Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Monkey off my back
I broke a very depressing streak last night by finally cashing in an MTT with a buy in of $150 or more, in the Nightly Hundred Grand on Stars. I got in via satellite, so the ~$440 I got for finishing 46th was decent, but it could have been a lot better.
I was in god mode in the early and middle stages and was the chip leader when the money bubble burst, but I took a hit when my AKs lost to AA all in pre, and then in a stunning development my internet went down for about half an hour. When I finally reconnected I was 39 of 60 and went out 46th when I shoved 11 BBs on the button with A8 and ran into AQ. Probably going to play a bunch more MTTs tonight.
Thanks for reading,
George
I was in god mode in the early and middle stages and was the chip leader when the money bubble burst, but I took a hit when my AKs lost to AA all in pre, and then in a stunning development my internet went down for about half an hour. When I finally reconnected I was 39 of 60 and went out 46th when I shoved 11 BBs on the button with A8 and ran into AQ. Probably going to play a bunch more MTTs tonight.
Thanks for reading,
George
Monday, November 17, 2008
Stoner owns the 150r
Sprstoner won the Full Tilt $150 rebuy for the second time in about a month. Such a sicko, and always helps to run like a Kenyan at the final table. $67k is a pretty good showing for an afternoon's work, congrats!
Thanks for reading,
George
Thanks for reading,
George
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Know Your Enemy
As you can see, I came up just short in the FTOPS #17 Satellite Challenge and the $400 first prize. While I will get $200 for finishing 2nd, 2nd place sucks. As I played SNG satellite after SNG satellite after SNG satellite after SNG satellite after SNG satellite, it stopped being about the $400 bonus and started being about just crushing the souls of The Fiend and Miguel Santiago.
When I went to bed last night, I had a comfortable lead of 5; I think it was 40 to 35, not positive though. But when I woke up this morning both of them were within 1. I expected them to fade eventually since both of them had to have stayed up all night. but somehow neither did.
With the challenge closing at 2 PM, time was short, but because FTOPS #17 was starting soon the SNG satellites filled much more quickly. So I was 9 tabling SNGs for four straight hours this morning and afternoon trying to keep up with these two sickos. My laptop screen is too small for that many tables, and my computer lagging wasn't helping matters either. Since there were so many tables I couldnt get any reads and had to tighten up, and my performance suffered. With a late charge, The Fiend was able to overtake me at the last second and claim victory.
I finished up about $1,000 over the 48 hours of grinding (and that's not counting the $200 bonus), but I couldnt be more pissed off. I really thought the win was in the bag, and I'm not one to take losing well. The Fiend is a high volume SNG grinder with nearly 60k lifetime profit in SNGs, so losing to him is nothing to be ashamed of. However, for the next FTOPS, my goal is to beat him in one of these satellite challenges. He puts in absurd volume in the satellites for all the no limit events, but I think if I pick a specific event I can out-grind him.
But until that day, 56-55 will keep stinging, and will be great motivation for next time. I'm reminded of a story I heard about Coach K at Duke. When he got there, Duke was at the bottom of the ACC, and in one of his first few years there, Duke's season ended with a 101-60 loss to Virginia in the ACC tournament. After the game on the plane ride home, one of his assistants said "Here's to forgetting tonight." Coach K responded by saying "Here's to never forgetting tonight." And until the first game of the next season, 101-60 was constantly on the scoreboard at Cameron to motivate his players. Duke reached the final four that season and never looked back.
56-55. Never forget.
Thanks for reading,
George
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Come with it now
Like most poker fans, I watched the main event broadcast last night, and I was way off in my previous when I put Dennis Phillips on QQ in that key early hand against Ivan Demidov. Turns out he had AK and was somehow ahead as Demidov was making a move with AQ. There were a couple other interesting hands, I may motivate in the coming days and fully dissect a hand, stay tuned...
As for my own poker game, I'm trying to win the satellite challenge for FTOPS #17. Full Tilt runs a great promotion where whoever wins the most satellites to each FTOPS event wins twice the buy in for that event, and whoever gets second gets one buy in. So for Event 17, a $200 tournament, the winner gets $400 and 2nd place gets $200. Right now I'm looking good for the $400:
With another good day today in the SNG satellites I should be golden.
Thanks for reading,
George
As for my own poker game, I'm trying to win the satellite challenge for FTOPS #17. Full Tilt runs a great promotion where whoever wins the most satellites to each FTOPS event wins twice the buy in for that event, and whoever gets second gets one buy in. So for Event 17, a $200 tournament, the winner gets $400 and 2nd place gets $200. Right now I'm looking good for the $400:
With another good day today in the SNG satellites I should be golden.
Thanks for reading,
George
Monday, November 10, 2008
WSOP Main Event Final Table (with spoilers)
Before we start, I'm going to be talking about hands that went down at the main event final table, so if you'd prefer to not know what happens when they show the final table on ESPN tomorrow night, stop reading.
After a seemingly endless delay, they finally began the final table of the main event yesterday, and played down to heads up. I was following the action online while watching football, and I noticed some absolutely awful plays. Here are a couple examples (hand descriptions from Pokernews.com):
"Hand #18: Ivan Demidov has the button in Seat 7. Dennis Phillips limps in from under the gun. All fold to Demidov, who raises to 1,025,000. Both blinds get out of the way, allowing Phillips to quickly reraise to 3.525 million. Demidov thinks for a while then re-raises to 8.225 million. After thirty seconds, Phillips makes the call.
Each player has committed over a third of his stack to see a flop of {8-Diamonds} {10-Clubs} {J-Spades}. With the blinds and antes, more than 17 million chips are up for grabs. Demidov has position and his Phillips covered.
Phillips leads out with a relatively small bet of 4.5 million. Demidov takes a deep breath and then announces, "I'm all in." It's 9.395 million more back to Phillips, which is more than he has. Demidov has Phillips covered by about 800,000. After 5 minutes, Phillips folds. Demidov is now the far-and-away chip leader with 35,875,000. It's a huge blow for Phillips, who now has less than 9 million chips."
I have no idea what Phillips had here, but I think he badly misplayed his hand regardless of what he had. Both players started the hand with about 23 million in chips. Once Demidov 4-bets to 8.2 million, putting over 1/3 of his stack in, Phillips has only 2 options: shove or fold. The stacks aren't anywhere near deep enough to call and play postflop. The only way I could see calling the 4-bet being reasonable would be if Phillips has AA or KK and thinks Demidov is on a stone bluff and will monkey off after the flop. But clearly Phillips wasn't thinking along those lines, given his postflop fold.
It would be bad enough if Phillips had called the raise and then check-folded the flop with over 1/3 of his stack in, but he bizarrely led out for 1/4 of the pot and then folded to a shove getting 4 to 1 on a call. If I had to guess what Phillips had here, I would say he had QQ and bet the flop "to see where he was at," and when Demidov shoved he decided his QQ was no good and folded. Given the situation, I would think QQ is behind Demidov's range, but Phillips' play is still terrible. By leading the flop with the intention of folding to a raise, he's turning his hand into a bluff, since Demidov is either going to move all in or fold against that bet. So it doesn't matter whether Phillips has QQ or 32o, since the hand is never getting to showdown anyways.
If I had QQ in Phillips' spot, I'm not exactly sure what I'd do, as its a very difficult situation. But Phillips has to make his decision before the flop. If he think Demidov is capable of making a move, then he should shove, and if he thinks Demidov has to have a monster to 4-bet vs an UTG limp-reraise, then he should fold. This hand is somewhat reminiscent of the infamous Lee Childs vs Jerry Yang hand from last years final table. Childs was widely criticized because he laid down the best hand, but his play would have been bad even if he had folded the worst hand, as turning QQ into a bluff is pretty much always a mistake. I'm just guessing Phillips had QQ of course, we'll see tomorrow night. Any other guesses as to what he might have?
Here's another hand from the final table that left me scratching my head:
"Darus Suharto opens for 1,100,000 from the cutoff, only to be met with a reraise to 3,300,000 from Ivan Demidov in the small blind. Suharto makes the call.
The flop is {K-Clubs} {9-Spades} {7-Clubs}. Demidov leads out for 3,325,000. Suharto tanks silently for about two minutes before announcing a reraise. Suharto makes it 5 million more to go and Demidov immediately moves all in. Suharto folds less than a minute later and Demidov takes down the monster pot. Suharto is left with 4 million."
God only knows what hand Suharto had here, as he puts in 75% of his stack then folds to a shove getting over 7 to 1. Not much analysis necessary to point out how bad a play that is.
I also feel like I should mention a hand that will get the results-oriented crowd fired up:
"Action folds to Scott Montgomery in the small blinds, who raises to 1.5 million. The big blind, Ivan Demidov, reraises to 4.025 million.
"How much do you have behind?" Montgomery asks. By our count, the answer is roughly 20 million.
After one minute in the tank, Montgomery raises all in. Demidov snap-calls for 24.375 million, drawing a grimace from Montgomery"
Montgomery had A9s to Demidov's KK, and the KK held. Montgomery was left with just 7 million.
While Montgomery certainly looks like a maniac here, I'm not so sure. A9s is a strong hand in a blind vs blind situation. Again, I don't know much about how Demidov plays, but if he's an aggressive player capable of 3-betting light, the shove is certainly reasonable. The stacks aren't deep enough to call and play a flop out of position, and any raise commits Montgomery to the pot, so shoving and putting Demidov to a big decision for his whole stack is a decent option. There's a very fine line at the poker table between looking like a genius and looking like an idiot. If Demidov had air and folds (which I'm sure he has a significant percentage of the time), Montgomery's play looks brilliant.
And say what you want about Montgomery, but at least he wasnt playing scared and was going for the win. The same cannot be said for Kelly Kim, who came into the final table on the short stack. Instead of making a move early in hopes of doubling up, he nitted it up and twice allowed himself to be all in in the big blind. The first time it happened he was lucky enough to pick up KK and double up, but that still left him with a tiny stack, and the next time he got blinded off he wasn't so lucky and was eliminated in 8th place. Yes, he moved one spot up the ladder by being a nit and won an extra $300k, but he gave himself no chance to win the $9.1 million for first place and achieve poker immortality. $300k is nothing to sneeze at, but making the main event final table is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I can't imagine doing anything other than playing for the win.
For those who don't know, play ended for the night last night when things got heads up between Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov. They will resume today, and it should be a great match as both players are 100 BBs deep. I'm looking forward to watching the broadcast tomorrow night.
Thanks for reading,
George
After a seemingly endless delay, they finally began the final table of the main event yesterday, and played down to heads up. I was following the action online while watching football, and I noticed some absolutely awful plays. Here are a couple examples (hand descriptions from Pokernews.com):
"Hand #18: Ivan Demidov has the button in Seat 7. Dennis Phillips limps in from under the gun. All fold to Demidov, who raises to 1,025,000. Both blinds get out of the way, allowing Phillips to quickly reraise to 3.525 million. Demidov thinks for a while then re-raises to 8.225 million. After thirty seconds, Phillips makes the call.
Each player has committed over a third of his stack to see a flop of {8-Diamonds} {10-Clubs} {J-Spades}. With the blinds and antes, more than 17 million chips are up for grabs. Demidov has position and his Phillips covered.
Phillips leads out with a relatively small bet of 4.5 million. Demidov takes a deep breath and then announces, "I'm all in." It's 9.395 million more back to Phillips, which is more than he has. Demidov has Phillips covered by about 800,000. After 5 minutes, Phillips folds. Demidov is now the far-and-away chip leader with 35,875,000. It's a huge blow for Phillips, who now has less than 9 million chips."
I have no idea what Phillips had here, but I think he badly misplayed his hand regardless of what he had. Both players started the hand with about 23 million in chips. Once Demidov 4-bets to 8.2 million, putting over 1/3 of his stack in, Phillips has only 2 options: shove or fold. The stacks aren't anywhere near deep enough to call and play postflop. The only way I could see calling the 4-bet being reasonable would be if Phillips has AA or KK and thinks Demidov is on a stone bluff and will monkey off after the flop. But clearly Phillips wasn't thinking along those lines, given his postflop fold.
It would be bad enough if Phillips had called the raise and then check-folded the flop with over 1/3 of his stack in, but he bizarrely led out for 1/4 of the pot and then folded to a shove getting 4 to 1 on a call. If I had to guess what Phillips had here, I would say he had QQ and bet the flop "to see where he was at," and when Demidov shoved he decided his QQ was no good and folded. Given the situation, I would think QQ is behind Demidov's range, but Phillips' play is still terrible. By leading the flop with the intention of folding to a raise, he's turning his hand into a bluff, since Demidov is either going to move all in or fold against that bet. So it doesn't matter whether Phillips has QQ or 32o, since the hand is never getting to showdown anyways.
If I had QQ in Phillips' spot, I'm not exactly sure what I'd do, as its a very difficult situation. But Phillips has to make his decision before the flop. If he think Demidov is capable of making a move, then he should shove, and if he thinks Demidov has to have a monster to 4-bet vs an UTG limp-reraise, then he should fold. This hand is somewhat reminiscent of the infamous Lee Childs vs Jerry Yang hand from last years final table. Childs was widely criticized because he laid down the best hand, but his play would have been bad even if he had folded the worst hand, as turning QQ into a bluff is pretty much always a mistake. I'm just guessing Phillips had QQ of course, we'll see tomorrow night. Any other guesses as to what he might have?
Here's another hand from the final table that left me scratching my head:
"Darus Suharto opens for 1,100,000 from the cutoff, only to be met with a reraise to 3,300,000 from Ivan Demidov in the small blind. Suharto makes the call.
The flop is {K-Clubs} {9-Spades} {7-Clubs}. Demidov leads out for 3,325,000. Suharto tanks silently for about two minutes before announcing a reraise. Suharto makes it 5 million more to go and Demidov immediately moves all in. Suharto folds less than a minute later and Demidov takes down the monster pot. Suharto is left with 4 million."
God only knows what hand Suharto had here, as he puts in 75% of his stack then folds to a shove getting over 7 to 1. Not much analysis necessary to point out how bad a play that is.
I also feel like I should mention a hand that will get the results-oriented crowd fired up:
"Action folds to Scott Montgomery in the small blinds, who raises to 1.5 million. The big blind, Ivan Demidov, reraises to 4.025 million.
"How much do you have behind?" Montgomery asks. By our count, the answer is roughly 20 million.
After one minute in the tank, Montgomery raises all in. Demidov snap-calls for 24.375 million, drawing a grimace from Montgomery"
Montgomery had A9s to Demidov's KK, and the KK held. Montgomery was left with just 7 million.
While Montgomery certainly looks like a maniac here, I'm not so sure. A9s is a strong hand in a blind vs blind situation. Again, I don't know much about how Demidov plays, but if he's an aggressive player capable of 3-betting light, the shove is certainly reasonable. The stacks aren't deep enough to call and play a flop out of position, and any raise commits Montgomery to the pot, so shoving and putting Demidov to a big decision for his whole stack is a decent option. There's a very fine line at the poker table between looking like a genius and looking like an idiot. If Demidov had air and folds (which I'm sure he has a significant percentage of the time), Montgomery's play looks brilliant.
And say what you want about Montgomery, but at least he wasnt playing scared and was going for the win. The same cannot be said for Kelly Kim, who came into the final table on the short stack. Instead of making a move early in hopes of doubling up, he nitted it up and twice allowed himself to be all in in the big blind. The first time it happened he was lucky enough to pick up KK and double up, but that still left him with a tiny stack, and the next time he got blinded off he wasn't so lucky and was eliminated in 8th place. Yes, he moved one spot up the ladder by being a nit and won an extra $300k, but he gave himself no chance to win the $9.1 million for first place and achieve poker immortality. $300k is nothing to sneeze at, but making the main event final table is probably a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I can't imagine doing anything other than playing for the win.
For those who don't know, play ended for the night last night when things got heads up between Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov. They will resume today, and it should be a great match as both players are 100 BBs deep. I'm looking forward to watching the broadcast tomorrow night.
Thanks for reading,
George
Monday, November 3, 2008
I like pleasure spiked with pain...
Just a quick update, not much to report. I've played very few MTTs this week, I just havent been motivated. I have played a fair amount of turbo 180 man SNGs and 45 man SNGs on Stars, with mixed results. They are definitely profitable but the variance is massive, and they are very mechanical and boring. A lot of people play huge volume and do well, but they have more focus and discipline than I possess. So I probably wont play too many more. I would like to see Stars add higher buy in non turbo 180 man SNGs, a $33 or $55 with the normal blinds would be awesome.
I've also been playing heads up SNGs on Full Tilt and been doing pretty well. I've been experimenting with a small ball strategy, that involves limping almost every button and trying to play a lot of flops in position. It's been working pretty well so far, as I think it reduces variance and lets me use my position more. The downside of a strategy like this is of course that I fail to get much money in the pot with my bigger hands, and I often lose value. So I'm not sure if I'm gonna stick with it, but it's definitely good to have it in my arsenal against the right opponent, as heads up is all about adjustments.
FTOPS X starts Wednesday, and I'll be playing in Event #1, a $215 6 max with a $1 million guarantee. Good luck to anyone playing.
Thanks for reading,
George
I've also been playing heads up SNGs on Full Tilt and been doing pretty well. I've been experimenting with a small ball strategy, that involves limping almost every button and trying to play a lot of flops in position. It's been working pretty well so far, as I think it reduces variance and lets me use my position more. The downside of a strategy like this is of course that I fail to get much money in the pot with my bigger hands, and I often lose value. So I'm not sure if I'm gonna stick with it, but it's definitely good to have it in my arsenal against the right opponent, as heads up is all about adjustments.
FTOPS X starts Wednesday, and I'll be playing in Event #1, a $215 6 max with a $1 million guarantee. Good luck to anyone playing.
Thanks for reading,
George
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