty tough table but I felt like I could handle the table ok. It was actually a fun day because we started off so deep and Annette and I were getting involved in so many hands (because we just like to play a ton of hands). She was on my direct left and it was not an easy spot for sure (she 3bet me some but called a ton with position on me, probably because she knew I was opening so many hands). Overall besides her and I, the table was nitty and nobody gave an inch. I ended the day as the table chipleader w/ about 60k (after starting w/ 25k). No really interesting hands but that's probably because I avoided big pots (no reason to gamble when I can chip up w/ no risk).

The one fun hand of the day involved Annette and her boyfriend Scott. She opr lp, he calls out of bb, she barrels every street and he calls down including her river shove, she shows AA, he mucks, Kessler tells dealer he needs to open Scott's hand (because that is the rules believe it or not...when there is a river shove and a call both hands have to be opened...and Kessler is a stickler for rules), Scott takes it the wrong way (I assume he thought Allen was implying they could be colluding since they are a couple) and tells Kessler to go f**k himself! Even funnier, after the losing hand is in the muck the dealer asks Scott what he had (in seriousness too)..lol.

Before day 2 started the Wynn decided to hold a calcutta auction on the players left in the field. Basically you bid on players (w/ their stacks) to finish in the top 3 and get paid accordingly to the prizepool of the auction. W/ about 110 players left, Dan Heimiller and Phil Gordon bought about a 3rd of the field...I guess they felt it was +ev. The Wynn takes out 10% of the prize pool. Eric Froehlich went for $800 since he was the chipleader. 1st place pays about $12k, 2nd $6k, 3rd $3k. An interesting rule was that the person that was bought was allowed to buy back half of himself for half of what he sold for.

This leads to a funny story...Rene Angelil (Celine Dion's husband) was there for the auction and he wanted to buy himself. He was one of the chipleaders after day 1. Anyway one other person wanted to buy him and Rene bid his price up to $350 before the staff told him he can buy back half of himself at half of whatever price he goes for. So he stopped bidding his price up and just bought half of himself. When they called my name I waited to see if anybody would bid on me (obviously I would be great value because I'm not well known in the live tournament world) before I bid on myself...Dan Heimiller bids the minimum $200 to start and nobody bids higher so I let Dan buy me at $200 then I buy back half of myself at $100. So now I have half of myself in this calcutta auction (and still alive!).

I also got in on the fun and ended up buying 2 players...Dave "Bakes" Baker for $350 and Richard "Nutsinho" Lyndaker for $300 (stacks play a large part in what players go for). I played w/ Nutsinho the 1st half of day 2 and he sat on my direct right but I didn't tell him I had him in the auction (might affect our play). Anyway both guys didn't make it past day 2 (those bums).

On day 2 I drew another tough table w/ Michael Pessek, Dan Heimiller (the guy that bought me in the auction), Nutsinho, Darren Elias, and Jon Turner. Well the 2 guys that like to play a lot of hands got involved in a lot of hands together..they being Nutsinho and me. There were some 3betting going on (not always w/ good hands) and he had the best of me even though he was on my right. Fortunately they moved Nutsinho and later I busted Dan w/ AK vs AQ aipf (at least he gave his chips to one of his auction horses). Rene Angelil came to my table and I managed to win all his chips in several hands, most of it his last hand when he decided to 4bet shove 33 from utg vs my mp 3bet...my QQ held and I had a big stack. Don't feel bad for him...I will be taking my wife and myself to Celine's show when she resumes it later this year at Caesar's Palace so I'll be paying him some money indirectly.

Today was day 3 and we would play down to the final table from the 35 players that remained. Phil Hellmuth was still in it and even though I didn't get the chance to play w/ him, I really enjoyed the tantrums he put up when he lost a key pot..."idiot calls my raise w/ A3 and I set a trap w/ AQ and he bluffs off til he rivers the 3! Where do they find these idiots??!!" and "I raise 2 hands in 8 orbits and this idiot decides to get in AQ aipf vs me and beats my TT!! I guess this is why I have 11 bracelets.". 1st hand vs unknown, 2nd hand vs. Tony "Bond18" Dunst which he says was a super standard spot...lol.

Anyway on day 3 I again draw a super tough table w/ Isaac Haxton, Eric Froehlich (w/ the chiplead in tournament), Tim West aka TMay, Billy Kopp (the guy that gave Darvin Moon mountains of chips when he had a baby flush on a paired board couple years ago in the WSOP main event...lol), and Annette Oberstad (again). Everybody I mentioned had tons of chips w/ the exception of TMay. I managed to chip up nicely to about a top 5 stack w/o having to gamble (because that's what I do ;) then play this cool hand....

W/ blinds at 2k/4k I opr to 9500 w/ Qd9d utg, Annette and 2 others call. Annette and I are over 100bbs deep. Flop K85r (no diamond), I decide to bet 13,500 because it looks super strong, only Annette calls, turn 5 (no fd), I bet 24k, she calls, river 4, I bet 74k, she folds AK faceup, I show my bluff, she acts classy and says nh. I won't dwell too much on this hand but it wasn't a simple case of "I have air and the only way I can win is by triple barreling". She and I played a lot on day 1 and I took a lot of passive lines vs her where I let her valuecut herself (plus pot controlled on my part since I was oop) and I assumed she would give my multiple street aggression a ton of respect, and I was right :) .

After that we were playing 6-7 handed for a while since there were 3 equal tables. I was opening a ton of hands and chipping up nicely and managed to become the chipleader w/ 18 players left. Then disaster struck. I lose a flip w/ AK vs TT aipf for 25% of my stack. W/ 14 players left I take a brutal beat w/ TT vs Tmay's 88 aipf and get short and under 50bbs for the 1st time in this tournament. I have to tighten up (even playing 6-7 handed) because it was too easy for the bigger stacks to put me all in for my tournament life. I manage to hang in w/ 25bbs to the final table and now I head into day 4 and the final table w/ a 20bb stack (card dead and no spots to opr the last level). On the final table are Carter King, Annette Oberstad, TMay (tx to his miracle 2outer at river), and chipleader Eric Froehlich.

It resumes tomorrow at 4pm and I have a dentist appointment at 2pm (lol, I need to tell the dentist no sedatives) so I am done writing about this tournament for now. Hopefully I'll have my 1st major live tournament win tomorrow but if not, hey, at least my teeth will be sparkly.

Beats galore! (An update)

2011-03-15T00:53:00.000-07:00

So I thought I'd update on how I've been doing lately in poker. I guess you can never complain if you're winning but wow I'm running on the wrong side of variance. The 1st thing I'll talk about is my quest for 100 buyins at $5/$10 nl online. Here are my results since I started...

I guess I'm doing alright but running about $5k below ev. No single hand sticks out...just a bunch of flips lost, sets losing to draws, etc. I do want to mention I feel like my game's improved a lot in just the last 2 months (won't get too much into it because it'll make a good post for another day) even though I haven't been playing much. So I'm expecting to crush in the upcoming months at all forms of poker.

Here's my month so far at all stakes and games online....

I haven't had the chance to put in much volume but I'm hoping to get in a ton of volume before the WSOP starts. Once the WSOP starts I won't have much time to grind online because I'm planning on playing a heavy WSOP schedule (bracelet one time?).

As for live poker, I mentioned in my previous post it's going well. It is live poker after all. Also I've been playing a lot of tournaments this year, especially live tournaments. I've been playing extremely well in them but my results are just not there (yet). Here is the list of live tournaments I've played and how I busted...

$1k HPT main event... above avg stack late in the tournament, lost 10s vs AK aipf for half my stack, then bust AK vs 99 aipf, finish 10 away from money

$320 Venetian DeepStack... 4/5th way in busted JJ vs AK aipf button vs bb for top 10 stack

LAPC $1k prelim... midway, bad player limps utg, I iso w QQ, he calls, flop JT2r, he checks, I bet, he calls, turn 2, he checks, I bet, he shoves...I tank and began talking to him trying to gauge his strength....I say it's A2s or some random draw (he c/r's w/ Jx + on the flop from my read)...he comment's "Would I limp w/ A2 here?"...wow, if there was ever an answer screaming Yes to A2, that was it...yet I talk myself into thinking his range is wide enough to call profitably and call and is shown, you guessed it...A2s. So I would say this was the worst hand I've played all year in a tournament because he basically told me he had A2. But a turn 2 is the only card I bust on though, so a little bit of bad luck there.

LAPC $5k prelim... super tough field w/ about 90 entrants yet I feel like I'm one of the favs to win. Basically lost some chips w/ underset vs overset where most would've gone broke. I played 33 cautiously on a 743hh board vs 2 players inc. aggro preflop raiser who had 44, turn Th and everybody froze up, riv Qx and I called aggro's value bet. Later I bust w/ AK vs QQ in a postflop flip situation (nfd+ 2overs).

LAPC $10k main event... great tournament, great structure, great turnout...yet I busted in the last level of day 2. After chipping up some on day 1 on a pretty tough table I couldn't win a hand on day 2 on a softer table. Got to play some w/ Jennifer Tilly on that day and even though she's not that great, she tends to play big pots that increases the variance for her opponents. She just beat me every hand we played together. Finally I lost a key pot during the last level where a kid rivers a gutter w/ T8s (he turned a fd) vs my KK. I shoved w/ my last 13 bbs w/ KQo in the co and ran into button's JJ and couldn't win.

Wynn $500 prelim #1...decent structure for a $500 buyin event and a great turnout..over 800. Played pretty well on day 1 to make it to day 2 and down to 100 players. I chip up and become the 2nd biggest stack on a very soft table. W/ 45 players left I run KK into cl's AA and bust. Sucked because 1st was $85k and the field was pretty soft. At least I have my 1st live cash of the year...for a measly $900. I had the pleasure of playing w/ Andy Frankenberger who was a really cool and nice guy (good poker thinker but needs a little work on the fundamentals).

Wynn $1k 6max nl prelim...If I'm not a big fav. in this one, I don't know what I'm a fav. in! I don't really pick up any hands all day (and especially don't get on the right side of cooler spots that allow you to get deep in tournaments) but manage to hang around w/ 15-30bbs in the later stages. Then w/ 30 players left I get in 99 vs J9o aipf and lose most of my chips. I manage to chip up w/ the best hands aipf and win a key race w 22 vs ATo (finally I win a flip!!) and get to 25bbs w/ 18 players left (9 get in the money). I get in my stack w/ AJo vs A7o bvb and bust.

Wynn $1k prelim...this was a very fun tournament for one reason. A "name" live mtt pro tweets "other than Vanessa Selbst, a soft table" early on. He happened to be on my direct right, Selbst on my direct left. Let's just say that he didn't think it was a soft table....after I busted him! I 3bet him relentlessly all day until he took a stand and 4bet jammed JTo...into my KK. At this point I was one of the chipleaders w/ about 40 left and 15 itm. Then I lose a flip postflop (go figure), go card dead, then cl (w/ about 120bbs) opr utg, I jam w/ 20bbs total w/ QQ in the co, and he tank folds AQ faceup! Are you kidding me??!! Very next hand, aggro hijack opr, I jam AJs w/ about 25bbs, button wakes up w/ AK and that's all she wrote. Obviously the cl who folded AQ the previous hand regrets folding that when he sees my AJ...obviously I regret it more!! So I busted 23rd, and 15 get in the money.

That's it for live tournaments. Now my online tournaments... jk. I've played a bunch and I know I've been running as bad in those as I have in live ones. I just finished playing the $109 multi entry miniftops where 1st was $181k. W/ over 9,300 entrants I busted 250th. Here's the hand....

No-Limit Hold'em Tournament, 2500/5000 Blinds (9 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com
MP3 (t350817)

CO (t72109)

Button (t104344)

Hero (SB) (t179784)

BB (t225496)

UTG (t159480)

UTG+1 (t178998)

MP1 (t172561)

MP2 (t266073)

Hero's M: 23.97

Preflop: Hero is SB with Q, J

7 folds, Hero bets t10000, BB calls t7500

Flop: (t25000) 10, Q, 8 (2 players)

Hero bets t15500, BB calls t15500

Turn: (t56000) 4 (2 players)

Hero bets t32500, BB raises t196896, Hero calls t118684

River: (t358368) 9 (2 players)

Total pot: t358368

Results:

Hero had Q, J (straight, Queen high).

BB had K, J (straight, King high).

Outcome: BB won t363768

Winning this pot would've put me in the top 15 but it was still a long ways to go...but still!

So that's about it for poker. Other than that, life is great!

Why Live Poker is Easy

2011-03-08T14:33:00.000-08:00

I wanted to express my thoughts about live cash games in general. Having been mostly a internet player the past decade or so (although I have played plenty of hours in live cash games and tournaments) I wanted to talk about some of the differences between live games and online games and some "tendencies" that occur in live games that you don't see much of in online games.

As mentioned before I'm making more of an effort to get out there and play more live poker, both cash games and tournaments. I've played about 12 live sessions so far this year, all at either $5-$10nl, $10-$20nl, or $10-$25nl (w/ some limit mix games). I've done pretty well overall so I think I have a pretty good grasp of the state of today's live games. Granted 12 sessions isn't a large enough sample size to accurately assess my long term prospects (although I think I'll do well) and I'm speaking for the stakes I've played (smaller and larger stakes probably have different dynamics, game flow, type of players, etc. although everything I talk about applies to smaller stakes and at a greater magnitude).

The first thing is that playing shorthanded online has helped a lot as I feel like I can play well no matter how many players are on a table. Sometimes games get short, especially must move games, and guys that have experience playing shorthanded and hu are at an advantage. Most live players have little to no experience playing shorthanded. I notice my edge increases a lot the more shorthanded a table becomes. Also playing shorthanded helps you improve your game tremendously in that you know how to play less than premium hands, plus it makes poker more fun knowing that you can play a lot more hands instead of waiting for premium hands.

There is much less 3betting going on (4betting light is almost non existent) in live full ring games (to an extent in shorthanded games as well). This makes the game so much easier because I can raise and 3bet knowing that I'm almost never getting reraised light. Even the guys that I tag as possible internet guys (young guys in hoodies w/ headphones,...yeah you know who you are) aren't ramping up the aggression like you see in online games. Either they're really not internet players or they're just keeping up w/ the flow of the game w/ nobody else really 3betting much. I admit to toning down my 3bet tendencies because of this as well, although I think I shouldn't. I'm usually the most frequent 3better though.

Also I've been playing in uncapped games and most players have 100+ bbs stacks, some w/ 250bbs stacks+. What this leads to is most players being cautious, probably overly cautious and missing out on value in certain spots (actually I've seen a ton of hands where a guy should've gotten more value, and very little hands where a guy went for thin value). In online games if you have the 2nd best hand you're going to lose the maximum usually (vs. regs). In live games this isn't the case because again, players are a little too cautious. You almost never see a triple barrel w/ air in a live game. (I did it twice in my last 2 live sessions in LA and went 50%...it's pretty cool putting out a big river bet w/ nothing after barreling earlier streets..obviously all I'm thinking at the moment is "don't call don't call don't call don't call!!!!")

Also live players tend to betsize poorly than online players. They're very guilty of underbetting the pot when a bigger bet is called for. This happens more frequently than somebody overbetting incorrectly.

I won't dwell on limping too much because everybody knows live players tend to limp more than they should. I don't care how good you are but limping and calling a raise oop is a spot that's difficult to profit from.

Also most live players don't seem to understand a lot of the current fundamentals that most online players understand and execute well. These include stack to pot ratio, polarization (you may see live players raising w/o much but most are not sure why they are doing it..they're just "bluffing" per se), balancing (although this isn't as important as online unless you become a reg at the poker room you play), merging, g bucks, etc.

Another thing about live games is that you can tell when somebody is tilting. Sometimes you can see the steam coming out of their ears. Or they'll say something like "dealer, when's your break?", "always a fricking ace on the flop!", or something along those lines. It's easy to adjust your game to them and the games become even more profitable. Online it's not easy to see who's tilting and who's not.

I guess you know the general theme of this post...yes, live poker players suck. No, actually it's not that. It's just what I think are mistakes that you see occurring more often in live games than in online games. Therefore live games are generally easier and good online players should be able to transition pretty well should they venture into the live domain.

New Goal

2011-03-04T00:53:00.000-08:00

In conjunction w/ my new video series over at Cardrunners I will try to win 100 buyins at $5/$10 nl online. This includes full ring, 6max, and hu. I expect most of my volume to be at 6max since most of the tables that run are at 6max. In the series I will try to capture some of my play and also talk about what it takes to beat these games on a consistent basis. I will also focus on non showdown winnings since everybody is always trying to improve that aspect of their games.

I'll admit I'm not the best when it comes to non showdown winnings but I have improved steadily over the years and I am still working on it and will relay some of my thoughts and ideas. Also $5/$10 is definitely not a limit where people are pushovers so it'll definitely be a challenge holding my own in regard to my red line. I expect to make some mistakes along the way but I expect myself to learn from them and that's the best way to get better.

Why $5/$10? Well that limit is considered the entry to high stakes online. I want to show that even in today's state of games that if you work hard enough you can succeed. Granted I have a ton of experience playing that stake and I'm a decent poker player but everybody knows $5/$10 is pretty tough nowadays. I'm not going to think I can achieve it easily...all I'm going to do is play the best I can and work hard at my game along the way.

I used to play $5/$10 on a regular basis, even 16 tabling 20-30hrs/wk (2 years ago) but I've slowed down and played stakes anywhere from $2/$4 to $5/$10 the last couple of years (for reasons mentioned in an earlier blog post). Now I'm not going to eschew the lower stakes because I'm still planning on multitabling and sometimes there are just not many $5/$10 games going.

As for time frame I'm not going to set one. The reason being that I've devoted some of my time to live play including playing some big buyin live events this year. Also the WSOP is right around the corner and I'm planning on playing a full schedule. This goal may take me 2-3 months or it may take me 1 year. Another reason I'm setting this goal is to push me to work hard at my game and put in the time that I've been lacking the last couple of years.

The only thing I haven't done is think of a name for this series...if anybody has a good idea feel free to let me know.

So the 1st video in conjunction w/ this goal comes out today. I actually started playing in February and captured the 1st video during a session. Hope you guys like it and get something out of it. Expect more in the future and hopefully some of my new ideas and growth as a poker player helps those that watch them.

Oh, and I will post $5/$10 graphs from time to time to show my progress, starting w/ the hands I've played since I decided to do this....

Yeah, 97 buyins to go :)

LAPC Report

2011-02-25T23:44:00.000-08:00

So I've been in Los Angeles playing live tournaments and cash games. So far I'm about even in cash games playing mostly $10/$20nl w/ some $100/$200 mix games. I'm gonna post something about live cash games and how they differ from their online counterparts in a future post (from my perspective anyways).

For tournaments I played a $1k, $5k, and a $1k super satellite to the $10k WPT main event. So far nothing to show for it but I did make it to day 2 of the $10k main event w/ a stack of 43,600 w/ the avg. being around 40k. They got about 650 entrants and 1st is about $1.6 mil. I had a pretty tough table draw today w/ Erick Lindgren, Brett Richey (DatMoose), Chris Moorman (Moorman1), good Euro player, and Joe De'Niro (Robert's supposedly estranged son but also a pretty good poker player) so I'm happy w/ my chip position. I think I'm supposed to make day 2 of almost all $10k+ events because of the deep structures (barring some coolers) since it benefits good cash game players used to playing deep so I'm not getting too excited.

2 of the guys on the table (edog and datmoose) were both in my 3dime fantasy football league that I've blogged about in the past so it was fun talking about how I crushed them both...no we just reminisced about the past couple of years (but yeah I did crush them both). Funny how the 3dime league was the highest and most expensive league I was in but it was one of the smallest for them. Both guys were in $5k-$10k buyin leagues w/ crazy side action...not just one but several. They're obviously more baller than me.

Anyway Brett paid me what he owed me but accidentally gave me an extra flag ($5k chip). I immediately knew he overpaid me and gave it back to him. The crazy part was I asked if he would've noticed, because he was carrying a lot of high denomination chips w/ him (cuz again, he's baller) and he said he would've, but he would not have accused me of taking it and just would've thought he dropped it somewhere. Damn, opportunity missed....jk.

Also I got an online transfer from somebody for a decent amount (over $1k) the other day and they didn't know they xferred it to me by mistake but I returned it.

If there's ever a time for karma to rear it's head for somebody, it's me...at least that's what I'm hoping for this tournament.

I have pieces of a few guys and all of them made it to day 2 as well (I probably mentioned this but I have run well when taking pieces of guys).

The only downer on the day was going out to sushi w/ Joe Tehan, Jon Turner, and a couple of others and losing credit card roulette...sucks it was sushi which meant it was expensive. (Again karma I hope).

Anyway I'm going to get plenty of rest for day 2 of the LAPC main event so I will cut this short (vs. my usual blog posts).

I did write an article recently about my 1st big score and how I reacted w/ the boon to my bankroll and I think it's a decent read for those interested...

http://bit.ly/fGMZsB

A day in the life

2011-02-17T21:19:00.000-08:00

As per request from a fellow tweeter (or twitterer, not sure what the proper term is), I'm going to talk about a typical but busy day for me. That day also happens to be today. Today was busier than usual for me because I'm leaving for a wedding in Santa Barbara this weekend then heading to Los Angeles for the tail end of the LAPC where I pursue my adventures in live tournaments (plus live cash games). I will be updating my progress on my trip include all my tournament runs on twitter for those interested. You can find the link to the right for those interested. (I always say there's better things to do than follow twitter but I guess millions of people think differently...tbh I've become more active on twitter so I guess I'm falling for that twitter bug).

Anyway I woke up at 8am today (gasps from all the new generation of poker players, some thinking that's when they go to bed) to see my kid off to school. I've talked about this before but I like to take care of my family duties before anything else and that includes poker. The last thing I want my daughter to see is her father immersed in the world of poker...poker is just a means of providing a good life for my family and myself. I want to show my kid that poker is just a job and I want be the best dad that I can be, especially in her eyes. Naturally the next thing I do is head straight back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep. I'm one of those people that needs 8hrs+ of sleep or I'll be cranky all day. Somehow my wife loves talking to me while I'm snoozing even though she realizes this. I guess the trade off of having somebody "listening" to her is worth me being cranky all day. Women.

So I woke up again at 11am, do a little prep work for the podcast I cohost w/ Jeremiah Smith called "Cash Plays". I also drink my French Vanilla Slimfast for lunch. Losing weight is hard. We interviewed Greg "FBT" Mueller about his recent appearance on Poker After Dark. Greg and I actually go back a long ways. When I started playing poker for a living 13 years ago in Vancouver, Canada I tangled w/ him often in the limit hold'em games around town (yeah, the dark ages of poker, before nl hold'em became popular, before online poker was introduced). I knew then that he would become big time in poker because of his loud personality but more because of how sick good he was at poker. We also interviewed Jared Tendler, a poker mental game coach. Also we did our hand 2 hand combat where we break down a hand or two from cash games. Anyway for those interested the podcast will be available on PokerRoad and Cardrunners next Tuesday.

Then I spent the next two hours coaching a student, actually my only student currently. I've been hesitant to jump into coaching for a few reasons, mostly because I can't match my hrly coaching vs. playing. I'm coaching this particular person because she's a good friend of a good friend (and I am getting paid). I've been mulling getting into coaching on the side and will announce it here if I do decide to do it.

After this it's time for dinner and my wife, kid, and I head off to Hot 'N' Juicy Crawfish for dinner. We invite a friend of my wife's and her 2 kids and order a few lbs of juicy crawfish and crab. I shy away from the crawfish...just seems like too much work for too little meat...plus sucking the juices out of the heads doesn't sound appealing to me. I order 2 lbs of snow crab legs, medium spice, 1lb in garlic butter flavor and 1lb in hot'n'juicy flavor.

I come home and see how my bets in sports did. I have a guy that has been a handicapper for years and has a winning track record so I bet his plays. He put out Nashville -115 and Edmonton +115 and both won (dingX2). I bet relatively small compared to what I make in poker so even if I run bad here I don't lose much (compared to my poker bankroll). This is the mini degeneracy in me..but very mini...and again I actually expect to come out ahead in the long run.

I decide to put in a session of online poker. After winning $1800 last night playing $5/$10 at the Venetian (thank you pocket Aces and old man gone wild syndrome) I decide to test my mettle vs. the virtual world tonight. I hop into some $3/$6 and $5/$10 nl 6max games on FTP and run pretty good and win $2200 in about an hr (only if I can sustain this hrly). Graph of my session tonight...

Now I have a couple of more things left to do for the day. I need to finish up my next video for Cardrunners. I will probably use the footage from tonight's play and just add my commentary for a nice polished product and ship it to my bosses at CR. Believe it or not but making a poker video is quite a lot of work..not just from my end but from the editing department and management before they put out the final product. So I thank you guys that put in the time and effort to put out the final product.

After this I will go through all my mail and bills and make sure everything is up to date. I had a personal assistant before that handled all of this but it didn't quite work out. I'm on the lookout for a PA actually so if anybody knows of a good one for a reasonable price, feel free to let me know.

Things that I didn't do today that I wish I had include getting in a workout, watching a poker video, doing some poker analysis, or reading something about poker theory/concepts, doing that Pokernews article Kristy asked me for (postponed til tomorrow), and spending some time w/ my kid...after all I'll be gone for a couple of weeks and away from my kid.

Realistically my days aren't this busy (eg the podcast is once every 2 weeks, along w/ making a video for CR) but having to leave town for a couple of weeks, and being the procrastinator I am, today just turned out to be a very busy but productive day.

So is my life baller? Probably not, but hey, my family is taken care of and I'm enjoying my life and really, that's all that counts.

Finally a shout out to my buddies Adam Friedman who got 2nd in the $1k FTOPS 10 game mix for $38k (but seriously, how did you not win it after having a 6-1 chip lead hu??!!) and Jaymes Rosenthal (you need to come to CR from that other training site) for taking down the recent Venetian Deep Stack tournament for $15k and a trophy...both occurred today. Hopefully I can make my own magic happen next week in Los Angeles.

Oh, here is my setup/grind station as requested @PokerLawyer ;) A few months old (there's a football game on tv) and a lot cleaner than it is right now.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

2011-02-11T14:57:00.000-08:00

So the big news in the world of online poker is this million dollar bet that happened recently. Apparently a high stakes player offered $900k to his friends' $300k that he can run 70 miles in 24 hrs. You can read about it from the friend's perspective here...

http://www.cardrunners.com/blog/internetpokers

It's actually a very good read and would recommend everybody spend a few mins reading it. Anyway the guy ran 70 miles in 24 hrs and won $300k.

In the piece, Haseeb (the friend/roommate), a high stakes nl hu specialist, says there are many people at every level of poker that are so deeply unhappy. I want to cover that statement and just say that I disagree. There is a chance he is just conveying it based on personal experiences (he had gotten hacked for a good amount of money after having a bad downswing).

It is possible at really high stakes and nosebleeds ($25/50+) that a higher % of players take poker more seriously because of the amount of money being passed around that mood swings happen more frequently than lower stakes which may lead to unhappiness. I'm not the person to answer that definitely because I haven't really played that high online. I do see and read about Phil Galfond, Durrrr, Stinger, and others and they don't seem unhappy but I guess I can't say for sure because I don't know them personally. If I had to bet I would say they are happy though.

At lower stakes I think as a whole, professional poker players are not unhappy. Just like any field, there will be people that love their jobs and people that hate their jobs. Last summer I got to meet some of the guys I play vs. on a daily basis online and even though almost all of them were in their early to mid twenties (sign of the times), they all seemed outgoing and happy w/ their lives. Granted most of them are winning players and have more money than most at the same age. Here are the kids I met last summer...

From a personal standpoint I am a happy person and have always been, and I've been playing poker professionally for well over a decade. I've been on numerous downswings and have experienced the really high highs and the really low lows yet I've always been a positive and happy person. Heck I'm in the midst of a 6 week downswing right now (this entire year) and I'm ok w/ it and happy w/ life in general.

Pretty much all my poker playing friends are content and not unhappy (w/ the exception of one). Heck one's getting married in a week and probably couldn't be happier. Also if you read Doublefly's blog at

http://doubleflypoker.blogspot.com/

a fellow grinder w/ a family, his life seems fulfilled and happy (awesome poker blog for those that don't know...really check it out if you can).

I guess the common trend here is that we all seem to have a balanced life where poker doesn't encompass our lives. I'm not saying go get married and you'll be happy (heck 50% of married people eventually get unhappy and end up getting divorced) but I think if your entire life is poker there is a greater likelihood that you may end up unhappy.

Besides family, pursue other goals and interests outside of poker, make new friends and hang out w/ old friends, read books, watch tv and movies, play video games, work out, whatever it takes to create some semblance of balance in your life if you're a poker player. Just don't overdo it and put poker in the backburner where you fall behind the new generation of players. If you can learn to balance your game, you can learn to balance your life. What I'm saying is simple advice but I do see young guys where poker is their entire lives and whether they're happy or not idk but I think the chance that you end up unhappy goes up if you don't have balance in your life, so for everybody out there...go get a life!

If for some reason you are a professional poker player and generally unhappy then poker might not be right for you. Maybe it's your personality and you're generally unhappy then go see a doctor or a shrink, but if poker is the cause I'd recommend pursuing another career. I think it's better for a myriad of reasons to be happy doing something where you don't make much money vs. being unhappy doing something where you make a lot of money. Sometimes happiness is tied into how much money you make and have, and I get that, but this is really simple stuff...do what makes you happy.

Finally my wife and I got invited to a couple of Chinese New Year's gala's/celebrations reserved for the high rollers (mostly asian) at the Venetian and the Wynn last weekend (my friend is a high stakes baccarat player and got us invites). Besides throwing an extravagant dinner w/ famous Chinese singers singing (flown in from Asia), they have a drawing where the top prize is a $200+k car. The 1st night the car was a Bentley, the 2nd night a convertible Ferrari. They gave away 20-30 prizes including 10 cars as the top 10 prizes and the rest being cash (from $2k to $20k) each night. (Me next to the Ferrari...too bad it's not mine).

When they drew for the 2nd prize at the Venetian, which was a BMW 750i, they called out last name Chan (half the crowd ooh'ed and ahh'ed because it was mostly a Chinese crowd), 1st name John.....yep, you guessed it...freaking Johnny Chan walked up and accepted the keys to his brand new BMW. I guess he plays high stakes baccarat from time to time. We didn't get to partake in the drawings because they were reserved for the high rollers. As for my friend he didn't win anything, but don't feel bad for him, he won a Lamborghini 2 years ago which he turned in for cash $160k. Maybe that's how you get happy.

Road Bump

2011-02-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

So I started off the new year w/ a major goal in mind...achieving sne. Well that didn't last long. After 2 weeks and being ahead of pace I decided to give up that goal for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that I didn't think being tied to one poker site for the entire year is beneficial for my long term earnings. I enjoy playing different games and stakes across Stars and FTP. Also I keep hearing about how soft the games are on different sites so I want to check those sites out. Also living in Vegas, I have been playing more live and have really been enjoying it (not to mention the games are softer). Another reason I gave up sne is that I can't stand Stars software!! It really started bothering me multitabling 15-18 tables after a couple of weeks. I know everybody has a preference and I prefer FTP software...it is what it is I guess.

I started the year grinding $2/$4 nl on stars w/ the intent of building my roll on there and moving up stakes. I started adding in some plo along the way w/ a little bit of success. Everything was going ok until I had a nightmare session. Well here is a snapshot of my HEM for the past 3 weeks...I'll let you figure out where that nightmarish session is...

I seem to have 2-3 of these sessions annually and hopefully this will be my lone one this year. I know I ran incredibly bad during this session but I contributed to the destruction by playing past my bedtime and playing while my focus was wavering. I've talked to a couple of guys and have mentioned my results suck when I play past 2am. This isn't because the games are tougher after that time, but because I'm usually tired and not in a 100% state of mind to play my A game. I preach playing one's A game all the time and I'm susceptible to falling off that path because I'm human like everybody else but damn it I should know better!! I do a better job than most when it comes to consistency but I still need to work on some things, notably quitting at 2am or quitting when tired (this should apply to just about everybody, except for maybe the times a game is so good that even playing tired is +ev).

Here is the graph of my night...Doh!!

Even w/ that bad session the month wasn't all that bad and I'll be doing a January wrap up next time (thanks live poker, rakeback, and staking!).

Ooops

2011-01-31T14:09:00.000-08:00

So a friend told me I shouldn't be putting up magazine articles on my site, even if I wrote it, so I had to take down the last blog. I guess it had something to do w/ copyrights. Anyway I'll be updating soon about my January and for the meantime if anybody is interested here is a Q&A I did for Cardplayer magazine a couple of months ago. My article is on pages 34-36.

http://www.cardplayer.com/assets/magazines/000/065/812/flash_magazine/index.html

Links are ok though.

Weekend

2011-01-24T12:51:00.000-08:00

I had a weird weekend in poker, mostly good though. On Friday night I cashed out $1100 at the Wynn poker room and thought I put the money in my wallet but when I woke up the next day I couldn't find the money. I haven't found it since so I assumed I lost it...doh! On Saturday I took a piece of my buddy in a $150-$300 mix game at Aria and won $1500 for myself. Yesterday I lost a few hundred in mtts and mix games. I did bet Green Bay and Pittsburgh and won both my bets. Also I bought a big chunk of my friend in a few tournaments and he managed to get 2nd in one for $14k. I had 50% of him in that one so the day was pretty good.

For myself in poker it's been going ok. After having a -$9k session earlier in the week I've managed to win it all back. I'm in kind of a rush at this moment, preparing to go skiing/snowboarding w/ a few buddies in Brianhead, Utah, so I'll post snapshots when I get back.

I did go to the UNLV-New Mexico college basketball game here in town on Saturday and bet UNLV -9 which lost. That's ok because I got to witness Phil Hellmuth get introduced to the crowd and get booed nonstop. He was asked to shoot a layup (made), free throw (missed 3 in a row), and a 3 pter (never had a chance since he couldn't make a ft). So I consider my experience of losing a couple hundred on my bet and seeing Hellmuth get booed and suck so bad on the court a wash (break even).

PCA HU Hand

2011-01-18T23:08:00.000-08:00

So I was watching the PCA main event final table on tv the other night when this very cool hand went down. Before I get to it, I thought it was cool to see the entire final table broadcast on tv (w/ a 1 hr delay) and James Hartigan and Daniel Negreanu did a good job covering the action. Anyway I copied and pasted the hand from another site and I give my thoughts on it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Galen Hall entered heads-up play in the 2011 PCA Main Event with 66 big blinds to Chris Oliver’s 167 big blinds, and in one of the first hands he made an epic lay-down that saved his tournament life and propelled him to victory.

Hall opened to 450,000 on the button with and Oliver defended in the big blind with . The flop came , giving Hall an open-ended straight draw and Oliver a pair of deuces. Oliver check-called 575,000 from Hall and the turn brought the giving Oliver trips and removing Hall’s ace outs. Both players checked. The river was the , giving Oliver a full house and Hall the wheel, and Oliver sneakily checked to Hall who bet 2 million. Oliver thought for a moment before check-raising all-in for around 9 million and Hall went deep into the tank. To the astonishment of all, Hall mucked his straight.

“We have a lot of history online,” Hall said about the hand after the tournament. “His shove looked like it was for value.”

Hall never gave up despite being short-stacked, and four hours after the lay-down he found himself with the chip lead and eventually the title. His river-fold will go in the history books as one of the best of all time, especially considering the circumstances and results.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I was watching it I wasn't sure if Hall was going to call or fold the river but I knew it was a super tough decision, especially w/ what was on the line (PCA ME title + $2.3 mil). Anyway after I saw it I thought it'd be an interesting hand to talk about but when I saw Hall talk about the hand after he won the tournament, I thought he provided a lot of valuable insight that would help other poker players (that I could share).

First let me express my thoughts on the hand. I think the hand was well played by both guys except for the river overshove by Oliver, but I didn't think the overshove was that bad. I know he was hoping to end it right there and if Hall had a straight (which he did), there's a good chance he calls all in. I think, given what I was sensing on the table at the time, that Oliver should just make a standard value raise to about 5-6 mil (I think he overshoved for 11mil total) and get a call from Hall and have a commanding 45mil to 4mil lead. Instead Hall folded and Oliver had a 40mil to 9mil lead and w/ blinds at 100k-200k there was plenty of play for Hall to try to get back in the match. That was one of those times where one got too greedy, and it ended up costing him (granted Hall might've won even down 10-1 in chips but that seems like a much bigger mountain to climb than being down 4-1 in chips).

Anyway I think Hall's hand is more interesting and brings up a lot of good poker concepts to talk about, notably the river fold. Everything up to the river was "standard" (I guess he could fire the turn as well, but in mtts chips are very valuable so you don't want to be barreling off like in cash games...you need to be a lot more selective in mtts). So Hall talks about his river fold and explains why (w/ lots of good poker stuff in it directly and indirectly).

He says he bet 2million because he felt like Oliver had an inelastic calling range, meaning Oliver was going to fold or call regardless of any bet amount. There is some truth in that, in that Oliver probably has trips or Ax a lot there and will call any bet amount (or fold to any bet if he had bp or a missed draw) but he could've held a 5 or a mid pp where Oliver would've had an elastic range. So I don't mind Hall's near pot bet at the river given his read.

Now what really impressed me was not only Hall's laydown but why he laid it down. When Oliver shoves the river his range is polarized to nut straight, boats or air (he'll just call w/ the same straight, doing anything else would be dumb). Hall knew this and even though a straight is a huge hand in hu play (absolute strength is strong as well), he realized the relative strength of his hand was weak given the river overshove. How did he realize this?

Well he says when he bets big at the river, Oliver should know that he has a polarized betting range as well...to straights, boats, or air. So if Hall has a polarized range, then Oliver only needs to raise small to get Hall to fold the air portion of his range because Hall will probably call almost any raise w/ a straight. Yet Oliver goes for the massive overshove. So the thinking from Hall goes something like this, "well he should know my range is polarized w/ my big river bet so any raise will get me to fold air so he should raise small if he was bluffing, yet he's overshoving all in, and since any raise will get me to fold my air hands, he must think I have a straight and might be willing to call all in to his overshove, therefore he is overshoving for value w/ the nut straight or a boat so I must fold". Now that was some really impressive deduction on Hall's part and it all makes sense.

As you can see what seems like a tough spot can actually be broken down and the correct decision can be made if you really think about it, like Hall did. One thing he never talked about, which I think is critical in times like these, is the pressure or lack of focus that happens in such a big spot like this. I bet most poker players call off here either because they don't break it down correctly like Hall did, or they just feel tired or get antsy to try to double up (and bust). So that was impressive that Hall didn't succumb to the pressure or the moment (of trying to double up because he has such a huge hand himself).

The reason I bring this hand up is for a lot of educational reasons. Besides applying elasticity, inelasticity (not sure if that's a word really), polarization, betsizing, and reads, this hand shows how vital it is to stay in the moment and not get caught up trying to double up (or some other mistake). Imagine if we all took a step back when it was our turn in a hand and broke down the hand as best as we could (and ignored all the impulses to do something irrational), we'd win a lot more money.

2011 Goals

2011-01-11T02:03:00.000-08:00

My biggest leak in poker has always been complacency and laziness. The 1st few years of my poker career that wasn't the case as I grinded 30-40hrs/week consistently. I guess most people like to play a lot early on because it's fun and seems like a good way to make money whenever you want (given that you're a winning player) and I was no different. Also I was starting to build my roll and net worth and support a family along the way (w/ help from my wife who also played poker) so I put in the volume to provide a good life for us and reach some goals.

Well once we had built up a good bankroll, accumulated a respectable net worth, started investing for our future including our retirement funds, and bought our 2nd house I started feeling like I could take time off whenever I wanted. I think I took that too far at times though. It might have been some cockiness on my part though, which is bad. I just felt like I can resume playing anytime and expect to win lots of money. That isn't always the case though because we all know how tough poker can be at times.

This is the main reason I've stayed at midstakes, primarily nl400 to nl1k the last 3-4 years. I played enough and won enough to maintain our standard of living but never played more to build my poker bankroll to take shots at higher stakes, even though I think I can do ok at the bigger games. The trade off is that I got to pursue my hobbies and spend some quality time w/ my family, but there were also lots of times where I wasted time watching tv, browsing the internet, etc. that could've been used to play poker.

Well no more! Wait, I tried this last year and set a monetary goal of $1 million dollars and failed to a degree. I ended up playing 15hrs/wk which is up from the 13hrs/wk from the previous year. Well I think I figured out a better way to motivate myself to play as much as I can and hopefully build my roll and take shots at bigger games. My game plan is to go after supernova elite on Pokerstars.

Now I know this is really difficult to do, especially for somebody like me w/ a family. There were a little over 300 people that achieved sne on 2010 so it's not impossible. I already calculated that I would need to avg about 30hrs/wk playing the games I am playing now to get it (less hrs at higher stakes and in limit games). That would be doubling my hrs from last year which on paper doesn't seem hard but irl is.

I'm also planning on playing a few more live tournaments, especially the ones in Las Vegas and possibly some in Los Angeles. I think I have what it takes to win a major live event and I'm going to give myself as many chances as I can afford (within my means of course). I will probably sell pieces of myself at a markup because we all know how expensive it gets playing a bunch of $5k and $10k events. For now I'm planning on going to Los Angeles in February to play in the LAPC events.

I am not going to set any monetary goal for this year because I don't think it helps and can actually be a detriment. I'm not really susceptible to it but I can see how somebody can feel pressured to win and play less than optimally under those conditions. I'm just going to focus on putting in the hrs and playing the best I can at all times (this should be the mindset for all professional poker players though). I will continue to post my monthly results because I know readers like to see that, and that allows me to be honest w/ myself (if I'm not doing well), plus let's admit it, I get a certain satisfaction when I make an x amount of money in a month and get to share it (who doesn't though). If I ever start making 7 figures on a consistent annual basis then I may stop posting but that is very unlikely.

I'm going to work on my game some as well. I'm definitely an advocate of always working on one's game and I want to make sure I'm at least staying w/ the curve of the new generation of poker players, and hopefully I'll be able to stay ahead of that curve. I don't want to get into how I work on my game but I will be working hard on getting better. I do want to improve my PLO game and have been dabbling in it this year. I'm planning on playing a lot more PLO this year. I feel like the games are softer than NL in general and I'm an advocate of learning as many games as possible. Specifically I've been working on 3betting ranges in PLO lately.

Also I want to contribute however I can to improve Cardrunners. I am an employee of the company and want to take my position seriously and make my bosses happy. I'm still working on my video making and narrative skills. It's definitely not easy to produce videos and I'm going to work on producing the best ones that I can.

Along the same lines I'm planning on cohosting CashPlays w/ Jeremiah Smith (broadcast on CR and PokerRoad). I really enjoy my gig there and I get to share my experiences and knowledge of poker on the show. I've gotten to know Jeremiah better over the months and he's a really good guy (goes w/o saying I guess w/ him having been a pastor...talk about a career change...pastor to poker player-poker host). Remember anybody is free to email us and ask us for potential guests or send in hand histories for us to break down.

Random PokerRoad story...few years ago Jeannie and I were in line buying a snack during the WSOP at the Rio, Barry G was standing behind Jeannie and started hitting on her (talking nicely and all to her, so I assume he was hitting on her) while he was oblivious to the fact that I was w/ her (as her husband..in his defense I'm sure he didn't even notice me). I guess I should take it as a compliment he was hitting on her? Also he owns PokerRoad so I hope there's no repercussions from me writing this, and if so, oh well . :)

I guess for poker that is it but I'll leave my mind open for whatever new may pop up. After all last year I was only shooting for $1million but ended up getting a cohosting poker gig and became an instructor at CR. As for coaching I'm not sure if I want to do it yet. My 2011 itinerary seems pretty full but again, we'll see.

Since this is the new year, I, like many others, want to get in good shape and maintain good health. I want to get to the gym at least 2x/wk (there's a really nice one that's part of my community right behind my house so it's even easier to get to one) and I want to try to eat healthier (much healthier...lol). This might actually be harder than my poker goals but might be an even more important goal.

Now I set all my poker goals but poker will never be my 1st commitment. That will be my family (and as a spiritual person, God). In a perfect world I'll achieve all my poker goals and get in great shape but more importantly make everybody around me happy. In 2011 I'm hoping to live in a perfect world. Gl to everybody in 2011!

2010 Recap

2011-01-05T15:28:00.000-08:00

Before I get to my 2010 recap let me do a quick recap of December. I started the month off playing a $10k WPT event and cashing in it for $13,725. Unfortunately that capped off a weak month in mtts where I played a bunch of online mtts for once and only cash a couple of times. In cash games it was just as bad, if not worse...

I played 41hrs and ran pretty bad as evidenced by the graph. My all in ev lies at $6141 while my actual $ won was -$314. Overall after rakeback I made $1905...not exactly the way I wanted to finish 2010.

Now on to recap my 2010. I guess the best way to describe my year is underwhelming. It wasn't a disappointment because I did set a lofty monetary goal of $1million and got about 1/4th the way there. I thought I made more and recently said I made 1/3rd of my goal on my recent CashPlays podcast but I was estimating and I was off . For the year I made $264,500 in poker. The breakdown is on the right of the blog. Sure it wasn't close but hey let's not kid ourselves, that's a lot of money.

2010 Graph 1st...

2010 snapshot of my online NL cash game results for 2010...

A detailed breakdown on # of players...

I am ok w/ my overall winrate (in PTBB) at around 2.65 BB/100 for a few reasons. One being that the games are supposedly the toughest they've ever been. Also the fact that I play 15-16 tables at once and can maintain a 2.65BB/100 doing so is pretty good. Finally I was not very selective when it came to game selection and pretty much played on whatever tables were going. Sure I might have chosen a softer table when I had 2 options but for the most part really didn't seek out softer games. Also I played everybody when it came to hu and am proud of holding my own considering this was the 1st year I really started playing hu.

A couple of observations regarding my HEM...I went through all my hands at $5/$10 and felt like I ran bad and actually had my worst run of the year (in April) while playing $5/$10 only. Yes the games are tougher but I feel like I can win at 2+ BB/100 at $5/$10 w/ normal variance. I do think I will need to cut down on tables if I want to maximize my earning power at $5/$10+ since the games are tougher. I did not show my PLO HEM because I had minimal hands at the game. I played 2772 hands at PLO stakes ranging from $1/$2 to $3/$6 and won $2204 for a winrate of 24.5BB/100 which is obviously unsustainable. I will be looking forward to studying the game and getting better at it in 2011. I will talk about my 2011 goals and outlook next time.

Also I played 760 hrs and won at a rate of $253/hr, or $295/hr if I include rakeback. For sake of simplicity I will say my hrly for 2010 was $300 which I'm happy w/. Now let's talk about what I am disappointed w/ and most of that is the volume I put in. Sure I played 720k hands online and that is a lot but I really can and should be playing more than 15hrs/wk in cash games. Now I did play a bunch of tournaments and I'm not exactly sure how much time I invested in them but I really should be able to double my hrs/wk in cash games (maybe even triple them if I scale down on mtts and push myself). Again next time I'll go into how I'm going to approach 2011 and find a way to at least double my volume from last year.

W/ my results out of the way, I'm gonna mention some things that happened to me in 2010, mostly all positive. I did start my own blog and thank everybody that spent time reading it and followed my life/career in 2010. I also expanded my network in poker after having spent most of the past few years sitting behind my monitor grinding away w/o really trying to get to know others. I never felt alone though because I did have friends outside of online poker and I have my family that is always here w/ me. I do think it's important to have a good network of friends that understand poker and play it to the degree you play it.

I met a few guys over the summer that I play vs. online and it was cool to put faces on players I play vs. on a daily basis. Granted almost all of them were 10-15 years younger than me but that is the sign of the times I guess. Also I met Jeremiah Smith during the summer, at church of all places, and I duped him into thinking I can make a good cohost on his CashPlays podcast...actually he asked me but still a great dupe job on my part (probably had a lot to do w/ the extravagant lobster/crab/steak dinner we hosted for him, his wife, and a few of his friends).

A little bit later I pulled an even bigger dupe job by convincing Cardrunners management I knew how to teach poker and make nl videos. Seriously it was a big decision I made and I feel good about it. I had been holding back on joining an instructional site for a couple of years and finally decided to take the plunge. Why not w/ the biggest site and w/ guys that know what they're doing and do a great job putting out a great product (man I hope they're read this and I get brownie points for all the kiss ass here).

As a professional poker player I'm going to experience the ups and downs that come w/ this job and there are a lot more ups and downs in poker than in just about any other job. One of the early high points was being the biggest winner at $2/$4nl across all sites in January. I made about 100 buyins in January and PTR had an article of who the biggest winners were across all sites and they had me topping the $2/$4 games. Next I started grinding $3/$6 and $5/$10 and continued to do well, capped by a +$17k day (more like a sick 3 hour session) in March. Sidenote (and brag) I won $100k at $5/$10 back in March 2008 so that was another month I won 100 buyins in a month, but the games were a little softer back then. I guess March is annually a good month for me!

Well along w/ good runs comes bad runs and boy did I run bad in April. I went from $12k winner to $27k loser in 2 weeks but managed to lose only $12k for the month, which turned out to be my worst month of the year. I had a decent May and was ready for the WSOP.

I ended up going in w/ high aspirations, mostly because I felt like I was one of the favorites in every event I entered. Like every poker player I dreamed of winning a bracelet. Well I played 17 events and cashed in 5 including the main event, which isn't shabby but none of my cashes were very significant. My largest cash was in the main event for about $24k. I did show a profit at the WSOP which most poker players won't do. Actually this was the 4th of the past 6 years that I showed a profit just off WSOP events so I have a fairly good track record in the WSOP although the bracelet still eludes.

During this time I didn't play much online, but played some live, which is a great time for it. Anyway I resumed online poker in August and had a good month clearing $62k, helped by my best mtt score of the year when I won $25k (3rd place finish) in a $540 tournament at the Hard Rock of all places.

Well, as it happened the last 2 to 3 years, complacency took over the final 4 months of the year and I jogged, well more like walked, to the finish line. Part of that had to due w/ football season and the holidays but mostly it was my fault. I'm hoping to not get into that state of mind again...the scientific term for this condition is laziness. I did win about $25k the final 4 months but the volume was just not there.

In terms of life outside of poker it was mixed. The family was great and I really do have a great wife and kid and love the fact that they support me to the fullest (I guess it helps that I do well at poker so they can spend the money). I have a great core of friends that I hang out w/ and some of them did well in poker. For somebody that lives in Vegas, and "gambles" for a living, I'm blessed to have a good group of friends that are genuine.

The downer part outside of poker is that I was pretty bad when it came to my health, notably improving it. I started off the year w/ a bang, going to the gym 2-3x/week for 3-4 months then the WSOP came around and I fell off the wagon. I'm sure lots of you guys can relate w/ me, but it's hard keeping a routine every week when it comes to exercising. I'm hoping to get back into a regular exercise routine and also looking to eat healthier (more organic, drink lots of water, no sodas..well maybe diet only, more fish, vegetables, less shellfish...damn the Vegas buffets!).

Also I had a profitable year when it came to ventures outside of poker. I won in sportsbetting overall and did well in fantasy football. I lost in pit games, mostly craps, but it was minimal compared to what I made overall. I think I lost a little bit backing people in tournaments though, which is unusual because I tend to run really good when I buy pieces of people (I've won $50k, $25k, and $20k in the past taking pieces of people in single tournaments so all my poker playing friends think I'm good luck and ask me to buy pieces).

Finally I just want to say I write about poker in general and offer some advice from time to time, just so people know it's not all about how I am doing in poker. However poker does not encompass my entire life and it probably shouldn't encompass anybody's entire life. Also I like to think I lead a well balanced life where poker is a means of providing for my family and living a comfortable life and I really do believe that's the best way. Anyway I thank everybody that reads my blog and continue to do so and hope you guys learn from my mistakes, conquests, and experiences to possibly enhance your poker ventures or even your lives.

NYE at Palms

2011-01-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

I was not planning on going out for New Year's eve. Actually I was planning on doing what I've been doing for the past 8yrs while I've lived in Vegas. That is just having a quiet celebration w/ my wife and kid in our house and taking in the fireworks over the Vegas strip from our balcony. Also I was planning on grinding a little w/ one of my 2011 goals being achieving supernova elite. Well my kid was staying w/ her cousins in Los Angeles and my buddy Joe T sent me a last minute text saying he got Jeannie and me VIP passes at the Palms for the NYE celebration.

We've always avoided the strip during NYE because it gets closed off to all automobiles and it becomes a zoo w/ thousands of people walking shoulder to shoulder on the strip. Well Palms happens to be just off the strip so I knew we were able to drive directly to it. Once we got there there was literally no parking available so I had to park across the street at a bank's parking lot.

Anyway we get our VIP wristbands and get into Palm's primary nightclub Rain. We were happy to see that we got our own booth. For those of you that don't know, booths in nightclubs are expensive to rent out. I remember spending $3k on one in LAX (at Luxor) on my wife's birthday last year. A lot of that is paying for the alcohol which they overcharge you immensely for. For her b-day we had to order a minimum of 2 bottles and we ended up getting 2 bottles of grey goose for $300-$400 a bottle. Yeah, you can get the same bottle for 1/10th the price at any liquor store.

Anyway this was a booth in a hit nightclub on NYE so I was pleasantly surprised that we were able to hang out in a booth all night. Besides the alcohol hot girls bring, there is plenty of space and sofas to sit down on. If you aren't fortunate to get a booth you have to spend the whole time standing up in the club, not to mention being jammed in space.

I guess Joe's roommate's new gf had some hookups and got the booth. I'm not sure of the price but I heard somewhere between $5k and $10k. Also Rain had Oakenfold as their DJ for the night. I'm not sure who he is but I heard he's some world famous DJ. Well we ended up drinking, partying, and ringing in the New Year's there and had a blast. My wife and I are not much of drinkers but we'll shoot down a glass or 2 on special occasions and I guess NYE would qualify as one.

Somewhat funny story of the night...walking out of restroom, some guy asks me if I have a light, I say no, he says you sure, I say yeah but my buddy might have one...I turn to my buddy, he says he asked you for white, not a light, I say wtf is that, he says it's coke, I think really? Do I look like a %^$& coke head?!

Anyway besides talking about my awesome NYE night out, I thought this would give me a chance to post some pics for those of you that wanted to put a face on myself, my wife, and some Vegas friends (along w/ pics of the scene last night)...

The booth awaits...

Rain...

Joe's fiance getting drunk on Fiji...

Oakenfold dancer electrifying the crowd...

Oakenfold the DJ...

Hemma and his gf Laurie...

Joe, Jeannie, and me...

Yeah I run good in life :)

On balcony of Moon, another nightclub/bar at Palms...

Hope everybody had a great New Year's eve!

Next time I'll recap my 2010 and talk about my goals and outlook for 2011.

Comes down to this (in fantasy football)

2010-12-26T23:14:00.000-08:00

So my 3dime team is down 25 pts w/ Colston and Vick left vs my opponent's Philly def. It's a .5ppr + 4pts for pass tds and 6pts for rush tds in case anybody wanted to sweat along w/ me. Not much at stake...just a $3k buyin 14team league championship + $14k for the win or $4k for 2nd place. I did bring a partner before the season started because of the massive sidebets that go on in the league so I'll be splitting the win.

It's funny how the Minn-Phi game was postponed til Tuesday. I know Michael Vick will determine many ff championships across the country and he will determine whether I win mine + an extra $10k or not. If he sucks he may get hated more than he did for doing bad things to dogs (well in the fantasy football world at least).

Need him to become the (excuse the bad taste)..

I'll update whether I won or not after Tues. night's game.

The chase for SNE?

2010-12-22T11:55:00.000-08:00

I've been mulling goals to make myself for 2011. Given that I found reasons to do other things than play poker the last couple of months (mostly because of family staying w/ us and it being football season), one of the goals has to involve some kind of volume reached. Well I've been thinking of moving over to Stars from FTP for a few reasons and what better volume goal than trying to achieve supernova elite on Stars.

Besides sne, I think playing on Stars is more logical for me because there are slightly more games at mid to higher stakes and I multitable well so being able to play as many as 24 tables at once gives me an option should I choose to add even more tables than I currently play now (12-15). Also the rakeback, well the equivalent of it which is fpps that can be traded in for cash, will be much higher if and when I achieve sne. Also I've been hearing the new FTP rakeback system, black card, and FTP store sucks.

The only con I see is that I prefer the software on FTP vs Stars but I think I'm alright w/ mass tabling w/ the Stars software. I've been dabbling w/ cascading and stacking 20 tables (mostly nl400 so I don't make more expensive mistakes at the higher stakes) the last couple of days and it hasn't gone well at all. Well I made a couple of thousand dollars but I made numerous mistakes, some of it outside of my control (or maybe it's due to my inefficiency cascading 20 tables). I timed out numerous times when I didn't react in time to tables that were hidden behind the other tables (I won't have this problem when I'm tiling tables) and that also led me to acting too quickly w/o thinking which in turn led me to make bad decisions.

Full Tilt, $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 9 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

MP3: $914.10 (228.5 bb)

CO: $425.50 (106.4 bb)

BTN: $1,114.40 (278.6 bb)

SB: $107.50 (26.9 bb)

BB: $400 (100 bb)

UTG+1: $441.30 (110.3 bb)

Hero (UTG+2): $619.40 (154.9 bb)

MP1: $55.50 (13.9 bb)

MP2: $437 (109.3 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+2 with 3 3

UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $12, 3 folds, CO raises to $36, 3 folds, Hero calls $24

Flop: ($78) 3 5 4 (2 players)

Hero checks, CO bets $50, Hero folds

Results: $128 pot ($3 rake)

Final Board: 3 5 4

CO mucked and won $125 ($39 net)

Hero mucked 3 3 and lost (-$36 net)

Normally 33 is a fold preflop but there were reasons I called at the time, but in no way was I planning on folding on the flop...just timed out by accident. Another...

Full Tilt, $2/$4 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

MP: $693.90 (173.5 bb)

CO: $455.60 (113.9 bb)

BTN: $594.40 (148.6 bb)

Hero (SB): $402 (100.5 bb)

BB: $845.60 (211.4 bb)

UTG: $348.40 (87.1 bb)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8 Q

UTG calls $4, 3 folds, Hero completes, BB checks

Flop: ($12) Q 6 6 (3 players)

Hero checks, BB checks, UTG bets $8, Hero calls $8, BB folds

Turn: ($28) 4 (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG bets $28, Hero calls $28

River: ($84) 7 (2 players)

Hero checks, UTG bets $308.40 and is all-in, Hero calls $308.40

Results: $700.80 pot ($3 rake)

Final Board: Q 6 6 4 7

Hero mucked 8 Q and lost (-$348.40 net)

UTG showed 4 4 and won $697.80 ($349.40 net)

Now this hand was even more of a disaster. W/ the tables cascaded and other tables awaiting my action I felt a need to act in haste and called pretty quickly w/o thinking much. This is almost always a fold at the river. When a limper (indicative of a less than avg. player at 6max) overshoves 3.5x at the river here a Q hi flush is almost never good.

Because of that I'm going to change my pc setup from 1 30" and 2 20" monitors to 2 30" monitors to see if I can play 20-24 tables tiled across the 2 monitors. I'm curious to hear from others that mass table and how you guys go about it.

Current set up...

As you can see I can fit 15 tables tiled across but w/ 2 30"'s I should be able to fit 24 tables tiled across if I choose to.

I guess I should try to get to platinumstar before the start of the new year (currently a goldstar) so I can accumulate fpps faster. Maybe I won't need to play 20+ tables since I'll be playing nl400+. At these stakes it requires focus so it might not be the smartest thing to do to play so many tables. I don't want to hurt my overall earning power at the expense of trying to achieve sne. I will talk more about my actual gameplan and specific goals when the new year begins.

Finally I did check out Cardrunner's Ronfar's latest video where he discusses what it takes to go for sne and he gives some good pointers. In case anybody was also thinking about it, you might want to check it out.

Now off to the Boise St.-Utah bowl game at Boyd Stadium (Unlv's stadium). I took Utah +16 and I bought tickets on the Utah side so if anybody is watching the game it might be easy to spot me. I'll probably be the only asian guy among the Utah cheering section.

The week that was

2010-12-16T23:35:00.000-08:00

I've had a pretty eventful week (for me anyway). Started the weekend w/ a bang by participating in the Cardrunners' 5th anniversary $5 rebuy tournament on Saturday. Several CR pros had bounties on their heads including myself. I gave away a free lesson but the guy that busted me has yet to claim it...wonder if that is saying something...lol. I was fortunate to bust a fellow CR pro ChipaHoya who was giving away a cake...yes a cake. I received it the other day and took a picture of it. Wow it came in a big box and was expecting it to be a big cake but apparently it was wrapped heavily and had ice packs in it to keep it cool so it turned out to be a lot smaller than I thought it would but nonetheless it was good....thanks Chip!

Anyway I ended up cashing in the tournament and fortunately I busted out when I did (not often you hear that statement) because I needed to attend the Las Vegas Wranglers' game that was starting shortly. They are a minor league ice hockey team here in Las Vegas. I needed to attend because my kid was part of her school choir singing the national anthem and some popular Christmas songs (during intermission). Well after the Wranglers scored their 1st goal people starting throwing teddy bears into the rink. It was quite a site...pic here...

Apparently it was toys for tots night or something like that. Obviously I thought it was very cool for the team to do that and had I known I would've brought a big teddy bear to toss myself (or maybe a note of me giving away a free poker lesson and my contact info since I have an unused offer).

Sunday was obviously football all day. I was in contention for playoff spots across my 3 leagues and unfortunately 2 of my teams choked and missed the playoffs. At least my 3dime team made the playoffs and is the #1 seed. I did take a pretty sick beat in one fantasy league where I was up 50pts going into Monday Night Football and had AP and Joe Flacco vs other teams' Matt Schaub, AJ, Sidney Rice, and Minn defense. I was probably at least a 10-1 fav and we had a total pts bet for $500 w/ me having the 50 pt lead and lost when Schaub and AJ went bonkers.

Now this league is the 1dime league comprised of mid - high stakes online regs and I think I lost to a certain guy I play vs. on a regular basis in my games. What's significant about this guy? Well this guy played a hand vs me a couple of months ago at nl600 where we got in $600 each w/ AK vs AK preflop and we ran it twice and he won both!! He had AK of spades and flop rolled off w/ 1 spade both times and both times it came runner runner spade. Yeah I guess you could say that guy owns me in everything.

Also on Sunday I played a multitude of tournaments for once (been awhile because of NFL) including the nl hu miniftops. I managed to beat my 1st 2 opponents fairly easily then lost to the biggest donk in my 3rd round matchup. I had him down 5-1 in chips and somehow he came back and won. It was also tilting because that was the bubble round..if you win that round you cash. Anyway I find out later that Kristy Arnett of Pokernews won it. She covers tournaments around the world and I didn't know she played online poker but apparently she's been getting coaching and playing 6max nl cash games online. What's significant of this? Well besides the fact that she's female, attractive and just won a nice tournament for $31k, I got to interview her for our podcast Cashplays (look for that soon). I really came away impressed by her knowledge of poker but unfortunately she would not give me back my buyin for that tournament when I asked. Side note...asian women are awesome at poker and at life...Barry G and Doublefly (his blog link on the right) know what I'm talking about and that's why I married one ;) . Kristy pictured...

I had to hurry to my kid's school after that interview to watch my kid sing in her choir for her school's annual Christmas play. Obviously as a dad it was awesome watching my kid be in it. I did get her Guitar Hero last year so it's good to see that she put that game to good use (improving her vocals). Now only if she would stop asking me for a real guitar (or maybe I will give in to that this Christmas). I managed to get a few good snapshots of the play including this one...

As for poker I managed to find time to play a little (but not too much). I made a couple of videos for CR where I played some nl1k 6max and hu. The hu match was interesting in that the guy got up $2700 or so on me but the whole time I felt like it was a matter of time before I beat him, and beat him I did. The videos are available on CR again for those that have a subscription and are interested in checking them out.

Also I played a hu match w/ my CashPlays cohost Jeremiah Smith the other day. We did it because he likes giving away money...I'm kidding...we did it because we thought it would be cool since we're cohosts on a podcast that focuses on cash games and maybe we can make a video or two out of it to share w/ our listeners and CR members. I went in thinking of making it a live session but after we played I think it's better to make it a leakfinder series where I help out Jeremiah and point out some of his mistakes and how to go about fixing them. The match lasted a couple of hours but it will be a 10 part series because of all the numerous screw ups Jeremiah made (zing!)...no it will probably be a 2 part series I'm thinking right now and I really think they will be informative. I won't reveal how the match ended up other than that Jeremiah might as well have played w/ his cards face up ;) .

Anyway since I haven't talked about poker much lately here is an interesting hand I played...

Full Tilt, $5/$10 No Limit Hold'em Cash, 6 Players

Poker Tools by CardRunners - Hand Details

MP: $1,000 (100 bb)

CO: $2,169 (216.9 bb)

BTN: $543 (54.3 bb)

SB: $3,963 (396.3 bb)

BB: $1,000 (100 bb)

Hero (UTG): $1,000 (100 bb)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 8 8

Hero raises to $30, MP raises to $95, CO folds, BTN calls $95, 2 folds, Hero calls $65

Flop: ($300) 9 8 8 (3 players)

Hero checks, MP checks, BTN checks

Turn: ($300) A (3 players)

Hero checks, MP bets $150, BTN folds, Hero calls $150

River: ($600) 7 (2 players)

Hero checks, MP checks

Results: $600 pot ($3 rake)

Final Board: 9 8 8 A 7

MP showed A K and lost (-$245 net)

Hero showed 8 8 and won $597 ($352 net)

I don't want to get into too much detail here because villain is a fellow CR pro and we have history and definitely some kind of metagame going but wow is his river check back sick. He tanked down to a few seconds and I knew at the time he had a big diamond, possibly AQ w/ the Q of diamond (because the K of diamond would surely bet) and he was thinking whether betting had any value vs. me because he knows I probably won't call w/ much worse (even though sometimes I would) while I could check/shove w/ better. I was pretty shocked to see his hand tbh and I think I get an opponent to bet that hand 99% of the time (so I can check/shove all in).

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everybody!

Interesting Fantasy Football EV Spot

2010-12-10T21:13:00.000-08:00

This is for the fantasy football aficionados out there. So I mentioned I'm in a $3k buyin fantasy football league and we have sick side action going in it. My buddy Joe has a team as well and faced this interesting dilemma yesterday. He has a $15k total points bet his team vs. Ben's team w/ this week being the last week points count toward the bet (playoff weeks are not included).

W/ his team trailing Ben's team by 38 pts, Ben offered to let him buy out for $12k w/o this week counting. The scoring system in this league is .5 ppr w/ passing tds 4pts and all other tds 6pts (rest is standard eg 10 yds rush/rec 1pt, 25 yds pass 1pt, to's -2pts, Yahoo league).

So I think this is the way to look at it...Joe can agree and save $3k or he can risk the $3k to try to win $27k (the $12k owed + $15k if his team beats Ben's in the final week). So basically he's getting 9-1 on his money.

I guess it helps to know the teams so here they are (w/ matchups)

Joe's team:...............................Ben's team:

QB Eli Manning @ Minn.....................QB Matt Ryan @ Caro
WR Larry Fitzgerald vs. Denv..............WR Wes Welker @ Chi
WR Reggie Wayne @ Tenn....................WR Hines Ward vs. Cin
WR Nate Burleson vs. GB...................WR Steve Breaston vs. Denv
RB Ronnie Brown @ NYJ.....................RB Fred Jackson vs. Clev
RB BenJarvus Green-Ellis @ Chi............RB Brian Westbrook vs. Sea
TE Tony Gonzalez @ Caro...................TE Jason Witten vs. Phi
W/R Mike Goodson vs. Atl..................W/R Randy Moss vs. Indy
K Billy Cundiff @ Hous....................K David Akers @ Dal
DEF San Diego vs. KC......................DEF NYG @ Minn

I'm curious to see if anybody think it's good to buy out for $12k and save the $3k or risk the $3k and try to win $27k. He asked me about it and I thought it was very close actually. Being the gamblers we are, I said I leaned toward letting it ride (plus having the sweats are fun).

His team has tough matchups and saving the $3k if his team loses won't affect him too much emotionally. If somehow he accepted and his team ended up outscoring Ben's team for the season costing him $27k he'll be on life tilt.

All that aside, which side do you like here? Take the $3k (and take the $12k loss) or risk it to win $27k?

Few more points...
-Joe's team has never outscored Ben's team by 38pts+ in a single week after 13 weeks
-Since they each had a player go last night they may renegotiate...Wayne had 12 pts, Moss 0...so Joe is trailing by 26 pts now. Keep in mind Moss was not projected to do much and Wayne had a very subpar performance, slightly below what he was projected.
-This is a 14 team league so there is nobody really left on waivers that is considered an upgrade over any of the starters
-Joe can substitute Ryan Mathews, Laurent Robinson, or Michael Jenkins for a starter but I don't think any of these guys are upgrades

Oh, as for me my team is in 1st place and a good favorite to win total points for the league and sweep all total points bets...that's just how I roll :)

WPT Wrap Up (HH's/Observations/Thoughts/Girls)

2010-12-07T10:31:00.000-08:00

Before I detail my final day which was day 3, I'll provide a link to a summary of my 1st 2 days of the $10k Bellagio WPT event that I wrote in my Cardrunners blog. I usually crosspost between my CR blog and here but elected to just leave my day 1 and 2 exploits on CR because they had an interest in how I did.

http://www.cardrunners.com/blog/Nicolak/wpt-10k-update

The above pic was taken right before the tournament started and had Mike Sexton, Jack Mclelland (tournament director) and the "Royal Flush girls" in it. Why did I show the pic besides it being eye candy? Well the girls were walking around all the time in the tournament room which made it hard to focus on poker sometimes, esp. the 3rd girl from the left in the black.

So I busted in 56th and cashed for $13,725. I have to admit I was highly disappointed even though I got deep and cashed. Bellagio has a weird payout structure where they pay 100 if a big buyin tournament gets over 400 entrants. This one had 440 or so and 100 got paid. I've heard some of the "name" tournament players complaining about it, probably because they're confident they can win more mtts or finish higher than most so theoretically it's costing them money. On the flip side it gives back money to more people so they can stay in action and keep games going instead of a few people getting most of the money. Also having a big buy in tournament that pays out 25%-30% (vs the standard 10%) probably will attract more entrants so that'll increase the overall prize pool while making the tournament a little softer.

I tend to think paying out a slightly higher % is better overall. I even think I'm one of the favorites to win any buy in tournament so having a flatter payout probably hurts me a little more. Even so I think having money distributed to more people is better for the overall landscape of poker.

As for this actual tournament, if you didn't read my previous post about my 1st 2 days you might not know I made it to day 3 w/ a pretty decent stack. We started the day w/ 140 left and as mentioned before 100 get in the money. W/ the blinds at 1k-2k and a 160k stack I had plenty of play and did not need to gamble or take flips for my stack, especially when I felt like I was one of the better players left in the tournament.

On my starting table were Dan Shak (who I had played w/ all day, seemed like a very nice guy, but played a very tight straightforward style), John Hennigan, Todd Terry, a guy on his left that was seriously the most dead ringer for Tony Romo in America (I really wanted to take a picture of him but felt it'd be rude to ask), a few unknowns inc. a young kid that had a ton of chips.

Anyway I tried an early light 3bet to try to pick up a few chips and set a tone if I got called and had to show my hand but got 4bet and had to fold (he showed me Aces..nice timing on my part). Then I realized the kid w/ all the chips started raising almost every hand, and he should have because nobody was playing back at him. I was essentially card dead, and for me that means not even seeing an Ax, Kx suited, broadways, sc's, 98o type hands so I didn't really try to combat him.

Finally he opr to 5k utg, I flat w/ a mid pp, Hennigan 3bets to 17500, kid 4bets to 54kish, I fold, Hennigan calls, flop T73r, kid shoves, Hennigan w/ 80k behind snap calls w/ 55 (great read), kid rolls over A9o, turn T riv 7, gg Hennigan. Yes I would've tripled up because my pp was slightly higher and wouldn't have been counterfeited but I didn't want to risk 100bbs and my mtt life to find out if my mid pp was good there. I was planning on calling 3 streets if the board rolled out pretty safely w/ no ace or king if Hennigan didn't squeeze. So now I know this kid had no fear, partially due to the fact that he can't go broke since he had everybody covered.

Then when we're a few spots from the money he opr from the co and I flat w/ KT from the sb which is very likely ahead of his range. I didn't need to 3bet because Shak in the bb was never squeezing and this kid was capable of 4betting light and I'd have to fold if I 3bet and he 4bet. Flop comes down T93r and I call him down every street when it comes 2, 2, turn and riv and he shows T3o...doh!

So now I'm down to 230k or so and we get into the money a little bit later and play this hand that I agonized over at the time... kid opr in the co (surprise) to 7200 w/ blinds at 1500/3k, I have QQ in the sb and 3bet to 22,500 (kid was calling everything preflop so I sized my 3bet a little bigger), Shak in the bb 4bets to 55k, kid snapfolds and I face a very difficult decision. I started the hand w/ 230k and Shak the same. Now I played w/ him 2 days straight and I'm 99% certain (I want to say 100% but it may seem unrealistic if I say I know for sure he's got 1 of only 4 hands) he's got QQ+ and AK only here. I'm sure he folds JJ or worse here and he's never 3 or 4 betting light, like ever. So finally I tank fold and he's been talkative and friendly w/ me the 2 days we've been playing and tells me he had AK (because I asked politely afterwards) which I believe. That was a best case scenario and even then I felt like I didn't need to flip for my tournament life because again, I'm confident and well, baller :)

Nothing transpires for a couple of levels and I maintain my 230k stack then I play this interesting hand. I'm in the bb and post the 5k bb, older guy in hijack opens to 20k which probably indicates 99-KK and possibly AK (some of these live guys, esp the older guys have no idea how to balance their range as you can tell by his preflop betsizing) and I decide to call w/ 22. I could've folded but I called because I had huge implied odds knowing that his range is weighted towards bigger pairs and he was the type to stack off w/ it. Plus I could bluff him if the board ran out scary.

Flop comes A93r, I chk, he bets 20k, I call because I already feel like that's a great flop to bluff later in the hand if he does have a big pp which I felt like he did. Turn J, goes chk chk like I expected (if he bets I would give up on my bluff and just fold), river 5, I bet 60k into 85-90k pot and I really expected him to fold unless he showed up w/ AK. He tanks for awhile and calls w KK...DOH!!

Here are my observations on this hand. The call w/ 22 preflop is kinda thin most of the time but for reasons I explained I thought it was a good call here. His river call is a head scratcher because I'm not sure what he expects to beat w/ how the hand played out. I'm (along w/ almost anybody else) always going to show up w/ Ax or sets here (except for this time I guess) because there is really no draw on the flop and most people would turn T9 or 98 into a bluffcatcher. I assumed he had some clue on how to read hands and I didn't see any signs from him that he was a donkey, not to mention we were down to 60 or so in a 10k event so most bad players are weeded out by then (oversight, Doug Lee was one of the chipleaders when I busted so I guess a donkey will make it deep once in awhile). I'm not even sure why he tanked...was he thinking of what hands he could beat? because I couldn't really think of any, even though he did beat me this specific hand. The best logic I heard was from a friend that I talked to w/ about this hand and he said he probably called so he can tell his buddies how he raised w/ KK and got called by AT, AJ, whatever and lost and how he never wins w/ big pairs. Anyway I felt like this was a great spot to bluff but it backfired...sometimes it happens.

So now I'm down to 120k and get moved to a table w/ Vanesso Rousso, Keith Gipson (dating Lacey Jones fwiw...run better please), Johnny Chan, Antonio Esfiandari, and Thor Hansen. I still felt like I had some play w/ 20bbs or so and felt like I was in the same class or better w/ this group. I pick up A5o from the sb and opr to 14k, bb 3bets to 40k, and I jam for 120k total thinking I could be ahead of bb's range because he was the most active and aggressive player on the table from what I saw. He calls and wins w/ 44 and I'm out. In hindsight I think limp/shove is slightly better here but he may still call w/ 44 because he had 4x more chips than me.

Anyway I was disappointed that I busted because I felt like I was one of the better players in it but I came away thinking that these 10k buyin events w/ 200-400 players were not all that tough even though there were tons of "name" players in them (mostly just live tournament pros including a bunch of known online kids better known by their handles). I saw fundamental mistakes some of these guys were making even though most knew how to betsize properly. Also other than my 22 hand (and even then it seemed like an opportune time to bluff and increase my stack) my live reads were really good and I felt like I knew what to do in pretty much every spot, even if I needed some time to think about it, eg QQ vs Shak's 4bet range. This has a lot to do w/ becoming a better player every passing year and now I'm pretty confident I can do well in any tournament no matter the size or buyin. I guess if it was a 1 table SnG w/ Ivey, Durr, Antonius, Galfond, South, Jungleman I'd feel outclassed but those guys are usually busy crushing nosebleeds so I don't have to worry about that spot ever coming up.

Why is this relevant? It's because while I'll still be focusing on cash games mostly, I'm planning on playing more big buyin live events down the line starting next year. So don't be surprised if I bink one for 7 figures.

Also I had not played a 10k event in almost 3 years (outside of the WSOP main event but that's a different kind of 10k event w/ the huge player field) and didn't know what to expect of the overall competition. I saw that it was a little tougher than the last one I played but in those 3 years my game has shown more improvement than the rest of the field and that gives me a ton of confidence in future big buy in events. It just goes to show you w/ experience, hard work, and dedication one can excel in poker, whether that's cash games or tournaments, no matter the buyin or size. Even though I didn't win a million dollars ($900k to be exact for this tournament) I know I can beat this game of poker that can be frustrating for a lot of people, including some of you out there. All I can hope is that most, if not all of you guys get to a point where you can ooze the confidence I feel, and that requires a dedication in becoming the best you can be...something that I've always strived for. It doesn't necessarily have to be in poker, just about anything in life.

Shameless plug: Cardrunners is a great tool to improve your game (hey I need to score points w/ my employers).

***Any statement that seems arrogant on my part, which is probably the entire post and you have a problem w/ it, can kiss my ^$#!***

***Some statements have a bit of sarcasm in them inc. the one right above, rest is up to you guys to figure out which ;) ***

Oh, and this is Lacey Jones for those that didn't know....

Nov Results, Dec Start

2010-12-03T23:24:00.000-08:00

November was a whatever month in poker. I really never got anything going meaning I never got in a flow of playing daily because so many things kept me busy. I had family spending days at our house at various points of the month, especially during the Thanksgiving week, and when you live in Vegas it's almost obligatory to show them around Las Vegas. Anyway here is my HEM and graph...

Yeah I ran a little bad but I'm not going to complain because everything evens out in the long run and that's what it's all about. I avg'ed a nice $500/hr in online cash games though so I'll definitely take that (20hrs total). Also I lost $2k in live games, chronicled in earlier posts in the month and another $3250 in tournaments (live and online). Overall after rakeback I made $7760.

Now w/ 1 month to go I'm planning on trying to get in 100 hrs of cash game play, just to try to make up for the last couple of months. I am in the midst of the WPT $10k main event at the Bellagio right now though. I finished day 1 today w/ 41k after starting w/ 40k. I had a really tough table w/ Randallin (kid won Festa al Lago few months ago for $1mil+), ADZ124 (high stakes cash game player and well known online kid...who surprisingly wasn't too active...maybe he was card dead, idk), some online kid named Chances Cards, Eric "BaseBaldy" Baldwin, Freddie Deeb and a couple of other competent guys.

I had a few good starting hands but never got any action on them. Also the players on my table were not giving it away so there were very few big pots. I guess I was the only one w/ a 3bet light mentality because I probably 3bet 3-4x more than the next guy all day and I didn't have a hand all the time. This probably kept me afloat above starting chips as I never won a medium+ pot. Even ADZ asked me late in the day if any of my 3bets were light because I was 3betting so much (esp. vs rest of table) and I asked him what constituted a light 3bet, and he said AQ or worse. I gave him the usual answer of I don't remember but I'm sure I could've thought of a more clever answer like I'm asian and I love to gamble, or aces and fours look the same to me so I get more aces than anybody else.

Anyway I'm gonna keep this short because it's midnight and I'm resuming day 2 at noon tomorrow. Hopefully I get a better table draw (because that really does matter in tournaments). The tournament has over 400 entrants and the neat thing about it is that registration is open til 5pm tomorrow, which is around level 8 of the tournament. You get starting chips of 40k and blinds are probably 500-1k by then. I know of guys that have registered on day 2 of a major event, and most do not end up doing well for obvious reasons.

Finally another video comes out on Cardrunners on Friday where I play 5/10 6max and hu. I end up getting pwned in hu...lol...but not because I was outmatched. You'll have to watch to see.

Hopefully my next blog post will be about me winning $1mil+ and this WPT main event!

**For those of you that want a good sweat of me winning this thing, you can follow me on twitter at

https://twitter.com/#!/NicolakPoker

or id NicolakPoker if you already have a twitter account***

Thanks

2010-11-26T14:53:00.000-08:00

Seems like it's been awhile since I last posted anything so I wanted to write something about what's been happening, and that would be Thanksgiving. I had some family and friends come over and we did the whole turkey dinner tradition and what not. My wife and my mom collaborated on making the dinner and they did an excellent job. I wish I had taken a picture of the whole dinner setup because it was pretty cool. I was too entrenched in the fact that I was hungry at the time and the NYJ-Cincy NFL game not going the way I wanted (I was all over Cincy at +10, +3.5, moneyline, not to mention my nickel opponent had almost the entire NYJ offense on his team...NY won 26-10 so what should've been a time of thanks was more of a time of This Sucks, well just football wise anyway).

Seriously I was eating dinner in our dining room w/ my family and friends and was happy we had a chance to get together and all. Anyway I think it was a good time to reflect on all the things I'm blessed w/ and to give thanks for all those things. Being the Christian I am I give God all my thanks.

Now I'd like to give some thanks to others.... I'll start w/ my eyes rolling thanks...

Thanks to the Patriots and Jets for bringing a small damper to my Thanksgiving..they hurt my wallet and my fantasy prospects

Thanks to the weather in Vegas, it's so damn cold it makes it hard to go outside (the one good thing is that ski season is just right around the corner)

Thanks Venetian for putting your main event on a Sunday last week...I missed most of the NFL action...maybe if I cashed I wouldn't have felt as bad

Additional thanks to them for the $10 food voucher...that's so considerate after putting up $2500 for the buyin

One more thanks to Doug Lee for busting me in that event...maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that...thanks Doug for being the subject of one of the longest and funniest running threads on 2+2, and yeah I know who you are

Thanks to Cardrunners and the other instructional sites for ruining what was perfectly a good (and highly profitable) game for me

Thanks to the right wing moralists who are trying to tell us what to do in the comfort of our own homes, and yeah, especially in the state of Washington

Thanks to all the guys that haven't paid me back...you guys are making me realize it's better to say no, and that I thank you for

Now I can give real thanks where they're due...

Thanks to my wife for everything she's been, and for letting me go to Los Angeles the day Joe won the NAPT. It just so happened that was our anniversary as well (12 years and counting). I told her I'd spend the day w/ her but she was adamant I be there to sweat my friends and in case one of them won (which Joe did) that I should be there. So w/ her approval I got to witness my buddy win it all. Before I left I ordered a vase of flowers, box of chocolates, and a couple of Happy Anniversary balloons to be delivered to our house while I was gone. She was happy, I was happy, so everybody was happy...next year I'm making sure our anniversary will be one she won't forget for her sacrifice.

Thanks to my daughter for growing up so quickly and being the best kid any parent can hope for. Even though at times I feel like I haven't done the best job as a parent, you would never know it when you're around her. Brag...she's yet to get worse than an A through 4 years of elementary school.

Thanks to the Dallas Cowboys for letting me win 1 football bet yesterday (they may have lost but they covered, and in the world of sportsbetting that's all that counts)

Thanks to Cardrunners for actually letting me join their stable of pros and vidmakers...haha I fooled them good on this one. Also I'm actually an employee of a company...that hasn't been the case in over 14 years.

Thanks again to Cr and other instructional sites to actually helping my game some as well. Even though I was doing perfectly fine before they came along, they actually helped me realize some of the mistakes I was making. Still, I think I would've won at a higher rate if none of the sites existed but it was bound to happen and the games evolve so the sites are useful tools in improving one's game, including mine.

Thanks to PokerRoad and Jeremiah for actually thinking I know what I'm talking about

Thanks to all my friends that shaped my game

Thanks to all the Nevadans that voted for Harry Reid. He's a big advocate in our fight for legalization of online poker.

Thanks to Michael Vick, Steven Jackson, Arian Foster, Greg Jennings, Marques Colston, James Jones, Davone Bess, Jacob Tamme, Marcedes Lewis, Tim Hightower, and Joseph Addai for getting my team in 1st place in the 3dime league and getting me the most points so far through 11 weeks. Let's finish this season strong boys!

Thanks to the new Kinect accessory to the Xbox 360 for giving me a fun way to exercise. It's a full body motion sensor that allows you to play games moving your body around. Great fun, great exercise....my kid and me fooling around on it the night we got it (it snaps photos of you while you play)...

Finally thanks to all the readers out there. Hope you guys all had a great Thanksgiving and thanks for reading my stories and thoughts in poker and in my life.

Witnessing Final Table Domination, NAPT style

2010-11-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

I drove to Los Angeles from Las Vegas yesterday to witness my buddy (who I've spoken about before) Joe Tehan win the $5k NAPT main event for $725k. Another Vegas friend and I decided to take the trip to sweat him and another friend, Ray Henson that was on the same final table. It just so happens the 4 of us are all in the nickel 8 team fantasy football league.

It's about a 4 hr drive from Vegas to LA so we were hoping that one of them won it, notably Joe because he's my closest friend in poker. Ray started the day 3rd in chips and Joe 5th in chips among the 8 final tablists. The well known players there included Michael Binger (3rd place at the WSOP main event the year Jamie Gold won it) and Jason Mercier.

Anyway they moved the venue to Crystal Park Hotel and Casino which is located in Compton of all places. To say that it might be a little scary to walk out of that place w/ hundreds of thousands of dollars is an understatement. Anyway the tournament was played at the Bike in LA but they moved the ft to accommodate ESPN since they were not contractually allowed to film at the Bike due to conflicts w/ WPT.

*Ray using his phone and Joe w/ the blue shirt at forefront*

Well we got there and Joe ended up playing a big pot right off the bat getting it aipf w KK vs chipleader's AK and doubling up. Our entire cheering crowd went wild, all 3 of us...Jon (Vegas friend), Lisa (Joe's fiancee) and me. Little did we know that he would plan on showing a clinic on how to run a final table. Shortly thereafter he busted the 1st guy w/ AQ vs JJ aipf. Next he busted Jason Mercier which was probably the pot of the day at the ft because of the stacks and players involved (2 of the best players there). Jason and Joe got it aipf and Joe's JJ bested Jason to end Jason's coin flipping winning streak at 7 (from what I read on the news coverage of the tournament). Now at this point Joe had a big chip lead w/ about 11 mil vs 2nd place's 5mil and various others at 1-3mil. He absolutely played his big stack to perfection open raising well over 75% of his hands, and mostly shoving when the others behind him had 15bbs or less.

He ended up busting in succession, Binger, Ray (we were all sad to see him bust because he was a good friend to all of us, including Joe), Poker Stars pro Van Nguyen (another friend of ours), and Al Grimes. That's right, he busted everybody up to that point! He was hu vs Chris Demaci w/ about 16mil vs Chris' 6 mil.

Now Joe and I were pretty confident he was going to win barring some kind of coolers. Joe is my best friend in poker and we talk poker all the time. Whereas I've read books, hhs, forums, and thought about the game away from the tables and felt like I had to learn to get better, Joe was a natural at poker. From what I know he really hasn't read any book nor studied the game anywhere but just figured everything out on his own. We are both pretty much self taught but we have talked so much poker w/ each other that we have helped each others' games significantly, especially the last 4 years. I guess if I had to point out a person that impacted my game the most it would be him, and vice versa. So anyway I was pretty confident he was going to win because I knew he had more of an edge now w/ deeper stacks and hu where you're forced to play a lot of hands. If there's something he excels at it's playing postflop and playing all kinds of hands. Also assuming his opponent at best was your typical live tournament pro (which we assumed) and not being an expert at postflop play nor hu play, Joe was a pretty big fav.

Little did I realize how outmatched Chris was. I tried to watch the 1st 30 minutes intently, trying to pick up physical tells and tendencies Chris may have had to try to help Joe but after watching for 30 minutes I knew that this guy was just about drawing dead hu. Both were minraising their buttons but Chris was folding sometimes, including 3 straight times on the button. That alone showed me that Chris was not aware of how to play hu very well. Joe played 100% of his buttons hu. Both tried to take the same approach, small ball poker but I felt early on the only way Chris was going to have a shot to win was to try to play big pots and get lucky that way but I guess Chris felt like he was a good player (and overall he was, he was just outmatched by a better player) and good players tend to play small ball in tournaments. The only problem was Chris was not very good postflop while Joe played every hand perfectly postflop from what I saw.

After 30 minutes I felt no need to really sweat intently because I knew it was a matter of time before Joe won w/o really having to gamble. He was chipping away very slowly w/o showing a hand and folding when he was usually beat. I started playing games and catching up on twitter and facebook on my IPhone because I was that confident Joe was going to win but that it might take some time because he was playing the perfect style of chipping away slowly w/ almost no risk. Actually Jon and Lisa sensed the same thing because they started playing on their phones as well! Imagine your best friend (fiance in Lisa's case) playing for $725k and everybody being just bored waiting for this thing to end in Joe's favor. Finally w/ Joe having 20 mil to Chris' 2 mil (again w/o any really big showdowns or pots) Joe got it in on a K high flop w/ KT vs Chris' K4 and won.

For pictures and a summary of the final table, you can see it here...

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/north_american_poker_tour/2010/napt-los-angeles-tehan-runs-the-table-fo-075803.html

I know he won a few flips early and took out a couple of dangerous players early on, but after that he really put on a clinic on how to play table captain w/ the big stack and then showed how to dominate hu w/o gambling at all. I'm really happy for him because he is one of the nicest guys in poker (just about everybody in the poker world will attest to that, and he is well known in the live tournament scene) and he happens to be my best friend in poker. He is definitely not the type of person to become a "bigger" person w/ an inflated ego because of this win. I know because I was friends w/ him when he won $1mil in a WPT main event about 4 years ago and he didn't change one bit after that win as well. If anything he continued to stay ahead of the curve and the influx of smart kids and continuously talked poker w/ me after that.

If there's ever a person that deserves to be signed to a major poker site based on their ability and successes in poker, Joe is it. He won a WPT title, now an NAPT title, and has over $3mil in live tournament winnings. He is also a big winner in live cash games including nl and mix games, playing mid to high stakes. Also he doesn't play much online but he is a winner in midstakes 6max nl games, mix games, and mtts online (he final tabled 2 ftops on the same day last year). He actually flies under the radar probably because he doesn't play a full slate of live tournaments like other well known tournament pros do but tries to balance his poker career w/ tournaments and cash games. If you ask the well known live tournament pros they'll all say Joe's a great player and tough to play vs. but they don't realize how great he is at all forms of poker. I guess that's one of the reasons we talk poker so much because we talk about all forms of poker, live, online, tournaments, nl, mix games, etc.

The only differences we have in regards to poker is that he focuses primarily on live cash games and tournaments while I focus on online cash games and tournaments, mainly because it's hard for me to travel w/ having a family and all and I enjoy playing more than 1 table at a time. I'm hoping to change that a little and plan on playing some more live events and hoping that the roles will be reversed soon enough...that my friends will be sweating me winning a major live tournament.

On a different note my 2nd video for Cardrunners comes out tomorrow. I felt like I did a better job on this one vs my 1st one. Hopefully I'm getting better at making videos and hopefully I will help those that watch my videos improve their games, even if it's just a little.

Online poker

2010-11-13T00:37:00.000-08:00

Screw live, back to online for me. Live poker is my mistress while online is my girlfriend. After awhile I miss the comfort of online poker and being able to play 1000 hands/hr. Results wise it's been up and down, and running below ev. I've been playing more $5-$10nl which is always a challenge but one that I look forward to. I'm feeling really confident in my game at this point and as long as I put in the hours I feel like the sky's the limit for me in poker.

Also played 2 FTOPs w/ no success. It's been awhile since I've played online tournaments as well so I'm enjoying that. Also I was really in the middle whether to go to Los Angeles for the NAPT main event this weekend and possibly play some live cash games there and passed because I didn't feel like driving 4-5 hrs and I didn't really prepare for it, like not having a place to stay overnight. I will plan on playing the $2500 main event at the Venetian next Sunday though (and miss NFL!). Also I'm planning on playing some of the events at the 5 Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio in a couple of weeks including the WPT $10k main event.

I actually feel like someone that matters in the poker world now w/ the stuff I've been doing the past few months. Doing the "Cash Plays' podcast w/ Jeremiah Smith is a blast and I'm excited to be a part of Cardrunners and teach members how to improve their games and help the company grow. I don't care about feeling like someone important, because the only peoples' opinions that matter to me is my family's (along w/ my employers now) but I like the sense of knowing that I could be helping others in poker. I spent the 1st 11 years of my poker career improving my family and my lives and now I'm at a point where I can help others and I hope to do a good job at that and I'm looking forward to more of it. The only thing I haven't decided on is coaching. It's not really about the money because I can probably get paid ok coaching. It's the time commitment now w/ various things going on. When I coach somebody I really root for that person to do well so I feel like I need to invest a lot of myself and my time to see that happen. That's why I've been sticking mostly w/ my friends when it comes to coaching, because they're friends and the time we spend together is , well..like male bonding I guess.

Anyway I'll show a couple of recent hands I played online for those that like to look at hand histories.

Try to guess my mistake in this hand......

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($680)

UTG ($1621)

MP ($2136)

Button ($1000)

Hero (SB) ($1445)

Preflop: Hero is SB with 8, 8

UTG bets $20, MP calls $20, Button calls $20, Hero calls $15, 1 fold

Flop: ($90) 9, Q, 8 (4 players)

Hero checks, UTG bets $90, MP calls $90, 1 fold, Hero raises $275, 1 fold, MP raises $915, Hero calls $730

Turn: ($2190) Q (2 players)

Hero bets $420 (All-In), MP calls $420

River: ($3030) 10 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $3030

Results:

Hero had 8, 8 (full house, eights over Queens).

MP had J, 10 (straight, Queen high).

Outcome: Hero won $3026

For those that thought not shoving the flop is a mistake is wrong. The mistake was not folding my set when the MP player 3bet to $915. This particular opponent's range is 99, QQ, or JT here like always and I felt like I had to fold but the fact that I had a set made me call (actually bad logic in this spot)...I thought I was calling all in but saw I had $420 still left on the turn. It probably worked out better because the board paired Qs on the turn and after my opponent called all in we had run it twice on but unfortunately for him he was drawing dead no matter how many times we ran it. If I shove the flop maybe I just win the 1st run w/ the Qs pairing. Also my opponent tanked forever when I shove $420 into the $2600 pot because he was good enough to realize that I probably had a full house. I could tell he really wanted to fold but given the pot odds probably felt compelled to call. Sorry dude.

Now most people complain about getting sucked on and losing a hand after they played the hand perfectly. I misplayed this hand and got rewarded so it's basically the reverse. I will not complain even though I misplayed my hand (who ever complains after misplaying a hand and winning the pot anyways), but I'll be honest, I can't make mistakes like these if I want to maximize my profits in the future. Chalk this one up to playing bad and getting lucky on my end.

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB ($3456)

BB ($1251)

UTG ($1000)

Hero (MP) ($1082)

CO ($1249)

Button ($1277)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 5, 5

1 fold, Hero bets $30, CO calls $30, 3 folds

Flop: ($75) A, 3, 6 (2 players)

Hero bets $50, CO calls $50

Turn: ($175) 5 (2 players)

Hero bets $140, CO calls $140

River: ($455) 7 (2 players)

Hero bets $225, CO raises $1029 (All-In), Hero calls $637 (All-In)

Total pot: $2179

Results:

Hero had 5, 5 (three of a kind, fives).

CO had Q, K (high card, Ace).

Outcome: Hero won $2176

No description really needed on this hand...just that I'd like to give thanks to the guy that floated w/o much of a hand and decided to rep, ummm, I guess a 4 at the river.

I guess I have a whole bunch of hands where I got it in good but got sucked out on but really no educational or entertainment benefits showing those. It would just serve a purpose of saying hey look at me and how bad I run (sometimes). I usually leave that for my wife to listen to...after all, what are wives for?

Live Poker

2010-11-09T22:54:00.000-08:00

So I've been dabbling in live poker this month. I started off winning my 1st 3 sessions feeling like live poker is the easiest thing since my drunken date during my sophomore year in college. Then I went to go play $5/$10 nl at the Venetian and played this hand. Epr w/ $1500 opens to $40, mp w/ $900 calls, I, on the button, 3bet to $160 w/ KK (have'em both covered), both call, flop comes 853r, epr donks $350 (which I love to see because it usually means they don't have KK beat or else they'd c/r or c/c flop), mp calls (which I'm somewhat concerned about because she could have anything from a set to 99-QQ), I shove, both call, I turn to the mp girl and tell her I like her hand...epr rolls over 24s, yes....24s, girl rolls over 33...but hey, at least I win a nice side pot as long as epr doesn't hit his oesd....turn Ace...doh! River doesn't pair and he scoops a nice $4800. He somehow manages to build his stack to around $6500 or so and goes broke w/ KK....postflop...on an ace high flop!! No kings in sight either. I lose $1300 that night.

Then this past Saturday I get invited to play in a $2/$5nl game w/ a mandatory straddle $10-$50 on the button at the Palms. I heard this game is really juicy w/ Michael Phelps having played in it the night before. He is somewhat of a competent player from what I know. Anyway I get in the must move game and get up $1800 right off the bat. I see Phelps come into the room and he gets into a smaller game while waiting to get in my game. You can kind of make out this huge samoan guy standing behind him in the pic...that happened to be his bodyguard. I guess if you confronted Phelps or hit a 2 outer to beat him in a pot you'll have to answer to that dude.

The game played around $10/$20 to $15/$30 nl because some were stradding to $10 while a few others were stradding to $20-$50 w/ several guys having $6k-$10k in front of them. Anyway having been used to playing online and understanding how online regs thunk, playing w/ competent live pros was a nice change of scenery, although I was befuddled at some of the lines the better players took in the game.

A typical hand was button straddle to $20, ep limps, bad epr makes it $70, I flat w/ KTs right behind, another bad player calls, solid sb player makes it $245, ep folds, bad epr calls, I decide to call because I had $8k as did everybody else in the hand (or more), bad player behind me calls so there is about $1k in the pot. Flop comes T73r, chk, chk, now I feel like I have to bet here w/ tp2k so I bet $500, bad player behind me folds, solid sb player calls which has me scratching my head...I guess he's potcontrolling an overpair or AT here, bad epr calls which doesn't mean much because he could have anything. Anyway I'm pretty sure I'm beat by the solid player so I was rooting for a T or K. Turn is a Q now solid player leads for $1300, bad epr raises to $4k, I fold, solid player tanks and says to the bad player you have Q7 or nothing here...finally folds I assume is an overpair. Bad player shows 77 for a flopped set. I don't mind bad player's line although I prefer calling the turn in his spot since he can put both of us on made hands (err, I guess he can't since he was only playing his hands). I don't really understand supposedly solid player's line of 3bet preflop oop, c/c flop, lead turn line. If he had just cbet flop, bad player calls, then I could fold and save $500 (a little whining on my part). This "solid guy" took this line several times. I was beginning to wonder if I had poker all wrong because I was losing every hand while this guy was winning the most. I understand there are times to pot control and/or to induce bets by worse but this guy was doing it almost everytime. You rarely see online regs taking this line consistently.

Anyway I play this stupid hand as well...2 opl, same bad player raises to $50 (after $10 button straddle), I flat w/ A5s on button and we take the pot 5 handed. Flop comes AT7 w/ 2 to my suit so I have the nut flush draw, everybody checks to me and I begin to think whether I'm supposed to bet here or not because of all the pot controlling and flop checks going around (even by the "good players" in the game) and felt like I was obligated to bet something so I bet $135 and get called by an epl and the bad player. Turn comes J of spades bringing 2 spades (along w/ 2 diamonds for my nut flush draw), chk, bad player now leads for $300 (again another head scratcher of a line but w/ a bad player it's understandable), I call, now epl c/r to $900, bad player calls, now I have to call esp. considering that bad player has me covered w/ about $10k in front. While the dealer makes the pot right, I pray to God please let me hit a non pair diamond one time (because I was losing every hand up to that point). River rolls off 5 of spades bringing backdoor spades and giving me Aces and 5s...nice %&^$%^% card I think. Ep player now checks, bad player bets $1500, I fold knowing I'm beat, ep now c/r's again! I start thinking wow, this guy must've c/r'ed the turn w KQ or 98 of spades or a combo spade draw on turn. He goes all in for another $1500 more and bad player snap calls w/ 73 of spades...which is good! Ep player shows AJo for top 2.

Let's dissect this hand. I'm not fond of ep opl w/ AJo utg, not fond of bad player's preflop raise w 73s, I'm ok w/ my flat w/ A5s ip. On the flop I'm ok w/ everybody's line except bad player's call w/ 73 of spades on an AT7 2 diamonds 1 spade. Ep should've c/r'ed the flop though knowing I could be betting a wide range on the button and probably don't have a big ace or else I would've reraised the bad player preflop. On the turn I hate bad player's sudden donk of $300 into the flop better (me) w/ bp + flush draw he turned (lol), my call is standard, ep's c/r is standard although he could've made the raise much bigger because it was a very wet board and his hand is most likely good vs our hands, esp. when I don't raise the turn. The bad player's call of $600 more is very meh w/ bp + fd w/ me right behind. I have to call once he calls though. River ep's check is fine, bad player's bet of $1500 is fine, my fold is solid, and ep's c/r all in is horrendous. Other than that, the hands were played fine.

So I lost $1100 on that hand when I would've lost only $200 most times...I was going to check back the turn Jack. I ended up losing $4500 in the game and called it quits at midnight even though the game was still swinging. Phelps never made it to my game, I guess it probably had something to do w/ owning 14 gold medals, being young and good looking, and being in Las Vegas on a Saturday night. For me I had church early then NFL all day the next day. I had something to tell God the next day at church for not bringing a diamond on that hand.

I guess God must've heard because my fantasy football teams did well overall. I won a few thousand dollars in ff even though 2 of my 3 teams lost the hu matches (won $ in side bets).

I've resumed playing online poker though...well today anyway and won $4k. Maybe it's the other way around??...online is soft and live is tough.

October Results

2010-11-03T14:23:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure what to think about last month's results. On one hand I ran above ev, but I won at a lower rate than I am accustomed to. On the other hand I'm finding less and less time to grind as the year wraps up. I played 39hrs online and another 10 hrs live. 1st my online results...

Even though I only got in about 40k hands online, I experienced the swings of playing poker. I started the month off hot winning about $9k right off the bat, but right when I started thinking poker was easy it decided to teach me that it really isn't.

I made another $1680 in rakeback but lost $215 in mtts. I've been playing very few online mtts because of the NFL. I won another $3k playing live. I broke about even over 2 sessions in mix games at the Bellagio but won $500 playing $1-$2nl on my Arkansas trip (will post about my trip next time) and another $2500 playing $10-$20nl at the Bellagio. For the month I came out ahead $8,420.

W/ 2 months left I'm reflecting back on the year. I'm kind of in the middle on how I feel about my poker results. I'm way behind my pace of 7 figures but I've been saying I'm using that as more of a motivator to get me to play more (while working on my game) than anything else. I'm content w/ my hrly which stands around $300/hr. I'm disappointed in the hrs I put in though. I may need to get some coaching w/ Doublefly (who's excellent blog can be found on my blog roll) who excels at playing a good amount while balancing family life (heck I can't figure out where he finds the time to update his blog on a daily basis as well!!). I'm going to leave my $1mil goal as is because I'm planning on playing a couple of big live tournaments in the next 2 months that may get me over (obviously will need to run good but who knows).

I'm not complaining about what I've made though. Even though some make more than me (most by luckboxing a tournament and a few at cash games) I know that I'm fortunate to make as much as I do playing a simple game of cards. I'm not comparing poker to major sports but you see top notch athletes excelling and making lots of money but also knowing they're lucky to be in the position they're in. I feel the same way, even though I'm not implying I'm the best or anything (just good at what I do)...more about feeling lucky to be able to make the money I make doing what I enjoy doing, even if it feels tedious at times. I'm sure a lot of people would love to be in the position I am and I'm not taking that for granted. I hope some of the young guys that excel in poker feel the same way. It would definitely help prolong their careers if they thought the same way.

In other news I've been away for a couple of weeks visiting a friend in Arkansas but am now getting back into the grind of things. I've been playing a little more live which is kind of refreshing since I play mostly online. That's probably something I'll write about in the future, live vs online since I have plenty of hours in both. I live in Las Vegas so it's very convenient to go play live whenever I choose. Besides Los Angeles, Vegas is probably the best place to live for live poker.

I'm also fortunate in that my wife and kid love living in Vegas. Most don't realize that it's one of the fastest growing cities in America, and once you're away from the strip, it really is a normal city. As a poker player w/ a family I have the best of both worlds... a nice family oriented community where we live, and a quick 15 minute drive to the Vegas strip if I want to play some poker.

Yesterday probably exemplifies what I'm saying. My kid had the day off from school so she spent the day and night at a family friends' house. My wife and I decided to head to the Venetian to play some poker. I entered the $350 deepstack tournament (and promptly busted out in an hr) and my wife played some $2-$5 nl. I jumped into a $5-$10 nl game (and won $2600...live poker, gotta love it). I get a $10 food voucher for the tournament I played in and we eat at a nice chinese restaurant in the Venetian then decide to watch a late showing of "Jersey Boys" at the Palazzo which is right next door to the Venetian. "Jersey Boys" is a critically acclaimed Broadway like musical that centers around Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons of "Sherry" and "Walk like a Man" fame. Anyway the show was good even though the demographic of the crowd were people in their 50s and 60s which is understandable. So for the day I ended up winning $2250 in poker and got in a nice dinner and show w/ my wife at the end of it. Yeah, Vegas is cool.

Get some ARod

2010-10-30T09:25:00.001-07:00

Just got back from Arkansas the other day and a spent a day catching up on sleep before heading over to the Bellagio to check out the action on a Friday night. Normally I go to a poker room w/ no particular game in mind to play in. I just play in the game I feel like playing while putting some weight into which game is softer (live bumhunting?). Anyway when I got there the choices were $50-$100 mix and $10-$20 nl. The lineup in the mix game was pretty solid (meaning the game wasn't great) so I elected to play some $10-$20 nl. This is a benefit of knowing how to play multiple games.

I sit down and don't really recognize anybody, mainly because I don't frequent the Bellagio poker room enough (hoping to change that). I do know Jimmy "Gobboboy" Fricke who I played w/ last time. I'm assuming he's a reg in this game now. Anyway I buy in for $5k and play for a little bit before Alex Rodriguez of NY Yankees fame sits in the game. Immediately $ signs flash in my eyes. ARod happens to be the highest paid baseball player w/ a contract worth $275mil over 10 years. He already made $250mil in his previous 10 year contract. Now having that much money probably allows him to spend some of it any way he chooses and I was hoping he chose to share some of it on my poker table.

After an hour of play my wife comes over and says she's up $1k from the $2-$5 nl game she played and is quitting. I tell her to sit down and learn from the best, so she grabs a seat behind Gobboboy. No seriously, she sits down behind me and asks how I'm doing. I tell her I'm even and she rolls her eyes giving me the "I made $1k in a smaller game and you can't make a penny in this game" look. I tell her just give me an hour because baseball's richest player just sat down. He sat down w/ $2k which was kinda disappointing to see considering how rich he was.

If I had to assign stats to ARod's play, it would be about 40/4/0 w/ an agg level of about 5. He was limping in a lot of pots but betting and raising postflop quite frequently. Finally we play this pot...he open limps ep, young kid raises to $120 right behind (I think isolation play immediately), 2 guys call to me in the bb where I hold AJo and elect to call (3betting was strongly considered because everybody except the preflop raiser probably had less than premium hands, w/ the preflop raiser having a wider range than normal trying to iso ARod...but the main consideration was that I wanted to play a pot w/ ARod and 3betting would've probably blown him off his hand). ARod calls and the flop comes down AQJr and it gets checked to the preflop raiser that bets $260, the button calls, and now I have a decision to make. The preflop raiser and the button had about $5k as well so I didn't want to checkraise and face a 3bet so I elected to call and ARod called to close the action. In hindsight checkraising was probably a little better based on the preflop raiser's flop bet of $260 into a $600 pot which is likely indicative of a mediocre hand like KQ or AT. The turn comes an ace and it gets checked around. I could've led the turn but figured the case ace or a full house was out there that would bet so I could put in a check raise. Anyway getting checked around the turn isn't bad either because a ten or king could roll off the river where somebody makes a 2nd best hand as well, plus I might get paid off by the case ace or a Qx hand at the river. The river is a 3 so I lead out for $1200 into the $1600 pot hoping to get paid off by 1 person at least. ARod tanks for awhile and finally says "call" and the other guys get out of the way. I roll over AJ and he flips over A8s. Being the target in the game, others console him and tell him he had to call (not really, but to his credit it's a tough spot for him).

Anyway he played a couple of more laps and quit. I feel good I won $1600 from him for a couple of reasons. He's uber rich and more importantly, I lost $400 betting on the Yankees to make it to the World Series so a little redemption there. Also he's dating Cameron Diaz so I'm not feeling sorry for him. Anyway I ended up winning $2500 so I was able to give my wife the "yeah, who's talking now bitch" look...but w/o the bitch part really.

*Fantasy Football Update*

In 3dime my team is 4-3 and 2nd in total pts so I'm in 4th place in overall standings. Top 4 out of 14 make the playoffs so I'm doing well there. My te has been a problem all year w/ Celek so I picked up Marcedes Lewis and Jacob Tamme (Indy te starting now that DC is out for the year). Also getting Vick back at qb in a week will be a boost.

In 1dime my team has reeled off 5 wins in a row to stand at 5-2 and in 4th place. This league also has the top 4 making the playoffs. I really think I did a good job building the team....as it stands I have at qbs : Flacco, Fitzpatrick; rbs: AP, Torain, BJax, Woodhead, PT; wrs: Fitzgerald, Britt (unfortunately had him on my bench last week when he went off for 50pts), Welker, Crabtree, Murphy, Breaston; te: ZMiller. It's a 12 team league w/ a bunch of young online poker players so maybe I can teach them a thing or two about fantasy football.

In nickel, I stand at 4-3 and in 2nd place mostly because my team has the 2nd highest total pts for the season. I've got some injury concerns w/ Collie and Floyd hurt but I think my team should make the playoffs. The core of my team (w/ pts ranking up to date) is Peyton Manning (4th), Gore (1st), Roddy White (1st), Z Miller (2nd) so I like my team going forward.

Overall I'm pretty satisfied w/ my teams so far at the midway point of the fantasy season.

On the road

2010-10-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

A buddy and I went to visit a friend in Arkansas and we've spent about a week doing some cool things, from exploring caverns to taking a road trip to Dallas to watch the Cowboys take on the NY Giants on MNF. It's been a busy week so I haven't had a chance to get online to do anything. I haven't played any poker in a week but this time I have an excuse. I decided to get an Iphone right before the trip and I am maximizing it's usage. It's great for navigating on the road (GPS w/ traffic indicator) and taking pics like this one...

This was at Dallas Stadium for the MNF game. I'll be writing about my trip when I get home later this week (along w/ some pics I took). Also I'll be working on my 2nd video for Cardrunners (along w/ my usual grind).

A bad session (Just venting!)

2010-10-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

This month has been swingy to say the least. After 40k hands I'm up about $1200. I played a session Saturday night across $2-$4, $3-$6, and $5-$10 nl and nothing went right. To be honest it wasn't a disaster because I've had worse sessions before (in terms of money lost) but I'm just going to post some beats I took...well, just for the heck of it and to show I run worse than anybody!! (jk of course). First my graph of the session...

Now a couple of things I'll point out is that I did win a few hands to avoid a really bad night, including this hand where I was gifted some money...

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($369.80)

UTG ($580.20)

MP ($412.40)

CO ($578.70)

Hero (Button) ($1909.95)

SB ($412)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 9, 10

UTG bets $20, 2 folds, Hero calls $20, 2 folds

Flop: ($46) 7, 7, Q (2 players)

UTG bets $40, Hero calls $40

Turn: ($126) 3 (2 players)

UTG bets $80, Hero raises $200, UTG raises $440.20 (All-In), Hero calls $320.20

River: ($1166.40) 5 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: $1166.40

Results:

Hero had 9, 10 (flush, Queen high).

UTG had 2, 4 (one pair, sevens).

Outcome: Hero won $1163.40

The other point is that it was really a night of not just running below ev ($3500 below ev) but the hands where I got coolered that weren't even shown in the ev line because most of the money went in at the river, including these (again really no educational purposes, just venting!)...

No-Limit Hold'em, $6.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG ($1173.85)

Hero (MP) ($1165.05)

Button ($633)

SB ($609)

BB ($1760.35)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 7, 7

1 fold, Hero bets $15, 2 folds, BB raises $54, Hero calls $45

Flop: ($123) 6, Q, 7 (2 players)

BB bets $75, Hero calls $75

Turn: ($273) 8 (2 players)

BB bets $174, Hero calls $174

River: ($621) J (2 players)

BB bets $405, Hero raises $856.05 (All-In), BB calls $451.05

Total pot: $2333.10

Results:

BB had Q, Q (three of a kind, Queens).

Hero had 7, 7 (three of a kind, sevens).

Outcome: BB won $2330.10

Kinda standard but sucks we were about 200bbs deep. I could've just called at the river but I tend to err on the side of aggression, so whatever.

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (5 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1184)

UTG ($123.70)

MP ($237.90)

Hero (Button) ($472.50)

SB ($987.60)

Preflop: Hero is Button with 6, 5

2 folds, Hero bets $10, 1 fold, BB calls $6

Flop: ($22) 5, 6, 5 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $15, BB calls $15

Turn: ($52) 7 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $38, BB raises $84, Hero calls $46

River: ($220) 6 (2 players)

BB bets $118, Hero raises $363.50 (All-In), BB calls $245.50

Total pot: $947

Results:

Hero had 6, 5 (full house, sixes over fives).

BB had 6, 7 (full house, sixes over sevens).

Outcome: BB won $944

I guess I'll just point out villain's turn raise is pretty bad because there's really nothing he can beat if I'm calling there. It's ok because for some reason he got rewarded for it.

These next 2 are doozies...

No-Limit Hold'em, $4.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

CO ($515)

Button ($98.50)

SB ($1348.90)

BB ($227)

Hero (UTG) ($902)

MP ($491)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, A

Hero bets $12, 1 fold, CO raises $34, 3 folds, Hero raises $70, CO calls $48

Flop: ($170) 5, A, Q (2 players)

Hero checks, CO checks

Turn: ($170) J (2 players)

Hero bets $100, CO calls $100

River: ($370) Q (2 players)

Hero bets $370, CO calls $333 (All-In)

Total pot: $1036

Results:

Hero had A, A (full house, Aces over Queens).

CO had Q, Q (four of a kind, Queens).

Outcome: CO won $1033

Again this is the same session....

No-Limit Hold'em, $10.00 BB (6 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

BB ($1000)

Hero (UTG) ($1832.25)

MP ($6599)

CO ($1470)

Button ($2051.50)

SB ($1005)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with A, A

Hero bets $30, 4 folds, BB calls $20

Flop: ($65) A, J, 10 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets $45, BB raises $110, Hero calls $65

Turn: ($285) Q (2 players)

BB checks, Hero checks

River: ($285) J (2 players)

BB bets $189, Hero raises $1692.25 (All-In), BB calls $671 (All-In)

Total pot: $2005

Results:

BB had J, J (four of a kind, Jacks).

Hero had A, A (full house, Aces over Jacks).

Outcome: BB won $2002

Yeah so I just want to say Aces can suck it! And so can poker! (for now anyways) :)

The well; Also pwned by a machine in poker

2010-10-16T02:34:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say I'm doing a well at Cardrunners, which is basically a Q&A regarding my thoughts on poker and life. If any of you guys have questions regarding poker, or life as a poker player, feel free to go there and ask and I'll respond to all the questions. The link is

http://www.cardrunners.com/cr_forums/showthread.php?92311-The-Well-Nicolak&p=858134#post858134

This past week has been busy for me w/ the CR stuff and making my 1st video. I haven't had a chance to play much poker online but I did head over to the Bellagio and played some $40-$80 mix and won about $500 tonight. I forgot about the WPT main event going on at the Bellagio and wish I had remembered in time to sell some of my action so I could've played in it. I don't like forking over $10k of my money for 1 tournament. Anyway I'm going to try to sell some action in future main events in Las Vegas so I can give myself a shot to take down a major live tournament. I'll be posting in the 2+2 marketplace in the future for those and will blog about it if anybody out there wants to buy a piece. Gl to my buddies that made it to day 2 of the event.

Finally I was over at the Bellagio last night as well and played on these HU limit hold'em machines for real money.

http://www.slotmachinesforum.com/showthread.php?5792-Texas-Hold-em-Heads-Up-Poker-%28IGT

You play vs. the actual machine. There is no rake and the machine does not adjust or adapt. Also you can check it's hole cards once the pot is awarded. Pretty valuable info. to see how it's playing. Seems like free money for winning limit hold'em players and to an extent it is. The highest stake you can play is $2-$4 but the action is pretty fast, as fast as you want it to be. The machine, though inflexible in being able to adapt, is surprisingly pretty tough, capable of bluffraising on any street including the river. I'm sure this is about a tough of an ai that can be created to play limit hold'em hu.

W/ that said after awhile you can figure it's game out enough that you should not lose in the long run. Initially I was stuck $240, mostly from a bunch of suckouts, but once I got a read on it's tendencies, played almost a variance free style of poker where I won back $170 before I quit. I'm sure I would've gotten it all back but tbh is not worth my time to win my projected hrly in that game vs my hrly in my normal online games. That's why they capped it at $2-$4, because the great limit hold'em players won't think it's worthwhile to make the guaranteed money.

Now you may ask why they would even have it on the casino floor in the 1st place. I'm pretty sure lots of casual strollerbys get curious and play it and lose. It is placed right next to the poker room, and considering most poker players are losers, most will lose in this game, probably more than the small # of winning players win out of it.

Anyway I got pwned by the machine for $70, but my wife managed to crush it for $100. Also my buddy Joe T won $200 playing it right next to me. It helped expedite the learning curve by having all 3 of us playing next to each other talking about it's tendencies.

Finally I brought my ipad because I thought I may play some actual live cash and set it down next to the hu machine and forgot about it when we left. DOH! Unfortunately I wasn't lucky enough to have an honest guy take it so he can return it to me (or lost and found). I'm not sure what's more embarrassing though, getting pwned by a poker playing machine for $70, or being stupid enough to forget about my $800 ipad.

Cardrunners

2010-10-14T07:53:00.000-07:00

I am officially a pro at Cardrunners. I'm happy to be joining their team, especially considering they're the #1 instructional site out there (in terms of membership at least). My first video will be out tomorrow and it's me 4tabling 6max $5-$10 nl. Times have changed w/ $5-$10 being considered high stakes. For the longest time I thought it was mid stakes because that's the game I grinded the most and I always thought of myself as a mid stakes guy. I guess w/ the games getting tougher and a trickle down effect from higher stakes that game seems to be the highest game that runs on a daily basis so I see why it's considered high stakes nowadays.

Before I talk about Cardrunners I wanted to mention another site where I participated at, albeit on a lesser scale. I had crossposted this blog at LeggoPoker and have become friendly w/ the guys over there including the guys that run the site. They're a really good group of guys and they have some top notch video producers and coaches. It was a really tough decision on deciding between them and CR to join but ultimately decided to join CR.

Now as an "employee" of CR I will give my best effort in trying to promote the site and helping it retain it's #1 status. Hopefully my videos will offer something to the paying members but I'm confident I'll be able to offer some value to members, whether it be teaching how to play in midstakes games today or how to go about winning at poker over the long run.

I was hesitant in joining an instructional site for the longest time for a couple of reasons. 1st the the pay wasn't worth it compared to my hourly playing poker and 2nd, and more importantly, I didn't want to give away my game or have any of the regs I play vs. on a daily basis pick up any reads on my game. I changed my mind for a couple of reasons. I'm satisfied w/ the deal we reached on and lately I've felt like I wanted to contribute in some way to helping out others get better at poker especially since I don't coach (I may change my mind on that in the future). Also one of my strengths in poker is being able to adapt and make adjustments vs. opponents so I think I'll be ok if my opponents were to utilize what they've seen in my videos against me. We'll see about that, but I don't mind a challenge. Anyway I'm excited to be joining CR and I hope to bring something to their site and their members.

Downswingin' (because it happens)

2010-10-08T00:34:00.000-07:00

I'm eating my words now. Right after I wrote last time about how it's kinda "easy" for me to make money whenever I want I go on an $8k downswing. I was illustrating why I get lazy though, not necessarily that poker is easy to make money at, because it isn't, especially in today's games. Anyway I started off the month up about $8500 and have lost it all since. It's been at least a couple of months since I had any sort of downswing. Just like anybody else would, I started to feel like the game was "easy" because of my consistent winning sessions. A couple of rough losing sessions in poker will remind me that poker is not that "easy" and I need to be constantly thinking about the game and trying to fix my leaks.

I guess I'm used to losses more so than most having played poker for well over a decade as a primary means of income. No matter how many losses I take though, it never feels good, and I'm always looking to kick my cat if she's around when I lose (jk...sorta).

Not only was I losing tonight but I was playing on my desktop w/ the dsl line directly connected. Had 12 tables going, involved in a few hands then my internet goes out. It's weird because my internet never goes out so right away I think the direct line might've gotten disconnected somehow, and I go check and find out my kid disconnected the line (hooks up to a phone jack) to connect the fax/copy machine (for some reason she thought she needed to connect the phone line to make copies). Anyway having been up $2k, then being in the midst of a $4k downswing in the session, I refrain from blowing up at my kid in the heat of the moment. I just tell her calmly not to do that again because daddy's working. It took every ounce of discipline to keep calm at the moment but I knew that she did it by accident and I know my losing should not affect my life outside of poker, especially w/ my family.

I guess the point I'm making is don't let losing affect your life outside of poker. I do a pretty good job of that (believe me, even I have emotions and am not happy when I lose) but I see guys lose and take it out on their gfs, wives, kids, and/or pets (feel free to break as many mice as you want though).

***Fantasy Football Update***

At least something positive happened, that being my ff teams. They went 3-0 and now stand at 2-2, 2-2, and 3-1 (3dime, 1dime, nickel) so I'm in the hunt for a playoff spot. In 3dime my team ended up being high man which is an extra $500 in that league (2nd time this year). It looked bleak early on in the sunday afternoon games. My top 2 wrs (Jennings and Colston) performed poorly in the early games and was looking for Vick, Sjax, Foster, Celek, and Addai to boost my team in the afternoon games. Well Vick gets hurt early, Celek is being shut out, and for reasons nobody knew Foster was held out of the 1st qtr (disciplinary reason). At that point I think I'm dead in my hu match and all my side bets. Somehow Foster comes in and puts up a huge game, SJax does ok, Celek gets a td, and SD def puts up 28pts. I ended up winning my hu match but had a big side for $3k w/ Davone Bess left vs Brandon Marshall in the monday nighter. My opponent was up 1 pt and I was a pretty big dog considering the players involved. Somehow Bess finished w/ 19 pts and Marshall w/ less so I ended up winning high man and the side bet.

I stand in 2nd place for total points for the season right behind edog (his team has to come back down to earth, w/ Orton, Best, McCoy, DMC, Finley, TO among others). Besides all the side bets I have (about $7k/week and $35k in total points bets w/ various teams) 1st place pays $14k, 2nd place pays $4k, total pts winner pays $13k, 2nd total points pays $4k, and weekly high man pays $500. As you can see it's not a kiddie league and guys are really on top of things, picking up players w/ any kind of potential 2-4weeks before they can be realized (James Starks of GB was picked up who I targeted...yeah, guys are researching rookie rbs that are on the PUP list but are due to start practicing in a week or so hoping to find that gem in the rough). It's almost like a full time job staying on top of things in football when this much money is on the line.

As for the nickel league I picked up Z Miller and now have Shiancoe, Miller, Cooley, and Gonzalez. I'm trying to corner the te market hoping to improve my team in other ways w/a team that needs a te via trade. I stand in 2nd place in that league at 3-1 w/ 2nd most total points. I have a few $100/wk and $50/wk bets in that league...pales in comparison to the 3dime league but they add up as well. Finally in the 1dime league I eked out a win w/ Henne and Welker coming thru for me on MNF as well and am poised to make a run (need Fitz and Crabtree to play up to their potential). All in all I'm up about $10k through 4 weeks in ff and am favorite to win all total pts bets (except vs edog, as mentioned he's ahead of me in total pts).

Sept. Results

2010-10-04T14:19:00.000-07:00

Last month can be described as a month off than anything else. Some of that had to due w/ the start of football season but mostly it was due to sheer laziness. I'm always fighting my bouts of laziness and sometimes I lose those fights. As a poker player, this is probably my biggest leak (and only flaw?). One of the reasons I put off playing poker is because I feel like I can just play it anytime and win money anytime...maybe it's kind of arrogant but that's the mentality I have, and tbh is not a really good mentality. It might've developed over the years grinding millions of poker hands. At 1st poker was exciting and a fun way to make money, now it seems more like a job, and most of us play poker to avoid the dullness of most jobs. Don't get me wrong though, I know I'm in a very enviable position today and I'm thankful for everything poker was able to provide for my family and myself. Anyway I put in a tad under 40 hrs grinding cash games and ended up around $7500 + $1189 rb. Also I lost $865 in tournaments.

I elected to leave out my limit results because they skew the nl results. Limit winrates are typically lower than nl and pl winrates. Also nearly all my limit action was in omaha hilo so my nonsd winnings looks bad in that game but that's by design of the game. Players end up chasing draws one way or another (or both ways) and don't get there and have to fold for 1 more bet at the river. It happens more often in that game than any other game. Therefore I elected to filter out my om8 results out of my graph as well. Anyway I lost about $700 in the limit games.

Also I ran slightly above ev but notice that I ran pretty bad in plo, thanks to these 2 hands....

Full Tilt, $3/$6 PL Omaha Cash Game, 6 Players

LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

MP: $748

CO: $558

BTN: $1,200

SB: $835.75

Hero (BB): $1,200

UTG: $1,942.30

Pre-Flop: 5 A 3 A dealt to Hero (BB)

3 folds, BTN raises to $21, SB folds, Hero raises to $66, BTN calls $45

Flop: ($135) Q 4 2 (2 Players)

Hero bets $110, BTN raises to $465, Hero raises to $1,134 and is All-In, BTN calls $669 and is All-In

Turn: ($2,403) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($2,403) 7 (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $2,403 Pot ($3 Rake)

BTN showed 3 7 4 5 and WON $2,400 (+$1,200 NET)

Hero showed 5 A 3 A and LOST (-$1,194 NET)

That hand occurred during a mix game session. We were both 200bbs deep and when we got it in on the flop I was a 55-27 fav (w/ 18% chance of splitting). Now the next hand needs no description...

Full Tilt, $2/$4 PL Omaha Cash Game, 6 Players

LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

BB: $865.40

UTG: $1,185.15

MP: $2,106.65

CO: $766

Hero (BTN): $400

SB: $672.80

Pre-Flop: 6 Q J J dealt to Hero (BTN)

UTG calls $4, MP folds, CO calls $4, Hero calls $4, SB calls $2, BB checks

Flop: ($24.50) J 2 T (5 Players)

SB checks, BB checks, UTG checks, CO checks, Hero bets $23, SB raises to $78, 2 folds, CO calls $78, Hero raises to $336.50, SB raises to $668.05 and is All-In, CO folds, Hero calls $58.75 and is All-In

Turn: ($893) T (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

River: ($893) K (2 Players - 1 is All-In)

Results: $893 Pot

Hero showed 6 Q J J and LOST (-$400 NET)

SB showed T 4 K T and WON $1,162.80 (+$764.80 NET)

Those beats are about as bad as they get in plo but I really can't complain because I ran above ev for the month. Speaking of running good, I'm off to a decent start this month...

I'm leaving for a trip on the 20th of this month to visit a friend in Arkansas for a week so I'm trying to get in some time playing poker before then.

Also I went to play live for a change the other night w/ my wife. We went to Aria and all I had besides a few hundred dollars were Bellagio flags ($5,000 chips). Now knowing that Aria and Bellagio are both part of MGM Mirage, I assumed they would cash the chips for me. Well since I'm not a regular at any of those poker rooms, they would not cash the chips. One of the managers would have to know me in either room to let me cash the chips at Aria. I guess it's for security reasons, protecting against money laundering or whatever.

Anyway I wasn't too happy because I wanted to play in a $5-$10 game w/ a $3000 cap which I heard was juicy when it ran. $3000 seems like the perfect buyin cap because it's plenty of money to play deep w/ while encouraging some action. Believe it or not but when a game is uncapped (buyin any amount you want) sometimes the game plays tight w/ the deep stacks just waiting for the nuts before they commit their stacks. W/ 300bbs, some guys will get in their whole stacks w/ less than the nuts which opens up the game a lot more, which in turn makes it more fun, for me anyways.

So we had to go to Bellagio, which is a short drive from Aria, and I ended up playing some $10-$20 nl (uncapped) and won $800. The game was average w/ a bunch of Vegas regs in the game. I brought my ipad to kill time between hands because I am, after all, used to seeing 30x # hands/hr (advice: do not do like I do...it's best to pay attention to everything when you're not in a hand because that's the best time to see everything that's going on and to get reads on other players). The only interesting hand of note is epr opens to $80 (w/ $1k behind), sb calls, I call (w $6k behind) w A7s from bb, flop Q93 w 2 to my suit, chk, chk, preflop raiser bets $200, sb folds, I shove ($800 more to my opponent), he snapcalls, turn A, riv 7. Now unlike online our hands are still face down so I'm just hoping he doesn't have AQ or a set. He says "set", I think damn that sucks, he opens and shows KT of same suit for a whiffed flush and straight draw. Now he was on the other end of the table and I guess I misheard and he must've said "sh*t" which sounded like "set" to me, maybe because that was the only word I didn't want to hear coming out of his mouth.

I played a little bit longer, talked w/ Jimmy "GobboBoy" Fricke who sat on my right for a little bit, and took my win and spent a nice night on the town w/ my wife. We ended up watching "A Social Network", which is about the founder of Facebook, and thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

The week that was

2010-09-29T17:53:00.000-07:00

I've been getting back in the grind mode lately. Since there is another day left in the month, I'll wait to post my final results next time for the month. Been doing ok, winning at about 2ptbb/100 at nl400 and nl600 after getting off to a very slow start early on for the month. Here is the past week where I ran good and played well (will post my entire month graph next time, not as pretty). Been playing an hr here, 2hrs there, etc. for a total of about 7hrs which I guess is pretty bad for a week but whatever, can't complain about the results!

Obviously I'm not going to run this well all the time but I'm going to keep on striving to play my A game all the time which is the most important thing.

Also I did another podcast and am beginning to really enjoy talking on the air about poker. I may not be a natural, especially w/ my intonation but I am trying to get better in all aspects...

http://www.pokerroad.com/radio/cash-plays/84

Our show is now sponsored by Cardrunners as well and the podcasts can be found there as well.

***Fantasy Football update***

Finally in fantasy football, my teams went 2-1 but again lost where it mattered the most, in 3dime. Ended up a little bit up in side action there so it was a profitable weekend. Vick essentially carried the team while Foster and Sjax had mediocre games. Great news that Sjax is not hurt seriously. In that league you really can't afford injuries to your main guys because there is nobody to pick up. The guys that are available are guys like Fred Taylor and Larry Johnson (even guys like Blount, Torain, Kuhn are all gone). When you have thousands of dollars on the line every weekend, you wanna have your best guys out there. My wr trio of Jennings, Colston, and James Jones sucked so I'm happy to have won in side bets even though I lost my hu match to fall to 1-2 in the 14 team league. I've been projected to win every hu match so far and am again for next weekend but projections don't mean squat I guess.

In 1dime my team finally won to go to 1-2 but I still feel like I got a shot. Flacco and AP went off but again my wr trio of Fitz, Welker, and Crabtree left a lot to be desired. I'm not too concerned about the 1st 2 wrs but Crabtree looks terrible stuck in a bad offense. There are really no side bets except for a couple of $500 total pts bets so I'm really sweating the hu wins and losses in that league.

In nickel, I traded away Flacco, Colston, and Knox for Ryan, Jennings, and Demaryius Thomas. The trade doesn't make much sense because we traded the same position players but I'm bullish on Jennings (over Colston) and Thomas has a chance to bust out in a big way. Also I have a lot of good wrs inc. Collie, MWilliams (TB), White, Jennings, Smith (NY), and Floyd so I felt the gamble for Thomas over Knox was worth it. Thanks to the Manning to Collie connection I was high man again, which effectively nets me $550 in side bets (that's 2 weeks in a row). I'm sitting in 1st place in the league w/ a 2-1 record w/ most pts scored. My buddy Joe just traded Ronnie Brown/SSmith (Caro)/Portis for Ray Rice (we're trying to cause a furor over that trade because Joe got way the best of it and there are hundreds, almost thousands of dollars on the line) and traded Brady for MJD/Favre. So his rbs were Chris Johnson, MJD, Rice, and DMC which is about as strong as it gets (1st 3 were considered 3 of the top 4 picks in most leagues) but he just traded MJD/Favre for Brees (which I wouldn't have done) so he's got a powerhouse team that I'll have to try to fend off. We have $100/wk and a $500 total pts bet so hopefully I can manage my team better than his.

Finally if you watched the MNF game you saw that GB tried to stop Chicago from punching it in w/ about a min and a half left in the game when the game was tied and Chicago was within a couple of yards of scoring. I guess some coaches don't understand ev because it was a higher % of winning for Green Bay by letting Chicago score the gimme td then trying to score a td yourself w/ over a minute left than stopping Chicago at the 1 and letting Chicago kick the game winning fg w/ a few seconds left. I read earlier that according to stats (Chic kicker's history of missing xtra pts, GB's probability of scoring a td in a min., etc) , it was determined that GB had an 8% chance of tying the game vs 2% chance of Chicago missing the chip shot fg to win it. It's weird how a lot of decisions in life could and usually should be based on ev, but some people, even people that are expected to know it, don't utilize it. Oh and the $100 I lost betting on GB had nothing to do w/ this rant, honest.

A road trip (Part 3 and Final)

2010-09-23T00:10:00.000-07:00

Continuing on, I met a girl in Vancouver (same girl from last post), and being smitten w/ her settled down there for a bit. She became my girlfriend and early on she continued working as a waitress while I played poker. We decided to move in together and life was great. Eventually she would start accompanying me to the local casinos and poker rooms and sit behind me while I played. She had never played poker before and asked me to teach her because she saw me winning consistently and thought she could do the same. I was against it for awhile because even though I made it look easy, I knew it was difficult to win at it long term. Eventually I gave in and started teaching her and I don't know if it was beginner's luck but she started winning right off the bat. Again we were playing $5-$10 to $10-$20 limit hold'em back then.

Also we started having a few arguments here and there, but nothing serious. A few of them involved poker. Sometimes we would sit at the same table (because some of the rooms only had 2-3 tables) and I would see mistakes she would make. I would tell her of her mistakes and early on she agreed but later on when she started winning more than me (short term), she started disagreeing w/ me. That led to arguments because I know she was thinking "well I made more than you so I must be right and you're wrong". I knew eventually I would end up winning a lot more than her and she would realize I was right, but damn, women sure get stubborn! I guess if someone reels off several winning sessions she feels like she is doing nothing wrong...that was the case w/ my gf at the time.

Eventually she felt confident in her poker ability to quit her job. She was still attending college part time though, which I encouraged. After a few months we decided to get married. No one really proposed and I can't even remember who brought it up first but we really don't care tbh. We also decided not to have a big wedding and ended up getting married fairly quickly after we decided on marriage. After that we applied for her to come live in the states permanently because I was an American, not a Canadian. Along the way she got pregnant and we continued to play poker to support ourselves until she was allowed to become a permanent resident in the U.S. During her pregnancy I worked my ass off trying to save up as much money as I could so we'd have a nice foundation to start w/ when we moved down to the U.S. She didn't play much because of her pregnancy.

One of the first things I did was order every poker book out on the market, notably 2+2 books such as "Theory of Poker" and "Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players". I read every Cardplayer issue as well. I digested as much info on poker as I could during that time. I wanted to be able to make the most money I could playing poker and I became a student of the game. I remember thinking I never studied this much before, ever, even in high school or at UCLA.

Now I'm gonna brag some and say that I crushed the $10-$20 limit hold'em game at the Holiday Inn in downtown Vancouver back in those days. I kept an accurate log of my wins and losses and hrs I spent playing for a couple of reasons. They were that I wanted to see how I was doing per hr and I knew I needed to pay taxes on my winnings, even abroad, and needed to have a good record of my income in doing so (not to mention if I got audited). I mentioned this before but a big bet/hr in limit hold'em is considered very good for a pro but I was beating the $10-$20 limit game for over $40/hr. I also befriended some Canadian poker players during my time up there including Greg "FBT" Mueller and Adam Schwartz (does a lot of work in poker media inc. hosting the 2+2 podcast). I still remain friends w/ all of them today.

Anyway after the birth of our daughter and after a couple of years living in Vancouver, we flew to Montreal to get my wife's paperwork which allowed her to live in the U.S. legally. We didn't really get to enjoy the city because we were there for a day. I remember there were a lot of friendly french speaking people though.

When we came back to Vancouver, we rented a U-Haul and hitched my Nissan Sentra to the back, prayed for a safe journey, and began our journey to the U.S. to start our new lives. We headed to Los Angeles to my parents' house from Vancouver. The drive would not be the smoothest drive. It is about 1500 miles I think so it is quite a long drive. I remember driving through Seattle in this big truck w/ my wife cradling our newborn in her arms (seat belts on). During the drive in Washington, it was snowing and the roads were very icy (it was early January). There were cars off the side that had slid and lost control. I'm not sure how but we managed to get through that stretch unscathed. Also when we got to California we hit a heavy patch of fog where visibility was a few yards. Again we had to drive very slowly and very carefully. Again I felt lucky that we did not get into any sort of trouble or accident. Finally we made it to my parents' house safely and thanked God we made it.

Now my wife and I talked about our future, after all we had a baby and wanted the best life we could for her. I told her since I did well playing poker in Canada I'd give it a shot here in the U.S. and if it seemed like I couldn't make enough to provide a comfortable life for us I would go look for a job. She agreed and we decided to get our own place in Los Angeles. We had $10,000 to start w/ and only half that after getting a place and putting a couple of months deposit down on it. My credit was not that good back then and actually had to persuade the landlord to take a chance w/ us and he did and am forever grateful to him that he did so.

So w/ $5,000 in hand I started playing poker for a living to support my wife and child. I started off low, playing $6-$12 limit hold'em around town in the local cardrooms like Hollywood Park, The Bicycle Club, and Commerce and did well from the get go. I was smart enough about playing within my bankroll while trying to get better at the same time. Even though I officially started playing poker full time back in Canada, I felt like this is what I wanted to do for awhile and wanted to do the best that I can to provide the best life I could for my family. This would be the start of my "career" as a full time poker player over the next 10 years (2 years previously in Vancouver) and where I am today. For a quick look back over the past 12 years in my poker "career", check out this link where I posted about it (mostly as an inspiration that one can live a normal life as a professional poker player, actually written 2 years ago)....

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/evolution-poker-player-right-way-368361/

What started as a summer road trip for a buddy and me ended up w/ me getting married, having a kid, and starting life as a professional poker player.

A road trip (Part 2)

2010-09-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

Continuing on from last time, we ended driving up to Canada. Crossing the border back then was a simple "What's your citizenship?" and "Reason for visiting?" and crossing. Nowadays it's more stringent because of 9-11. Anyway we headed to Toronto because my traveling buddy Dexter knew a girl there. The 1st thing I noticed is that Canada had a different set of measurements. It wasn't miles but kilometers (for speed limit) and it wasn't gallons but liters (for gas). As for Toronto it was a big city w/ a diverse group of residents from all ethnicities. I don't remember playing any poker there but I'm sure there are plenty of poker rooms and casinos there.

We headed west towards Vancouver because somehow Dexter had a job interview there. Now Vancouver is in western Canada while Toronto is closer to eastern Canada so it was quite the drive. We decided to drive through the U.S. again because, let's be honest, there aren't as many cities or things to see and do compared to the U.S. Now I want to mention that there are a whole lot of cornfields in America. I know because it seemed like we drove through nothing but cornfields from northeastern U.S. to northwestern U.S.

Anyway when we were driving through South Dakota we noticed a bunch of bikers passing us often. I remember thinking, damn there are a lot of bikers living in South Dakota. It turned out they were all heading towards the annual motorcycle rally at Sturgis, South Dakota. We went ahead and followed the bikers to Sturgis and it was quite the spectacle. There were bikers and girls in leather everywhere. I read they had over 750,000 people attend it in 2000, 2 years after we attended so you can imagine how crowded it was. Sturgis is listed as having a population of 6,400 in 2000 so to say it was crowded is an understatement. Again we were fish out of water. Here we are, 2 young asian guys, surrounded by (mostly) older white guys in black leather riding around on their Harleys. It was a fun time though.

Nearby Sturgis was Deadwood, a small town that allowed gambling. Now if Deadwood sounds familiar, that's because it was a popular HBO series based in Deadwood of the 1870s. It is also the town where Wild Bill Hickok was shot dead holding the poker hand appropriately named after him ,"dead man's hand" aces and eights. Anyway we played some poker there but unfortunately the state allowed a maximum betting of $5 per round so stakes were small.

Along the way we drove through a few different states but I remember driving through Montana because it was a vast land of openness and there was no speed limit. The law was to drive at a speed that was deemed safe, and for us 100mph+ seemed safe to drive at. We zoomed through Montana for that reason but did make a pit stop in a casino in Billings I think. I remember cleaning up in limit omaha 8 while playing vs. a bunch of white people (after all, it is Montana) and thinking these locals have no idea what hit them (literally...wonder if they've ever seen an asian guy in their city before...joke, somewhat).

We drove to Washington and hit up some casinos outside of Seattle before making our way up to Vancouver, Canada. Now once in Vancouver we had a few days to spend before Dexter had an interview (for a job in Dubai of all places). We ended up frequenting local casinos and poker rooms and did well. I believe the biggest games they spread at the time was $10-$20 limit hold'em. Also the conversion rate was 1.5 Canadian to 1 American so the games played smaller. Now if you've never been to Vancouver, I'd recommend visiting. It is a really beautiful city next to the Pacific Ocean. There is so much greenery around (trees trees trees) and it rains quite frequently. I believe Vancouver has the largest Chinatown outside of China in the world so the asian population is pretty big (ah, finally a place I didn't feel like a fish out of water).

Anyway one day Dexter and I decided to head out to celebrate his birthday. We went to a restaurant where we were serviced by 2 pretty waitresses. Dexter was a little smoother than me around girls I have to admit, and he managed to get the waitresses to go out w/ us once their shifts were done. We ended up going to a coffee shop (found out it was the Bread Garden...my wife answered it when I asked her) and I somehow managed to get the prettier girl to like me by pretty much bs'ing the entire night (jk, I told the truth, mostly). Anyway we decided to meet for lunch the next day at Knight N Day (think a little more upscale Denny's, but Canadian) and almost fell off my chair when I saw her walk in in a mini skirt. I don't want to say it was love at 1st sight (probably lust at 1st sight, technically 2nd sight) but I knew I had a keeper if I could, well, keep her.

Anyway we ended up dating just about every day after that. Dexter had his interview and told me he was ready to go back to Los Angeles to get his things together before heading to Dubai for his new job. He thought we would be driving back together and finish our trip but he would be wrong. I told him I was serious about this girl and gave him money for a flight back to L.A. He wasn't too happy but understood and left w/o me. Somewhat sadly that would be the last time I'd see Dexter in my life. He did take the job in Dubai so I lost touch w/ him.

Part 3 and final part next time...

***Off topic, poker is meh...volume is horrible but I'll be looking to finish strong for the month. Also week 2 in fantasy football was not good. My 3dime team lost the hu match even though I got Michael Vick and started him. I lost all my weekly side bets except one in that league which hurt more. Edog has Mccoy and Best and it was torturous watching that game (Phi-Det) because both guys absolutely went off. It looked like those two were in a Madden game scoring 20+ yd td runs left and right. I also lost again in 1dime and am now befuddled because I thought I had a top 3 team. I still think I do and feel most of my guys have been underachieving so far (Flacco, Fitz, Crabtree, Zach Miller, Brandon Jackson, and getting 4 pts total from my kicker and def). I expect to make a run at the title in that league still. Nickel league was much better as I ended up high man which meant I swept all side bets. Peyton Manning, Best (it sucks to have a guy that conflicts in a diff. league w/ who I have a ton of action w/), Gore, Roddy White, and Pitt def. went off for me. Overall because of my team's lackluster showing in 3dime it was a bad weekend.

I was watching the games at a Buffalo Wild Wings and had my laptop open and my stattracker going (tracks stats of your players and teams) and the BW3 manager walks by and sees that and comments how bad his team is doing then asks me how my fantasy teams are doing. I truthfully reply, "I'm about to lose $10k because of their crappy showing". Obviously he was skeptical but then realized I wasn't kidding when I gave him that "does it look like I'm kidding?!" look. He gave his condolences and went back to his duties of trying to make sure all his customers were happy.

A road trip (Part 1)

2010-09-18T14:54:00.000-07:00

Back in 1998 a buddy and I decided to take a road trip centered around poker. We were winning low stakes poker players living in Los Angeles and thought it'd be cool to spend the summer driving around North America playing poker in casinos, bar rooms, poker clubs, etc. while taking in all the sights Canada and America had to offer. We didn't have much money at the time but thought we'd be able to win on the road to sustain our trip. Anyway w/ a couple thousand dollars each in our pockets, we hit the road in my Nissan Sentra.

Starting from Los Angeles, the logical place for our 1st stop was Las Vegas. I remember we stayed at the Flamingo for free because my traveling buddy Dexter had some comps. I also remember going out on the balcony looking out towards the strip and taking in the view while thinking we were going to conquer the world, one poker hand at a time...lol. We were young and foolish and I guess at that age you tend to have a sense of invincibility and confidence. Anyway back then the only games spread were all limit games and we played limit hold'em and limit stud, stakes ranging from $3-$6 to $20-$40. We decided to pool our enormous resources, all $4k of it and make it a bankroll for both of us to use. I knew right away I was the better player and felt confident I'd be able to add to our roll, but did not feel the same way about Dexter, even though I felt like he was a winning player. He had tilt issues and a propensity to play higher than what our roll could manage.

Vegas was fun and we did what guys our age would do...gamble all the time (mostly poker but a little bit in the pit), drink when not gambling and hit up some of the strip clubs. This lasted for about 3 or 4 days and we set off on our adventure again. We drove past Hoover Dam and headed toward Arizona to take in the Grand Canyon. When I laid my eyes on the Grand Canyon I was in awe. It really is magnificent and for those of you that have not been there, it is definitely something that should be on your bucket list (things to see or do before you die). I know atheists point to the Grand Canyon and say that's a reason God doesn't exist because the bible only dates back a few thousand years while the Grand Canyon is evidence that the earth is millions of years old. I like to think something that magnificent and spectacular had to be created by a higher entity, and in my case God.

We decided not to head down to Phoenix and hit the casinos there because it was kind of out of the way. We headed to New Mexico next and thought we might come across some poker rooms or casinos on Indian reservations there. Wrong.

Next stop Texas. Now for sure there would be casinos or poker rooms in Texas, after all it is called Texas Hold'em...wrong again. Anyway we hit up Amarillo 1st where I almost got a speeding ticket but managed to talk my way out of it. Probably had something to do w/ the fact we were asian and the cop knew we were just driving through...after all, it is Amarillo, Texas. I remember we drove for countless hours in open grass land through Texas. I recall trying to keep myself awake driving during the day because there was nothing to look at for hours. We did end up spending some time in Dallas mostly because we were relieved there was an actual city in Texas after all the driving. We visited Dealey Plaza and the Texas School Book Depository. For non history buffs, the Plaza is where JFK was shot and assassinated and the Depository is where Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly fired the gun that killed JFK.

Our next stop was Louisiana. We hit up Shreveport and Bossier City and found out this is where Texans came to gamble, and gamble they did. The games were very good. We played $20-$40 limit hold'em and remember the games having lots of gamblers. Next stop was Tunica, Mississippi. Tunica is a weird place in that it is a very small town comprised of 4-5 large hotel casinos. To be honest, I don't even think there are residential areas in Tuncia. Now we did ok playing poker but Dexter, being the degen he was, decided to make $500 bets on the Don't Come #4 in craps. Based on our roll, he had about 10 bets before going broke. Luckily he broke about even but more importantly, we got comped for a really extravagant suite in the Horseshoe. It beat the cheap motels or nights we spent sleeping in my car in order to save money. That was one of the best nights of sleep I ever got!

We also got comped for food and ate all the crawfish we could handle. It is the south after all and they make crawfish in every flavor you can think of. We hit the road afterward and stopped by a little southern town in the middle of nowhere to grab a bite. It was a small mom and pops BBQ place and when we walked in, we were surrounded by black people. That's right, 2 young asian guys in a small BBQ joint run by black people located in a small black southern town. Now if that isn't fish out of water, I don't know what is. I don't consider myself having a racist bone in my body and treat everybody as I would like to be treated but I'm not gonna lie and say we didn't feel a little intimidated being there. I will say this though, the BBQ was good and I can see where the term southern hospitality comes from. They were very friendly towards us, in fact I can't ever remember another time in my life where I got friendlier service. We left the place thinking that was awesome and I for one wouldn't mind going back.

Next we headed north. Along the way we took a detour and ended up visiting a monastery. I did not know about it but Dexter had visited it before. It was a unique experience being in a place where everything was deemed holy. There were a bunch of monks that lived there and travelers were welcome to sleep the night in one of their many dormitory like rooms but you were expected to give a donation. They also fed you lunch and dinner w/ food they harvested. The monks did a lot of farming when they weren't praying or worshipping. I did find out they made most of their money in technology (I think it was running a printer cartridge company)...go figure. I definitely took it as an opportunity to try to find the inner peace within me (along w/ trying to get closer to God) and enjoyed the experience. Anyway after spending a night there we made a fair donation and headed our way.

We ended driving up to Dexter's home city of Chicago next. I gotta say Chicago is one of the coolest cities I've been to. We drove through the north side and got to see Wrigley Field from the outside, but alas did not catch a game. Also we got an awesome view of Lake Michigan driving along some of the freeways. We also hung out at Michael Jordan's sportcafe 23. I left Chicago thinking it was one if not the best city I've ever been to.

Pokerwise it was not a very good time. We ended up visiting some local riverboats in the area and Dexter ended up losing nearly all our bankroll. We had to stay a couple of more days in Chicago waiting for money that was owed to him. After collecting we decided to head east, notably New York.

I felt the opposite toward New York w/ how I felt toward Chicago. I did not like New York at all. I remember being stuck on one of the bridges due to traffic and having to go bad. I ended up emptying a soda cup and relieving myself in it while stuck in the middle of traffic. We spent most of our time in Manhattan which was very crowded w/ cab drivers trying to run you off the road. I can see why everybody takes the subways. We spent a couple of days there visiting people we knew. Anyway the next logical place to go was Atlantic City and that's where we went.

We headed down on the New Jersey turnpike and ended up in Atlantic City. We spent a whole lot of time just playing poker and didn't really get to see the city. I'm pretty sure we didn't miss out on much though. Next we headed back to NYC for another day then headed for north of the border.

We reached another beautiful destination in Niagara Falls. It was another break taking site. I remember seeing scenes of it in Superman 2 and to see it in person left me in awe, again. Anyway Niagara Falls stood at the border of America and Canada and we decided to cross the border into Canada, eh.

Now this would be the mid point of our summer journey. Along the way we visited numerous casinos, riverboats, public poker rooms but for the most part we avoided any shady places that had poker. If you were expecting something akin to Doyle Brunson's travels through the south back in the 50's and 60's where he and his friends visited a bunch of shady places that spread poker, I'm sorry to disappoint you. After all it was the 90's and why risk getting cheated or robbed when you can go to a clean establishment.

To be continued... including how I met my wife and how I officially started my poker career.

Don'ts

2010-09-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

Gonna dish out a little poker advice today. I wanna talk about things not to do when it comes to poker. There are a lot of advice out there that preach what to do but not as much that tells you what not to do so I'll try to tackle that a little today. I'll also mention if I've been guilty of any of these don'ts as well by saying guilty which means I have NOT followed my own advice. In no particular order...

Don't let ego get in the way...ever. The only instance I can think of where it's ok is when you're trying to make a deal at a final table. You can, and should be talking about how great you are to try to get the best possible deal. Tell them how much you crush online poker for, how big your winrate is, how many mtts you've won, and how long you've been crushing poker.

Anyway you never want to get to a point where you feel you're the best or too good at poker. When that happens I can assure you you'll be looking for a new line of work in a year or two. If you don't believe me, ask arguably the world's greatest poker player Phil Ivey. I've seen interviews where he says he's always trying to learn something new every day, that there's a lot to learn still and how he's never satisfied.

*Not guilty but guilty about saying how great I am when trying to finalize a deal at the final table.

Now the correlation is that you should always be striving to get better. Never feel like you're the best and keep working at the game. I've had this mindset for 12 years and I think I have a pretty good track record because of that. You can have confidence but lose any cockiness or ego.

*Guilty and so should you be.

Don't play while intoxicated or high. Seems obvious but I know some of you guys have done that and need somebody to remind you not to do that, so I'm telling you now, don't. It's hard enough trying to beat the game when you're alert but trying to do so when your mind is elsewhere or in a state of inebriety is nearly impossible. Even if you are good enough to do so you are not going to match your normal winrate. You are theoretically costing yourself $ over the long run. After you win $, feel free to get as drunk or stoned as you want (err, probably not stoned since it's illegal).

*Not guilty but guilty of being inebriated and in other states when not playing poker...but that was a long time ago...really.

Don't blame bad luck. Luck exists but pretend it doesn't exist. What I mean is that everybody runs the same over the true long run (however long that is is anyone's guess). Everybody is going to make a flush after flopping a flush draw 1 in 3 times, be dealt aces preflop 1 in 220 times, and lose KK on a K88 flop to deuces 1 in 980 times (happened to my wife). Look at it this way, if you flip a coin 10x, it might come heads 9 out of 10 times. If you flip it 1 million times, you can be sure it'll be very close to 50% heads 50% tails. You can miss a flush draw 9 out of 10 times but over a million trials the times you make it is gonna be pretty damn close to 1 out of 3 times. There is nobody that is going to to make 10% or 50% of their flush draws over a million trials. I'm not gonna talk about deviation (because I know the einsteins out there are going to say I need to account for that, but that is a minimal factor when you have enough trials and also doesn't really relate to the main point I'm trying to get at). So knowing this we can assume everybody runs ("luck wise") around the same over a big # of hands, but what separates the winners and losers in poker over this long course of hands is skill, and not good luck and definitely not bad luck (again the # of hands is big but hopefully everybody gets the gist of my point).

*Not guilty...although I tell people I run effing bad sometimes as do lots of people...it's what I call a "listen to how bad I run (show hand history to friend), now feel sympathy for me because I deserve it and acknowledge how bad I run" excuse for losing or not winning more.

This is for you Adam...don't criticize other players on the table. When you berate a guy for playing a hand badly, nothing good really comes out of it. If you berate a bad player 2 bad things may come out of it. 1) he may feel like the game is no longer fun and quit the game and 2) he may think you are right and decide to get better (which hurts your earning power).

Now there may be a couple of instances where it may be ok to berate someone (at the expense of you looking like a total douchebag). Maybe there is a waiting list and there is a worse player 1st up and you're trying to get a player off the table. Maybe your criticism gets the guy to play worse (but usually not worth it because again, he may just pick up his chips and leave). These instances come up so infrequently that I didn't even need to point them out. So you should try to go your entire life w/o criticizing anybody on the poker table (unless you like to be the table a**hole, then by all means go for it).

*Not guilty, but guilty of thinking how effing badly that donkey played that hand to bust my flopped set at the table.

Along the same lines, don't talk strategy on the table unless you're w/ a buddy and nobody can hear. There's nothing tilting than being on a juicy table and having 2 guys talking about polarization, ranges, balancing, etc. in front of everybody. Are you effing kidding me?! Again you don't want to be giving lessons on the table, esp. to the losing players. And no you don't look like you know what you're talking about, you look like a complete jackass to the guys that are actually trying to win at the table. There is a time to talk about poker strategy and it's definitely not on the tables.

*Not guilty...if I wanna hear lessons I'll go rail Phil Hellmuth's table.

Don't chase losses, especially when you're tilting.

*Guilty, and my bankroll hates me for it.

Don't quit when you're winning and the game is good. This is a time to win more. If you're winning that means someone or several people are losing and could be tilting or playing less than their A game. This becomes an even more +ev spot for you. In contrast, if you're losing you should think about quitting because that means others are winning and they are playing confidently and correctly more often. Also you may tilt and play less than your A game and it becomes a -ev spot for you. If you feel like you're still a favorite to win even when losing then keep on playing. Again I'll refer back to Phil Ivey. He can tell you this but he plays longer sessions when he's winning and shorter sessions when he's losing. Most people tend to do the reverse because they want to book a win or get even when losing.

Now there are a few circumstances when it's ok to quit early when winning. One such scenario is when you've been losing for days and need a win to regain your confidence back. It may be more +ev to regain that confidence back so you're assured that yeah, you are not doomswitched for life and can play your A game going forward. Also you want to quit if there are more urgent matters on hand, like having to pick up your kid or more importantly, watching Monday Night Football.

*Guilty way too many times...after all, who doesn't like the feeling of booking a win... the only feeling that may be better than that is sex,...and even a win feels slightly better sometimes.

Don't make excuses for your bad play during and after a hand. Don't come up w/ reasons that don't exist for calling, raising, and folding a hand. E.g. "Wow I'm running hot, I'm gonna call this 4bet w/ 76o here even though I normally wouldn't but hot damn I can't lose tonight!" and "this guy is bluffing because he hasn't bluffed once in the past 1million hands and he's due" (ahhh, the good ole' due theory.... notice it's a theory, not a fact). Make the most +ev play you think at the time based on logic, read, math, and your knowledge.

*Not guilty...except this one time I was pondering a hero call at the river even though it felt bad, because I held 44 on April 4th on a 3456A board w/ 4 flush w/ none of that suit in my hand and was facing a $440 bet and thought the moons were aligned right w/ all the 4's going through my mind. I finally called and was wrong, but hey everything just seemed more than coincidental to be folding the 44 there.

Don't lend money. You'll thank me for this. Learn from my experience. I've been around poker and gambling for over a decade and have befriended people I've lent money to over the years. I'm owed enough to buy a nice new car....the actual # might make you cringe. I've always been overly generous and it's been to a fault. The % that I've been paid back is very small. If guys are asking for a loan in the 1st place, they're probably not winning players or have a huge leak somewhere where they're constantly broke. Also if you ever run bad and your bankroll gets low, you won't be getting paid back when you need your $ the most and will be cursing yourself for ever having lent out that $ in the 1st place. So you should learn a very valuable word when it comes to lending out $... NO.

*Guilty as mentioned. And for those guys that still owe me money, pay up now or I will hire a professional hit man to take you out... just kidding, but I really would like to get paid or else my kid won't be going to college and you don't want that guilt on your conscience, do you? Just like any other dad w/ a daughter, it's my goal in life to keep her away from the pole (I got that from Chris Rock fwiw).

Don't write advice on poker that may help your competition especially when it takes time away from playing poker for $...oh wait...

*Guilty.

Fantasy Football (and a political rant)

2010-09-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

I'll just get my poker talk out of the way and say that I've played 13 hrs in cash games and am stuck $800. My all in ev line is at +$1200 though. As for mtts I'm down another $1200 so not exactly a robust start to the month. I do have to say that my effort time wise is not good. I'm probably feeling too complacent after having a good month last month. I mentioned earlier I tend to do so and need to work on this. To be fair I've had my parents over for a few days and wanted to spend some time w/ them. Also it's almost NFL season which means 1 thing for me....fantasy football!

If there's one degenerate aspect of my life that would be fantasy football. If there's one blog post I hope my wife never reads, this would be it. I tend to go overboard in side action...maybe that's because I've been crushing it the last 2 years. I'm in a $500, $1k, and a $3k buyin league this year. That's $4500 in buyins which is probably about 1/10th in side actions, almost all of it in the 3dime league. There are some big degens (big gamblers is more appropriate I guess, or maybe it isn't) in the 3dime including Erick Lindgren, Brett Richey, and Matt Woodward and I have a lot of weekly and total points bets w/ them. Just about everybody in the 3 leagues are professional poker players except for the nickel league which has 1 non poker player (and yet he's the best ff manager in the league, go figure).

The nickel league is a friends' league that I've been a part of for several years and we have a mandatory $50 weekly bet vs each team along w/ the standard payoffs for 1st and 2nd place and for total pts leader. It's a 8 team full ppr (points per reception) league that starts 2 qbs and has 2 flex spots so it's unique. I managed to win the league last year. I won about $3k in it but better yet won a yahoo tshirt proclaiming me league champ for the year which is awesome because I get to wear it every sunday when I get together w/ my league buddies to watch games. I can happily point to my shirt whenever someone points out so and so on my team sucks. Childish, yeah, priceless, definitely.

As for the team I'm ok w/ it but felt like I could've done a slightly better job drafting it. I had the 6th pick (out of 8) and went w/ Gore in rd 1. I think I screwed up taking Tony Gonzalez over Arian Foster and Michael Bush over a couple of different other backs inc. Ahmad Bradshaw in the mid stages of the draft. Out of all the drafts, I felt like I did the poorest job here but luckily it is the cheapest buyin. I do come in as the reigning champ and hopefully I can become the league's 1st back to back champ. Nickel team....

Now the 1dime league is a new league for me. It's a mid stakes nl cash game players' league comprised of guys from 2+2. I don't know most of the guys in the league but I play against most on a daily basis in the cash games so I trust them (please don't check raise me anymore guys). I do know the man, the myth, the legend AeJones (high stakes pro, lead instructor at leggo poker). He is actually a pretty cool guy that I've met over the summer at the WSOP and is pretty down to earth and into sports (traits that I like to think I share). I'm trying to work on becoming the man, the myth, the legend myself but got a long ways to go. I think I'm at the footnote right now.

Obviously as true to form for good online players, this league is comprised mostly of young guys. I probably brought up the avg. age of guys in the league from 23 to 30 w/ my participation. I wonder if I would've ever been allowed in if they knew I was in my mid 30s. Too late now fellas! I was going in thinking "sweet, bunch of young guys who crush online poker, probably a bunch of degens....they'll probably want to wager (and lose) thousands to me!" but I'm beginning to think these guys value money more than I thought, oh well.

Anyway I was very happy w/ how the draft went. I loved getting the #2 spot out of the 12 teams. I'm bullish on AP this year and pretty much got everybody I targeted. I haven't really looked at all the teams but just the fact that this is a 12 team half ppr league I'm assuming I have one of the top 3 teams (it's all just a matter of opinion really....nah I really do have a top 3 team). The league pays top 3 spots and total pts leader so I'll be disappointed if I don't show a profit in the league. I guess I can always take their money on the poker tables (or maybe it's vice versa?). 1dime team....

In the 3dime league there are 14 teams and it's a half ppr (.5 pts per reception). So this isn't chump change, considering the prize pool is $42,000. Top 2 teams and top 2 total pts leaders get paid. Since it is a pretty expensive league I brought in a co manager to take some of the buyin and action. His name is Hemma and is a solid internet cash game pro that lives in Vegas so it'll be cool to sweat games w/ him. Also I figure a young kid from Iowa will know a little bit about football since they're crazy about their Wolverines there (haha, I'm kidding Hemma, I know it's the Buckeyes). We have several 4 figure weekly bets and 5 figure seasonal total pts bets w/ various teams so it's not a league for the faint of heart (Hemma, get on that grind so you can cover for both of us!).

Last year I managed to come in 3rd which sucked but managed to get 2nd place in total pts which was my buyin back if I recall. I did manage to clean up in side bets and won a car, errr the cash equivalent ($25k). Sounds cooler saying I won a car in fantasy football though. We did up our side bets this year so if our team sucks I could be paying back 2 cars worth (hopefully kia's if that's the case).

An additional bet I have w/ Erick (edog) is if I beat him in total points I get a red pro deal w/ FTP, and if he beats me I have to wear a dog outfit w/ a big letter E on the front at next year's WSOP (or maybe just a simple edog tattoo on my rear end would've sufficed). Actually I'm kidding about the additional edog bet but just in case he ever reads this, the offer will be on the table...for real.

Anyway we changed our draft format from the standard snake to auction which made it very interesting. A lot of guys were rookies (inc. myself) but I felt like I had a great approach and did a good job overall getting the players I wanted. Obviously w/ 14 teams and a 3dime buyin it was very competitive and bargains were hard to find but I think I found a few. 3dime team....

I have a 2ndary plan in place if we get pummeled... I hear Ecuador is a really cheap place to live and hard for anyone to find out if you're living there (get your passport ready Hemma!).

Anyway I'm excited for the upcoming season and to say I'll be sweating the games is an understatement. I'll be sweating and I'll be sweating (perspiration!...nah I don't really sweat perspiration...asians don't have much body hair, or does that matter??).

Now I do want to point out something. That the frick'ing gov't has no clue when it comes to regulation! They pass the UIGEA which bans payments to offshore gambling sites like online poker sites because it's the ethical thing to do (in their minds). Oh we can't let Americans play poker or bet sports on their own free will because they won't be able to control their habits and everyone will become degenerates and society will crumble as we know it. We will however, carve out an exception for betting on horses and participating in real money fantasy leagues though...how much can people lose in those endeavors anyway. Besides, horses are pretty. I think I answered that question, and the answer is sometimes a whole damn lot more than in poker! Great sense of reality Uncle Sam.

Now they really didn't think like that. The reason that happened was all political. What I mean is that the politicians were paid to vote that way for the most part. E.g. the really right Christian groups contributing millions to certain politicians to vote and impose those laws. Also the NFL contributed a lot to it. They are a very strong entity in America and have millions of dollars to bribe, oops, pay politicians to do what they ask. The reason NFL is so popular in the U.S. is because of all the gambling that is done on the sport. The NFL knows this and they know fantasy football is a form of gambling when it deals w/ real money. They know fantasy leagues create tons of new fans and viewership. There is no way in hell they'd let fantasy football leagues be a part of the UIGEA hence they contributed lots of $ to convince politicians to make an exemption for fantasy football. Sounds funny actually but that's the reality of it. ***If any of the stuff I said is incorrect, forgive me...I'm a frick'en poker player, not a CNN correspondent***

Now I guess I can protest and abstain from joining fantasy football leagues but the degeneracy in me won't allow that. Also I'm planning on winning 2 new cars from them this year so how can I pass that up?!

August Wrap Up

2010-09-01T16:58:00.000-07:00

I'm happy w/ how the month went although there was a lot of dead time I could've spent grinding.

As mentioned in my previous post I started adding in some low stakes plo into my grind. I'll probably learn to play the game and play some more the rest of the year. It really is a fun game to play and I enjoy playing it more than nl. Most of my play will still be at nl because that's my strongest game.

Also I elected to leave out my limit results because there are some nuances that are so different than nl and pl that it skews the #s and graph. Looking at my HEM I lost $970 playing limit hold'em and limit omaha 8 after 2100 hands. Guess it's a good thing I just primarily play nl and pl. Actually I know I'm pretty good at limit games and my loss is mostly attributed to the variance over the small sample.

As for tournaments I had that nice live score for $25,400. I also had a cash of $2k in the FTOPs horse. I actually counted how many mtts I played this month and it was a lot. I played in 93 mtts w/ 91 of them online vs 2 live. The total cost of buyins was $8704 so almost $100/mtt. It's kinda skewed by the fact the 2 live mtts cost $900 total. If we just look at online, it's $7804/91 = $85 for the avg. buy in. Nearly all the mtts I played were on sundays w/ the exception of the FTOPs which ran during the week + weekends. Based on HEM I played 66 hrs but some of that was at the same time I was grinding cash games so it's hard to assess how much total time I put in last month playing poker. HEM shows I spent 77 hrs playing cash games. Also I spent 3 days playing live tournaments which I don't mind to get away from the monotony of playing in front of my computer. It's nice to actually see real people when playing poker!

What can we take from this? That grinding mtts online is a waste of time! No, seriously it's always been considered that winning in cash games is a more stable and profitable way than winning in mtts, especially for guys that can win at both. There will be exceptions but for the most part it's true and that's why I would suggest for most aspiring poker players to focus on cash games 1st, even though the learning curve is longer than mtts. A side benefit is that if you win in cash games you should be +ev in most mtts, while that's not true for winning tournament players wanting to play cash games. Heck most good cash game players welcome and want tournament players, inc. the winners, to join their games.

So for the month of August, looks like I won $38,549 in cash games + $2540 in rake back + $21,747 in mtts (after all buyins) for a total of $62,836. Again I'm happy w/ the month but looking to focus more on cash games and less on mtts going forward.

Also I know a lot of guys use PTR to check to see if a guy is a winning or losing player (esp. bumhunters) but it does seem to miss hands from time to time. I checked it to see how I stood among $2-$4 and $3-$6 winners for the month and it had me winning $7000 in August at $3-$6 which is only half of what I really won. Just to show how off it is (in my case anyway) it has me listed up $381k since March 18 '08 when in reality I'm up nearly double that (posted snapshots of my HEM since Feb '08 few months ago). It goes both ways though. My friend is listed as being up $350k or so when in reality he's only up half of that. It does a decent job of showing who's winning and losing but you can't really rely on the site for true winrates nor total $ won/lost in most cases (maybe winrates might be more accurate than actual $ won/lost though).

Finally even though I'm behind my goal of 7 figures, I am at about $250k for the year which seems to be a magic # for poker players, according to this thread anyway.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/making-250-year-844863/

I did offer some insight in the thread starting at page 10 for those interested. I talked mostly about how hard it was to retire from poker after 10 years (assuming you never have to work another day in your life).

Plo (and latest Poker Road podcast)

2010-08-28T01:50:00.001-07:00

So I dabbled in some $1-$2 and $2-$4 plo today and did ok winning about $1700. I had fun playing it and might spend some time learning the game. There are little nuances that I need to learn. I think a lot of the same concepts from nl can be applied to plo. Anyway I decided to download the omaha upgrade for Hold'em Manager to see my stats today. I know I've dabbled in it a little bit over the past 2 years and I was pleasantly surprised to see my results (inc. the $1700 win today)...

I guess saying I've been running good in the game is an understatement. Also what sticks out is my vpip, which stands at 47.3! I knew I was playing a lot of hands but didn't know I was playing nearly half my hands. I think pretty much all my plo play has been in 6max games but still I'm sure it's probably not wise to play so many hands. Also I probably should 3bet a little bit more but I'll need to learn what type of hands I should be doing it w/. Granted it's a small sample size at 6500 hands but I do think w/ a little bit of study I should hold my own (or even crush) at midstakes.

I will also say that I noticed a lot of bad play, more so than at the same stakes in nl. I'm not an expert at plo but I could see the mistakes others were making. Speaking of mistakes I'm sure I butchered this hand...

Full Tilt, $2/$4 PL Omaha Cash Game, 4 Players

LeggoPoker.com - Hand History Converter

UTG: $484.30

BTN: $2,126.40

Hero (SB): $1,324.20

BB: $236.55

Pre-Flop: J J A 3 dealt to Hero (SB)

UTG folds, BTN raises to $14, Hero calls $12, BB folds

Flop: ($32) J 9 K (2 Players)

Hero checks, BTN bets $24, Hero raises to $75, BTN calls $51

Turn: ($182) 4 (2 Players)

Hero bets $165, BTN raises to $677, Hero folds

Results: $512 Pot

BTN showed and WON $1,022 (+$768 NET)

That's right..I folded middle set + nut flush draw on the turn! At the time I didn't mean to fold and timed out by accident because I forgot to click the timebank (doh!) but even still it might've been the right fold (but probably not the correct fold). I made 1 glaring mistake in the hand (which has nothing to do w/ the actual correct way of playing it). It was that I was unaware of stack sizes preflop and flop. I saw the flop and automatically checkraised w/ intent of getting it all in (thinking it was 100bbs effective) then realized we were super deep at the turn. I still felt like I needed to bet the turn but wasn't sure what to do once villain raised pot. In plo people have nuttier hands way more often so I wasn't in love w/ my hand at the turn but in hindsight I think I should've just shoved it in even though we're close to 300bbs effective. Obviously I'm gonna puke if he shows me QTxx or KKxx but I had decent equity still. Also there is the chance he shows up w/ worse, eg 99xx, some combo draw of his own, etc. He was also multabling so I assume he was a reg and could be making a play w/ worse.

I do think I should've 3bet the hand preflop because we were so deep and my hand plays well in a big pot because of the big pair + nut flush potential + few straights potential. If I had 3bet it, it would've been much easier to stack off at some point in the hand because I would've been getting a much better price (stack to pot ratio would've been smaller so would've been closer to a no brainer to just go w/ it). Anyway I felt bad after my hand folded..like I had butchered the hand. Oh well, it's definitely a learning process and I'm planning on getting better!

**Latest PokerRoad podcast available. We interviewed Jonathan "driverseati" Tamayo, who has done well in mtts (live and online) and is a limit hold'em specialist....

http://www.pokerroad.com/radio/cash-plays/82

Live Tournament Cash ($25k woohoo!)

2010-08-23T21:38:00.000-07:00

So I played the Detox main event ($550 buyin) over the weekend at the Hard Rock here in Vegas and finished 3rd for $25,400. Not a bad pay day but disappointed in not winning it all esp. the cool trophy that comes w/ it. Here's a pic of it (w/ some deadmoney next to it..lol...nah that's my buddy Joe that won the 1st event and $31k..Matt Savage next to him).

I started the day 13th in chips out of 18 and really didn't pick up any hands at all all day and nursed a short stack until we were 4 handed. It helped that the levels were increased from 40 mins to 60 mins at the final table. Matt Savage usually runs player friendly tournaments and this was no exception. He is arguably the best tournament director out there today, and he's very friendly w/ players. He's also a mod on 2+2 and contributes there a lot so if that's not cool, idk what is (the fact that he's a well know tournament director for major events yet has the time to be a 2+2 mod, and he doesn't just post in the mtt threads...his posts are all over 2+2). He also has a charity golf tournament named after him (which he hosts) so he's into philanthropy as well (shameless request..Matt if you ever read this I'd love to be invited to it sometime!).

Anyway at the final table I never picked up a hand before a timely double up w AK vs J7 aipf. That only got me to 12 bbs or so. If there was one complaint I had about the tournament it was that there wasn't much play when were we 4-7 handed. I think there was a decent amount of play hu but alas I didn't make it, which compounded my disappointment because I felt (knew) I was the best player at the final table and probably been a favorite hu even if I was outchipped (unless I was really short).

When we got down to 6 handed, others proposed a deal and even though I only had 10 bbs at the time (along w/ 2 others at 10bbs, the cl's w/ about 25-30bbs) I nixed the deal (deal consisted of me receiving $16k when 1st was $60k w/o the deal) for a couple of reasons...I was the best player (stating my opinion w/o trying to sound arrogant) and a couple of the guys really wanted the deal so I knew there was a lot of fold equity against them. I was able to bust the next best player w/ QQ vs ATs and was up to 400k w/ blinds at 15k-30k and they proposed another deal. This time I was offered $25k and after deliberating on it for a few mins (others wanted the deal) I decided to take it for 1 reason only...because there still wasn't much play w/ the stacks at 200k, 300k, 400k (me), 1mil, 1.2 mil with blinds 20k-40k (see not much play). I knew it was somewhat of a crapshoot and I could bust out 5th easily and receive $10k (vs the $25k I was to get w/ the deal + 10k left to play for for 1st..actually $7k for 1st, $3k for 2nd) so I took it but wasn't excited about it like the others were.

There was an older asian guy that kept telling me I should take the deal because I'm getting $25k and that that's a lot...he hounded me for a few mins. about it while I deliberated it. I had to tell him everybody has different interests in regards to the $ and the tournament. He wouldn't let up though and asked me for my name because he said I must've been someone important in the poker world not to take the deal (especially since I was the only guy that was hesitant on it). I gave it to him and he said he would look me up online. Well sir if you are reading this, you found me and congrats on your 4th place finish.

Anyway after I unenthusiastically accepted the deal I lost every hand. I opr w 99 fr the sb and bb called, flop J86r, I cbet bb raised little over 2x, I tanked for awhile and folded and he showed me QJ. Then the asian guy opr to 120k on the button w/ 400k behind and I look down at KJo in the sb w/ 700k and based on his physical tells I was nearly 100% certain he didn't want to face a reraise (I guess I'll help him out if he's reading this but he got really silent when he held big hands preflop and talked a lot when he held weaker hands..was such an obvious tell...he was talking a lot here after opr) so I elected to shove and he tanked and started talking about how happy he was to have locked up $18k (like very very happy, remember he was hounding me to take the deal) and I was thinking uh oh, I didn't think about the fact that he's very happy securing $18k so I prob. have way less fold equity. Anyway after a couple of minutes about how happy he was w/ $18k (he was pretty nitty before the deal) he said, I'm gambling ..I call!! and rolls over 44 and it holds and cripples me. It was a shame because I would've been 3handed w/ equal stacks w/ the 2 older gentlemen (1 played ok, somewhat abc but ok, other loose and somewhat below avg).

Anyway after the asian guy busts w/ a very bad call (sb opl, he raises, sb shoves huge, he again goes into his usual outburst about $18k and how he didn't expect to make it this far and calls w AT and busts to AK). It was a bad call because the sb's range crushes AT based on my reads of the sb and the asian guy had plenty of chips to work w/ if he just folds (about 1mil w/ blinds at 20k-40k). Couple of hands later I was down to 285k and decided to shove K2o on the button and got called by KJ and that's all she wrote. The hu match was 2 guys in their 50s and the better player ended up winning it.

Anyway back to the asian guy he was irritating while amusing to play w/ because of his outbursts and his nonstop endless chatter when deliberating to call or fold. Think a lesser versian of Hevad Khan (during his deep main event run) but in an older asian guy's body. If you want proof, check out his post bust out interview, esp. the end when he finds out he's itm....

http://www.detoxpoker.com/2010/08/main-event-marco-dances-with-bona-sar.html

Yeah he was doing that dance and more every time he won a hand, especially when he doubled up. Now I thought he was out of line when he was hounding me to take the deal and his outbursts were a little annoying at times but for the most part I found it amusing and I must say my impression of him is that he's actually a nice guy that was excited to get as deep as he did so it's all good.

As for me they interviewed me as well....

http://quadjacks.com/videos/377/john-kim-3rd-place-detox-poker-main-event

As you can see, it was a more low key, more somber interview than the interview w/ the other asian guy. Also the interviewer's reaction when he finds out my online sn is kinda funny..."really, you're Nicolak, what was that again?"...lol. My thought while watching it...geez I need a new hair stylist!

Overall though I enjoyed the experience and enjoy playing live mtts from time to time ...although I felt like I wasted 2 months playing a lot of WSOP events over the summer, as evidenced by my June and July results. I should mention I brought my ipad w/ me and pretty much did stuff on it between hands while playing. After all I'm used to playing 1k hands/hr so seeing 30 hands/hr seems snail pace to me and needed to stimulate my brain somehow (by reading football stuff for this upcoming season on the ipad).

Also I will try not to take any time off after this score (for me a modest score but I know it's different w/ everybody). I get in the habit of taking a lot of time off after any tournament cash of significance. I pretty much took the year off when I won $250k on Partypoker back in Jan.'05, took the last 4 months off after winning $135k on FTP back in aug '07, and took the entire month off after winning the double deuce for $32k early in March of last year. If anything, it's the best time to grind as much poker as possible w/ an inflated bankroll and possibly take shots at higher stakes. I'm gonna fight the nit and complacency in me and keep grinding online this time. Oh and I guess I'm having a nice balanced month being up $30k in mtts and $30k in cash games!

Limit vs No Limit

2010-08-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd offer my thoughts on each type of format and some similarities and differences between the 2. I should mention I played limit hold'em the 1st 6 years of my career and nl the past 6-7 years of my career but in no way am I saying I'm an expert but I do consider myself proficient in both (although my limit hold'em game probably has been passed by the new generation).

I'll talk about limit hold'em 1st. It's mostly a game of maximizing bets when you have the best (best hand or more specifically +ev spots in any situation) and minimizing bets when you are behind. When you have top pair top kicker you usually have the best hand and want to be betting and raising at just about every opportunity. Also you can win at a pretty good rate just playing tight and straightforward up to midstakes (live). I'm kind of out of the loop when it comes to limit hold'em games online nowadays but figure they're probably tougher than they were when I was playing full time.

It is a simpler game than nl. You can basically memorize a chart of hands to play in certain positions. I think David Sklansky had some good limit hold'em books that included charts. Obviously full ring is going to be simpler than 6max or hu (the same applies to nl for the most part) because you can play straightforward more and actually just play based on the absolute strength on your own hand sometimes whereas shorthanded (and in nl) you have to be aware of the range of hands of your opponents (so relative strength of your hand).

Also it is a game where you or your opponents are correct in calling a high % of time at river because the pot odds are so great since it only costs 1 big bet to call (to win a 5+ big bets pot usually). Also it helps to know the mathematics of poker (obvious statement I know). There is an interesting scenario where you get dealt any pp and are supposed to raise preflop if you see 8+ players limp in front of you whether in late position (assume 1 or both blinds call if lp) or in the blinds. This even includes raising 22. The reason being that it's about 7.5-1 to flop a set so therefore you're getting an overlay on any additional money put in because you can expect everyone to call 1 more small bet preflop. The times you wouldn't do it is if you're suspicious the 1st limper limped w/ the intent of 3betting but most don't do that. Also I'm just throwing out any postflop scenarios because it would complicate things ...eg. flopping underset, losing to straights +, but it prob. evens out or shows a profit overall when players are tied to their draws or top pair type hands because of the bloated pots (plus you can win unimproved sometimes).

I remember playing $100-$200 a few years ago and a very good limit hold'em player checked 77 from the bb after 8 people had called preflop for 1 bet (sometimes the games were good even at those stakes back then). Anyway he flopped a set and won a big pot but should've been a bigger pot for the reasons I mentioned.

As for winrates, it was assumed when I was playing that the very good players won at a rate of 1 big bet/hr (live) so at $20-$40, about $40/hr. I'm not too familiar w/ winrates online even though I played a lot during the PartyPoker days (from $10-$20 to $100-$200, $30-$60 being the main game for me).

Now I'm going to talk about nl which is a much more familiar game to me now. I have to admit I made a ton of mistakes early on in my nl career, mistakes that most nl players would not make if they just started playing nl from the get go. It was due to the fact that I was playing nl a lot like limit early on because that's pretty much how I knew to play hold'em. Top pair good kicker? No problem, stack off on the flop. Shove turn or river as a bluff? Umm, nah because I could lose my whole stack whereas in limit I would lose just 1 big bet.

I was able to win from the get go because I've always had a good feel for any form of poker and played my A game consistently (not tilting). I've since found out that nl is a much more pure form of poker in that you are playing your opponents more than your actual hands (whereas in limit you are relying on your and your opponents' hands more). Also nl is a game where you can win pots by skillfully executing lines that are credible, inducing opponents to bluff or shove w/ worse, threatening opponents for their entire stacks, among other things that doesn't apply to limit as much.

There is a reason why the worst players in nl games went broke much earlier than the worst players in limit games. It took constant pounding (of many hands) to break a bad limit hold'em player but it could take just 1 hand to break a bad nl player.

Also the range of hands you play in each game differs. In limit hands that flop top pairs w/ good kickers trump (along w/ mid to big pps) such as KJ, KQ, AJ, etc because you can bet bet bet whenever you flop a big pair (obv. slow down on certain board textures and vs certain opponents). There are a couple of reasons for this...you can't lose too much if you're behind and a lot of players play any 2 broadways so you'll have them outkicked enough times. The flip side is you don't want to play small cards, even suited, like 65s unless you get 4+ players going into the flop. It's a volume hand meaning you need lots of players in to make it profitable to play. Ideally you're hoping to make a straight or a flush and it's hard to make those. Also when you do make one you can only win a couple of big bets.

In nl it's sort of backwards for the hands I mentioned. You generally don't want to play QJo, KJo, ATo, esp. when there is a raise because you don't want to come in 2nd place (kicker problems) because it's hard to fold when you make top pair and will end up losing too much vs. winning enough to make up for the losses. You'll probably lose at least 2 streets of betting if you're behind and 2 streets of betting in nl is a whole lot more than 2 streets of betting in limit. Also suited connectors, even the smaller ones like 45s have a lot more value because the implied odds are huge (in limit you may win 2-3 big bets, in nl you may win opponent's entire stack) so you can play them frequently.

As for bankrolls for each form of poker, it was generally thought that you needed 300 big bets for whatever stakes you were playing for limit hold'em and 30 buyins for nl (assuming you're a winning player). Obviously it really depends on your skill level relative to your opponents'. If it is narrow then you might need more of a bankroll and if the gap is wide then you could use less. Now w/ the games being tough as ever today I would probably say 1.5-2x the aforementioned bankrolls would be advised.

Now since I live in Vegas I'll just say the best place to play limit hold'em is Bellagio where they spread $4-$8 up to $60-$120 on a daily basis. Anything higher is dependent on a few things. There are lots of $15-$30 and $30-$60 limit games and for the most part they're still beatable if you have a solid grasp of the game and don't tilt much (and have good br management..again stating the obvious). They used to have a $100-$200 game daily (which I frequented back in the days) but it kinda died. There are $10-$20 and smaller games around town as well. As for nl I still like the Bellagio but since nl is king right now there are games everywhere around town. The highest games that run daily outside of Bellagio is prob. $5-$10 (uncapped) at Venetian and the Wynn. Bellagio has several different stakes and runs $10-$20 nl daily which is a pretty good game usually. They'll get a $25-$50 game sometimes (and much bigger in Bobby's room).

I'm sure I didn't cover everything when it comes to limit vs nl but I hope you can see some of the differences in the 2 variations of the games. Both can be fun but for the most part, nl is tougher to get a grasp of but probably more fun because there are more options available (my thoughts anyway). Also if you're starting out I'd recommend learning nl 1st because there are many more games available than limit and also just about every tournament is a nl tournament so you'd like to have the option of playing cash games or tournaments when you want. I am a believer in learning as many forms of poker as you can because it's nice to have a variety of games to choose from day to day (plus there might be softer games in one form of poker than the other form) and this inc. limit, nl, mix games, plo, and whatever other forms of poker is out there today.