Boring Theory Post

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been playing a lot recently but been too lazy to post for some reason.

Anyways, thanks to the bankroll boost from my $3r win, I've been playing at higher stakes online, in tournaments with buy-ins from $109 to $215. I've taken shots at these tournaments in the past and never been able to do much, but now for the first time I really feel comfortable at those stakes and that I belong.

It's certainly a big adjustment though. For one thing, at these stakes there are a lot of professionals, who obviously are very tough to play against. There are still plenty of bad players, but the bad players tend to be bad because they're overly aggressive. The biggest adjustment to my game has been to not open as much in late position. In lower stakes you can open any two in late position once the antes come in, but I've found you can't get away with that in these tournaments.

I've come up with a theory on why there are so many more wackjobs, its long but bear with me. Let's divide tournament poker players into 3 categories: good players, overly aggressive players, and overly nitty players. For the most part, the good players will eventually rise to the top, build their bankrolls, and move up in stakes. The overly nitty players will lose money over the long term; they might make the money in mtts a decent % of the time, but because they're folding too much they won't be able to accumulate enough chips to get the top 3 finishes you need to be a winning MTT player. So almost all of them will lose money and not make it out of the lower limits.

Now for the overly aggressive players, most of them will lose money because they'll flame out of tournaments early on due to their crazy play. But occasionally, guys like this will suck out a couple times, run up a massive stack, and then steamroll their way to a big cash. The difference between these guys and the nitty players is that the maniacs are at least giving themselves a chance to get lucky, while the nitty players are just folding away any chance. A quick glance at the WSOP Main Event over the last few years will show you plenty of overly aggro guys who didn't know what they were doing making deep runs, but very few weak tight nut-peddlers.

Meh, that whole thing feels rambling, hopefully it made sense. So I've been going up against a lot of these guys, no big cashes yet, hopefully one comes soon. Good luck to everyone playing the main event, especially the people I have a piece of.

Thanks for reading,

George

Sweat your balla Cardrunners blogger!

is currently 5th of 18 on Day 3 of a $1500 HORSE event at the WSOP. Updates here

win plz lj

Thanks for reading,

George

Won the $3 rebuy

It was a very long night of donkamenting. From about 80 left down to 12 I was below average and just tried to stay patient. There were several wackjobs at my table so I couldn't open light, I just had to wait for hands before coming into pots. Finally with 12 left I got some cards and went on a huge rush. I got it in with QQ vs the maniac chip leader's JT on a ten high flop. A ten came on the turn, but the river gave me a flush and I survived.

That moved me up to 3rd, then a few hands later he doubled me up again. I raised the SB with 44 and he called. Flop was 864. Normally I would bet such a drawy board but this guy was a maniac I figured he'd bet his whole range if I checked it to him. So I checked, and he shoved 2.4 million into a 400k pot, I called, he had 82 and I held. That gave me the chip lead, and a few hands later I won another huge pot with AA vs KQ all in pre, adding to my chip lead. Then I just started raising every single hand, busted two more players and went into the final table with 11.3 million. 2nd place had 3.3 million and everyone else was under 2.5 million.

At the final table I continued to raise a ton and put pressure on the shorter stacks. Eventually we got down to 4 handed with me having about 60% of the chips in play. It took forever for someone to bust out though. I kept doubling up the short stacks, then stealing constantly and beating them back down, then doubling them up again, etc. But at long last it was down to heads up, with me holding an 18 million to 11 million chip lead over Misclick, who was the only other good player at the final table. I chipped away at him and took the lead when he tried to run a bluff into my top pair. Then I shoved 11 BBs with 86 and got there against his K9 for the win.

It feels awesome to win, I've made several deep runs in this tournament over the last couple weeks but wasn't able to break though. It's such a massive field you need a lot of luck and need to dodge a lot of landmines, so it's great that the stars aligned for me. The first time I played this tournament two years ago(back when I was terrible) I got 2nd, and I had no appreciation at the time of just how tough it is to beat out that many people, even though most of them are very weak players. Thanks for pauliec84, rc33, lj and lucko for the rail.

Thanks for reading,

George

End of the BBT

BBT5 has just come to the end, with actyper and jjok winning the main event seats. Congrats to both players. Now comes the question of whether they will actually play in the main event, or just pocket the money. During the TOC, Al said in the chat that this would be the last BBT, mainly because most people seem to be keeping the money instead of going to Vegas and playing. He makes a good point, because there's no benefit for Full Tilt if they're just giving money away and not getting the publicity of having qualifiers from their site play in the biggest tournament in the world. And while I think it's pretty disingenuous to play in the BBT and the TOC if you have no intention of playing in the World Series, I don't think that's whats happening in a lot of cases. Instead, it's Full Tilt's own disinterest in the BBT as a whole that's causing the problem.

To illustrate what I mean, I'll take you through what happened after I won a main event seat during last year's TOC. A few days after the TOC, Full Tilt added $10,000 to my account and sent me an email congratulating me on winning a main event seat. I was a bit surprised at this point because almost all the WSOP packages Full Tilt gives out for their regular satellites are worth $12,000, $10,000 for the tournament and another $2,000 for expenses. I was disappointed, but still ecstatic about the chance to play in the World Series. So the next step was of course to get the $10,000 off the site and into my bank account. This turned out to be a difficult process, as the only withdrawal method available to me was a check, and the maximum withdrawal was $5,000. This meant all I could do was a wire transfer, but the minimum for a wire transfer was $20,000. So I had to email Full Tilt support asking for special permission to make a $10,000 wire transfer. They approved it, but only I after I sent them a scanned copy of my drivers license and a scanned copy of a bank statement.

Once I finally got the $10,000, that was the last I heard from anyone at Full Tilt. They never offered me any free Full Tilt gear to wear when I played, or contacted me at all asking if they could use me to help promote the site, as in "Here is the story of busto donk Loretta8. Thanks to this great promotion we have at Full Tilt, Loretta8 won a trip to Vegas to play for millions in the world's biggest poker tournament. Next year, this could be you, etc."

Now this may come across as whiny, but I don't mean it that way at all. It was a fantastic opportunity for me, and I greatly enjoyed my time at the World Series. But for someone who's actually a responsible adult with a family to provide for like PokerFool, I can understand perfectly why he chose not to play. Here's how Full Tilt should handle the BBT, in my humble opinion:

1. Actively promote it. Whenever I log into Poker Stars, a window pops up telling me about the latest promotions on the site, from main event satellites to the big winners in their Sunday tournaments to Stars' own blogger freeroll. Full Tilt makes almost no effort to promote the BBT, so it's no wonder they don't get more players who want a cheap way to win their way to Vegas.

2. Make a better effort to get the winners to play in the event. The first step is to make the packages worth $12,000. You're already giving away 10 grand, what's another two so the player doesn't have to go into his own pocket for expenses? Additionally, the email I got congratulating me on my win should have contained detailed instructions on how to get the $10k off the site and to the Rio. Full Tilt wants me to play, so they should make it as easy as possible. And throw in some bonuses for the winners once they get to the Rio as well, like giving them access to the Full Tilt VIP suite where all their pros hang out. And in exchange for all these perks, have the winner agree to wear Full Tilt gear when he plays. This to me is the most baffling part of the whole thing; what the hell is the point of giving someone $10,000 to play in the main event if you don't give them Full Tilt gear to wear, and don't use their story to promote your site? I really don't understand it.

Al and Full Tilt have been very generous in setting up the BBTs, and if they're really coming to an end, it's too bad. But with some simple changes and a little more hands on the effort on the part of Full Tilt, prize pools would soar, Full Tilt would get more rake, and they'd be much more likely to have the TOC winners play in the main event.

In other news, Stoner finished 3rd in the WSOP $2500 no limit tournament, taking home over $200,000. Congrats to him, $200k will buy quite a lot of hookers.

Thanks for reading,

George

Gooooooo Stoner!

Best of luck to Stoner, who's 8th of 20 going into Day 3 of a $2500 WSOP event. You can get live updates at PokerNews.

Also the BBT TOC is tonight, good luck to everyone playing, especially these three people.

Nothing too exciting going on for me in poker, made some deep runs in some huge field Stars MTTs but haven't been able to break though late. Hopefully I'll bink something today.

Thanks for reading,

George

I won me a donkament

I've always liked heads up tournaments, as it's a fun challenge to be playing for more and more money as you advance. Last night I was lucky enough to win 8 matches in a row and the tournament.

The toughest opponent I faced was in the round of 32. He took a 2 to 1 chip lead on me early as he was folding when I had it and not folding when I didn't. He was playing so aggressive I decided to 3-bet/call 35 BBs with A8o, and I hit an ace on the river to beat his 66. Then I made a big call on the river with 3rd pair against his over-bet shove, and he showed me jack high and I advanced.

In the round of 16 I chipped away at my opponent and eventually busted him when my KJo held against his JTs all-in preflop.

In the round 8, I played by far my weakest opponent yet. The guy had very erratic bet-sizing and almost no hand-reading ability. Once I figured out that his min-bets postflop were always weak, I got a bit of a chip lead then busted him when he couldn't fold TT on a QQ88 board vs my QJ.

My final four match lasted 8 hands, we went back and forth stealing the blinds at first and then my opponent 4-bet shoved 88 into my KK, and I was lucky enough to hold.

At the final table, I won the first biggish pot when I rivered two pair and he paid me off with 2nd pair. Then I ground him down to about half the starting stack, mostly being lucky enough not to run into hands with my constant shoves over his button opens. Finally he got sick of me re-shoving and open shoved 14 BBs with K3o into my TT, and the tens held for the win.

It feels great to win and I'm very happy with how I played; I felt I adjusted quickly to a wide array of opponents and avoided the crazy/hopeless bluffs that are often my undoing in heads up poker.

I also managed to make another final table, but it didn't finish up well:





So overall a very good night, hopefully I can keep it going.

Thanks for reading,

George

Common tournament mistakes and the Professional Fold

Sorry for the lack of posts, haven't been playing any poker at all, that will hopefully change soon though. So since I have no poker playing of my own to report on, I thought I'd point out a couple of the biggest mistakes I see small stakes tournament players make:

Not having a plan

This is by far the most common mistake I see. Way way too many players will put in significant chunks of their stack without having any idea what they'll do if they get raised. To illustrate what I mean, here's a hypothetical example:

Huge field Stars tournament with about 800 players left, 500 get paid. You are in the cutoff on a stack of 17,000 chips. Blinds are 500/1000 with a 100 ante. You are dealt KQ of clubs. The other stacks are:

Button: 75,000
SB: 11,000
BB: 22,000

Any decent player knows KQ suited in the cutoff is strong enough to raise for value, so they raise. But if theres a re-raise, they have no idea what they should do.

This is a problem for several reasons. One, the amount of chips you're raising is a significant portion of your stack, so you have to make sure you're investing it wisely when you do choose to raise. Two, you've yet to consider reads on your opponents. In a 100 BB deep cash game, it's pretty much always going to be right to make your standard raise, so you don't have to be so careful before raising. But your reads on your opponents are hugely hugely important with this high a % of your stack on the line.

Here are a few examples of what you should be thinking, based on differing opponent tendencies:

1. the button has been playing his big stack highly aggressively, the small blind seems decent but just lost a big pot to get short stacked, and the big blind has been very tight. so I'll make my standard 2.5x the blind raise, get it in vs the button if he re-raises, call the short stacked small blind since he'll pushing a fairly wide range for value and I'll be getting good odds, and fold to a raise from the big blind.

2. all three players are very aggressive, plus i've been playing a lot of hands and have a loose, wild image. so if i raise, i'll be forced to call an all-in from all 3 of them. therefore it might be a better option to open shove and force my opponents to fold small pairs and weak aces and take the play away from them.

3. all 3 players are extremely tight and seem to be waiting for big pairs and AK. they also don't like to call raises even when getting good odds, so I'll make a tiny raise thats barely more than the minimum and fold if anyone shoves. that way my steal doesnt have to work as often to be profitable, and i can steal with pretty much any two against my weak opponents.

Planning things out allows you to make the most of your opponents weaknesses, as it will help you easily see good spots to steal and spots where you should never be raise-folding. This way, you'll be able to adjust your opening range depending on table conditions, and you won't make the mistake of having the same opening range for every position like many strategy books advise. If you're not sure whether or not you should be raise-calling or raise-folding in a spot, save the hand history, then after your session use pokerstove to assign an approximate range to your opponent. The more you do this, the easier your decisions will become, allowing you to play more tables at once and make more money.

Overestimating your own edge

Another huge mistake I see many poker players make is passing up too many +EV spots because they think they can find better spots in the future. In a cash game that you're properly bankrolled for, this is a mistake 100% of the time. In tournaments though, there are some situations that can be +chipEV but -$EV. These effects are most pronounced on satellite bubbles, tournaments in which your goal is not to get all the chips but merely to go broke the slowest. And good SNG players of course know that because of the flat payout structures in SNGs, its often right to fold the best hand on or near the bubble.

But in big field MTTs where most of the money is in the top 5 spots, its almost never going to be right to pass up a +chipEV spot. Situations like this could arise at or near the final table if there are a bunch of very short stacks, but such spots are very rare, and they're pretty much non-existant early in the tournament. The illusion of time fools many poker players; they believe that the longer they stay in the tournament, the better their chances are of winning. Assuming you are equally as skilled as your opponents, this is completely false, as your chances of winning are directly proportional to the the percentage of chips in play you currently have. In big field MTTs just trying to survive is not going to be a winning strategy; you may make the money more often but you won't finish in the top five nearly enough to be profitable.

I constantly see tournament players saying they folded in a close spot because they felt they were better than their opponents. And in ~neutral EV spots, there's some merit to that. However, what you very rarely see is a player who decided to gamble with slightly the worst of it because he felt his opponents were better than him and that this was his best chance. I understand most poker players have big egos and are very confident in themselves, but in tournaments you can't table select like you can in cash games, so you're sometimes going to end up at tough tables with very good players on your left, or heads up against someone who you'd swear can see your cards.

We've all been in that spot, but I can only think of one occasion where I've seen a player recognize he was outclassed at the time and adjust accordingly, and that was Shaun Deeb in an FTOPS tournament last year. It was a $500 heads up shootout, and Deeb was matched up with Annette_15. Annette was reading him like an open book and getting the best of him, so Deeb decided his best chance was to play big pots preflop and neutralize her post flop skill advantage. Using this strategy, he went on to win the match and eventually the whole tournament. Deeb has won well over a million dollars in online tournaments, so when I read his post on Two Plus Two after the tournament where he said he felt he was being outplayed and switched to playing huge pots preflop, I was impressed to say the least. To me it takes a great poker player to swallow their pride and change their gameplan to give themselves the best chance.

In conclusion, I leave you with one of my all time favorite televised hands, as a precaution for what can happen when you bet without a plan and overestimate your edge:



Thanks for reading,

George