ASAP WSOP WWW's PDQ

Vanessa Selbst leads event #2, the $25K mixed-max event after the first day of play.

A couple of websites for those following the WSOP this year:

Scorecard: http://www.wsop.com/scoreboard/

Live Streaming Schedule: http://www.wsop.com/news/2014/May/4754/2014-WSOP-LIVESTREAMING-SCHEDULE.html

Off on another trip this morning. Sigh.

All-in for now...
-Bug

Some random final table thoughts...

Some random ramblings and rantings....

• Ryan Riess and Jay Farber?? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?!?!
• Has there ever been a more unlikable guy at a final table than Ryan Riess? His pre-game proclamation that he was better than everyone else at the table and was going to win instantly had me rooting against this young gun. Antonio E. had it right when he said, "Uh, I'm going to have to bite my tongue now..."
• Is there anyone more fun to watch at a final table than Jay Farber? His rail alone is worth watching. Gotta love it when an amateur makes it to head-up play.
• Man, I feel bad for JC Tran. What a tough night. He hung on at his starting chip level seemingly for ever, but just couldn't get any traction. Busting in fifth has to be demoralizing after coming in such a strong favorite and with the chip lead.
• What a night of coolers and beats. Brutal, brutal evening.
• JC impressed me with his in-position HU laydown of K7s after 3betting McLaughlin and getting 4bet. The French Canadian had the rockets; nice job sniffing that out JC.
• I like how Sylvain Loosli snuck into fourth place, almost unnoticed by the other players. Not a way to win a tourney, sure, but definitely the strategy for moving up such a steep pay ladder.
• Aces, Kings, and Queens all within the first twenty hands? Wow again.
• A lot of physical tells that even guys like me could see. E.g., Riess likes to stare at his opp when he's weak, and seems to look away when he's strong. Anyone who's read Caro would have a huge advantage playing against this new gen poker brat. Brummelhuis's body language also seemed particularly easy to read. Only JC seemed to be unreadable to this bug.
• Is there anyone more annoying on TV than Norman Chad? (Wait, don't I write this every year?)
• It's fascinating to a) not see the cards until after the hand is dealt; and b) listen to The Magician hand read. I really enjoyed Antonio's commentary and getting inside his head. A few of his reads were off, but for the most part he was right on the money. I'd love to get him and Negreanu in the booth together on one of these cards-down telecasts and just let them think out loud for the listening audience.
• Kara Scott is a pro.
• We need a shot clock in poker. Yes, every decision is for BIG bucks, but they could have cut this whole thing in half with a timer and shorter breaks.
• Rooting hard for the chip leader going into tonight. Go Farber!

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP Main Event

As usual this time of year, I start watching more and more poker news feed sites during the day for chip counts and status of the big name players in the ME. They're currently deep into the money starting Day 5 today, with a little more than 200 players still active (out of 6,300 starters). The remaining players I'm watching/rooting-for this year are as follows:

1. Annette Obrestad. What can I say? I'm a sucker for stone-killer women players, and I still am in total and complete awe of her blind tournament win from way back when. She has a WSOP-Europe title to her name, too, so she definitely has the chops to go even deeper. She's also cute as a button. At last count, she had around T1.2M in chips, which is well above average. It's time not only for a woman to final table, but to win the big prize, too. Go Annette!
2. Greg Merson. Again, what can I say? A back-to-back repeat would go down as one of the all-time great poker accomplishments ever. His personal story is also incredibly compelling, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy, too. Oh, and he's an amazingly solid poker player. His stack is a little under average at ~T635K, but last year he came back from a near chip-and-a-chair situation to win it all.
3. Carlos Mortensen. I've always liked this guy's play, and he's a past ME winner as well. Stack size is currently a relatively small ~T300K, but Mortensen is so incredibly gutsy/ballsy that you can't rule him out. Do not underestimate this guy.
4. Kristy Gazes. As I said, I would love to see a woman make the final table this year, and while my money/heart is on my hero Annette O., I think Gazes has the technical chops to also pull it off. Unfortunately, she's pretty short at~T290K, so she has a looong way to climb.
5. Yevgeniy Timoshenko. I personally think Timoshenko is one of the best analytic-thinking tournament players ever to sit at a poker table. He also has that baby face demeanor that is so deceptive and seems to lure his victims in so effectively. Oh, and he always seems to have a smoking hot girl on his arm, too. (Maybe it's that baby face thing?) In any case, Yevgeniy has perhaps the best actual shot at making the final table because of both his skill and his stack, which currently sits north of T1.5M.

If I were a betting man (and I am!) I'd put my money on Timoshenko. But my heart tells me to back Annette. Maybe both will make it to the November Nine? Regardless, it's going to be a fun day as the titans start pounding each other on the felt this afternoon. Stay tuned...

All-in for now...
-Bug
PS. Passed my big certification exam yesterday, so I've got at least a couple more free hours per day to spend on stuff like this blog, my life, poker, fun stuff, etc... Feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Woooooot!

WSOP: Some Lessons Learned

Damn, I miss Vegas! I've now been back from Sin City for a little over a week, and I have to confess that I missed being there almost immediately upon touching down in my hometown. I had a great time, and even counting my airfare, hotel, taxis, meals, swag, tourney buy-ins, etc., I still came out ahead and part way toward another buy-in at next year's WSOP. Gotta love a vacation where you come back with a fatter wallet than you left with. :)

Anyway, here are a few lessons learned on this foray for me to the WSOP for the first time:

• Lodging. I'm still a little torn on what exactly the lesson is on this one. On the one hand, staying at the same place I played definitely made logistics dead easy; in simple terms, I never had to leave the Rio during my entire stay. But the Rio was on the pricey side, and frankly I wasn't very impressed with the hospitality they offered up. Also, the logistical advantage presented a corresponding disadvantage of sorts-- namely, I never got to leave the Rio. I heard that some of the other casinos had excellent deep stack events going on at the same time as the WSOP, but I literally never stepped foot outside the grounds of the Rio during my 4.5 day stay. The WSOP is the epicenter of poker during this period of the year, but there's more poker going on in Vegas than just at the Rio. 
• Da Crew. I'm not a particularly social animal, and I am almost always comfortably happy alone, especially on biz trips… but I have to say that I missed having the camaraderie of a crew of fellow players with me on this trip. Now, don't get me wrong; I still had a fantastic time, and I have no real regrets, but I think the whole experience would have been enhanced even more if I'd spent the time in Vegas with 2-5 other hardcore poker playing friends. Sweating and railing each other, meeting at breaks, eating dinner together, commiserating and cheering each other one would have made for an even better experience, me thinks. I might see if I can get a few folks like Mr. Multi, Tash-man, and/or Chopper Bob to tag along next time.
• Deepstack Events. These were definitely fun and worthwhile events to play in, and I need to make time for more of these in the future. The competition is decent, but not crazy good, and the event structures are pretty sweet, especially early on with 300 big blind starting stacks. For a $235 buy-in, a good, cautious/patient poker player has a pretty good chance at making the money in these events. I also would have liked to play in some of the other non-Rio casinos deep stack games, as I heard some of these were pretty good, too. 
• Cash Games. I have to say that the cash games I played in (three long sessions of $1/2 and one moderately long session of $2/4 NLHE) were pretty good, with relatively soft competition seated at the felt with me. Okay, maybe I ran a little better than average, but I also saw plenty of questionable poker being played by the opp. Some of this I think was due to the fact that many of the players were tourney dropouts trying to "get even" after busting out of various events. The key for me in these sessions was simply be patient, bluff hardly at all, value-town the heck out of the calling stations, and print the money. 
• $1K vs. $1.5K Events. I am leaning toward playing in a $1500 WSOP bracelet event next time I go in lieu of a $1K event. While the $1K tourney was great fun, and definitely had some dead money at the tables, the structure is just a tad too fast for the money outlay. You start with T3K/T25 = 120 bigs, which is fine, but in the very next level you're down to 60, and then 30, and then 15 by the fourth hour if you don't chip up. Yes, the levels are one hour long, but this is still a relatively fast drop-off in big blinds if you're not getting cards or finding good situations to play. In contrast, the $1500 events typically start you at 180 bigs, then 90, then 45, and then 22.5 in the same first four hours of play. The payouts are also proportionally better (but the field sizes tend to be smaller, however.) Ergo, I might give one of these a try next time I go.
• Fly vs. Drive. I live just 5 hours or so by car from Vegas, so I probably will drive next time. This could save a little on travel expenses, I could bring more of my own food and gear, plus I'd have a set of wheels that I could use to hit the other casinos in town as the mood strikes. 
• Stars in my Eyes. I admit it: I was a little star struck at the WSOP with all the poker royalty and celebrity abounding. But what first-timer wouldn't have been? Between chatting with Negreanu, railing Hellmuth, listening in on Mike the Mouth drop F-bombs, eavesdropping in on Duhamel in French while he stood in a snack line in front of me, corralling Brokos at a break and chatting his ear off, and gawking at Tiffany Michelle (after sitting beside her for twenty minutes at an 08 event before realizing who she was), my head was spinning the whole time I was at the WSOP. While this was absolutely a fun part of the adventure, it also took away from a) my concentration; and b) my actual seat time. This latter item probably cost me a grand or more in extra cash game profits simply because I was spending hours and hours watching famous players play, than play myself. Next year I need to get over the spectacle of the celebs and stars and such, and just plain play more poker. 
• Tactics. If there was one thing I feel I could have done better in the tourneys, it is this: play stronger offense, and don't get sucked into a defensive posture. When Leather Face sat down next to me (and subsequently started running over the table) at my bracelet event, I think I should have picked up on this sooner, and then started pushing back on him faster and harder. In fact, once he showed up, I almost reverted back to a pseudo level-1 (or maybe 1.5) style of poker, waiting for opportunities rather than proactively generating them. When you're 30+ bigs deep, you can afford to wait; when you're under 30, you need to start actively making plays instead of waiting. This is definitely an area I can improve on next time. Said another way: stop making hard decisions, and instead put those hard decisions on to my opponents.
• Note Taking. I kept hand and play notes in a small pad I had in my shirt pocket, but it was clumsy and distracting to keep pulling it out and jot things down. And because I was writing down items like my own hands and my reads on other players, I kept having to keep the open pages hidden from view of my neighbors while I scribbled. Not sure what I'll do next year, but there has to be a better way of keeping a running record of the game for later review. Or not; maybe I should just forgo the whole note taking thing and just concentrate 100% on the immediate game situation and flow? Dunno. 

In any case, I learned a lot in Vegas this year, had truly great fun playing and gawking, and my poker is definitely better for the whole experience.

But damn, I want to go back. :-)

All-in for now…
-Bug

High-Level Strategies

"Enjoy the experience. Play thoughtfully, make good decisions.  Don't evaluate past decisions while you're still playing. Be realistic. Focus on what you can control."

-A. Brokos

"In reality, winning a bracelet is really, really hard. All you can hope for is to play your best, stay focused, and not look back with regret that you didn't play as well as you could have."

-X. Liu

"To win in poker you need heart, when the chips are down, you don't quit. The cards will come and things will work out, and as long as I have faith in that, and make sure that every decision I make in every hand is the right one or the best informed one, then I'm not worried about what happens." 

-D. Negreanu

"Put the blinders on. Never before have patience and discipline been so important, not to mention physical fitness. Keep telling yourself, 'Do the right thing each time.' You don't want to wake up after it's all over – and it will come to an end – and find yourself wishing you'd done something different." 

-J. Beevers.

"Every professional gambler I know is addicted to solving puzzles. The big attraction to [these poker players] is never the money. It's always the game... It's the puzzle.... solve the puzzle on each hand. If you lose, you lose. Learn from it and don't look back with regret. Look back instead and figure out what you did wrong, so that you don't do it again."

A. Snyder

"The most overrated achievement is making it out of the first day. Such an achievement is a measure of … well, nothing. So don't worry about making day two or going broke. Just play your best game and try to get chips." 

-R. Rosenblum

"Just play your normal game. There are no adjustments you need to make for a large field. You can only win chips from, or lose chips to, the players at your table. So focus on them, and how to do your best against them. Whether the tournament is 100 players or 10,000, you will need to outlast about 90% to make the money. And that requires the same amount of skill and run-good for either event. Don't expect to win, or even to make it past Day One. Just play your best game, and enjoy yourself while you're doing it. As long as you're playing your best, then it's like any other tournament – anything, good and bad, can happen to anybody." 

-Greg Raymer

"Holy Shit. I'm going to the WSOP!" 

-Bug

On to the next installment in the WSOP journey....

2013 WSOP: Strategy for Shifting Gears

As part of the webinar I attended the other day, Andrew Brokos presented his "Day-by-Day" strategy for advancing through the Main Event (ME). Day 1, for instance, focused on folding and simply waiting for good situations. Patience is everything this first day, he said; this is the "easy money" period, and you're so deep stacked, the blind increases are so slow, and so many of the players are weak, that you can simply fold, fold, and fold some more as you wait for high EV situations to get your money in far ahead of the competition. Note that this is basically Phil Helmuth's same strategy, as he feels his superior skill in the later stages of the tourney mean that he can/should avoid any "gambling" early.

Brokos then went on to detail each subsequent day's basic strategy through the next five days of play, explaining when you should shift gears from patient and wary, to that of actively accumulating chips, to when you should start fighting aggressively, and so on. This continuously shifting strategy was based in part on the level of competition you faced as the dead money fell away, as well as the blinds and antes increasing, and the tournament payout bubble and prize structure.

Now, unfortunately, I'm not playing in the ME this year. Instead, I've signed up for a $1K prelim event. The structure is still quite good, but it's not nearly as great at the ME. In my event, for example, blinds go up every hour (vs. every two hours for the ME) and we will start with 100bb (vs. 300bb in the ME).

What this means, me thinks, is that I need to take the gear shifting strategy of Brokos, and somehow adapt it to the faster play of my event. I've also added Harrington's basic strategy to the mix, along with some advice I've found useful by Phil Gordon. Finally, I've seasoned the plan a bit with the (somewhat contradictory) advice of Arnold Snyder and Matt Matros.

With all that in mind, here's the resulting Bug strategy I intend to employ four weeks from now when I sit down to play:

• Patient Grasshopper Mode: First two blind levels (25/25 and 25/50).  Assuming I did nothing but fold everything during these entire two blinds periods, I'd be left with roughly ~60bb at the end of the period, which, according to Snyder, is still a "competitive utility" sized stack. In other words, while it would be nicer to have 100bb or more, this stack size is still fine. Now, of course, as I start the third blind level, my utility starts to fall off quickly, so sitting around and folding continuously is clearly not optimal. Also, there will undoubtedly be a number of weak players limping and/or splashing around, so I think I should try to take advantage of these folks when possible. With all this in mind, I think the name of the game is to play a very cautious, but not totally scared, style of play during these first two levels. Patient, ABC poker, with an emphasis on seeing cheap, high-IO flops in position should be key. I also need to fold a lot in EP, including small pairs and all the broadway trouble hands. I also don't think that stealing blinds in LP at this level is really worth it; the blinds represent a small fraction of my stack, and if/when I get caught and/or re-raised (and have to fold) the damage done will be more than the potential reward. Said another way, if you see me open-raising in LP during this period, I probably have a hand. Otherwise, I intend to just fold and observe. The goal is to: a) don't lose a lot of chips; b) figure out who's who at my table (i.e., what kinds of mistakes are my opponents making): and c) look for opportunities to increase my stack with minimal risk. In a sense, the first two blinds levels should be me observing a lot a'la Level-2 poker, but playing a cautious, mostly Level-1 ABC style. This is almost a tight-passive style of play.
• Gradual Transition to Accumulator Mode: Next three blind levels (50/100, 75/150, 100/200). Antes haven't yet kicked in, but the blinds are starting to climb. I think this is the period where my focus needs to be on staying ahead of the blinds and keeping my chip stack in the competitive or higher range. As the blinds increase from the start of this period to the end, I need to transition from a cautious "staying above water" player to that of chip accumulator. Assuming I haven't been moved and my table is paying attention, I can slowly begin to exploit my nitty image. I need to start stealing from the tight-weak players on my left, and getting involved with loose-weak players on my right. If I have LAgs on my left, I need to open fewer pots, but be willing to re-raise or call if they 3bet me (meaning play the stronger part of my range). If I have great players/pros at my table, the best approach during this period is active avoidance with all but very good hands. Don't get my stack in the middle unless I have a huge hand. Said another way, I need to employ a TAg style of play during these three periods.
• Full Blown Chip Accumulation Mode: Next four blind levels (100/200/25, 150/300/25, 200/400/50, 300/600/75). Antes have kicked in, so the blinds are now definitely worth stealing. Here is where guys like Brokos and Matros agree: accumulate chips, accumulate chips, accumulate chips  The bubble will begin to be visible on the distant horizon, so having enough chips to get into the money and/or bully the bubble is key. I also want to have enough chips to survive a bad beat or two. Again, I need to be cautious, but playing weak-tight is death. The transition from TAg to moderate LAg has to take place during these four blind levels. A lot of advice you hear from pros is that you should play to win, not just money, but Brokos made a good case in his webinar for a goal of just making the money. In single table SnGs, the Guru used to preach "taking the hill," and I think this approach can be embraced at this point, too. Build a stack, protect it, and get ready for bubble play.
• Bubble Play: Next three blind levels (400/800/100, 500/100/100, 600/1200/200). Blinds and antes are getting brutal at this point, so chip accumulation is still paramount. Just keeping up with the blinds is no longer sufficient. Bad players will be slowing down, and good players attacking the weak mercilessly. The antes alone will devastate my stack, so I have to keep building and accumulating. On the other hand, as stated above, juts making the money is actually a big deal; as Brokos said, "cashing matters." The trick (which I confess I'm not entirely sure how to accomplish) is to walk that fine line between too cautious and too aggro. I think the secret is to continue to focus on attacking weaknesses in a few other players I've identified at my table as having exploitable tendencies. Look for scared players who are playing tight. Be aware of other players that are in bullying/abusing mode. Avoid the big/aggro stacks that want to put me to a test. I also need to avoid difficult decisions; i.e., I shouldn't bet/raise if I don't know what I'll do if I get re-raised, and so on. The trouble with all of this of course is that by this time, I expect most of the dead money to be, well, dead. If I'm lucky enough to make it to this point, I am afraid I'll want to revert back to me-scared-turtle mode, which is not a recipe for making the money and thriving. I'm open to further suggestions for play at this point in the tourney.
• ITM: Next four blind levels (800/1600/200, 1000/2000/300, 1200/2400/400, 1500/3000/500). Brokos and Snyder are in reasonable agreement here: both say play to win. The issue, of course, is that all the short stacks that squeaked into the money are going off like popcorn (as Mr. Multi likes to say). You can't be risk averse during this period, but you do have to be very aware of the desperation factors of the the other players. Short stacks will be gambling, big stacks will be sucking up chips, and those in the middle will be bounced around like ping-pong balls. Some pros say that you should go big or go home at this point, with the goal of building a massive stack and playing to win. Others suggest going back to patient chip accumulation mode. I think playing to win is correct. Stealing is actually a bad idea at this point, as is re-stealing; recklessness will be everywhere. Brokos and Snyder both say that your profit at this point will come from identifying desperation in your opponents, and then picking off their desperation moves; i.e., you have to be willing to call/gamble against them. Yikes. Suggestions are welcome for this phase.
• Remaining Blind Levels/Final Table. If I'm lucky enough to make it this far, I think the strategy is actually quite clear: play to win. Fight aggressively for pots. No more passing up edges, even small ones. Really try to get involved with weaker players. Don't play too loosely, but also don't bet/fold or raise/fold. Decide on each hand if you want to play for stacks, and then do so. The way to win the tourney requires aggression and fearlessness (plus a healthy dose of luck). The trick, me thinks, is simply don't be afraid. As someone once said, if you want to live, you have to be willing to die.

So, is this the right strategy? Honestly, I don't know. But as any battlefield commander will tell you, having a plan is an order of magnitude better than having no plan whatsoever. Failing to plan is planning to fail, right? 

In any case, the next step for me is to take this overall strategy and create a handful of "check-lists" that I can pull out and review at various stages along the way through the tourney. This (hopefully) will help keep my head in the game and focused on the right style of play to employ at each blind-level/stage.

On to the next installment in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...

-Bug

Andrew Brokos Webinar

Andrew Brokos

As part of my preparation for the 2013 World Series of Poker, I signed up for a two hour web-based seminar/coaching-session held by Andrew Brokos. Long-time readers of this blog know that I listen regularly to a couple of weekly poker podcasts, and Andrew's "Thinking Poker" series is one of these. Andrew also writes a very solid blog on poker, plus he writes regular columns for poker forums and magazines. He's also a video instructor at Tournament Poker Edge and coaches privately. Perhaps most importantly, he is a winning cash and MTT player, with a very strong record of top 100 finishes in the WSOP main event. He's a highly analytic, thinking poker player, and his style of play and analysis resonates with me. (You can find Andrew through his Thinking Poker website - click here.)

Anyway, Andrew posted on his blog recently that he was going to hold a 2-hour session on preparing the WSOP. The cost was $150, and he was limiting participation to just five students. I jumped at the chance, and I was one of the lucky five he selected. The chance to listen to an expert MTT player talk about the very tournament series I'm playing in four short weeks was an opportunity not to be lost. Ergo, I sent off my paypal payment, and then spent a few hours the other day holed up with my headphones on and computer booted up, watching a really informative set of powerpoint slides that Andrew put together and presented via join.me software. The other four participants who sat in were all strong, seasoned amateur players (e.g., one of them won a $1K bracelet in the 2011 WSOP), and their questions were insightful and sparked some good discussion among the group and Andrew.

The bad news is that Andrew wasn't able to get through all of his slides in the allotted 2-hour window. He did give us an extra 30 minutes, but it still wasn't enough to get through all the material in sufficient detail.

The good news is that what we did manage to get through was truly an excellent pseudo coaching session. Andrew covered a wide range of topics, ranging from big picture topics like shifting gears through a tournament and how to target (and avoid) different types of players, to more specific advice, such as how to size up your table, keep track of your own image, and how to play individual hands in different situations, to mundane (but important) thoughts on food, drink, and even potty breaks during an MTT. While the presentation was geared primarily for the $10K main event, it was also applicable to smaller buy-in prelim events, like the one I'll be playing in.

I won't cover all the info I learned here, but a couple of things are worth mentioning:

• Ask yourself where the chips are going to come from (and who to avoid). This was really good stuff, with solid advice on assessing weaker players, identifying their weaknesses, and then exploiting them. He also talked about isolating these kinds of players, putting them on ranges, and actively planning how to exploit them. Similarly, there as a section presented on identifying "threats" at your table, and how to avoid (or deal) with these players.For example, Andrew's advice on playing against professionals is to not waste a lot of time putting them on hand ranges; they're too good, and your mental energies are better spent on other, weaker opponents.
• Expect bad things- and prepare for them. Andrew talked at length about how you need to plan for mistakes and problems. Over a long, multi-day tournament, you should expect to make mistakes, to lose pots, to be short stacked, etc. In fact, you should expect to lose the tournament. Accept these things, and therefore plan for them before they happen-- so that you're prepared for them. For example don't think "Oh no, I’m getting short stacked." Instead, if you've pre-planned this kind of scenario, you can/should say instead, "Okay, I'm now short stacked. Therefore I need to adjust my strategy by doing X, Y, and Z."

The other really useful part was the individual hand examples, none of which had clearly obvious answers. For instance, imagine you're dealt 99 UTG in the early stages of a big, multi-day MTT. The table is made up of loose-passive players and the blinds are low. What do you do? What if the table had a couple of tough pro's at it?  What do you want to do with those nines now, and, more importantly, why? Okay, imagine the flop comes out J-high with two under cards, and it's 3-way and you're first to act. What do you do? And why?

Or: you're dealt K5s in the early stages of a tournament. You're in the cut-off and it folds to you. The button is a tough pro. What do you do? What if the SB is a loose-passive? What happens if you raise, but get re-popped by the SB? What if the blinds were bigger? And so on.

Sadly, about a half-dozen of these hand example slides had to be skipped over due to time constraints. On the other hand, Andrew said he videoed the session, and would send the full vid and the slides to us five participants later this week. I"m looking forward to working through the hand example that we skipped.

Anyway, this was really good, timely info. Cool beans.

On to the next installment in this WSOP 2013 adventure...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #32

It's Sunday, so time for a recap of this past week's progress for the 2013 WSOP:

Executive Summary: Spent the last week on a very busy and stressful business trip, so I didn't really have much if any time to study. With a little more than two months left before my event of the WSOP, I'm going to have to find some way to buckle down and get more prep done, but my travel schedule is getting worse, not better. Anyway, here's what little I did this week:

• Strategy Books Read:
• Read some more of Winning Poker Tournaments, Vol 2, which is a study of end game hands. Like V1, this one is chock full of useful information.
• Videos Watched:
• None watched. I did, however, listen to three podcasts, including two Thinking Poker episodes, one of which was an interview of Ed Miller. This one was quite interesting in that he talked about how he categorizes opponents. In his "Playing the Player" book, he uses categories like TAg and LAg, but in the interview he said that if he had the book to write over again, he'd probably label his cash game opponents by way of the types of mistakes they make. E.g., opponents that make folding errors (i.e., fold too much) and those that make calling errors (i.e., call down too much) and so on. Interesting.
• Fitness:
• Diet: This was a pretty bad week on the diet front, with way too much crap food, beer in the evenings, etc.
• Exercise: Went for one stinkin' walk the entire week, and nothing else.
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: None played. I did get in 3-4 simulated WSOP events on airplanes via the DD Poker software, but it's not that good/realistic of practice.
• Live: None played.
• Other: I'm in town for a few days, but then am back on the road for two full weeks in a row. Worse, it's Europe this time, so jet lag will be added to the poor diet and low exercise thing. Ugh.

On to the next installment in this WSOP-2013 journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #30

It's Sunday, so time for a recap of this past week's progress for the 2013 WSOP:

Executive Summary: Not much going on the WSOP prep front these days. Dunno, but a kind of poker malaise has hit me lately. Well, let me rephrase that: I'm a little bored playing much poker these days, but I am still enjoying reading/studying it. Weird. This is very much the opposite of what usually takes place with me; i.e., I usually play more than I study, but lately it's the opposite.

• Strategy Books Read: Actually read a book by Daniel Negreanu that wasn't horrible. Most of the previous stuff I've read by him isn't the most well-organized or solid advice written, but this book (Hold'em Wisdom For All Players) isn't half bad. Granted, it's a simple little "advice" book, and not very meaty, but there were a few nuggets of information I found thought-provoking. Also, I'm reading James McManus' history of poker tome Cowboys Full just for fun. It's a big, dense read, but fascinating nonetheless. First intro chapter is on poker and presidents. Amazing how many US POTUSs have played the game for profit and/or relaxation and/or networking. This includes the present office holder. Obama in fact is said to be a very solid player, employing a fairly TAggish game and usually leaving a winner to the game.
• Videos Watched: None watched.
• Fitness:
• Diet: Horrible week on the diet front, eating all kinds of things I shouldn't have.
• Exercise: Did OK on this front. Walking, bodyweight exercises, stretching, etc..
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: None played.
• Live: None played

On to the next journal installment on this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #28

It's Sunday, so time for a recap of this past week's progress for the 2013 WSOP:

Executive Summary: Another slow week on the WSOP prep front. Part of this was work commitments, but frankly another part was just lethargy/apathy on my part. I played a little poker this week, but actually am in a bit of a lull enthusiasm-wise when it come to studying for the WSOP. In fact, my playing desire is in a bit of a downturn, too.

• Strategy Books Read:
• Poked around with Snyders PTF2 book a bit, and read a couple of hands in the Winning Poker Tournament V1 book, but that was about it.
• Videos Watched:
• Didn't watch a single video this week.
• Fitness:
• Diet: Meh. Did OK on this front, but I also sinned a few times. Giving myself a B- grade.
• Exercise: Meh, too. Walked a couple of times, did some body weight exercises, and.. well, that was about it. Call it a C-.
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: Played a 9-handed $11 STSnG, but busted in third place due to a cooler (set over set).
• Live: Played in a monthly live tournament and had the dubious distinction of being the first player eliminated (out of 21 runners). I think I played OK, but busted mostly due to a bad case of "second best" hands dealt to me. E.g., top two pair on a board that straightened and flushed by the river. My AJs against AQo in a blind-vs.-blind battle with an Ace on the flop. Etcetera. Whatyougonnado?
• Other: Like I said, I've been a bit apathetic this week. This is fine, as I don't want to force the issue... but time is a-tickin' as they say, so I need to find that spark again and get busy. I'm 99% certain I'll enter the $1K Seniors event the weekend of 14 June. Now I need to figure out hotel reservations, travel, etc.

On to the next installment in this WSOP Prep Journal...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2103: Week #27

It's Sunday, so time for a recap of this past week's progress for the 2013 WSOP:

Executive Summary: This was not a very productive week on the poker prep/play front. The previous week I was in California all week as an external reviewer for another organization's project, then spent most evenings and Satukrday working on their report and catching up on my own work. Then I left at 0'dark thirty Sunday morning for a 4-day out-and-back to Hawaii for work, which involved 12+ hour days. Getting back at 2:30am Thursday morning and then having a 9am cost account meeting that same morning put me further behind (and kicked my circadian rhythms in the butt, too). Oh, and when I got home Thursday evening, my wife pointed a leak in the roof, and reminded me that I had our 2012 taxes to work through. Quack quack quack. Said another way, I had time for a total of maybe 10 minutes for playing poker in the past seven days (which I spent on a super-turbo sit-n-go). I did manage to watch a few videos on the airplane, and I read a couple of hand histories from WPT-V2, but otherwise this was a disappointing week.

• Strategy Books Read:
• Book #1: Read a couple of hand histories from Winning Poker Tournaments, Vol 2. Both were rather simple-minded and not super enlightening.
• Videos Watched:
• Video #1: I managed to watch a couple of TPE videos on the airplane. Both were by Big Dog Pocket Fives. He's a very good player, and I'm picking up a lot of tips watching his vids, but way too often he says things like, "This is an easy fold with 77 here," or "This is a standard raise with K9s" without really explaining why the play is "easy" or "standard." The user has to divine a lot of information and read between a lot of virtual lines to get the full use out of these videos. Good material, but like many of the other TPE vids, it's sometimes tough to watch. Professional play, amateur production quality.
• Fitness:
• Diet: Horrible week on the diet front due to travel. I ate at weird hours, munched on unhealthy fare, and consumed far too many empty calories. Back on the wagon tomorrow in earnest.
• Exercise: No aerobic exercise or walking this week, but I did do a series of body weight exercises (push-ups, pull-ups, squats, etc.) most mornings before work. Meh.
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: Played a total of one Super Turbo 6-max $11 STSnG, which I won. Otherwise, zip.
• Live: Zippy dooo dog.
• Other: 
• Made zero blog posts this week, which is highly unusual for me. I must be busy...
• On one of the numerous airplane trips, I fired up the laptop and modeled up both the $1000 WSOP Seniors event and a standard $1500 WSOP normal event in DD Poker using the actual WSOP-published blind structure information. These are the two MTTs that I'm narrowing my search to for June's WSOP. I took the blind structure for each and then went through Snyder's PTF2 book to calculate both the patience and utility factors for both tournaments. I know how to calculate the PF (which is a measure of how slow the tourney is), and I'm 99% certain I have the UF method down (UF is a measure of how much maneuvering room you have given your stack size in relationship to the blinds). The following is what I come up with, along with some paraphrasing of Snyder's thoughts of the MTT difficulty for each PF and UF category):
• $1000 Seniors: PF=63.2 ("slow, highly skilled players only should play"). UF=126.4 ("Pro-Level events in the strictest sense. If you are not adept at small-ball and post-flop play, and if you play any kind of formulaic approach that does not include solid hand- and situation-reading, do no play this MTT. You're dead money.")
• $1500 NLHE: PF=79.6 ("slow, highly skilled players only should play"). UF=238 ("Professionals prefer these tournaments because the very slow structure, where skill reigns supreme. Unless you are highly skilled, or satellite your way in, or are very rich with disposable income, avoid these MTTs. You won't money. Very little dead money in these tourneys. Don't consider these tournaments unless you're a very, very good player; you will be fish meal."
• In other words, these are both tough tourneys, and a player needs to be very solid to make any kind of deep run in either. The $1500 event will also probably be tougher because the starting field size and the number of younger gun LAgs involved. This has me considering the Seniors event.
• I've also exchanged some email with a couple readers who have each played in the WSOP. One has played in multiple seniors events, and the other has played in a handful of $1500 events. Based on these conversations, I'm leaning toward the $1K Seniors, but I've not yet fully made up my mind. If you have any comments or suggestions, please send them in.

On to the next journal installment on this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #25

It's Sunday, so time for a recap of this past week's progress for the 2013 WSOP:

• Strategy Books Read:
• WPT: OHaaT. Continue reading these excellent books. Also blogged twice this week on one hand from V1 here and here. If I can sum the lessons of many of the hands in one word, it would be: Prunes!
• Picked up a couple of poker books at my local used bookstore. One is Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book, with advice on MTT play. The other is Negreanu's Hold'em Wisdom For All Players. While I'm not really a fan of Neagreanu's writing, this one actually didn't look half bad when I thumbed through it. Plus I had a lot of trade credit with the store, so it essentially cost me zero. I'll put this latter book on the shelf for now, but I'll probably take a few hours and read through Gordon's book for the hell of it.
• Videos Watched:
• Broko's Hand Reading #3: Good material. Very amateurish production. He screwed up a hand-made hand history in the replayer; the customer is supposed to just ignore the wrong graphics and imagine what happened in the hand. Does Brokos not realize that guys like me actually paid money for these videos? Spend five extra minutes and fix the damn thing, already. But, like I said, very meaty material and good info. Just frustrating as hell to watch.
• Fitness:
• Diet: Mostly a good boy this week, though the wife and I did go out yesterday afternoon for some Five Guys Burgers and fries, then came home and watched a bunch of videos on the couch, eating chips and chocolate. Back on the wagon today, however... but it's going to be tough, as I'm jetting off this morning on a week-long biz trip.
• Exercise: Most of the week was still spent recovering from the creeping crud flu/cold/nastiness, so I wasn't super motivated to exercise. Did walk a couple of days (while listening to poker podcasts, of course), did a few minutes on the elliptical machine one day, and yesterday morning I did a light free weight routine. 
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: Played some SnGs, and made just a few bucks. Nothing to blog home about, however.
• Live: Played in my monthly local tournament. Twenty-five runners started, and I finished in seventh, three from the money. My bust out hand was a really stupid play on my part. (I clearly forgot the mantra of, "Prunes!") We're at the final table. I had about 12 big blinds, Q9s on button, and I open raised on a semi-steel. BigBlind/BigStack called. Flop was AAQ. Check check. Turn is a blank. He leads for min bet. I shove. He snap calls with A-2. Don't know what I was thinking; he's only going to call with better here. Dumb. Otherwise played very good poker. I did win the last-longer bet with I was in with the crew, which helped offset some of sting of near-bubbling.
• Other: Damn biz trip this week to Pasadena, then across the Pacific next week. Gotta find time to exercise, eat right, and play some serious poker... but I'm not holding my breath.

Summary: Holy crap, this is already week #25 of prep. That's essentially half a year. Some weeks have been definitely worse than others on this journey, but I do feel that overall my technique and skills have improved. I think the two biggest factors for this are: a) the book series Winning Poker Tournaments: One Hand at a Time; and b) MTT Hand History videos. Yes, playing has helped, but I don't feel I've gotten enough direct seat time to really make a big difference on that front; definitely an area that needs improvement in this last few months leading up to the big event.

On to the next entry in this WSOP journey journal...

All-in for now...
-Bug

Decisions, Decisions

WSOP 2013 Schedule of Events was released today. Only bad news is I can just pick one from the bunch. Max buy-in I can afford is $2K. Suggestions are welcome...

On to the next entry in this WSOP journey prep journal...

All-in for now...
-Bug

Event	Date	No. of Days	Buy-In
Event 1 – $500 No-Limit Hold’em Casino Employees	5/29/13	2	$500
Event 2 – $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em 8 Handed	5/29/13	4	$5,000
Event 3 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em	5/30/13	3	$1,000
Event 4 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed	5/31/13	3	$1,500
Event 5 – $2,500 Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low 8/OB	5/31/13	3	$2,500
Event 6 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Millionaire Maker	6/1/13	3	$1,500
Event 7 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em	6/2/13	3	$1,000
Event 8 – $2,500 Eight Game Mix	6/2/13	3	$2,500
Event 9 – $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout	6/3/13	3	$3,000
Event 10 – $1,500 Limit Hold’em	6/3/13	3	$1,500
Event 11 – $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed	6/4/13	3	$2,500
Event 12 – $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em	6/5/13	3	$1,500
Event 13 – $5,000 Seven Card Stud 8/OB	6/5/13	3	$5,000
Event 14 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	6/6/13	3	$1,500
Event 15 – $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.	6/7/13	3	$1,500
Event 16 – $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Heads Up	6/7/13	3	$10,000
Event 17 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	6/8/13	3	$1,500
Event 18 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em	6/9/13	3	$1,000
Event 19 – $5,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em	6/9/13	3	$5,000
Event 20 – $1,500 Omaha 8/OB	6/10/13	3	$1,500
Event 21 – $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed	6/11/13	3	$3,000
Event 22 – $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha	6/12/13	3	$1,500
Event 23 – $2,500 Seven-Card Stud	6/12/13	3	$2,500
Event 24 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	6/13/13	3	$1,500
Event 25 – $5,000 Omaha 8/OB	6/13/13	3	$5,000
Event 26 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Seniors Championship	6/14/13	3	$1,000
Event 27 – $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em Mixed Max	6/14/13	3	$3,000
Event 28 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	6/15/13	3	$1,500
Event 29 – $5,000 H.O.R.S.E.	6/15/13	3	$5,000
Event 30 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em	6/16/13	3	$1,000
Event 31 – $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8/OB	6/17/13	3	$1,500
Event 32 – $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six Handed	6/18/13	3	$5,000
Event 33 – $2,500 Seven Card Razz	6/18/13	3	$2,500
Event 34 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em Turbo	6/19/13	2	$1,000
Event 35 – $3,000 Pot-Limit Omaha	6/19/13	3	$3,000
Event 36 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout	6/20/13	3	$1,500
Event 37 – $5,000 Limit Hold’em	6/20/13	3	$5,000
Event 38 – $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Four Handed	6/21/13	3	$2,500
Event 39 – $1,500 Seven-Card Stud 8/OB	6/21/13	3	$1,500
Event 40 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	6/22/13	3	$1,500
Event 41 – $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Six Handed	6/22/13	3	$5,000
Event 42 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em	6/23/13	3	$1,000
Event 43 – $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball	6/23/13	3	$10,000
Event 44 – $3,000 No-Limit Hold’em	6/24/13	3	$3,000
Event 45 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Ante Only	6/25/13	3	$1,500
Event 46 – $3,000 Pot Limit Omaha 8/OB	6/25/13	3	$3,000
Event 47 – $111,111 One Drop High Rollers No-Limit Hold’em	6/26/13	3	$111,111
Event 48 – $2,500 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em	6/26/13	3	$2,500
Event 49 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	6/27/13	3	$1,500
Event 50 – $2,500 Six-Handed 10-Game Mix	6/27/13	3	$2,500
Event 51 – $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship	6/28/13	3	$1,000
Event 52 – $25,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em	6/28/13	3	$25,000
Event 53 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	6/29/13	3	$1,500
Event 54 – $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em	6/30/13	3	$1,000
Event 55 – The $50,000 Poker Players Championship	6/30/13	5	$50,000
Event 56 – $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em	7/1/13	3	$2,500
Event 57 – $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em	7/2/13	3	$5,000
Event 58 – $1,111 Little One For One Drop	7/3/13	4	$1,111
Event 59 – $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball	7/3/13	3	$2,500
Event 60 – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em	7/5/13	3	$1,500
Event 61 – $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha	7/5/13	3	$10,000
Event 62 – $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event	7/6/13	10	$10,000

WSOP-2013: Week #21

It’s Sunday, so time for a recap of this week's prep/progress toward WSOP-2013:

• Preparation:
• Pregame. Didn't really do much pregame work this week, as I spent four days on a jam-packed biz trip and didn't really play much. I did jump into a few late night cash sessions, and I played a couple of MTTs, but for the most part I just hopscotched around whenever I had a few minutes, with very little prep. My results (below) show that this did not work out particularly well for me...
• Off-Table.
• Hand-of-the-Day. Went 5 for 7 in agreement with the majority, and of the two I missed, I actually think I'm right. Like the Winning Poker Tournaments book, I really like this site for specific hand analysis reviews; if you're serious about improvement, I'd suggest doing a hand review exercise like this on a daily basis. It only takes 5-10 minutes, and it stretches the ole poker mind.
• Blog Entries. Only had time for one blog entry, which was a cash game hand analysis that the Guru and I corresponded briefly on.
• Books. Read a couple of MTT hand analyses from Vol 3 of Winning Poker Tournaments. Good fundamental stuff, but nothing to write home (or blog home?) about.
• Videos. Watched three full MTT-related videos that I downloaded from TPE, plus started a fourth one that I got from Splitsuit. 
• Podcasts. Listened to Bart Hanson's podcast on merging ranges.
• Health. Actually managed to lose a pound, despite the biz travel.
• Bankroll Management. As usual, I'm pushing the envelope in cash. Played well within the 'roll in the few MTTs and one SnG I played, however.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Mostly solid play preflop, but one thing I have noticed is that my VPIP to PFR gap is widening a bit. Need to do some post-mortems and see what's the cause of this. Generally speaking, your PFR should be just a few ticks away from the VPIP value. In fact, because of this delta, my HM2 HUD has started labeling me a "fish" in its little icon that it displays onscreen. Guess I need to look at this... ;-)
• Postflop. Played pretty well postflop. Had a couple of big cooler hands (e.g., ran into rivered bottom set when I hit TPTK holding AKs, for instance), but otherwise I did a good job of REDi'ing.
• Adjustment. Haven't really worked on this aspect of my game much, but it's something I need to bone up on, especially in big MTTs, where other good players will undoubtedly start adjusting to my play if I stay static in my tactics.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. Have to admit I was a little tilty on occasion this week following the aforementioned coolers. The good news, however, is I recognized it, and then left the games immediately.
• Discipline. Meh. Biggest issue was playing tired late at night from hotel rooms with spotty internet connectivity.
• Heart. Have to admit I am a little discouraged with my occasional lack of ability to "pull the trigger" in thin-value situations when playing in high-stakes cash games, especially on the river. This should be a big hint that I should not be playing $400NL with the current bankroll. Sigh.

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Easily won one $5.50 STSnG (full ring) I mistakenly entered (thought it was an $11 game), but then busted mid-pack in three $11 MTTs (mostly due to lack of focus). I did manage to score on a couple of knock-out bounties in one of the MTTs that had bounties in place. Total net loss in this area was $10.
• Tournaments (Live). None played.
• Cash Games. Typical choppy but positive week. If I correlate the poor results sections of my graph with the days of the week I played, it's obvious (as usual, and in hindsight) I should not play when on biz trips. Basically, I dug myself a hole Tue-Thur late in the evenings in the hotel, and then had to climb out of it Fri-Sat when I got home. Net profit overall was $206.

Summary: I'm in town for the next full week, and besides the usual honey-do and work stuff, I've hopefully got a little time available for serious headway on the studying front this week. Also, my online 'roll is ready for another cash-out, so I'll be back down in the $50NL games for cash-game bankroll building. Finally, this coming weekend is the last-Saturday-MTT-of-the-month tourney I played in last month; I've got to see if I can find time that day to head back up and give it another whirl.

On to the next installment in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #20

It’s Sunday, so time for a recap of this week's prep/progress toward WSOP-2013:

• Preparation:
• Pregame. Same story as last week: didn't really add anything in terms of new material or info, but did follow preflight checklists prior to playing, which helps a lot.
• Postgame. Was a busier than normal this week, so I didn't find time to do any proper post-mortems.
• Off-Table.
• Hand-of-the-Day. Went 4 for 7 with the majority vote this week.
• Blog Entries. Three blog entries this week, including a bug tip on blind defense, and a high-level look at "playing with heart".
• Books. Read the chapter on "Player Types" in Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em by Miller, et al. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this is turning out to be a very good intermediate-level hold'em book.
• Videos. Downloaded a slew of videos from Tournament Poker Edge, and then watched:
• Theory: Expected Value. Good stuff. The main takeaway for me was a reminder of just how powerful/important fold equity is. The math verifies what common sense tells us: it's far better to be the one firing the gun than dodging the bullet.
• Brokos' Hand Reading #2. Watching Brokos' videos is like mining for gold in Alaska. It's painful and difficult, but if suffer through it and put in the work there's a lot of valuable nuggets to be found. Bad news is he drones on and on, coughs into the mike, etc. Good news takeaway from this vid was how to use line categorizations in real-time at the tables. He's put out two more vids in this series, and it will probably be worth it (sigh) to suffer through them.
• HM2 How-To video. Started watching the first of seven vids on how to setup and use HM2 specifically for MTT play. I'm only twenty minutes into the first one, but already picked up a couple of oh-that's-how-you-do-that pieces of information.
• Podcasts. Listened to Hansen's latest, plus part of a Thinking Poker 'cast.
• Health. Meh. My diet was awful this week, but I exercised fairly consistently.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Nothing to add.
• REDi. Downloaded and played around a bit with an EV calculator from TPE.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. No tilt issues.
• BRM. Played a little too high ($400NL a few times) for my bankroll in cash, but overall did well otherwise in the $50NL and $100NL games. The one online MTT I played is well within my bankroll guidelines.
• Discipline. First half of week I played kind of unfocused and distracted... and my results clearly show this. Turned the ship around mid-week and got the curve heading back up.

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Played only one online tourney, which was a $20 buy-in 80-man event. Was playing solidly and probably on my way to the final table when a family issue arose and I got completely distracted. Busted in 20th place mostly by having to sit out. Grrr.
• Tournaments (Live). Played in my monthly local live $35 event Wednesday night. Took fourth place money for $120, plus won the $5 last-longer bet with the crew for a $20 score. Net gain after tipping dealers, subtracting buy-in, and paying Mr. Multi his 10% action of me was $70 added to the 'roll.
• Cash Games. As mentioned above in the EmotionalControl/Discipline bullet, it took a few days to get my game on track. Net gain was just $72.

Summary: In general this was a reasonable week, but nothing to write home about. Added a total of $120 to my bankroll, which isn't bad. I'm watching more videos and playing slightly less, which probably is a good thing overall. Need to focus better 100% of the time, and it would be good for me to do more hand analyses, but overall I can't complain with forward progress.

On to the next installment in this journey to the WSOP 2013...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week # 16

It’s Sunday, so time for a recap of this week's prep/progress toward WSOP-2013:

• Preparation:
• Pregame. This was another tough week due to biz travel, so I essentially did nothing on this front.
• Postgame. I did spend a little time on HM2 looking at the previous week's results and post-mortem'ing a few key hands from cash games. The only thing significant that jumped out at me was the fact that I seem to dig myself a hole early in almost every session (even if it is a small hole) that I have to climb back out of. In other words, I think I've got a leak in my game in which I tend to get involved too soon in a session without taking the time to make good reads and "tag the cows." Perhaps a preflight check list entry that says to play only premium hands, even in late position, for the first 2-3 orbits of a table, would be a good idea. 
• Off-Table.
• Hand-of-the-Day. Read and voted in every HotD this week and had good agreement with the majority of poker players on my answers vs. theirs.
• Blog Entries. Only time for two blog entries this week: one Bug Tip and the other an older HotD problem that the Guru sent me (here). He and I exchanged a couple of emails on this hand afterward, which got me thinking a little deeper about hand range as a function of bet size; i.e., the Guru asked, "If the villain had come back over the top, would this have changed our [range]?" The answer is yes, it probably would have, because (seemingly paradoxically) a larger 3bet from the bad buy would actually indicate a weaker range, not a stronger one. If villain had 3bet shoved, I'd be more inclined to get it in with JJ than I would against the smaller (but still pot committing) 3bet he did do. Interesting stuff.
• Books. As before, I'm continuing with the WPT books.
• Videos. None watched.
• Podcasts. Had zero time to really listen to any pod casts this week, so I've got 5-6 backlogged again. Need to start walking more with the ear buds plugged in.
• Health. This was a tough, tough week, with heavy meals and zero exercise. The good news is I'm back on the wagon as of yesterday, and I've got a couple of weeks off on vacation to try to find time to exercise and eat right.
• Other. Been playing around with DD Poker a bit on airplanes and airports. One of the things I started doing is creating custom tournaments that match some real live ones I'm playing in so that I can practice ahead of time. (Thanks to SolarTed for giving me this idea). So far, I've modeled up a big live tourney I'm planning on playing in at the end of this month, and I'm using the software to fine tune how loose and/or aggressive I should be in each stage. Pretty cool stuff.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Been trying out lots of different starting hand stuff in the DD poker software, which has been very enlightening.
• REDi. My focus in this area this week has been on D is for Decisions, with the emphasis on forcing myself to categorize what I'm trying to do with each hand before acting. If I can't answer that basic question, I'm trying to default my Decision to "Fold."
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. No real tilt issues to speak of.
• BRM. Nothing significant to report here.
• Discipline. Played tired a few times, which caused some swings in the weekly profit. I also played the one SnG this week while trying to do two other things.

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Played only one $11 6max STSnG, and I busted on the bubble due to a lack of focus. Argh.
• Tournaments (Live). None played, but with vacation underway, I'm planning on a road trip in a few weeks up to a casino in a nearby town to play in their "Last Saturday of the Month" tourney. It's a moderate ($160 total buy-in) tournament with T5K in starting chips and a pretty good blind structure. Per Snyder's method, I estimate the patience factor of this MTT to be 8.4, which puts it squarely in the "slower, requires much more skill" category. 
• Cash Games. (Someone asked me recently why I'm still playing cash games if my overall goal is to go deep in a WSOP MTT. Good question, and there's really two answers: first, with all the travel I've been doing, there's been little opportunity to find blocks of time to play even turbo SnGs, so I'm playing cash to at least keep sharp; and second, playing cash games is a consistent way for me to build the 'roll so that I can buy into a WSOP event. Even if I only add $10 bucks to the piggy bank each week it will help.) Anyway, I did play a handful of cash session here and there. Real choppy results, as shown in the following graph. Most of the long downward slides were a result of me playing tired late at night in hotel rooms when I should have been sleeping. Not smart, but I did add $70 to the WSOP bankroll:

Very choppy, swingy results this week, where I relied far too much on showdowns to make money. The bb/100 and dollar per hour rates were similarly inconsistent and off my usual numbers.

Summary: Thankfully, the pre-holiday biz travel has come to an end, and I've now got two weeks of (mostly) vacation lined up. Tons of honey-do  and family stuff, but I should also have some time to get refocused on WSOP preparation. Looking forward to actually having time to slow down and smell the roses for a change.... well, at least until the second week of January, at which point I'm back on the road again for the start of 2013. Ugh.

On to the next entry in the WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #12

It’s Sunday, so time for a recap of this week's prep/progress toward WSOP-2013.

As expected, my week-long biz trip to Florida with the boss (and his boss) killed pretty much any opportunity to play real poker. I did manage to get in about 30 minutes of $25NL Full Ring NL online late one evening, and I did make a few bucks during that session, but otherwise I played no online MTTs or STSnGs. So, with that in mind, here's the pitiful recap:

• Preparation:
• Pregame. I did read my cash game pre-flight checklist prior to playing the one cash session, and it definitely did help me focus after a long day in meetings in which my brain was overloaded. I also added an entry to my MTT checklist that says: "Reconstruct the hand before making a big call." The point of this is to ensure I don't overlook something obvious and nuttish that's in the villain's range, which is something I did a few weeks ago in a game that is still bothering me.
• Postgame. No post-mortems performed. I really need to get going on this again, even when I'm not able to play much; I've got all my data with me on my biz trips, so I should just take some time and review hands.
• Off-Table.
• Forums/Hand-of-the-Day. Read a couple of HotDs, but otherwise nada.
• Blog Entries. Wrote two blog entries, one on the fish at your table, and the other on fold equity.
• Books. Read a couple of MTT hands from WPT Vol 1. book. This is really good stuff, and I definitely recommend it.
• Videos. Started watching the last video of the live tells series. Seriously not worth the, uh, virtual film it's recorded on; what a crappy product.
• Podcasts. Listened a little bit to the Thinking Poker episode of the week, but frankly I fell asleep on the plane halfway through it and need to rewind and re-listen again.
• Health. Not a good week at all on this front. Business meeting food, almost no exercise, sitting on my rear end for hours and hours each day, not sleeping well, etc. No wonder I'm up a pound and a half. Worse, this week is turkey week, with at least two giant family meals planned. 
• Other. 
• I said I didn't play any live tourneys, but I did play two big WSOP MTT simulations on the DD Poker 3 software whilst sitting in crowded aluminum tubes high above the terra firma. Yes, I know that sim software isn't the same thing as playing against live players, but I am finding some real benefit from this software. First (obviously) it lets me play while not connected to the internet. Second (and more importantly) it throws hand after hand at me to play; kind of like Rush or Zoom poker. The AI isn't bad, too, so if I treat each hand seriously and try to "play the player" I think this can actually be beneficial. It's also addicting as hell.
• Played around a bit with the "syllabus" for my (eventual) poker training manual. Dunno where this is going, but it was a fun diversion on one of the flights I got stuck on.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Zip.
• REDi. Focused on the E-is-for-Estimating step; I wrote a blog entry on Fold Equity, which forced me to spend a little time researching the subject. There's more I want to explore on this subject, including combining it with the idea of cbetting different board textures from a statistical point of view. Math is powerful stuff, folks, and those of you who eschew and/or minimize its importance are probably not long-term winners at the game. Just sayin'....
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. Interestingly, I found myself tilting a bit in the DD Poker simulations, especially when I got sucked out on by the AI villains. Weird how the mind works in this regard; I mean, come on-- I'm playing against the computer... and I'm getting mad at it. Crazy.
• BRM. Added a few bucks to the bankroll via the one cash session I played.
• Discipline. Ugh. My diet/exercise/health discipline sucked this week. Ugh ugh uhg. On the other hand, however, I didn't play most evenings on my trip when I was too tired to play well, so that's a plus, right? Right?! Ugh.

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). None played.
• Tournaments (Live). None played (although I got word that three of the crew chopped first, second, and third at my regular monthly live MTT this week. Awesome, guys!)
• Cash Games. Played one session for a net gain of $35.

Summary: Not much to add here that I didn't already allude to above. I'm in the thick of the "survival" months of the year, just trying to get through the holidays without doing too much damage.

On to the next entry in the WSOP-2013 journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug