WSOP ME: Matadors and Gents (and a Lady)

Yevgeniy "Jovial Gent" Timoshenko

Woke up this morning a little bummed to see three of my picks from yesterday busted, including/especially Annette O, my heroine from Norway. Greg Merson also crashed and burned yesterday, as did Kristy Gazes. This leaves just one woman (Jackie Grazier) in the entire remaining field of 68 players. The good news is Grazier's stack is sitting at ~T4M, which puts her in 12th place and definitely in contention for making the final table.

On another positive note, Carlos Mortensen is still in it with T2.67M in chips, which puts him squarely in the middle of the pack in 35th place. I just plain admire this guy's loose-aggro style, which makes him so unpredictable and effective. Also, was reading some stats, and was (not) surprised to learn that "El Matador" is considered by many to be the most successful player of all-time if you factor in the relatively small number of events he actually plays every year.

And on an even more positive note, Yevgeniy Timoshenko is crushing the tourney, currently sitting in 11th place with ~T4.1M in his stack. It's gotta be that baby face magic.

Looking forward to today's action; I just wish there was a live feed of the play I could watch like they did a few years ago. Or even better, that I was there, live and in person. Sigh.

Carlos "El Matador" Mortensen

All-in for now...
-Bug

Heading Home Happy

Leaving for home this afternoon. I've got a little time to play some more cash NL this morning, so that's what I'm gonna do after I get some grub. It's been a helluva WSOP ride. Here's what happened since the last update.

Tried to sleep in Saturday morning but I was wide awake at 5am. I'm in Vegas. There's about a billion poker players in this hotel. Surely I can find a game, right? I eat a quick breakfast at the diner in the main hallway to the poker room. Scarf down an omelette and a couple of cups of joe and I'm ready to play.

I walk into the Rio Pavillion and realize this really is poker mecca. There are dozens and dozens of games playing, many obviously carrying on from the previous night. I railed a $10K PLO game for a while, watching guys barely able to stay awake making five hundred and $1K bets with little thought. I watched one guy literally doze off, get nudged by another player, wake up, and toss in his blinds. He dozed back off, then was nudged again when it was his turn to act. This is Omaha, we're talking about, a game not for the feint of heart. This guy then peeks at his cards through half-open eyes and tosses a wad of hundred dollar bills into the middle. Then closes his eyes again while the other player in the hand is thinking. Insane.

Other guys are playing open face Chinese poker. Another couple of tables have stud hi/lo going. Another has  what looks like razz. Another has some game I can't even decipher. I decide on something a little more mundane: $1/2 NLHE full ring. I sit down and buy in for a hundred bigs. Two hours later I've got triple my starting stack and decide to quit while ahead. Damn, that felt good! No real special hands to report, just a lot of decent cards. Made good reads and was able to get people to pay me off. Mostly value and little bluffing for this bug's session. Poker's easy when the cards are coming your way and the opposition cooperates.

I then get up and wander over to the Amazon room and watch the kick-off of day two of what was my $1K event. I see Leather Face is still in it. Sigh. As I'm sitting outside the Amazon room that morning Jack Effel, tourney director of the entire WSOP, shows up and starts working the crowd. He's near me when he says he loves the seniors event, and he is thinking of a fathers day special (father + son/daughter) doubles tourney for next year. He's shaking hands and working down the line. He then gets to me and asks if someone I know is in the tourney. I say no, that I busted out of it yesterday and am just watching. He pats me on the back and says there's always next year. I just smile as he moves on to work more of the rail crowd.

I stuck around for an hour or so at the event while they dropped the first twenty players and got into the money.  As we were waiting for players to drop, the losers passed right by me. Talk about pissed off old men. "G*Damn it!" and "F*ck!" were common refrains of these bubble boys. Damn, I wish I was on the other side of the rail, but I have to say that busting on day two immediately before the bubble looks to be much worse than busting early like I did. I think. Hell, I don't know. In any case, it was still fun to watch the tourney players and rail go nuts when they finally announced that the remaining players had moneyed. Very cool. Just wish I was one of them.

A lot of interesting characters here at the series. I saw a guy in a Superman outfit, for instance, complete with cape playing Omaha. Also saw my first Elvis impersonator at a NL poker table. And also my first blind player at a table, complete with a young woman seated behind him, looking at his hold'em cards for him, and then whispering in his ear. Oh, and shall we just say there has also been a nonstop bountiful bevy of beautiful babes about, most of whom are wearing hardly any clothing at all. It's a living hell here, I tell you. :-)

Oh, and there are celebrity players, too. Everywhere. I mentioned yesterday that I saw a bunch of well-known players. Today was the same. I saw Maria Ho and Robert Mizrachi in the O8 event, and Michael the Grinder Mizrachi in a $1500 NL event. Stood in a snack line immediately behind Jonathan Duhamel, who was chatting to his friend in French about how well he was playing this year. I also saw Erick Lindgren, Tony Dunst, and Andrew Brokos in the $1500 Mix/Match. I waved down Brokos at one of the breaks, introduced myself, and reminded him that I'd taken his seminar. He was very gracious and we talked for a while, but I felt bad that I was impinging on his break time, so I excused myself and let him run to the men's room before the tourney started back up.

I also railed Daniel Negreanu for thirty minutes or so, too, in the same tourney as Brokos. Let me just say Negreanu works the room like nobody else. He's up and down constantly, and his mouth is moving all the time. In between action at one point he turns to the ten or so of us at the rail and starts asking who we are and where we're from. He comes over and chats a bit, signs autographs, laughs at everything. The other players at his table are paying attention to him. Then he casually turns back to the table and asks one of the guys at the table playing where he's from. The guy just shrugs and says "what?" Negreanu motions back to someone on the rail and then says to the player, "This guy here is from Portland. Isn't that where you said you were from?" "Uh, no. I'm from Sacramento." Negreanu comes back to the table and sits down. "Oh, that's right," he says, "You probably play at Casino Royale there?" "Uh, yeah." "I know a guy who won his way here at a satellite there a few years ago? They have that same satellite again this year?" "Yeah, I won it. Backed my way into a full house on the final hand," the guy replies. And so on. Within fifteen minutes Negreanu knew the stakes this guy plays back home, how often he plays, what his poker background was, how comfortable he was with these stakes, what his goal in the tourney is, how he plays, and so on. It was like watching a master interrogator at work.

It was well past noon by this time, so I wandered off to eat lunch and came back a little later. The Sacramento guy was gone and Negreanu's stack was about twice as large as when I left. Cool. But then I also saw him make a really good read but a weird, bad call on another player, putting him on a specific full house that he called out loud, but then paid him off anyway. He then seemed to be tilting a bit with this call as I wandered back off again. I heard he busted shortly thereafter.

Oh, one of the funny things I saw the previous night railing Hanson and Hellmuth in an Omaha game that I forgot to mention were their competing twitter feeds. I've been a subscriber to Bart Hanson's feed for about a year now, as he frequently has good strategy tweets. I've never subscribed to Hellmuth's however because, well, the guy is kind of a tool. Well, last night I temporarily subscribed, because Hanson was tweeting about the tourney and his play every 30 minutes or so, and I saw Hellmuth doing the same. The funny thing is that Hellmuth's tweets were things like, "I'm so proud of myself" and "I'm playing with courage tonight" and "I'm playing the best poker of my life. I'm working so hard." The first thing that cracked me up about this was how Hellmuth wasn't actually paying any attention to the game at all; instead he was fiddling with his phone the whole time, writing texts, posting to twitter, fiddling with music, chatting with Huck Seed next to him, etc. The second thing that made me laugh was Hanson, meanwhile, tweeting what a schmoe Hellmuth is. In fact, when Hanson finally busted Hellmuth out, Hellmuth tweeted something about how good of a player he was, but how unlucky he was in this tourney. Hanson immediately answered with his own tweet of: "@phil_hellmuth I busted you today with A2T9. You should have folded your hand pre not bad luck. AAQ7ss not a good hand to call a 3 bet."

After I got tired of the celebrity poker nonsense, I headed back over to the cash games for a bit while I waited for the next deep stack to start. Couldn't get anything going in a $2/4 game for the next hour, but at least I didn't lose any money.

Then it was into my third tourney of the trip, . Long story short is I went pretty deep and made a nice triple up profit. I was too lazy to actually take written notes on key hands during play, but the bottom line to the secret to my success is I ran pretty well and won a handful of flips. Even AK held up for me. We made the money around 10pm, but then my stack just started fading and I didn't make it any deeper pretty much because I ran out of cards and gas at the same time. Afterward I went straight up to my room, brushed my teeth, fell into bed, and went to sleep nearly instantly, a huge poker-loving smile on my face.

Bottom line this morning is that I've had a great long weekend. I moneyed in two out of three tourneys played (but not the one I wanted), plus had a couple of excellent cash sessions. As GolfPro said in an email to me last week, I was coming to the poker "promised land." He was absolutely correct. For a poker enthusiast, this is one of those bucket list things that shouldn't be missed. Not the ultimate results I would have liked, but I'm coming home with more money in my pocket then I left with, so I'm pretty damn happy overall. It's also great fun to just be surrounded by so much poker talk, which is almost everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Riding the elevator, sitting in restaurants, standing in lines, everywhere you hear things like "I can't believe he called me with ace ten offsuit? He had to know I had a better kicker!" and "I made the money, I made the money!" It's nuts, but in a good, sick, degenerate kind of way.

Next time I come (and there definitely will be a next time), I may go with a $1500 event, as it is a better, deeper overall structure than the $1K. Bart Hanson talked about this in one of his latest podcasts, explaining why 50% more starting chips and proportionally more prize money is better than a weaker field. Truth be told, I'd love to play in more than one tourney, and especially get into the $10K main event, but the ultimate truth is I simply can't justify that kind of expense with my own money, even if I do feel I'm good enough to play.

I also may stay somewhere other than the Rio next time. Dunno. The Guru suggested I stay here, and the convenience of having a room within walking distance is definitely an advantage. On the other hand, the staff has been more than rude, and prices are higher than other nearby hotels. I have to admit, though, it's nice to be able to go up to the room on breaks between action. The room I had is nice and quiet during sleeping hours, too, although $8 for room coffee is just plain stoopid. Also, the bathroom I had in my room was, for lack of a better phrase, jet assisted and required ear plugs for use. The shower was almost deafening to stand in, and the toilet flushed so so loud and hard that the first time I thought my clothes were going to be ripped off my body. Bizarre.

Anyway, that's it for me now. I'm off to the tables for some last minute cash action this morning. Then it's check-out time, a quick taxi ride to the airport, and the short flight home. It's been great to be here, but I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and being home.

On to the next (last?) installment in this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

Busto

Played in the $1K bracelet event today, but didn't even make to the second break four hours in. Ugh. Next to the Millionaire Maker event a few weeks ago, this was the largest single starting day event in WSOP history, with over 4,300 runners entered. It was huge. No, make that HUGE. Here's the rundown of how it, well, ran down for moi:

• Found my table and took my seat. The middle aged guy already there on my left turned to me and started talking. And talking. And talking. Even after "Shuffle up and deal" was announced, this guy kept going on and on and on. It could have been really annoying, except the subject he liked to talk about the most was his own poker strategy, his cards, why he was betting the way he was, what he was putting other players on, and so on. In less than thirty minutes, I knew exactly how to play against this nimrod. He overvalued Ax hands and would min-raise them. He loved suited connectors, and would limp with them. He 3x'd his big hands. It was almost like I could see his cards with x-ray vision.
• The other players at my table were a mixed bag. Some so-so, some truly, truly, truly awful, and two were decent players. Lots of open limping, which I took advantage of  mercilessly, raising biggish cards or limping behind with bust'em type hands in position. I saw lots of limp-folding preflop, which I also took advantage of. For example, I was dealt 76s on the button. Four limpers ahead of me. I make is 5x and they all fold. Within 45 minutes, I went from T3K to T4K. Easy table. Well, that was going to change in a little while. We'll get to that, but first the run good period:
• About fifteen hands in I pick up red queens in MP. I 2.5x raise an open limper and get the no-fold'em small blind to call, too. Original limper unfortunately folds to my raise, but the SB is in the hand and is an open book and I have position. He seems to not leave the hand if he hits any part of it, otherwise he's done. Flop comes KQ3 with two club, giving me middle set. I lead big, as he's either coming along or he's not and I want value. He calls and I'm happy. Turn is another three, boating me up. I lead pot again, villain calls again. River is a Ac, bringing in the front door clubs and a possible straight. I bet pot again, but this time the villain tanks. After a few minutes, someone calls the clock. He uses his whole minute, gets the count-down, and then folds, showing a red Ace to the table. Damn. He told me that if I'd bet a little less he would have called, but he didn't want to go out before the first break. Damn. Damn. Damn.
• Next hand I watched two guys get it all in preflop blind v. blind by way of a 6bet all-in. One turned over A7o, the other turned over 44. Holy cow. Then they chopped when the board five flushed. Insanely bad poker, plus insanely crazy result.
• Picked up TT in EP. Open raised to 3x and get five (!) cold callers. Geezus. Board is J-6-4, which is about as dry as you can hope for with a big under pair like mine, but against these numbskulls, anyone of them could have a random jack. I actually lead small as a probe bet (something I usually shun) and get all five to call. Geeeezus. Holy crap are these people bad. I shut it down. Guy with J4 ends up winning hand. Geeeeeeeeeezus.
• I pick up three small pairs in a row (44, 66, 77) and call each on button, CO, and HJ, respectively, when EP raisers open. Don't hit any sets and have to shut it down each time.
• Open raise with AQs from MP and get a huge overbet reraise from button. As he'd been doing nothing but limping previously, I decided to fold, as I didn't want to play a hand OOP not knowing where I stood. He was kind enough to show me the pair of kings when I mucked.
• We're then into the second level, and I've got about fifty bigs. The wheels start to come off slowly at this point. My AKo gets 4-bet preflop all-in by the same normally passive player and another limp-master after I open raise. I'm not happy, but I decide to fold. The two players turn over KK vs. QQ. Still not sure if this was the right play to fold AKo, but it felt really early in the tourney to gamble with big slick, especially 3-way. Probably a good fold, but dunno.
• I limp KJs on the button behind an EP min-open raise and two cold-callers. Flop comes J-T-8, monotone, giving me top pair top kicker, but the wrong suit for my hand. Action checks to me, I fire a bet with my pair to price out draws, but I get check-raised all-in. I quickly fold. Guy turns over 33 without the right suit for the board. WTF? Yes, I was bluffed, but I'm not sure what he was thinking he was doing at this stage of the tourney. He's only going to get called by better. I look at him again, and realize he's got two beers in front of him, both empty. Okay... need to pay better attention to the drinks in front of the players.
• A few hands later, a Hungarian UTG player looks at his cards and then quickly look away from them. His eyes and eyebrows are sky high. Read: strength. He makes it 5x to go. Read: big strength. I have implied odds, so I call with 88 on button looking for a set, but no dice. All flop cards are under cards to my eights, but I'm not biting. He checks, but I check behind, as I"m sure he has a big over pair. He leads when the board pairs on turn and I fold. He shows QQ.
• For some reason, I seemed to lose focus for the next fifteen minutes or so at this point. I got a call on my phone, which I ignored of course, but then was suddenly off my game. I wasn't focusing, and I found myself mucking around with songs on my music player, checking my email, etc. I reverted into level-1 poker, too. I literally didn't even notice a dealer change. I went through about ten hands this way, which was really odd for me. Then I started yawning, and I realized I hadn't eaten anything in about five hours. I'm borderline hypoglycemic, so I quickly munched on some almonds and macademias I had in my backpack, drank some water, and about five minutes later began to feel normal again. Bizarre. Note to self: keep snacking and hydrating through the event.
• It's the end of level two now and we take a 20 minute break that actually was changed to 30 on the count down clock, I think to accommodate the huge field of prostrate-challenged old men lined up at the bathrooms. I decided to bypass everyone and go all the way back out to the casino proper to use the facilities there. This avoided a huge line. The Rio does a lot of things right at the WSOP, but the bathroom situation in the tournament poker area isn't one of them. The ratio of men to women is probably 50:1, but they don't have proportionally more men's bathrooms available.
• And speaking of doing things right, the dealers were for the most part very, very good. Quick shuffles, no misdeals, very speedy dealing and counting and stacking, even with multiple side pots and chip changing. I saw/heard a couple of issues arise at nearby tables, and in each case the dealer immediately called the floor person over and the problems were resolved quickly. I was impressed.
• We come back from break and blinds are now 50/100. I've got about T3500, or 35 bigs. All the limping has now seemed to stop and everyone is in raise, re-raise, or fold mode. It's like a switch has been thrown. Okay, I can play that game, too. Or so I think.
• I fold 55 in the SB to a raise and RR in front of me. I wasn't getting either the implied or direct pot odds to set mine. Flop of course comes 5-5-J. Of course. Of course!
• I chip up.
• I chip down.
• I chip up.
• The talking head to my left busts out and another fellow moves into his seat. The new guy's face looks like tanned leather from way too much sun. He's also wearing $200 blue shark wrap-around sunglasses, starts riffling a huge stack of chips with ease, and quickly becomes my nemesis. Almost every pot I enter from here on out involves leather face. Everytime I iso raise, he re-iso raises me. In fact, he's involved in almost every hand that I play. Hell, he's involved in almost every hand played at the table. He limps, he raises, he reraises, he 4bets. He check raises. He isos. He 5bets at one point. He 3bet open-shoves. He's running over the table, and because he's on my left with a huge stack there's very little I can do about. Unfortunately, it takes me a while to figure out his MO, and I lose quite a chunk of my stack bet/folding to him with marginal hands.
• Blinds go up again, and now I'm at down to about 30 bigs. Nothing is working right, but I've still got a healthy stack. I'm making good reads, but unfortunately most of those reads are telling me to fold or stay out of pots. Meanwhile the blinds go 'round and 'round.
• I get blinded down. I think my fundamental mistake was not taking a stand with leather face earlier when I was getting playable hands, but I figured he'd bust out long before that with his reckless play. I was wrong.
• And so it goes. Blinds are eating me up each time they pass, but then I find a way to chip up again. My lesson from the previous day's deep stack event is to get busy when I drop into the twenties, so I force myself to try something each time, especially in position. It's mostly working. I'm mostly treading water. But then... alas...
• My second to last hand comes with me in the big blind with TT. Okay, this may be it, I say to myself. Leather face is UTG and open raises to 3x. It folds to me. I smooth call, which in hindsight is probably a mistake. My stack size is far too big for 3bet reshipping, but against this guy it might actually have been the right play. Oh well. Flop is QJ9 monotone clubs. I have an up and down straight draw, but I don't have a club. I check to the raiser. Leather face bets half pot. I raise full pot and villain just calls.. Turn is another nine. I lead 3/4 pot and leather face tanks and then calls. River brings a third nine. I"m about to lead again with my boat when I notice him turning bright red. He's practically hyperventilating behind his blue shark shades. Then I see his hands are trembling like a rock tumbler. Am I beat? I have a freaking full house! I can't be beat, right? After a long tank, I decide to check, and leather face is looking hard away from the table when he says with his voice cracking, "I'm all in."  I tank for a loooong time now. He could have a bigger boat than me quite easily I finally resolve. I really, really, really want to call, but this little voice of reason inside my head is screaming at me to fold. Calling each street is a huge clue, bug. His shaking hands are a big clue, bug. His looking away from the table is a big clue, bug. This guy has strength, bug. Bug, are you listening? I finally get the clock called on me. I decide to fold my boat. I really want to show my huge laydown, but I quietly slide the cards into the muck. Leather face slams his fist down and says loudly, "SHIT!" and turns over J9 for quads. Holy. Freaking. Crap.
• Holy crap, again. I'm now down to 18 big blinds with JTs in the SB. A limp and two callers in front of me. Leather face has slowing down with all the re-raising he did in the last hour, but with this guy you never know. I decide I'm going to complete the small blind, but fold to a squeeze if he bumps it up. I toss the other half bet into the pot, and leather face frowns but then knuckles the felt. We see the flop five way, and it's a thing of beauty. J-T-3, giving me top two pair. Leather face isn't doing anything funny, but the original limper is fidgeting with her chips as if she's going to bet, which I've seen her do with a big draw on an earlier hand. She semi-bluffed that hand. I check, leather face checks, and the lady bets about three quarters of the pot. The two field players fold, and action is back to me. I put the lady on over cards, a draw, or maybe something like KJ. I do not put her on a set, because I think she'd play it more "trappy" than betting out like this. I want to price her out of a draw, so I check raise pot.... and leather face then check-re-raises me all-in. WTF? I play through the possible hands in my head and come up with a lot of big blind specials that he could have that I beat (straight draws, Jx, Tx, J3, T3, etc..) and only one that I don't (33). I'm basically pot committed, so I reluctantly call. Leather face turns over the damn set of threes. I miss my four outer to improve on turn and river, and just like that I'm on the rail of the World Series of Poker. Crap.
• Crap.
• Crap.
• Crap.
• Sigh
• Sigh.
• Crap.
• Sigh.
• Hmmmm.
• I question myself: did I play well and make good decisions. Answer: yes.
• Question: did I play with heart? Answer: yes.
• Question: did I have fun? Answer: well, yes, actually. Except for that last hand, of course.
• Question: what did I say my three big goals were for this WSOP? Answer: make good decisions, play with heart, and have fun.
• Question: did I do these things. Answer: Yes, but crap.
• Sigh.
• I go for a walk. I listen to music for a while as I wander aimlessly around. Then I take off my headphones. There are literally hundreds of other poker players on the rail with me, walking around, regaling each other with bad beats and suckouts and poker plays that went wrong. All are totally unhappy.
• I get a text message from Memphis MOJO that he busted at about the same time I did. I suggest we get a beer together, but he's already left the Rio to go his own hotel. He writes, "I'm bummed."
• Crap.
• I walk through a huge room where the $1500 NL event is playing, but it doesn't interest me. I keep walking and find myself in the ESPN area where the O8 event is on. I see Bart Hanson and move to the rail directly behind him to watch. Two to his left, and literally four feet from me is Phil Freaking Hellmuth. Huck Seed is beside him. Two to Seed's left is Matt Glantz. Two to his left is Erik Seidel. Mike Matusow is at the next table. And at the next table is Todd Brunson and Barry Greenstein. And there's Andy Bloch. I realize I'm not frowning. While they weren't actually seated at my individual table in my own event, I recall that Tom McEvoy, Johnny Chan, Chad Brown, Marcel Luske and Dennis Phillip all played in my WSOP event, and at least two of these guys are also on the rail with me at this point.
• I slowly come to the realization that I freaking played in the freaking WSOP. Holy freaking crap.
• I smile. Life could be a helluva lot worse than it is.
• Tomorrow maybe I'll play some cash games, I tell myself. Maybe another deep stack. Maybe just rail some of the action again. Who knows? I'm at the World Series of Poker. Anything can happen here.

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

All-in for now...

-Bug

A Rocky Start. A Good Ending.

Yesterday didn't start well, but it ended fine. Here's the wam-bam recap. Excuse any typos; I'm kind of fried...

Had the credit card company call as I was leaving for airport in morning. Short story was a stolen card number and a lot of fraud charges . Visa was great, however, and we went through all the fraudulent charges and got it cleared up, card canceled, new card in the mail, etc. Unfortunately I was therefore late leaving for airport, then had all kinds of parking issues when I got there. Good/bad news however is the flight was delayed, so I at least made it to Vegas mostly on time. Then it was a zoo of long lines and waiting to get registered for $1K event, get total reward cards (required for entry), check-in for hotel, and then get registered for a deep stack afternoon event that I wanted to play as a warm-up to big $1K event...

Here's the interesting hands from the deep-stack, which went from 3pm to 11pm for me:

• 1134 starting players. T15K in starting chips per player, with starting blinds at T50/T25, so we were very deep. Levels were each 30 minutes long, so there was some but not a lot of time to manuever, too.
• Third hand of night. AJo in SB. Limped around to me 5 way. It's way early so I just complete. Board was J-high rainbow rags. I check-called for pot control. Turn checked around. I fired small on blank river and took it down. A little weak, but my early level strategy wasn't to accumulate chips; it was to survive and observe.
• 99 on the button. UTG limp-opened, but his body language looked funny, kind of nervous. Three other upstream limpers. I just called. SB folded, but BB min-raised, which then allowed UTG to limp-reraise big. I insta-folded when it got to me. UTG showed KK. Very obvious big hand.
• Open raised AQo in MP then folded to a big 3bet from the buttton, who hadn't played a hand in three laps of the table. My AQ felt like too much of a trap hand in that situation. Prob woulda called with something like JTs or 75s as we were very deep, but AQ scares the hell out of me, especially OOP.
• BB posted all-in (after taking a bad cooler the previous hand). Folded to me on button with A5o. I iso raised and SB folded. Villain turned over 75o, spiked his seven and doubled up. Meh.
• For next two blind levels I go totally card dead and table aggression upstream starts ramping up, with lots of bets and raises. Ergo, I fold, fold, and fold.
• Blinds are now 300/150 with 25 ante. Time to kick it into gear. Lots of dead money in the pot preflop.
• AQo UTG+1. I open raise to 900 and it folds around.
• Red eights in BB. I see free flop multiway (shoulda squeezed, probably, but I wimped out). Board was KQJ black two-tone. I check. Raise and RR from two of the villains. I insta-fold.
• A9cc on button. I open raise to 1K. SB folds, but BB tanks and then re-shoves her short stack of 8K. I kick myself for not paying attention to stack sizes better. Have to fold. Grrr.
• QQ UTG+1. I open to 1K. Folds around. Kick myself for opening too big. Meh.
• Blinds are now 600/300/75. 88 on the button. Action folds to the weak-tight player on my right who open raises to 3x a moderately short stack. I've got a 20x stack, so I re-pop him all-in, figuring I have a lot of equity and there's enough dead money to make this plus EV. Blinds fold and villain goes into the tank. Finally calls with AK (!). My eights hold and suddenly I have a competitive stack again.
• Very next hand I pick up KK. 2.5x open raise, but no takers. Meh. Blinds and antes aren't insignificant, so this is OK. But still.... meh.
• Blinds now 800/400/100. I fold 99 to an UTG open raise and a shorty re-ship in MP. they turn over QQ vs. 44, and the fours hit their set.
• I open raise KJdd from the hijack. Get two callers. Two diamonds on the flop and I have one overcard. I semi-bluff my draw and get one caller. Turn is a beautiful third diamond. I slump my shoulders and check, imagining war and sick puppies and any other sad thing miserable thing I can conjure up. Villain stares me down and then obliges and bets pot. I check-raise all-in, but alas he folds. Still a nice addition to stack. Maybe should have just called and then led the river?
• Blinds now 1200/600/200. Things are getting nutty as we approach the bubble. Aggression everywhere.
• I pick up AA UTG and min raise. Medium stack two to my left tanks forever, asks for a count, tanks some more. I've pulled my hat down low and try to imagine that I have 22, a sick puppy, no money in the bank, and have a bad illness. Villain finally 3bets all-in. Wheeee! No more takers, however, so we're heads up. She flips up KQs (!) and two of her suits come on flop. Not Wheeeee!  My rockets hold however thru turn and river, and I chip up nicely again. Have about 40 bigs, which is very playable...
• ...but then I go seriously card dead again as the blinds escalate and we start getting down to the actual bubble. Lots of aggro "abuse the bubble" action from two big stack upstream of me at the table, so I'm ham-strung, waiting for actual cards.
• Pick up 44 on button. Same limp-RR'r from before open limps in EP. My antenna goes up. Folds to me and I knuckle check. Three to the flop. Board is wet and coordinated. Check check check. Turn gets even scarier. Check. River completes the horror and UTG guy finally leads out. I insta-fold. He flips up KK for a full house and complains no one gives him action. No shit, buddy.
• Blinds up again. I'm down to about 20 bigs. Pick up 77 in LP and make it 3x to go, assuming I'll fold to a reship. Blinds both call. Board is super dry T-3-3 rainbow. Checks to me and I cbet purely based on board texture and take it down.
• Pick up J5s on button, which is normally a standard fold to upstream action, but UTG min-raises and everyone calls. I'm priced in and have enough chips to call. Blinds complete and we have our first family pot. Board is the wrong color for my suit and there's a bet, raise, and reraise in front of me. Buh-bye.
• Our table is never broken all night long, but instead it serves as a new home for players from other breaking tables in the tourney. We get a continuous influx of new players all night. This is mostly fine until Paul Bunyon is moved to the seat on my left. Guy is about 6'7" and 300 pounds and dressed in lumberjack clothes that he must have worn directly from work. Terrible BO. Terrible breath. Terrible teeth. He also spills over into my space with giant arms and legs. OMG this is horrible. Thank the heavens he busts out four hands later and a skinny little guy who understands personal hygiene is moved to that seat. Whew.
• AQs on the button. Cold called a weak-tight player UTG who 3x'd it. Still wondering if I should have 3bet pre, but I wimp. Doesn't matter, tho, as she checks on a dry board. I figure she's playing fit/fold so I c-bet with air. She quickly folds.
• We're now in the money, but I'm back to card dead and the popcorn is popping, with tons of action upstream. I'm quickly blinded to 12 bigs and make a stand on the button with ATs against a LP loose passive player's limp-open. I shove. Big blind calls and the opener also calls. Big blind turns over KK and limper turns over A3o. I'm drawing to one of two remaining aces, which spikes on flop! My elation is short-lived however when a trey hits the river, giving the worst hand the win. And just like that I'm out on the rail. Sigh.

A min cash is more than fine of course, but there are a few things I wished I done differently. Mainly I have to get busier when my stack starts dropping in the low twenties or so. I nursed a short stack through the bubble because I didn't do this, and therefore played survival when I should have been attacking

Also, didn't sleep real well, so I"m concerned I"m not very rested for the $1K that kicks off in a few hours. Otherwise, this deepstack cash was the perfect warm-up for today's bracelet event. Wish me skill.

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

All-in (from Vegas, baby) for now...
-Bug

Eleven Days and Counting...

Received this in the inbox this morning (click to expand):

Eleven days from now I'll be sitting down at the tables to play. Woo hoo!

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

All-in for now...
-Bug

Cash into the Ether

Stopped at my bank today on the way home from work. Stood in line. Was directed to a back room desk. Waited in line. Got called back. Sat down. Filled out form. Handed over $1K in cash. Watched bank manager type numbers and letters at supersonic speed into computer. Watched said cash turn into electronic ones and zeros. Was handed a two page, legal-size receipt. Carefully read said receipt. Realized that I'm now actually registered and paid up for Event #26.

Am going to Vegas, baby.

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

All-in for now...
-Bug

Countdown: 6 Weeks.... Yikes!

Looked at the calendar this morning and realized I'm exactly 6 weeks away from the $1K Seniors WSOP NLHE event. Holy. Crap. Six weeks. That's just forty two days. That ain't a lot of time, folks...

I've been off-track about preparing (and blogging) the past month or so, and now it's panic time. Unfortunately, biz travel has been kicking my butt again, and it's not going to get any better, at least not in the short term. I just got back from a very tiring two week European trip, and I'm heading back out westward across the Pacific again in a week for another long period away. Following that, fortunately, I'm finished with travel until after the WSOP. Whew.

Family health stuff have also piled themselves on top of my motivation. Oh, and I've got a leaky roof to fix, a busted kitchen cabinet drawer, the watering system in the front of the house seems to have gone haywire, yardwork that has piled up, etc...

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Quack, quack, quack.

So, what's the plan moving forward? Good question. Here's what I've got:

1. Stamina. First and foremost on the list, believe it or not, has to be getting my butt in shape. I've been dabbling for months with a healthier lifestyle, but it's time to turn up the heat. My family history has a lot of blood sugar issues (hypoglycemia, diabetes, etc). Sadly, I'm no exception, with frequent energy crashes after even modestly large meals. The good news is that I've discovered that if I'm below a certain weight, my body is much more forgiving. If I'm to sit up and pay attention in a high PF WSOP event six weeks from now, I've got to do everything I can to help my stamina. Ergo, serious diet and exercise time, folks. The good news is I've been exercising fairly consistently, even on travel. The bad news is the diet side of things, which, frankly, is much more important for health. We are what we eat, so I've got to get serious about watching what I eat. I've got ~10 pounds to lose between now and then...
2. Practice. With almost no opportunities to play serious live poker between now and then, I'm not sure how I'm going to get enough seat time to improve. I am still playing a little online, but I think that actually can be counterproductive if I overdo it. DD Poker has been a staple of just practicing starting hands vs. blind levels and stack sizes, but that ain't real poker either. I think I'm just stuck in this area.
3. Strategy. I am watching videos, which is a really good thing for me personally. Plus I'm re-re-reading the Winning Poker Tournament books series for the third time. These are really good reads, and there is a ton of information contained in even the most simple of hand analyses. Another thing I want to do in this area is re-write (so that a) it's fresh in my mind; and b) so that it's as complete as possible) my preflight checklist. The plan is to pull this out regularly during breaks and refresh myself on what I should be doing, etc. 
4. Other. Still have to send in my registration check, but I've got airline tickets and hotel reservations made. In the next few weeks, I'm going to scour the forums for additional tips and tricks to make my stay as smooth and uneventful as possible (e.g., what exactly should I bring with me to the table?). 

More to come. I hope.

On to next installment of this WSOP journey...

All-in for now...
-Bug

Pulling the Trigger

Well, I did it: pulled the trigger and made my airline and hotel reservations for Las Vegas in mid-June, plus I pre-registered for the $1K Seniors NLHE event. I still need to send my buy-in cashiers check into the WSOP, but I'll wait a bit before doing that. Now I just have to get serious about prepping for the event. Unfortunately, I'm heading off to Europe for the next two weeks, so it's going to be another tough stretch to make any headway on a) live practie; and b) diet/exercise. Guess I'll learn how serious I really am about this mid-life crisis...

In other news, I bubbled the final table of my monthly live MTT last night. Flyboy and Mr. Multi both final tabled, and MM took fourth place money. I'm happy with my play overall, including a relatively big preflop lay-down of JJ midway through the event. Long story, but I felt I was reading most of the villains at my table really well, and in this particular hand I was up against two players that I both read very strong. I raise folded PF, pleasantly (un)surprised when one guy turned over QQ and the other AKs. My fishhooks would have been an 18% dog in the hand.

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

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 #26

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

• Strategy Books Read:
• Read a half dozen hands from WPT V1. The big lesson (which is the same from last week) is that, next to position, opp stack sizes are perhaps the most important thing to keep track of in an MTT.
• Read 4-5 hands from Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book. It's kind of a facile read, but there are also some actual nuggets of pretty good information to be found in the book.
• Videos Watched:
• I watched 5 videos from Tournament Poker Edge this week., including some 3bet theory, blind-vs-blind how-to's, another Andrew Brokos awful/great video (on extracting value), and a couple of hand history replays.
• Fitness:
• Diet: Business trips (two of them). Need I say more?
• Exercise: Actually did OK on this front, forcing myself to walk from the hotel to/from the office each day on one of my trips, which meant I got in 12 miles. Also did some body- and free-weight exercises.
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: Played one deep stack, high-PF online big MTT event online-- and final tabled it after a five hour battle! Got unlucky on the end when my JJ was beaten by A9o, but what are you going to do? I ended up busting in seventh place in a field that started with over 200 very good runners. Tough fight, but by focusing on stack sizes, position, and being cautious, I was able to make a lot of good plays and lay-downs... and therefore go very deep.
• Live: None played.
• Other: Blogged a little, played some DD poker (I've modeled a couple of WSOP 2013 events based on their actual listed structures), and worked a little on my MTT check-list.

Summary: This week is going to be just as tough as last week, as I'm away from home yet again. Sigh. At least I'm getting some video watching time on all the airplanes. Sigh again.

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

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #23

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

• Strategy Books Read:
• The Poker Tournament Formula 2. Didn't get as far as I would have liked reading this on the airplanes this week, but I did make a decent dent in the book. Reading this has been a real eye-opener for me, especially on the ideas of chip utility and the whole small-ball vs. long-ball approaches to deep stacked MTTs. 
• The Signal and the Noise: I picked up this mostly non-poker book a few months ago, but hadn't gotten around to reading it. Finally upon a recommendation by Mr. Multi, I read the poker chapter. Good stuff, but not really applicable to my MTT training. Still, I'd recommend reading this chapter if you get a chance, as it talks a lot about the difference between skill and luck in poker play.
• Videos Watched:
• Watched four separate MTT hand history videos that I downloaded from the Tournament Poker Edge web site. Really good, informative stuff, but I have to admit I'm getting a little confused when I watch a video that tells me to play really tight, survival-mode poker in the early stages of a deep-stacked MTT, but then Snyder in his Formula 2 book advocates a loose, accumulate chips approach.
• Fitness:
• Diet: Did mostly OK this week, despite being on a biz trip. Lost a couple of pounds overall.
• Exercise: Meh. Travel really kills this part of my health and fitness effort. I walked only one afternoon, plus did a handful of floor exercises. Otherwise: I slack, therefore I fatten.
• Tournament/SnG Results:
• Online: None played due to busy work week.
• Live: None played.
• Other: Played a little DD Poker sims on the airplane, but otherwise this was a work, work, and more work workweek.

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

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #19

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

• Preparation:
• Pregame. Haven't done anything really to improve in this area, but I am using my preflight checklists at least 50% of the time. Certainly could do better than that, but it's not too bad.
• Postgame. I only did one post-mortem this week.
• Off-Table.
• Hand-of-the-Day. I was 6 out of 7 for the week on HotD.
• Blog Entries. Wrote 3 posts, only one of which had any real meat to it.
• Books. I'm working my way through the excellent Small Stakes No-Limit Hold'em book by Miller, et al. Really a solid, useful book.
• Videos.
• Watched Splitsuit's latest free video, When 3bets Go Bad. As usual, it was good stuff.
• Signed up for a paid month of videos at Tournament Poker Edge. The two key reasons to do this were: a) Andrew Brokos, a prolific blogger that I follow, is instructing there; and b) the vids on this site are focused completely on MTT play, which is what I need to work on now.
• Podcasts. Listened to a couple Seat Open podcasts by Bart Hanson. Really good stuff as usual.
• Health. Ugh. Coming off of two weeks of slothful vacation and pig-like gluttony is tough. Really tough. I was pretty good all week, but then broke down a bit Friday night with pizza, which led to a slothful and pig-like Saturday. Sigh.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Nothing significant to speak of here, other than to say I've been working a lot on isolating fishier players in some of the $100 and $200NL cash games I've been playing. There's not a lot of them at those stakes, but when found, you can make a fair bit off them.
• REDi. Zzzzip.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. Nothing significant to report here; I've been pretty much tilt-free for the past week.
• BRM. Playing a little too high (even for me) for my current online bankroll in cash, including some $400NL cash games, but otherwise I'm doing fine.
• Discipline. Focus is such a huge factor to success, and playing at $400NL will definitely get me focused in a hurry. Yikes!

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Busted early in a $22 MTT due to a cooler; Won a $22 6Max SnG for $84; Busted in a $16.50 100-man MTT in about 45th place; Final Tabled a $20 100-man event, busting in 9th on a seriously stupid 4bet reshove with JJ on a KK3 board against an ABC player. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Net for the week was a meager $55.
• Tournaments (Live). None played.
• Cash Games. Choppy results, but still a reasonable trend line and good bb/100 average. Some of the bigger downswings were a result of me dabbling with pot limit Omaha at stakes higher than my abilities and bankroll. :-p  Total earned this week was a hair under $290. Here's the graph:

Summary: Overall, a decent week results-wise, but only "meh" on the MTT-learning front. I'm feeling motivated lately, however, to try to elevate my MTT game. Some week-long biz trips coming up, however-however, which threaten progress as usual. Sigh.

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

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #17

It’s Sunday (actually Saturday today, as I'm leaving early tomorrow morning for a last-minute one-day trip I have to attend to), so time for a recap of this past week's prep/progress toward WSOP-2013:

• Preparation:
• Pregame. Didn't make any additions to my preflight checklists, but I have started using them fairly regularly, both for tourneys and cash. 
• Postgame. Reviewed a handful of tourney hands I played that I wasn't thrilled with. In both I slipped into calling station/sheriff mode, and in both I lost a lot of chips. Raise or fold, raise or fold....
• Off-Table.
• Hand-of-the-Day. As is usual for me these days, I read and voted in every HotD this week. A couple of times I took exception to the horde, but in all cases I was pretty satisfied with my answers.
• Blog Entries. Posted a couple of hand analyses, plus a little piece on playing at the proper stakes..
• Books. I've been all over the map this week, jumping between different books and not really focusing well.
• Videos. None watched.
• Podcasts. Listened to only one Thinking Poker 'cast this week.
• Health. This so-called vacation is killing me, calorie by calorie, cookie by cookie. I am, however, getting plenty of exercise working around the house on various project.
• Other. Played a bunch of DD Poker sims in prep for next week's live MTT I'm planning on attending in a nearby town.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Zip.
• REDi. Actually spent a few hours working on E-is-for-Estimating concepts, with a big focus on what it actually means to play +EV. This might find it's way into a 2 or 3 part blog entry in the near future.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. I played all over the map this week, some days rock solid, others tilting in a "dribble it away" mode. The results are good, but I'm not super pleased with how I actually played.
• BRM. No issues to speak of; added a nice chunk to the overall bankroll this week playing cash games. May need to cash out some bucks again at the end of next week to keep the overall online 'roll reasonably small.
• Discipline. Meh. When I played well, I crushed. But when I didn't... meh. 

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Played one $11 STSnG, which I won for $45 gross. Gave it all back, however, in two MTTs, one of which had rebuys (I rebought once) and one add-on (which I also partook of). Net loss in this area was -$10.
• Tournaments (Live). None played.
• Cash Games. Despite inconsistent play, I had a pretty good week in the cash games; having quad Aces when two villains wouldn't go away certainly helped. Net gain was over $260 in 1300 hands. Here's the graph:

Summary: In general was a meh week. Vacation is pretty tough heath-wise, but I'm finding time to play pretty much every day for an hour or so, including a couple of MTTs. Just need to focus a little better, and minimize the mini-dribble-tilt thing.

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

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #11

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

• Preparation:
• Pregame. I worked a little bit again on my MTT preflight checklist. Nothing earth shattering, but it's still useful things to remind oneself of prior to playing a big MTT. For example, the lesson I continually seem to forget lately is: Don't chase draws! Raise or fold, but don't call down! 
• Postgame. Zip.
• Off-Table.
• Forums/Hand-of-the-Day. Read a couple of HotD, but didn't comment on any of them.
• Books. Still working through V's 1 and 2 of Winning Poker Tournaments.One of the key things that continually jumps out at me reading the hand analyses is how much more frequently the pros fold in marginal situations than I do. This seems to be a big hint staring me in the eyes...
• Videos. None watched.
• Podcasts. Listened to first half of this week's Thinking Poker.
• Health. Not a good week health-wise due to travel. I ended up eating fast food a handful of times during my biz trip, and did exactly one lunchtime walk. Otherwise, no exercise, little sleep, long work days, poor diet, etc. Not surprisingly, I'm up a couple of pounds this morning, blood pressure is up, feeling unmotivated and lethargic, and so on.
• Other. On the two long flights I took this week, I played a half-dozen MTT simulations via the DD poker software package. I have found some of these tournaments to be surprisingly challenging. The AI of the computer villains isn't super advanced, but it's not bad, either. It's also remarkable to me how closely you have to pay attention to every single little thing in a tournament, even a simulated one. This includes opp stack sizes, their tendencies, etc. One seemingly minor mistake or lapse can seriously harm your stack. Yikes.
• Technique:
• Preflop. Been experimenting a bit with different opening ranges in the DD software, sometimes playing very loose and passive PF early in the tourney (i.e., small ball poker), sometimes being super tight and aggressive (long ball), and sometimes somewhere in the middle. I seem to have the best success playing small ball, focusing on getting off marginal hands postflop. In other words: see cheap flops IP, then play poker post-flop. And especially: don't bloat the pot OOP preflop, even with hands as strong as AQs.
• REDi. Blogged about some basic lessons learned watching the WSOP final table. Also posted a Bug Tip on taking the best of it; years ago this was one of those "a-ha" moments, and I've been actively reapplying it to my STSnG and MTT thought processes when playing.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control. Travel fatigue and some home-life angst caused me to play poorly in a couple of STSnGs I played on the road. Otherwise, I've done OK.
• BRM. The 'roll continues to grow, albeit a bit slower than usual due to little actual seat time.
• Discipline. Trying to work on patience and "not panicking" in tourneys when my stack takes a hit and/or drops below average. For instance, I played extremely well in the one 75-man MTT I played online for the first 95% of the tourney, being very selective, picking my spots, chipping up, getting off losers, etc. This despite a 25% loss early on due to a cooler. Really thinking through hands and opp motivations helps a lot, too, as does taking advantage of the different phases of an MTT. I really attacked the bubble, for instance, and was quickly the chip leader with a 3:1 stack advantage when we made the money.... ah, but then I over did it. For some reason, I played like my stack mattered more than what my opponents' actions were telling me I should. Sigh. Busted in 4th place, albeit for a nice little ROI, but it's still aggravating that I was in a great position to win the tourney but had a discipline lapse there at the end that cost me a big jump in payout money. Grrr.

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Played four microstakes STSnGs and one MTT for a total net profit of $55.
• Tournaments (Live). None played (and I'm going to miss this week's live MTT due to travel).
• Cash Games. Broke even playing a couple hundred hands of $50NL 6max online.

Summary: As mentioned last week, this month is going to be more about surviving and not backsliding than it is about any real forward progress. This morning, for instance, I'm off on yet another week-long biz trip, in which bad food, lots of sitting, and little exercise will probably rule the days. It's not just a job....

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

All-in for now...
-Bug

Marathon Man

I was reading some older forum posts the other day that I'd bookmarked for later study. One in particular was a piece on FlopTurnRiver by an MTT pro on how he navigates big field MTTs. A lot of the terms he used in his article sounded to me like the same words runners might use to describe long distance training, including pacing and patience and staying ahead of the pack. Compared to Super Turbos, which I believe are essentially the 100-meter dashes of poker, and STSnG's, which feel more like 1500m or mile-long races, a big field, multi-day, high PF MTT seems akin to a marathon. Or maybe an ultra-marathon….

... which led me to googling marathon running sites to see if there were any real significant similarities. The half dozen web sites I surfed basically all offered the same tips for training and doing well in long-distance races. I've distilled them down to the top six most common words of wisdom I found for someone thinking about running their first marathon:

1. Train hard, and well in advance of the race;
2. Document your progress;
3. Set appropriate goals for the race you want to run, and then focus your training to reach those goals;
4. Run lots of shorter races and then at least one half-marathon before the big one;
5. Run the first half by time, the second half by feel; and
6. Know the course.

Wow. These sound just like words of advice you might give someone (e.g., me) who is planning on running his first WSOP marathon event. Let's look at each a little closer:

1. Train hard and well in advance of the race. Well, duh. This is exactly what I'm trying to do, starting 9+ months in advance of the WSOP to gear up for it. Further, I'm trying to do this training in a systematic manner, attacking all three major Edges I'm always harping on (prep, technique, emotional control).
2. Document your progress. For me, this is all about record keeping, of which I'm being fairly meticulous on this WSOP journey, including the weekly installments on how I'm doing right here on this blog every Sunday morning.
3. Set appropriate goals for the race you want to run, and then focus your training to reach those goals. Do I want to play in the WSOP for just the life experience?  Do I want to money? Go deep? Final table? Take home a bracelet? Of course, the facile answer is to win the whole damn thing, but I think the point here is about setting realistic and attainable goals that have a high probability of actually occuring. This in turn means a specific type of strategy needs to be developed for that goal. If I were a pro MTT player, my goal might be purely to win it all, and this would dictate a very different approach to playing the MTT than someone in it just to money, or someone just playing for the experience. For me, I think the basic goal (besides just the life experience of it) is to make the money. This means surviving 90% of the field. After that, it will all be gravy.
4. Run lots of shorter races and then at least one half-marathon before the big one. Practice makes perfect and breeds familiarity (read: comfort). I'm setting up a number of tournaments (live and online) in the months leading up to the WSOP, including at least one biggish event, hopefully live.
5. Run the first half by time, the second half by feel. The analogy here is to play "perfect" ABC poker as I navigate the big "dead money" period of the tournament. Don't gamble. Make big laydowns. Stay out of trouble, and let my edge and patience get me past as much of the hordes as possible. As fish start frying, and my edge disappears, the ratio of better players to worse increases, and the name of the game will be picking more specific spots and opening up my game, relying on "feel" more, plus more aggressive play. Bluffs start showing up in my tool box a lot more at this time, too.
6. Know the course. This is everything from simply knowing the blind and payout structures, to understanding when breaks occur, studying my opponents early on, keeping track of my M, my opponent's Ms, what their mental states are, etc... 

Everywhere I look, I see similarities between poker and life, and this is just the latest example. Of course I could be taking the analogy too far and reading too much into this one, but I find it fascinating nonetheless that there are such similarities between a WSOP event and, say, the Boston Marathon. It's all about training, pacing, and goals.

Runners at your mark.... get set....

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

All-in for now...

-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #4

Today is Sunday, so it's time for a recap of this week's prep/progress toward WSOP-2013. (I'm leaving early this morning for a week-long biz trip, so things like my diet and my bankroll are in danger again. Sigh. I've got some ideas on how to address these things and, hopefully, not do any significant damage to either during the week of eating out, sleeping little, working long hours, and trying to squeeze in sessions here and there while jet lagged.)

• Preparation:
• Pregame. Have been doing a better job of warming up prior to playing SnGs. I think what I really need, however, is a tournament-specific preflight check-list, similar to what I discussed here. One of the things I've added to my to-do list is to create just such a beast.
• Postgame. Meh. Did a couple of post-mortems, but for the most part I've not gone back and reviewed hands in depth. Plan is to do so on the airplane today.
• Off-Table.
• Forums/Hand-of-the-Day. Posted a couple of hands-of-the-day responses. I'm trying to focus on the tournament hands that get posted, but often I can't help but weigh in on their cash game questions, too, as those are where I actually feel like I know 99% of what I'm talking about. MTT questions are more like 70% at this stage of my development.
• Books.  Still reading Snyder's first book. Also am looking back through some hands in the Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time books.
• Videos.  Watched a couple of Splitsuit's new (free) cash game videos on playing 99-JJ hands and c-betting in multiway pots. Split's a really good coach/video-maker I've followed for years. He sells some of his higher-end vids on his website, but he also posts free ones on the poker bank (click here). The thing I like about his vids is that they're short, not "powerpoint" and/or "bulletted list" intensive, and zip right along, with lots of examples and hand replays. Try some out if you've got some free time.
• Podcasts.  Listened to Bart Hanson's podcast on semi-bluffing and started a second one on weighted combos. As usual, this is really good stuff. I also subscribed yesterday to a new podcast that is starting up by a guy named Andrew "Foucault" Brokos, who blogs very regularly on Cardplayer Magazine. He's primarily a tournament guy, and does a nice job on his blog working through hands, so I'm curious to see how his podcast works out. Click here if you're interested.
• Health.  Meh week, with only a little more than a pound lost. My weakness continues to be crap/junk food at work, especially in the late afternoons. I eat a good breakfast and lunch, exercise fairly regularly, and even do pretty well at night at home. The trick, however, is avoiding the buckets (yes, buckets) of MandMs and other candy/poison that people bring in daily to destroy the health of the workplace masses. Mr. Multi, I'm talking to you. ;-)
• Other.  Like the aforementioned pre-flight checklist, I think I need to get a little better organized on all the off-table prep work; I'm kind of just bouncing around right now, reading some of this book, watching some of that video, etc. It's time to get a more organized framework in place, especially when it comes to MTT-specific REDi stuff.
• Technique:
• Preflop.  Haven't worked directly on my starting hand chart in a few weeks, but I have taken some notes. Hopefully plan to finish off the last cash-game post on the subject this week, and then see about tweaking it for tournament play (i.e., per Snyder's guidelines).
• Postflop.
• Evals (RED).  Read a couple articles on ICM and how it applies to poker. It's a really powerful tool... if you're a computer 'bot playing online. Not exactly sure how I can use it live, however, as the computations are ridiculously intensive for even a 4-handed game. I also played around with ICM Trainer, which is a free push-fold quiz program that isn't too bad. You can get it by clicking here if you're interested.
• Line Implementations (i).  Did nothing in this area.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control.  Had one "tilty" cash game session where, thankfully, I didn't lose my entire shirt. Otherwise did pretty well on this front.
• BRM.  The 'roll is in OK shape and I'm playing within my limits, both tourneys and cash.
• Discipline.  Meh. Did OK overall, but did a poor job of paying attention at times (often slipping into auto-pilot mode), as well as tracking results.

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). Played six STSnGs this week, cashing in three of them (one first place, and two 2nd place finishes), and one microstakes 45-man MTTSnG, in which I took 3rd place.  Total added to bankroll was $36.85.
• Tournaments (Live). No live tourneys played this week.
• Cash Games. More meh. First part of the week was up and down a bit, basically breaking even for three days on end, but Friday and Saturday showed some decent gains. Didn't play as much as I would have liked (to build the 'roll), primarily due to heavy load at work, but I can't complain overall as I added $56 to the bankroll in cash.

Summary: As you can probably guess, the best word to describe this week's progress was "meh." Feeling a little unfocused and unmotivated, but also have a plan in place to fix that.

On to Week #5 Results

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #3

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

• Preparation:
• Pregame. Poor. As usual. Sigh.
• Postgame. Did some post-mortems.  Also, I downloaded PokerTracker4 trial version. I'm not thrilled with HM2's tournament stats, especially the fact that it seems to lose data occasionally. I'm not sure if PT4 is much better, but a 30 day free trial will hopefully allow me to decide if it's worth converting back to 'Tracker so I can do better post mortems and track my results more accurately. The kind of amazing thing to me is that the PT4 hand/data import took over 24 hours to complete. Why? Answer: because I had 1.5 million hands of data. Seriously. Holy cow, I've played a lot of poker.
• Off-Table.
• Forums/Hand-of-the-Day. Only made a couple posts to 2+2, and they were in regard to my Donkey Test questions. I did, however, post a number of hands of the day answers. The more I do the HoD, the more useful I think it is to improving one's game.
• Books.  Still reading Snyder's PTF book, and in fact I ordered the sequel, which is called PTF2. While the first book is focused on fast tourneys, the second is all about big, slow, skill-based tourneys like the WSOP. Once I finish PTF1, I'll jump into PTF2.
• Videos.  Watched some more of the Last Man Standing series; focus is still on early-mid game play.
• Podcasts.  Listed to 2.5 hours total of podcasts during lunchtime walks. One hour of this was Bart Hanson on cash games, the remainder was the 2+2 podcast. One thing to note about Hanson's 'cast this week is that even though the weekly podcast is about hold'em cash game, he talked about some deuce-to-seven lowball triple draw poker, as well as some PLO hands. His point in discussing these hands is that poker is poker, regardless of game type, and that to get better at one form (read: hold'em) you can/should occasionally play other forms.
• Health.  Lost back most of the weight I gained last week, although Friday night was a tough one because we went to my in-laws house for dinner, which of course was a giant smorgasbord of delicious German food, including spetzle, rouladen, cheese noodles, desserts, etc. Did a pretty good job of exercising all week. Started recording not only my weight, but also resting pulse and blood pressure (which ain't very good, btw, sigh.)
• Other.  
• Did a couple of SnG push/fold 10-question quizzes on the trial version of PT4. 
• Signed up for this year's WRGPT "Glaciers" tournament.
• Technique:
• Preflop.  Played a couple of 45-man $5-buyin tourneys semi-blind. What this means is that I taped some paper over my cards on my screen so that I couldn't see my hand preflop, and I had to act purely on my position and reads on the opp. Postflop, I cbet blind, but I allowed myself to look at my cards if I got action back on me. These exercises were extremely illuminating and, frankly, difficult. I found myself really wanting to know what my cards were, but I also realized that in both of the tourneys I played this way I went very deep before busting. Interestingly, in reviewing my hand history after the fact I learned that I had twice folded sets that would have won big, but I also folded AKs and JJ in EP, both of which would have knocked me out of the tourney if I'd played them. Also, in both tourneys, when I finally had to take the paper off the screen and play normally (because my stack was so short) I busted out holding "legitimate" hands. As Snyder says in PTF1, you almost always bust out of a tournament holding good cards; i.e., your own cards are the weakest/least-important factor when playing. I intend to play more tourneys blind this coming week. Annette_15 is my (re)new(ed) hero.
• Postflop.
• Evals (RED).  Except for reviewing some of my Donkey Test answers, I didn't do much in the way of working on this aspect of my game.
• Line Implementations (i).  Worked some more on "creative" line implementations. Delayed c-betting and floating in particular as bluffs.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control.  Generally did a good job keeping emotions under control. That said, the more tourneys I play, the more I realize how difficult this is in the long run for the MTT grinder. Unlike cash, where if you go more than 2 or 3 days of losing you know it's your play and not the variance of the game, wins at MTTs are ridiculously few and far between. I listened to an interview of Antonio Esfandiari on the 2+2 podcast this week in which he said he's gone years without winning a big live MTT. To become a tournament grinders, you better have your emotions under control.
• BRM.  Played well within BRM for tourneys, but as usual strayed a bit in cash.
• Discipline.   Was 90% successful this week at playing highly disciplined, patient, focused poker. Alas, the other 10% (i.e., one cash session) was a disaster, with me playing totally unfocused and distracted. Dumped back a ton of money in cash during that one forty minute session.

$ Results:

• Tournaments (Online). About broke even for the week playing most $5.50 and $11 9-handed games and 45-man tourneys. Nothing wonderous to report.
• Tournaments (Live). Played in a live 37-man game, but busted one before the final table was formed.
• Cash Games. In addition to some $50NL and $100NL, I played some $25PL Omaha. Actually lost some money in hold'em, but made up for it in PLO, for a net gain of essentially zero.

Summary: In general this was a so-so week. It feels like I need to work harder on specific REDi things like tournament hand reading. Otherwise, I am mostly on track and am incrementally improving my tournament game, bit by bit.

On to Week #4 Results

All-in for now...
-Bug

WSOP-2013: Week #2

Well, it's Sunday morning, so it's time for a recap of this past week's progress toward WSOP-2013.

• Preparation:
• Pregame. All the tourneys I played (ST and MTT) were sit-n-gos, so there wasn't much game selection going on; i.e., I just looked for some free time in my schedule, logged in, and played. I did a tiny bit of pre-game warm-ups, however, in a few of the games, including a 45-man game that I took third place in. I've also dug out an old short-stack push/fold spreadsheet I created for situations in which my M is very low, and I'm reviewing/using it prior to and during games. For cash, I am doing a little bit of pregame game selection, but the main thing I've done to help in this area is leave tables where I don't have an edge and/or a good player with position is abusing me.
• Postgame. I'm still recording my sessions (tourneys and cash) in my spreadsheet, but I've already gotten a little lazy about writing down all my impressions and things to work on, especially in cash games. That said, I went back and read my post-mortem notes, and I don't really hate anything I see. Lots of comments like, "played very patient" and "crippled due to bad-beat near bubble" and "maybe got too aggro once we made money, but got my money in good so I can't be too unhappy."
• Off-Table.
• Forums. Been reading some MTT forums on 2+2, and I posted one response to Quiz of the Day.
• Books.  Still reading Snyder's The Poker Tournament Formula book. I finished the chapter on position plays, including methods to train and practice, such as playing blind, and now I'm halfway through the starting hand selection chapter. Good stuff overall. Also, yesterday I stopped by my local used bookstore and found a couple of poker books I didn't have. The first is Lessons From The Felt by David Apostolico; it's about tournament strategies and tactics. The second is Getting Lucky by Richard Sparks; it's the sequel to his first book Diary of a Mad Poker Player. Looking forward to reading both. 
• Videos.  Watched part of the second video in the Last Man Standing series. This one is on early-middle game concepts, including knowing when to start shifting gears from super nit to more TAggy play. Good stuff.
• Podcasts. Listened to a full Bart Hanson podcast, which focused on "patience" and specific hand reviews. Yes, his focus is mostly on NL cash games, but he is playing more tourneys, too, and drops some of these MTT hands in occasionally. Also listened to some of the weekly 2+2 podcast on my commute into work. These 2+2 'casts are, admittedly, light on strategy talk, but they do cover the poker news of the week, as well as being fairly entertaining.
• Health.  Good news is I did a reasonable amount of exercise, including aerobic, some light weight training, and stretching. Bad news is my diet suffered due to a) people bringing goodies and junk food into work for the rest of us to munch on; and b) the wife bringing home fattening "comfort" foods and snacks. I actually gained a couple of pounds back this week. Arghg. I need to find some inner resolve to pass on donuts, chips, MnM's, and other "free" snacks that end up costing so dearly in the long run.
• Technique:
• Preflop.  Worked some more on my starting (cash) hand chart, including a post to this blog on the non-Ace broadway hands. The biggest thing that struck me doing this particular installment is how weak many of these "trouble" hands really are. Way too often, especially when I go on auto-pilot, I tend to take raises with some of these crap hands. When I have position against a weak player, this is probably OK, but in general I should be raising or folding with these kinds of trouble hands, and this is especially true in tournament play.
• Postflop.
• Evals (RED).  Had a couple of really good reads made while playing this week. I'm trying to put myself in my opponent's heads (i.e., L3 poker) a lot more, and I'm working on decisions to flop c-bet more. It's so damn satisfying to be able to call someone's hand  range down to just a couple of cards.
• Line Implementations (i and DforDeception).  The only real thing to report here is I'm taking more creative approaches to lines once I decide on what I want to do with a hand. Sometimes this works, sometimes not, but it's making me think more deeply about how to maximize EV. It's borderline FPS, but I think to squeeze the maximum profit out of some players you have to get a little non-standard. For instance, I played one hand this week in which I flopped a set, but knew my aggro opponent had a marginal hand. By check-calling two streets and then check-min-raising the river I managed to get more money into the middle than I would have otherwise. Being able to do this is all about R is for Reading first and foremost.
• Emotional Control:
• Tilt Control.  Did a good job of not tilting. Reading my post-mortem logs, I only see a few instances of "argghg" and "...the cards seem to hate me lately" recorded. Counterbalancing these negative statements are a few positive statements like, "C'est la vie" when I busted on a bad beat, and "Got my money in good. Lost, but feel good."
• BRM.  Played well within my 'roll for tournaments, but got a little outside my comfort zone for the current online 'roll in cash games. I "justified" it because the table I played at was very soft, but this is something I've got to watch closely.
• Discipline.  Played very patiently and cautiously. Still need a lot of work in the area of "paying attention" but overall I'm playing fairly snug and focused.
• $ Results:
• Tournaments (Online). Monied in four out of the ten tourneys I played in, including one first place and two third places in ST SnGs, and one third place finish in a 45-man game. Only made a net total profit of $8.82, but any profit is good profit, right?
• Tournaments (Live). No live tournaments played this past week.
• Cash Games. I had a very good week in cash game play ($25NL to $100NL), with a net gain of $218 added to the bankroll over about 800 hands in total played.

Summary: In general, this was a reasonable week. I think I can do a lot more in terms of studying and working on specific reads. I also need to get the whole health thing (i.e., diet) back on track. Otherwise, I'm feeling OK with my progress. The bankroll is growing at a good clip, due primarily to cash game play, but I'm particularly proud of actually adding some dough (even if it is single digits) to the 'roll from tournament play, too.

On to Week #3 Results

All-in for now...
-Bug