Poker Words - A Poker Blog

Full Tilt Bonus

2010-02-28T13:39:00.002-06:00

At the risk of turning this blog into a permanent FullTilt ad, I just wanted to let you know that if you have a FullTilt account there should be a $50 bonus ready for you to claim. Just log on and go to the requests menu to claim your bonus. I think you have until March 15th to claim it and then a month after you claim it to earn it. It gets released in $5 increments. You relace $.06 per Full Tilt Point earned. It took me about 350 hands at $.25/.50 to work off $5, but those of you that play at higher stakes, or during happy hour should have no problem.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Biggest Pot Ever

2010-02-06T14:22:00.005-06:00

I won my biggest pot ever this morning. Keep in mind, that's not really saying much since I almost never play ring games, especially no limit, and when I do, I play at about as low stakes as I can find. Still, its nice to hit something big every once in a while.

I'm still loving Rush Poker. Either I'm getting extremely lucky, or its easy money, or some combination of those two. I moved up from my $.5/.10 all the way to $.25/.50, where the big money is.

The caliber of play wasn't noticeably different. I did find that I was recognizing a few of the players this time around, those with odd names, or huge chip stakes, so I guess you could theoretically try to build an image, but it seems like it wouldn't be worth the effort.

I did notice couple of potential leaks in my game. I checked the best hand on the river on multiple occasions. It makes me nervous when my pre-flop raise gets called, and I get check called to the river. Especially when I only have a mediocre hand. I'm content to check it down at that point instead of risking a check-raise that I would potentially struggle to call. On the flip side, there were a number of hands where my opponent raised me ridiculous amounts when I had pretty good hands, but not good enough to risk calling that type of raise. I don't know what I can do to prevent that situation, other than firing back every once in a while. The problem is, firing back doesn't help because next hand no one will know me, and they may actually have the hand they are representing.

So I know hand replays are probably getting old, but like I said at the top, this was my biggest pot ever so I'm going to go back through it. Feel free to skip ahead.

In the small blind I get dealt Aces, and better yet the player under the gun raises to 3.5BB That means I can just call and disguise my hand a bit. Then the guy one from the button calls. I'm tempted to slow play here, but decide to bump it up to $4.00 hoping one of them will fold. Slow playing aces with multiple players is a great way to get them cracked. In retrospect, I probably should have gone higher if I wanted them to fold, but $4.00 seems like a lot preflop in a 50 cent game. At the very least they should be on the defensive. Both call.

The flop is Qs 2s 8c. Not bad. I could do without the flush draw, but I'm almost certainly ahead at this point. A set of queens is a concern, but I don't think I have to worry about it. I be $8, 2/3 of the pot and both call. Curious. That $8 is more than most hands have in a pot at showdown.

The turn is 7s. Potentially a very bad card. If one of them just hit a flush I'm in trouble. I know if I check here I'm going to have to fold to any bet so I bet $15, less than half the pot, but I large amount for these stakes. UTG calls, and the guy to my right puts his last $6 in. There's now about $72 in the pot. I'm worried about the flush, but I'm still on a nut flush draw and I don't buy that either of them have it. knowing neither of them have the ace makes it hard for me to believe that they've been chasing a flush.

The river is a glorious 6s giving me the nut flush. I bet $25 which puts UTG all in. He calls and the $115.95 pot gets pushed my way. UTG has AQo, no spades so he chased that hand the whole way with top pair top kicker against two players, one of whom was betting fairly aggressively. The guy to my right had KJs, so I ended up getting lucky on the river. I wonder if he had more chips if he would have raised me on the turn. I also wonder what it would have taken to get him out of the hand on the flop.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker Part 3

2010-01-25T19:58:00.002-06:00

Yes three posts in a row about the same thing. But I probably didn't even have three posts all of last year, so you should take what you can get.

I'm really enjoying rush poker. I hope whoever came up with this at FullTilt got a promotion because its genius and they stand to make a ton of money on it.

I played 150 hands at the micro limits in about half an hour and doubled my buy in. Some more notes:

Stealing blinds is easy. People seem much less willing to defend their blinds when a better hand is milliseconds away. (small sample size, super low stakes, yadda yadda)
I always make sure that my preflop raise is the same amount, whether I have aces, or 9Ts, or I'm on a bluff so as not to give any indication of what I have. There's not really a point in doing that in Rush because no one will remember what your normal raise is. Maybe try to squeeze in a bigger raise with your super premium hands.
One of my weaknesses as a player is that I don't pay attention to my opponents as much as I should. I'll notice certain players, but in general I get distracted by other things than hands I'm not in. The Rush poker format neutralizes that by randomizing your opponent, and I think my skills against a random opponent are better than average.
I'm playing poker somewhat regularly again. Woot. Although Mass Effect 2 comes out tomorrow so this might be a short lived journey back into the poker world.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker Part 2

2010-01-23T12:48:00.003-06:00

Hey wow two posts in one day! See the post below for an explanation of rush poker.

So I tried a little rush poker. I played less than half an hour at the $0.05/$0.10 table. Big money I know. In that time I played 110 hands playing a single table. Its intense. You fold and split seconds later the action is back on you. Here's some observations from my first exposure.

Its fast. The average hands per hour at a rush table was around 275 compared to 80 at a normal table.
I couldn't figure out how to leave a table because it won't let you stand up while you're in a hand, and as soon as you fold you're in another hand. (check the sit out next hand box, then stand up)
You can't build an image. There's not really a point in trying to build an image, or play sneaky or opposite what you were playing because you're not going to be at the table with these people next hand.
Play is tighter. I'm used to micro limit tables having more people see the flop than not. If you can exchange your rags, or even your somewhat playable cards for a new hand immediately why waste time with garbage?
Its fast.
Sometimes I miss watching a hand to completion. You know those hands where you kind of want to stay in, but know you shouldn't? And you fold, but want to stick around to see what the other players have? You can't. As soon as you fold you're off to a new hand and you don't get to see what happened in the one you just left. I think you can go back and look at the hand history, but by the time you do three or four more hands have completed and you don't remember what you were looking for anyway.
Its fast. Did I mention its fast? There were some pros playing at the $0.50/$1 tables four tabling. I have no idea how they can do that.
If I remember correctly, they have an iron man promotion that rewards you for getting X number of FullTilt points each day in a month. It wouldn't take long to get there playing Rush style.
I actually made a profit. I more than doubled my $10 investment. That in itself is a miracle as I am not a good cash game player. I think the tighter play, both for me and my opponents contributed to that. Plus the small sample size and quitting while I'm ahead thing.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Rush Poker

2010-01-23T11:42:00.003-06:00

FullTilt poker has invented a new poker format. They're calling it Rush Poker.

The concept is this: Everyone joins into a big rush poker game. This is a multi-table ring game. As soon as you fold a hand you are taken to a brand new table and dealt a new hand. So if you know you are going to fold pre-flop you don't have to wait until the showdown to play another hand. Its the ADD player's dream come true.

In case you are wondering, they've put safeguards in so that even though you are at a new table because you hit the fold checkbox, no one at your original table knows it until the action reaches you. They also made it so you can't show up at a new table with any of the same players that are still in the hand of your old table, and if you are multi-tabling, you can't end up at a table with yourself. You can see all of the details on the FAQ page.

This sounds like a great idea from FullTilt's perspective. I would guess that players participating in this type of poker are going to play 5 times as many hands in the same amount of time, resulting in that much more rake for the site.

Its also good for the short attention span players that get bored waiting for hands that they aren't in to finish. The only problem I see is that it will almost be impossible to get a read on any of the players since you only see them for a hand, and often times wont' see the completion of that hand. Honestly, that probably won't matter much for me, because I tend to get bored and do other things like surf the interwebs instead of watching the hand and trying to evaluate my opponents. That being said, there are some players whose style I will make note of and adjust my play accordingly.

The other thing that might be nice is that it should cut down on the trash talking at the table. The asshole who has to insult everyone at the table for their inferior play isn't going to have an audience for more that a minute.

All in all, its an interesting concept. I don't really play much online anymore especially cash games, but if I happen to play in the near future, I think I'll check this out.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

PokerStars Blogger Tournament

2010-01-14T17:41:00.002-06:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 599606

These are always fun. I wasn't able to make any of the tourney's last year, but a year or two ago I came in 11th place and won an xbox. I think I prefer winning shwag instead of tourney entries for these types of things but, whatever. I'm not going to complain about a freeroll entry.

If any PokerStars rep is looking for some free advertising, I'd be more than happy to wear a pokerstars shirt that they send me to my next home game. Or PokerStars chips, or a Plasma Pokerstars TV. Free stuff for me, cheap advertising for them. Sounds like a win-win. I'm just sayin'.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Kyl Still Wants the UIGEA enforced

2010-01-12T07:44:00.002-06:00

There's an article over at salon.com about AZ senator Jon Kyl who is holding up confirmation of some treasury depart nominees because he's made the enforcement of the UIGEA has been delayed six months. According to the article that six month delay is intended to give Barney Frank time to come up with a bill legalizing online gambling.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

New Year's Poker

2010-01-04T21:37:00.001-06:00

The new year began with an almost unheard of event. After almost a year off, our regular “monthly” poker group actually got together and played some poker. To make things a little more special ,we even upped the buy-in from our usual $25/game to $100. We also increased our starting chip stack from $T700ish to $T1500.

We had 13 entrants, and I came in fifth, or maybe fourth. We both busted out on the same hand and I think the other guy had a few more chips than me.

Looking back at my play, I think I played fairly well that evening, with a few exceptions that I’ll get to later. I think luck just wasn’t on my side this evening. With getting into too many bad beat details I’ll just say that I had people dominated and all in on numerous occasions and they would hit their three outer to stay alive and seriously damage my chip stack. I lost an AJ vs KQ preflop all-in when my opponent flopped a straight. I lost AQ vs A9 all-in pre-flop when my opponent rivered a straight, plus a few other smaller hands that I don’t remember the exact details. I say this not to bitch about losing but as evidence that I think I was playing fairly well.

A big moment for me came relatively early on in the tourney. I had recently lost a fairly large pot and was failrly short-stacked. I had A9 under the gun and put in my standard 3xBB raise. Everyone folded except the BB who called. BB is a very loose aggressive player, and not someone who I would have wanted to call me. My plan is to go all in no matter what is on the flop. Its really my only choice at the time. Flop is rags, 236 or something similar. BB goes all in. Crap. He stole my move. He knew that was going to be my move so he had to beat me to the punch. I think normally I lay this down. I don’t think he has anything, but I can see him playing any hand in this scenario, especially from the big blind. He could K6, or A2 or a low pocket pair, and just gotten lucky. Or he too could have missed the flop completely. He could even think he’s bluffing yet still be ahead of me. Ultimately I figured I had to be better than him. If he has something he would have almost certainly checked, assuming that since I raised pre-flop I would bet here. If he has something he risks scaring me away with is all-in bet. So I do make the call, he does have nothing and I go on to win a big pot and coast into the final table.

There was a flaw in our tourney structure. We started with 13 players at two tables, and combined when we got down to 9. I don’t know if people were playing tighter than normal due to the increased buy in amount, or if the larger chip stacks played a roll, but no one went out until the fifth or sixth blind level. By that point the blinds were starting to become painful for everyone.

Once we combined the blinds were so high that any hand you played would almost certainly put you all in. That combined with the fact that the new bigger table meant you could see more hands for free, made everyone tighten up. No one hardly played more than a hand or two each orbit. No one saw a flop. It was real slow, and real boring. I don’t know if it was a fluke or if we just picked a bad chip amount/blind schedule but there was no action on the final table.

This is where I didn’t play so well. I had a lot of decent, but not great hands which I would continually fold. I was afraid that by raising I would run into a bigger hand and be pot committed into losing all my chips. Better to wait for a premium hand while the blinds squeezed out the lower players. The problem was the players with low stacks kept doubling up when they were forced all in, and eventually I was near the short stack list. Instead of taking advantage of the tight play I fell into the same trap as everyone else. When I finally did push, I ran into two hands both better than mine and it was over. The worst part is that had I folded that hand, then blinds would have forced out one of the other remaining players and I would have come in at least third and won some money.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Largest Online Tournament Ever

2009-07-21T21:45:00.002-05:00

As part of their five year anniversary Fulltilt was trying to set the Guinness World Record for biggest online poker tournament. The tournament was Sunday the 19th. I got the email announcing it today, on Tuesday the 21st. I'm going to go ahead and guess they didn't break the record, which is too bad, because I probably would have tried to play if it was next week, or say in a month or so, and I actually had time to plan for it. I wouldn't mind participating in a record setting event. Its not like they didn't know they were going to do this months ago. How hard would it have been to send an email blast a week or two ahead of time?

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

$10,000 Freeroll

2009-07-20T21:29:00.001-05:00

In honor of the Poker Players Alliance's National Poker Week, FullTilt Poker is having a $10,000 freeroll on Sunday August 2nd. To qualify all you have to do is send a letter to your congressman using the PPA form, asking them to support legalizing online poker. Make sure you use the same email address as the one on your FullTilt Account.

Register for a FullTilt Account (and get up to a $600 bonus)
Send a letter to your representative
Wait for an email with instructions to register for the freeroll.

[***Update***]

PokerStars is also having a $10k freeroll. Their tourney is on August 1st, but registration is limited to the first 30,000 people.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Bears Trip

2009-04-18T11:26:00.004-05:00

Last year my friends and I started what I hope will become our annual Bears trip. This is where we all meet in the city of Bears away game for a weekend of heavy drinking, and watching of football. And drinking. Did I mention the drinking?

Last year we went to Atlanta and if not for the last 11 seconds of the Bears game it was an awesome weekend. The stadium, as well as a number of other bars and restaurants were all within walking distance of our hotel, which was really convenient.

The NFL schedule came out yesterday so we have to figure out where to go. I'll be traveling from Chicago. Two of my friends are coming from the East coast, so games out there work better for them. The fourth member of our group is working in Japan for a year, so I'm fairly certain that he's out no matter what, but if there was any chance of him making it to one of the games I think it would have to be on the West Coast.

Here's our options. I don't know very much about most of these cities, so I'm open to suggestions.

9/13 - Green Bay Packers - Opening week. I doubt we can get affordable tickets, and I don't particularly want to go to Green Bay, even if it is one of the more convenient options on the list.

9/27 - Seattle Seahawks - This is one of my top choices. I'd like to visit Seattle at some point. Why not see a football game too? I'm concerned that it would be tough to get tickets though since their fans are pretty hard core.

10/18 - Atlanta Falcons - We already went to Atlanta, but I thought it worked out well. I'd go again. It might be more difficult to get tickets this time around since they might actually be expected to be decent this year, but I think its a good bet.

10/25 - Cincinnati Bengals - I don't know why by I think Cinci is a ghetto town. I've never been, but if I was to pick the most likely place on this list to get stabbed walking down the street it would be Cinci. Actually it would be Detroit, but Cinci would be a close second. It does look like there is some stuff to do near the stadium, so this might work out.

11/12 - San Fransisco 49ers - Another one of my top choices. This has the added benefit of the Niners being terrible so the chances of a Bear win and us getting good seats significantly improve.

11/29 - Minnesota Vikings - meh. Walking around Minnesota in November doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Plus I'd have to listen to that asshole blow his Viking horn for three hours.

12/20 - Baltimore Ravens - Might be good, except for the cold and the fact that I can't go anywhere that weekend because of my wife's cousin's Wedding.

1/3 - Detroit Lions - Walking around Detroit, while probably not fun at any time of the year would be even less fun in January. Plus I don't know about the New Years travel chaos.

So there's the options. I think its probably going to come down to Seattle, San Fran, Atlanta and Cinci. Anyone know of a reason why I should or should not take one of those?

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Home Run Derby

2009-03-29T19:12:00.007-05:00

For the past few years I've participated in a Home Run Derby competion. It is sort of like fantasy baseball without all the work. You basically pick 15 major league players and count up the homeruns that they accumulate during the year. Whoever's team hits the most wins. There were about 10,000 entries last year, with the top prize being about $10K. Of coarse I came no where near the top prize, or any prize for that matter. But I'm going to play again anyways. Here's a list of the players, and their homerun totals from last year.

Group A - Pick 1

Adam Dunn, 40
Ryan Howard, 48
Alex Rodriguez, 35

Group B - Pick 1

Carlos Delgado, 38
Albert Pujols, 37
Carlos Quentin, 36
Alfonso Soriano, 29

Group C - Pick 3

Ryan Braun, 37
Miguel Cabrera, 37
Jack Cust, 33
Jermaine Dye, 34
Prince Fielder, 34
Adrian Gonzalez, 36
Carlos Lee, 28
Ryan Ludwick, 37
Carlos Pena, 31
Manny Ramirez, 37
Jim Thome, 34

Group D - Select 3

Pat Burrell, 33
Jason Giambi, 32
Mike Jacobs, 32
Evan Longoria, 27
David Ortiz, 23
Hanley Ramirez, 33
Grady Sizemore, 33
Mark Teixeira, 33
Dan Uggla, 32
Chase Utley, 33
David Wright, 33

Group E - Select 3

Jason Bay, 31
Carlos Beltran, 27
Lance Berkman, 29
Jorge Cantu, 29
Troy Glaus, 27
Vladimir Guerrero, 27
Josh Hamilton, 32
Aubrey Huff, 32
Aramis Ramirez, 27
Mark Reynolds, 28
Kevin Youkillis, 29

Group F - Select 4

Rick Ankiel, 24
Adiran Beltre, 25
Mike Cameron, 25
Edwin Encarnacion, 26
JJ Hardy, 24
Brad Hawpe, 25
Matt Holiday, 25
Raul Ibanez, 23
Kevin Kouzmanoff, 23
Adam LaRoche, 25
Brian McCann, 23
Nate McLouth, 26
Justin Morneau, 23
Xavier Nady, 25
Hunter Pence, 25
Jhonny Peralta, 23
Luke Scott, 23
Geovany Soto, 23
Nick Swisher, 24
Marcus Thames, 25
Joey Votto, 24
Jayson Werth, 24
Ty Wigginton, 23

And here are my entries. I'm trying to avoid Cubs players so as not to jinx them, but also because most of the people participating are from Chicago so Cubs and White Sox players get picked a lot more than they probably should. I'm also staying away from Manny, even though I have a feeling he is going to have a huge year. I don't like him, and there's also a good chance that he phones it in for half the season. Ohter that that, I tend to pick guys in the national league more than the American because I'm more familiar with them. The rest is just gut feeling. I tried to analyse everything last year and find people who were due for breakout years, or who had deciptivly bad years the year before. It didn't work out so well, so I just went for gut feelings this time.

Team 1

Ryan Howard
Albert Pujols
Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Adrian Gonzalez
Evan Longoria, Pat Burrell, Dan Uggla
Jason Bay, Josh Hamilton, Vladimir Guerrero
JJ Hady, Brad Hawpe, Hunter Pence, Joe Votto

Team 2

Adam Dunn
Carlos Quentin
Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Carlos Lee
Pat Burrell, Hanley Ramirez, Mark Teixeira
Josh Hamilton, Carols Beltran, ~~Troy Glaus~~ Aramis Ramirez (Lucky for me I'm a procrastinator and didn't send in the form yet since Glaus got hurt)
Matt Holiday, JJ Hardy, Mike Cameron, Adam LaRoche

Team 3

Ryan Howard
Albert Pujols
Miguel Cabrera, Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun
Evan Longoria, Mark Teixeira, Chase Utley
Jason Bay, Josh Hamilton, Carlos Beltran
Hunter Pence, Joey Votto, Justin Morneau, Xavier Nady

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Midweek Poker

2009-03-19T22:04:00.000-05:00

My friend Aaron's wife is out of town this week and with his newfound freedom to do whatever the hell he wants he decided to host a small poker game at his house. We've done this sort of thing a number of times recently, where recent is sometime in the last year, and "a number of times" is three or four. It was still a school night so we couldn't play for too long, but we were able to get in a few 6 handed tourneys.

We started off with holdem because that is what we all know and love. I must be rusty because I couldn't find a hand I felt like playing for the first three or four blind levels in a shorthanded friendly, low-buy in game. Finally my cards got better, or I just loosened up and started playing, and things went pretty well.

Nothing really stands out until the hand I got busted on. I had AK on the button, and made a big raise, which Jason called. Jason isn't a very good player by any stretch of the imagination. He plays with us not for the enjoyment of the actual card game, but for the drinking and social aspects. He knows the rules, but not any strategy. He also takes great pleasure is his completely random betting and card selection habits because he knows it frustrates everyone to have no idea what he might be holding. And because of that he's probably a much better player than any of us give him credit for. He has built the perfect loose aggressive random image that I think he actually does a pretty good job of exploiting when he wants to. We all make a big deal out of his willingness to call almost any bet, and the nonchalant smirkiness of his raises but lately he's been laying hands down when appropriate, and only calling/raising when he has a hand. I just don't think we've really noticed, or given him credit.

Of coarse I'm telling you all this to explain why I bet into the nuts when I'd like to think I would have folded to anyone else in the same situation. Back to the hand, The flop is A45 and Jason quickly turns to his neighbor, who was out of the game and asks him a question. I'm fairly certain he asked if aces count as one. At this point anyone with half a brain would have put him on the wheel and gotten out, or at least tread carefully. I didn't do that. I either thought he didn't actually have that hand, or that he didn't realize that it was any good, and bet into him. Again and again, until we went all in on the river. He did in fact have the wheel, and he also had me covered by a couple chips. He went on to win the tourney.

------

Round two was Omaha. Omaha still makes my brain hurt, but I think I might be starting to get it. Either that or the cards finally started coming my way. I was drawing to the nuts rather than hoping my two pair would hold up. I was taking advantage of other people's inability to remember they only get to use two cards from their hand, and I was actually getting good cards. I was rolling. And then, I don't even remember what happened, but before I knew it I had a few busted draws, and I fell into another one of Jason's traps, and I was out. Failing to money yet again.

------

In the past few meetings such as this, round three was Razz, but our resident Razz expert/enthusiast wasn't there, and I didn't want to have to explain it/remember how to play, so we stuck with a holdem varient and went with pineapple. Or crazy pineapple. I don't remember which one is which and I don't feel like looking it up.

For those of you unfamiliar with pineapple, it is just like holdem, except you are dealt three hole cards. You must discard one of the hole cards either before or after the flop, depending on if you are playing crazy pineapple or just the regular sane variety. We played the version where you discard after the betting on the flop.

I never thought the decision on which card to discard would be so difficult, or have such a significant affect on the game, but it did. There were a number of times when people discarded made average hands to chase something better because they didn't think it would stand up.

On the very first hand I had KK9. The flop was KQJ, which looks pretty good for me, although I'm a little worried about a strait. I obviously discard the 9, and then cringe when a ten comes on the turn. Although, I don't know how confident I would have been having the low end of a strait, it would have been better than no end of a strait. The river was inconsequential and someone with T9 took the pot.

It was quite surprising how often the discarded card could have won the pot for someone else.

I didn't fare any better in pineapple than I in any of the other games. This time I was undone by overbluffing with my 722 which completely missed the flop.

Despite nothing to show for it, it was certainly good to play a game for the first time in quite a while. My wife is out of town next week, so I'll be the one hosting the games. Depending on how many people we have, I think I want to make it a cash game dealer calls it for an orbit. I've never run a cash game though so we'll have to see how it works out.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Tourney Time

2009-03-18T23:39:00.000-05:00

Its the most wonderful time of year. NCAA tourney time. As I've said before, I'm not much of a basketball fan. I really only follow the Illini, and maybe the Big 10 conference. I know next to nothing about college basketball. Never the less, I can't wait for the tourney to start. I will sit and watch as much basketball in the next four days as my wife will allow obsessively checking and rechecking my brackets to see if I have a chance of winning. Which I don't.

I'm not going to actually post my brackets. Not that I'm afraid of sharing my picks. I've had no problem doing that in the past. This year I filled out many different brackets at a number of different sites, and I don't really have one bracket that I consider "The" bracket.

For the most part I went with chalk this year. My typical final four consists of UNC, Louisville, Uconn and Pitt, with an occasional Memphis instead of Uconn. UNC beats Louisville in almost all my brackets.

My beloved Illini drew the dreaded 5-12 pairing, and are the perfect team to get upset given their injuries and tendency to go 5-10 minutes at a time without a scoring a single point, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt and picked Wisconsin as my 12 team moving on. And Arizona most of the time.

I have very few upsets this year compared to previous years. I thought about it from a "Wanting to win the pool" angle rather than a "Wanting to fill out a perfect bracket" angle this time.

There are two different strategies for filling out your bracket. If you are in a relatively small pool, as mine are, then chances are the people in the money are going to be the ones who pick the winner, and the final four correctly, especially if later rounds are weighted heavier. Picking that 3-14 upset in round one is great, but its a long shot, and not only do you probably get the round one pick wrong, you also probably eliminated a sweet sixteen team. The costs of missing an upset pick are much greater than just missing the round one matchup. Thus picking mostly chalk, is the safer path to victory. On the other hand, if you are in a huge pool, like one of the national online pools, to win you are going to have to get almost every game right. Unless another George Mason happens, there are going to be thousands of people picking perfect elite eight through championship brackets, so not only do you have to do that, but you have to get a number of early round upsets correct.

Only a few hour till game time. I really should have taken some vacation days this week. I think spending all day at a sports bar would have been a good plan.

Go Illini

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Worst. Movie. Ever.

2009-02-28T10:39:00.003-06:00

I have done it. I have found the worst movie in the history of bad movies. This is a movie that was bad that I think the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew would have been at a loss for words as to the proper way to mock it. The movie was Street Fighter, Legend of Chun-li.

Don't get me wrong, I expected this movie to be terrible, but it was considerably worse than I ever could have imagined. I went to watch it at the local brew and view type theater which is perfect for taking in bad movies. You go there have a few beers to enjoy some cheesiness. Its where Snakes on a Plane and every Will Ferrell was meant to be watched. I was expecting some good old lame plot as an excuse for crazy fight scenes type movie, and what I got was an incredibly lame and ofter random plot, while very few fight scenes, none of which were worthy of a movie based off of a fighting video game.

The movie was so bad that halfway through two of the guys in our group stopped drinking. Very little in the movie made any sense and they thought they had it was because they had had one too many.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Poker Legalization

2009-02-26T22:47:00.003-06:00

Here's some potential good news. I saw this article today about a recent study that says the US government could net over $50 Billion in tax revenue over the next decade by legalizing online gambling.

There were couple other interesting items in the article. First of all the study found that online gambling had actually increased in the last three years despite the UIGEA. Also it says Barney Frank intends to introduce legislation this year to repeal that law. Now that Republicans are no longer in control it may actually have a chance of passing. Its funny that now that they aren't in control they are suddenly worried about fiscal responsibility. Perhaps a $50 billion revenue increase will make them feel better.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Too Much Fallout

2009-02-21T17:34:00.003-06:00

You know you've been playing too much Fallout 3 when you go shopping for groceries, and out of the corner of your eye you see one of those red DVD rental boxes, and think "OOohh Nuka-Cola Machine, I wonder if there's any Quantum in there".

That is all.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Free Games

2009-02-07T10:28:00.003-06:00

In effort to sell everything on the planet, Amazon is now selling downloadable games. Stuff like jewel quest and those other cheap games you see everywhere that you find yourself addicted to for no good reason. They have some for free and give you a half hour trial before you buy anything, which is probably all the time you need before you move on to the next one. I like games, I like free stuff, and I especially like it when you buy the games through the banner above because I get a commission.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Whirly Ball and One Hand of Poker

2009-01-26T21:03:00.003-06:00

One of the regulars in our poker group is getting married in a few days and his bachelor party was this weekend. While I'm not a liberty to discuss most of what happened, I would like to comment on a few things.

First of all, if you have a Whirly Ball facility near you, and you've never played you need to try it as soon as humanly possible. It is entirely too much fun.

What is Whirly Ball? Its kind of like hockey, except instead of a stick you use a Hi Li scoop racket thing, and instead of net there's a basketball backboard with a basketball sized hole in the center. And instead of skates, you use bumper cars. Oh, and its a barlike atmosphere. Here's a video.

We also played some poker, during which I lasted a full hand. I had wired nines, and raised 3x BB preflop, two callers. The flop was JJ2 and I lead out, chasing one guy out of the pot. The turn was a third jack, giving be a full house and a lead on almost anything he has. I make a large bet and he comes over the top all-in. Now, unless he has me on a complete bluff, and is pretty ballzy I don't think there many hands that he would do that with that I can beat. I was hoping he had a two. He had the case jack and I went home. Well not home, but away from cards. Good times.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Small Blind Call and Bet

2009-01-17T09:57:00.002-06:00

While my SNG poker game has been nothing to brag about lately, there is one particular move that I've been using with much success. Its nothing new or mind blowingly clever, but it works well.

The situation is this. I'm in the small blind and it has been folded to me. I hate being in this spot. I feel obligated to raise, yet anytime someone raises in this situation it looks like a steal, and it seems like I get called/raised way more than I should. And I never get a good feel for where I am in the hand because I can't tell if my opponent has a hand or is just putting me on a steal attempt. And yet I can't fold. I'm getting 3:1 on my money by calling and he's not going to even challenge me with most hands.

So if you haven't guessed, I've started just calling and then min-betting no matter what on the flop. The min bet actually ends up being a half-pot sized bet. Sometimes I'll make it a full pot sized bet, but usually not.

I've found that my opponents are more likely to fold in this scenario than if I were to raise pre-flop.

Since I only call pre-flop, they are most likely just happy to see a free flop. If I raise they see it as a steal attempt and try to defend, but by calling they see more cards with no risk. Sure sometimes I get raised in this case, but then I've only lost a half bet, and if that happens five times I've still lost the same amount as if I had raised to 3x blinds and got reraised. So I get to see a cheap flop and they get to see a free one.

The automatic bet on the flop is just hoping that they didn't hit anything. Even if they suspect a steal here, they are less likely to try to call my bluff if they've missed the flop as well. And since I just called they have no idea what I have. If the flop is garbage, its possible I called with garbage and hit. If the flop has scare cards, and they don't, then maybe I was setting them up. Either way I've found that more often than not they fold. And if they do call, or raise, and I have nothing, I've risked very little chips and I can get out relatively cheaply.

Nothing too fancy, but I find that it helps me win more than my fair share of blind battles, in a situation where I'm normally not very confident in my hand.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

PokerStars Double or Nothing SNGs

2009-01-10T14:36:00.002-06:00

PokerStars has these new Double or Nothing SNG's. I say new but that may not be accurate since I haven't played there with any regularity in over a year, and its possible I just didn't notice them before. Now its almost impossible not to notice them as you have to sift through a billion double or nothing SNGs just to find a normal one.

They were annoying me to the point of curiosity, so I tried a few. The concept is simple. Its a 10 player SNG where the top 5 double their buy in, and the other five get nothing. The entrance fee is about 20% less than the standard entrance fee.

Given that I've been playing pretty poorly lately I figure that I would try these since I should be able to finish in the top half more than half the time, so it should be easy money.

But its not quite the same as finishing in the top 5 of a normal SNG. There is a very different dynamic that occurs. Once you are down to six or seven players, there is almost no incentive to put yourself at risk. It doesn't matter if you have one chip or a million, when five players are left the game is over. Why try and steal a pot when there's a good chance that if you just fold you'll make it to the money?

I only played four so far, but the strategy seems to be fold unless you have a monster, and if you're the short stack wait until you think you can double up. In both times I cashed there were times when the short stack could barely make a full raise pre-flop, but battled back to cash.

It ends up with everyone, but maybe the chip leader playing not to lose rather than playing to win. I really haven't played enough to decide if I like them or not, or if I think they are money winners long term, but you definitely lose some of the excitement factor when all you're doing is folding and hoping the blinds increase to force that last person out. It is worth a try though, as the chance of losing your money is only 50%.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Poker for 2009

2009-01-04T11:04:00.002-06:00

Its the beginning of a new year, so it seems like a good time to set some goals that I will ignore for the rest of the year.

Before I go there though, lets take a look back at last year.

On second thought, lets not. I played very very little poker last year, and when I did it was bad. I don't think I played with any regularity until the end of the year, and then I didn't play very well.

So what are my goals for this year? I'll start with a very generic, play more poker. I don't know why I stopped playing. I've been somewhat busy, but not so much that I couldn't have made time for a sit'n go every now and then. I still enjoy playing so I don't why I don't do it.

Playing more poker is a pretty lame goal. Its hard to measure except that its any amount is more than last year.

Move up in stakes. I've been playing some $20 SNG's during the past month or so, but I've had a hard time focusing, and that has lead to some pretty poor play. I'll start a tournament and then start watching TV and surfing the web at the same time, so I never get a good read on my opponents, or the flow of the game. I think that the $20 level has lost its excitement for me. I might as well be playing with play money. Its probably not the best reason to move up in stakes, but getting out of my comfort level will force me to concentrate more.

Play smarter. I admit that this is tough to measure, but I think I'll know it if I achieve it. I haven't been playing smart recently. At some point I loosened up my starting hand requirements significantly. I decided that I'm better than most of my opponents, so if I take a chance on some less than optimal hands, and hit, the implied odds justify a little gamble. And if I miss I can get out cheaply. The problem is I don't get out when I miss. I'll miss and so will everyone else so I'll bluff at the pot and get beat by bottom pair. Or I'll hit an ace and have no kicker and not be able to let it go. Or I'll bet the flop and then check fold the turn when I get called. I'm throwing away tons of chips on speculative hands when I need to be waiting for better opportunities and let my opponents get themselves into trouble. This may go back to not having high enough stakes and getting bored during the tourney.

Play more multi-table tournaments. I have difficulty starting these types of tournaments, because they tend to start later than I would like and I'm never sure that I'll have the time to finish them. I think I do better in bigger tourneys and finding time to play them will be +EV overall. Even if its just multi-table SNGs I think I'll do better.

Play some NL ring games. I'm scared of NL ring games. On the rare occasion that I play a ring game I play limit because I'm afraid of losing my bankroll in one bad/unlucky hand of NL. The problem is I'm not very good at limit poker. I play way to many speculative hands and chase way too often. A NL ring game now and then will be good for me.

Stop playing poker in front of the TV. A lot of the time, when I play these days its because I'm half watching something on TV and I'm a little bored, so I add a poker game into the mix. As I mentioned earlier this halves my concentration on the game and results in me losing a lot. I need to either play poker, or watch TV, but not both.

Start tracking my results. I haven't been recording my results in my bankroll spreadsheet recently and I just simply need to do that. Its hard to gauge your results if you don't measure them.

So that's my goals for the next year. Nothing real exciting or mind blowing, but hopefully it will get me on the right track.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Poker Stars World Record Attempt

2008-12-26T16:12:00.003-06:00

Poker Stars is attempting to set a world record for biggest poker tournament. They are aiming for 35,000 entrants for their $11 tournament. There is a guaranteed prize pool of $500,000, which by my math is $150,000 more than the sum of the entrance money. If you are interested, the tournament is this Sunday, 12/28/08 at 4:30PM ET, and details can be found here I'll be celebrating my wife's birthday with family so I won't be participating. Plus I have to work on Monday and with a field that big, I don't think it would end before I had to get up to go to work.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

PokerStars Blogger Tournament 2008

2008-12-09T20:18:00.003-06:00

Woot! PokerStars blogger tournament is back. I was starting to worry that I had missed it this year, or that they had discontinued it. I came in 11th place out of over 1300+ last year so hopefully I can improve upon that and win some ginormous prizes.

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

This PokerStars tournament is a No Limit Texas Hold’em event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 083265

They're mixing it up a bit this year. Rather than just one tournament there are six qualifying events the week before hand. Placing in the top 72 gets you into the final, plus the better you do in the qualifier the better your additional prizes. The qualifiers also offer some other game options like pot limit omaha and 8-game mix, which is nice even though I suck at other games. I'm not sure if you can play in all the qualifiers or you have to pick just one. My guess is the latter, but it would be cool if we could play them all.

The top 100 finishers in the main event win prizes starting with a Step 3 tourney entry and going all the way up to a PokerStars CAribbean Adventure prize package worth $14,300. Last year most of the prizes involved stuff. From duffel bags to iPods to XBoxes and more before the super fancy prizes kicked in. This year its just tourney entries. I'd personally prefer the stuff I think, because chances are a tourney entry is just as good as winning nothing, but on the other hand it would be nice to win my way into a tournament that is otherwise out of my price range.

The only real problem with this year's event is the timing. The main event is Sunday before Christmas and I'm fairly certain that I'm going be at at least two different extended family member's houses that day. So chances are that even if I qualify for the final I won't be able to play, and I bet I'm not the only one. Maybe I can find a sub, or qualify and hope that no one else can make it either, and get blinded into the money. They need a web client or maybe an iPhone app. Then I could play and travel.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Matrix Poker Part 2

2008-11-30T14:51:00.002-06:00

I finally tried one of those Matrix SNG's at FullTilt. Just in case you missed my fascinating post a while ago about the Matrix tourney's they work like this:

9 Player SNG. Each player plays four simultaneous SNGs. 1/5 of the prize pool is allocated via the normal payout schedules to the top three players in each table. The remaining 1/5 of the prize pool goes to the Matrix Points winner. You get points for eliminating other players and outlasting players in each of the four tourneys.

I did a little research online for what other people were saying about the tourneys and the consensus I got from what little commentary was out there was that the format helps mediocre to moderately losing players by giving them access to 1/5 of the pool that they normally wouldn't get, meanwhile winning players will win slightly less than under normal formats.

I don't know if I agree with that or not. I think good players will more often than not last longer in each of the tourneys, thus accumulating more points providing insurance for when they get hit with a bad beat and don't finish as high in as they might normally have expected.

Regardless of whether or not it was +EV, it was fun. I could just be that I was playing four tables again, instead of just the one that I've been doing as I ease myself back into the online poker scene, but I also think the fact that I had the same players at each of my tables helped. There were times when I was looking at the matrix points standings and comparing them to the players at my table to figure out who I needed to outlast more. And I think the fact that busting someone was worth two points, enters into the expected value of any given pot. Finally you can use player's tendencies, or situations on one table against them in another. For example I was in a lengthy heads up battle on one of the tables, and I knew that if I had him with a difficult decision on the heads up table I could easily steal his blinds on the other table.

Speaking of the heads up battle, it had to be the longest heads up match I've ever been in. We got to heads up well before any of the other tables, and yet we were the last to finish up. I think we were at 30/60 blinds when we started and at 250/500 when we finished. That's eight levels. I started out with a 3:1 chip lead, but I just couldn't finish him off. I was playing more aggressively, but fell into the familiar routine of stealing a few small pots, then losing a bigger one when he pushed into my garbage. Eventually he hit a few big hands and I doubled him up. He must have had to go somewhere then because on both that table, and the other table we were still playing he went into all-in or nothing mode. He got bumped from the other table pretty quickly and I once I figured out his new strategy I just waited for big hands for him to double me up. And he did. And I ultimately won.

So I came in first in two of the four, and seventh in the other two. I also won the matrix points pool. It was a $10 entry, and I won $9 for the three first place finishes. Which is $17 profit. If I had entered four separate $10 tourneys instead I would have paid $40 and won $90, for $50 profit, which would have averaged out to 12.5. So in this smallest of sample sizes, the Matrix format was profitable.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com