Vega$ Baby!

I got a nasty head cold, plus there were other personal issues weighing on my mind that kept me from being on my A-game.

But I still cashed. Twice.

Thursday night we arrived at the delightfully smokey Orleans, and sat down to the only regularly spread Omaha/8 tournament in Vegas. It was only $80 and I played for 4 hours - great, great fun, though I busted out in 38th place out of 90.

Not sure what I could have done differently - I played fairly tight, but I had to see some flops to have a chance. Probably paid too much towards the end.

The next day other friends arrived and we played the $70 noon NLHE tournament at the Mirage.

It was quite frankly the softest live table I've ever been at. Passive doesn't even begin to describe it. Players would underbet the pot, and fold to undersized continuation bets at an alarming rate. Many, many limpers, all hoping to catch the flop and get lucky. My kind of group.

The one decent player in the bunch was on my right, and I took great pleasure in busting him - twice.

It wasn't a rebuy tournament, but there was a $20 add-on which I assume everyone had purchased (I certainly had). After he tried to steal my blind with KQ, I reraised him with AA. He thought and went all in. Insta-call. I had him covered.

But instead of leaving, he pulled out a $20 and bought his add-on. The only entrant in the entire tournament not to do so ahead of time. He then proceeded to double, then triple up from the generous donations of the fish around us.

I still had him covered though.

Once again, he was small blind and I was big. He raised. I looked down at AQ suited. It was a suspicious min-raise, he hadn't done anything so far in his second life other than push all in or fold.

Did he have a monster? Only one way to find out. All in. I would be damaged, but not crippled.

He tanked, FOREVER. It was a great relief as I knew in a worst case scenario we would be racing. Finally he talked himself into calling with AJ. Bye bye.

I then went on a bit of a heater that saw me running into big hands, as well as stealing with junk, because the table was terrified of me. I truly played small ball, getting people to lay down the best hands, and then sometimes pushing and busting them when I woke up with Aces, AK, and Queens.

When the dust settled and the final table convened, I was a 2 to 1 chip leader over the second place player.

Unfortunately the final table wasn't nearly as much of a pushover as my starting table. I got wittled down a bit, misplayed a hand or two - and wasn't patient enough to fold my way to the big money. Instead I kept trying to steal, and with the blinds pretty huge I found that even min-raises hurt my stack. I finally busted in 4th place with an ill advised J6 shove that got snap called by a J10 (by one of our group, a fast learning fellow named Potter).

Still, I did cash - $250 richer for 3 1/2 hours of effort. Not too shabby.

That night I felt like crap and busted out fairly early of the Treasure Island $60 10pm event.

The next day we hit the nooner at Mirage again (as nearly everyone who played in it from our group on Friday had made the money). This time it was more players, and better players as well. I was fairly card dead, and managed to not be focused enough to have a chance at cashing. I hit the rail about 2 hours in.

At this point I was euphoric about cashing at all - it was my goal all along (especially in light of my physical condition and other more important concerns) to simply cash once. I was also in a good mood, despite my cold and concerns.

I wasn't expecting to make the money in my last tournament, a $130 event at Caesars. It was the biggest buy-in and the best structure and largest field of the trip. It was also the most prestigious room that also happened to have the best players. Sven, one of the best players in our group, said that Caesars was an aquarium - but all of the fish must have been at his table, because mine was swimming with aggressive and skilled players.

Not that it really made a difference, I was pretty out of it (though having fun) and donked off my stack in under two hours.

So that was the end of my Vegas odyssey. I was down a little bit, but happy to have made the money at least once. I was looking forward to bed. Then my phone rang. It was Cali - he was about to sit down to the $65 Treasure Island tournament, could I make it over in time?

Here's where any rational person would have said "Are you kidding? "I'm sick, I can't wait to get back. Eat me."

But I'm not rational, I'm a poker degenerate.

So I dragged my (by now pretty smelly) ass over to T.I. and plopped down more bucks for another shot at a turbo tournament.

I was in no shape to play really, but I was happy to be there with my best buddy Cali - and happy to be fondling chips.

I busted out after only 20 minutes.

I overplayed my TPTK with a stupid shove that would only get called by a hand that could beat me, and it certainly did - running into a set. It wasn't the worst play in the world, I knew I was at a table of donkeys, plenty of guys who would call with TP lousy kicker. Still, I should have bet for value, even if I didn't plan to get away from it. I was just over eager to double up, and found myself on the rail. Finally, I could shower.

Or could I?

Someone mentioned that I could reregister. Another $65? Let's see, I'm in a good mood - but feel like crap, I'm not playing well, my lungs are burning. Hmmmm.... more poker? Or get a shower and good rest?

Easy question.

More punishment please!

I sat down again (with a slightly reduced stack for reregistering) at a different table - this one full of NASCAR rednecks and a couple of sharky locals. Great. I had to endure oafish humor, and a relentless maniac to my left who had a huge stack and a pretty good read on when to call and when to fold to the yokels.

I bore down just the same, and realized, that as long as I had chips (even a reduced re-register stack) I was alive and that there was no reason I couldn't succeed with good decisions and even partially decent cards.

The rubes across the table irritated me, and the big stack (though he was fairly skilled) also rubbed me the wrong way.

I was better than all of these douche bags.

Time and time again, I pushed all-in at the correct time. I doubled up. Tripled up.

All of the sudden the big stack couldn't just call me with any two. My raises had to be respected.

Before I knew it, it was final table time - this time with Nacl (the only one in the group who hadn't cashed yet) in attendance. I was happy to see that he did indeed make the money - barely holding on to finish sixth.

I, quite honestly, simply got lucky towards the end - first when my jacks held up in a multi-way pot and second when my AK beat out a medium pair to significantly increase my stack.

The gargantuan chip leader, the maniac who irritated me from my first (or rather second) table, looked around when a four way chop was proposed. His eyes settled on my now hefty stack, and he sighed.

The remaining prize pool was divided up evenly and the tournament was over. I was $550 richer, and technically took down first place! It was my first even chop - and the first time I was included in an even final split. Even though I was a bit behind on chips at the end, according to the leader board it was dead even at the end.

All in all, despite the circumstances of my health and my mental state - Vegas '09 was a huge success. I can't wait till next year, when hopefully my body and mind will be in better shape, and I can do some real damage to the tourists and cranky locals.

Vegas in my future.

Next weekend the madness will begin, with a 3 day, 2 night stay in Vegas - complete with 5 (count 'em!) 5 tournaments on the schedule!

But I also got a glimmer last Wednesday, that maybe, just maybe - an even bigger tournament is on the horizon.

I took down our first "Worldline" tournament, an off shoot of our "Flatline" league (a group of friends playing amongst ourselves online for no rake) that will award a seat and travel money to the World Series of Poker!

A 1500K bracelet event, not the 10K Main Event, that everyone knows of - but it's still the World Series!

So I've won one tournament, which means I lead in points - 17 currently. Now the race is still very tight as second place received 16 points, third place 15 and so on. But If I can aim for the top five every week, and maybe take another one or two down, it is VERY likely that my dream of playing at the World Series of Poker may come true.

I'm not really thinking about the money at all - but I promised myself years ago that if I do ever cash a hefty amount (say 10K above my buy-in or so) I'm setting aside 1K to try and satellite into the Main Event.

Yes, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Online raked play on Full Tilt is still not going that great, but I just today took down a 16 player HORSE SnG, and it felt GREAT to be the actual best player at the table who was able to persevere through card dead stretches and then by good play and correct decisions be able to stomp my opponents in the end.

(By the way - SnG means "Sit-n-Go" a single or two table tournament that starts as soon as the table is filled. MTT - Multi-table-tournament. HORSE is a mixed game format, Hold-em, Omaha/8, Razz, Seven Stud, Seven Stud 8 or better.)

I've been experimenting with all different stakes (though all low) and types of games (cash games, MTT's, SnG's and satellites) and I think I finally know what I need to do to have a good shot at growing my roll.

Clearly, I have to invest some effort to going deep in another MTT like the Double Deuce. I will allow myself 2 shots in a 60c satellite a week to accomplish this.

Second, SnG's are just too tough to crack on a frequent enough basis - I think I can find an exception to this in the 16 and 18 playr SnG's of HORSE, PLO8 and NLHE. These are the ones, where if I single table, and concentrate on what I'm doing (and I don't get completely coolered) I can either win or cash about a third of the time.

I think the payout is big enough at this level, where I can grind out a steady profit.

Lower $ SnG's - the rake is just too nasty, the stakes not high enough for me or others to take seriously.

Higher $ SnG's - say $5.25 or so, just take too big a chunk out of my BR for me to be comfortable and not play scared, especially when I drop 3 or 4 in a row. Then even if I cash in the next one, I'm still down. Very frustrating, and I'm sure I'm tilting a bit when I realize that I have to win multiple times just to recoup my losses.

Right now, I'm down to $275, after being up over $400. I don't feel as though I've been playing terrible, but I definitely feel more comfortable risking $1 in a MTT or $2.25 in a two table SnG than any of the other types of games I've been dabbling with. I'll confess, I took a couple shots at $10 MTT's (the "Midnight Madness" is especially tempting as it has a large prize pool guarantee) as well as cash games that were above my BR.

I experienced a bit of success at the latter, and then subsequently lost it all and more within a week. My tournament experience has, it seems, worn away most of the patience that I just assumed was built into my poker DNA.

So hopefully now, I've learned with such a big down swing, that I'll just have to slow down. I'm still planning on aiming for the big payoff of a large MTT (and for that I can have many, many losses and still be a winning player) and the SnG's will be strictly low (but not ultra-micro) stakes.

Running down a dream...

Still running hot.

Last week, I busted early in Flatline.

This week, I finished second.

Again, felt great against the group. Ran into good cards just often enough to really pile on the aggression towards the end and reap the benefits of big stack poker. Still, there were a couple of hiccups along the way, that while not successful in their outcome, were good learning experiences.

First, I had to crawl back from a crippling blow at the hands of Sven (an oft lauded opponent here on this blog, who is a damn good player and also a friend and poker confidante). I flopped a monster with junk - two pair, and was so determined to felt him that I didn't raise the turn and instead smooth called my way right into his rivered straight.

I don't think my play was way out of line, but it was probably less than ideal. Sven likely would've tanked long and hard if I'd reraised the turn, and very possibly folded if I had given him the wrong price. Ironically, if he had called, even though I would have been far worse for wear chip wise (probably felted in fact) it would have at least been correct. I didn't have enough of a "monster" to justify my play of trying to get Sven to spew chips. In the end he had too many outs on a scary board, and he hit one, much to my chagrin. Thankfully, he didn't put me all in with the nuts, I likely would've called.

I bounced back quickly though, and then managed to spew some more against my other good friend (and sometimes quasi-poker confidante) Cali. Cali, along with Titan, are the two guys who I KNOW if they raise in early position always, ALWAYS, have something. Usually aces or kings.

Cali was kind enough not to put me all in when I flopped top pair queen kicker, but he did just about value bet me to death - and I let him. If I had been savvy enough I suppose I could have raised his lead out bet on the flop (though I would've been nearly short stacked with this move) and then put him on AK when he shoved. I really should have put him on this though with his pre-flop raise, and folded my trap hand (which was KQos).

Thanks to a couple of lucky breaks I pounded my way to the finish line, stealing mercilessly and quite simply outclassing a lot of my opponents with c-bets and cutoff/hijack stealing. It felt GREAT.

Then it was 3 handed. Sammy Ro proceeded to implode with ill timed steal attempts out of position, twice I swatted him down with the goods and then a third time with air when he was ridiculously short stacked.

Finally it was me and a new guy. I had him on the ropes, then he rivered a four outer and I found that I suddenly didn't have the will to wait him out. As far as I could tell he was fairly solid, though pretty ABC poker - I know if I hadn't let myself get a bit tilty I could have bore down and outplayed him.

As it was - with the blinds enormous, I made an ill advised steal attempt on a harmless looking flop that turned out to have hit his computer hand (Q7) perfectly. When he smooth called my button raise (I had J9) I should have readied myself to release the hand if I blanked. A normal c-bet was out of the question, I was short stacked.

At any rate, I feel GREAT about Flatline right now. I'm also excited about this Wednesday night of Worldline, a series of tournaments we're running to award a single winner a seat at this years World Series of Poker! I feel I have as good a chance as any, and frankly a better chance than most.

Speaking of Vegas, that's where I'm going a week from this Friday - for some serious tournament poker immersion. I have 5, yes 5, tournaments scheduled for me on the trip. I'd be pretty bummed if I didn't cash at least once, but I have to be realistic, and also go first and foremost for FUN.

If there's one thing that I've learned about poker, that it's ABSOLUTELY not worth doing if I'm not having fun - first and foremost. I would love to cash in Vegas, but I'm going to approach the whole venture with a sense of fun and a chance to hang out with my buddies, shoot the shit, see the sights, and laugh.

Speaking of laughing - I've been up and down on Full Tilt, but slightly more of the latter. I really believe that it's a bit of variance, a bit of being out played (especially at the $5 sit-n-go stakes and up) and a bit of a savage rake that is omnipresent at all low and micro stakes.

Still, I will persevere, and lower my BR requirements as needed. Full Tilt just recently added micro cash games (1c/2c blinds) which I've enjoyed a handful of times to great success by simply turning off my brain and playing only premium cards and betting monsters for value.

I need to stay away from SNG's that are technically bankroll safe but at the limit - $2.25 a pop seems to be about right. I've really had the most success (even when I don't cash) at the larger MTT's. I've gone deep, many, many times. I've qualified for the double deuce tournament in 60c satellites 4 TIMES. So clearly, I'm not stinking up the joint.

Ah well.

I run good. I crush.

Happy to say this.

Flatline league. Three weeks, three tournaments, three cashes.

Including a first place finish last week.

Honestly, I don't know what I'm doing all that different - save for one piece of advice I took to heart over a month ago from a player I greatly respect.

"Chris, you've got to have patience."

Sounds simple. Some would probably say - simply stupid. I'd say my rediscovery of the most important trait of a poker player has improved my tournament game immensely.

Of course variance has helped as well - especially last Monday where I found myself all in bad a few times (and crushed one time) and managed to be on the right side of a suckout or two. Or three. Or seven.

To be fair, I also got in ahead many more times and got rivered, or runner runnered, and even flushed away - though managed to still have enough chips to crawl back.

Last Monday's first place finish was especially dramatic. With a starting stack of 5000 whittled down to less than 1100 (thanks to a terrible call by an opponent who naturally turned his middling flush draw) I somehow released my despair into the ether; and bit by bit, little by little, built my stack back up.

Tight. But VERY aggressive. Again and again, I used my MAXIMUM fold equity. While other players, including one or two whom I love dearly as friends, continue to bet out a quarter or even a third of their stack (in the vain hope of somehow getting away from a hand) pre-flop. I simply pushed all in - with expertly timed, SELECTIVE aggression.

Sometimes I had a premium hand. Sometimes I was stealing with marginal cards. Sometimes I had trash. No one at the table was able to distinguish which hand was which.

And then I ran into cards. JJ All-in. No callers. AA. All-in. No callers. AK. All-in. Called by A6. Sweet.

By being almost hyper-aggressive when I did have good cards early on, I was able to maintain this tone - and get paid when people woke up with slightly better than marginal holdings.

I love that people think I'm maniacal, when in reality I've tightened my game considerably.

Here's hoping they've stopped reading this.

If this isn't the case, I do have to mention one thing, and give credit where credit is due to ProfGrif who managed to outplay me heads up after sucking out on me about mid-way through our battle.

I was indeed tilted, and only by the grace of the poker Gods was I able to put a brutal runner-runner straight on him and then put him away by getting lucky. You had me sir - next time I hope I play better in the end, and if you outplay me again, I hope you take it down.

Flatline League 2009

"Flatline" is my online poker league. A group of friends who gather every Monday night at 930 to play a rake-free two, or sometimes three, table tournament of No Limit Hold-em on the virtual felt.

This is our third year. The first year - I basically crushed the league. The second year - not so much. So far this time around, we've had two tournaments; I've cashed in both. Finishing second last week and fourth this week.

I feel much better about my chances to turn a profit this time around; I really think my newfound patience, combined with staying aggressive at the right times, will help me avoid a disastrous run like I had just a couple of months ago.

The very best thing about the league, is that out of 20 or so regulars, there are only a handful of half decent players among them, and not one in the bunch that I would consider better than me by any serious degree.

This should quite simply = profit. If, and this is a big if, I stay patient and focused. More to come.

Oh my...

Well they say good things come in threes - or is that celebrity deaths? Anyway, I hit my third big tournament cash in under two months, and this time it was online.

Full Tilt has a Sunday tournament called the 100K Double Deuce. It's a $20 + $2 entry fee with a guaranteed prize pool of $100,000. The entry fee is way above my microscopic bankroll (currently at about $40 total) so once a week I have been entering a .60 satellite to gain entry.

I won a seat two weeks ago and was unable to play as I had a date with my little girl at the aquarium. So I tried again the next day, plunking down another whopping 60 cents (it actually is whopping when your roll is only 40 bucks) and promptly winning a seat for the following Sunday.

This time my schedule remained open, so I was able to log on and sit down with 9001 other players, including 13 Full Tilt "Red" pros. Professional poker players who are either fully or partially sponsored by the site. Incidentally, I outlasted them all, including WSOP bracelet winners Scott Fischman and Lee Watkinson.

In keeping with my strategy of monk-like patience sprinkled with the occasional burst of selective aggression, I managed to hang on for over seven hours - finally finishing in 42nd place and collecting $360 for my efforts.

Wow.

In dollar amount, this was not my biggest cash (that would be the $2330 I pocketed in December at Hollywood Park) but it was by FAR the biggest return on my investment. To get $360 for .60 cents, the mind truly boggles.

Incidentally, the hands I saw and took place in, were a roller coaster of suck-outs and monsters. A very large (probably over twice, perhaps three times, the number of hands that would have occurred in a live session) smorgasbord of poker. Some typically horrible online poker players, and surprisingly some very good players. So good in fact, that for the first time in a MTT, either live or online, I really had moments where I felt completely outclassed by a couple of my table-mates. Sobering, yes, but also refreshing in a way. This game still has so much for me to unlock.

Most notable hands - I had my aces cracked, twice. I was at-risk and basically crushed with my AQ up against AK with an ace on board. I caught runner runner for a broadway straight. But for that one exception, I always managed to get all my money in good or at least in a race. My final hand of the night was of the latter category, my KQ suited push got looked up by a small pocket pair and failed to improve. I was not thrilled with this play on my part, but it was acceptable. It was technically a race, with me on the slightly underdog side of the equation.

As I mentioned, I used selective aggression - most of the time small balling my way to taking down pots about every other orbit or so if I wasn't catching cards. I would make a standard raise, and follow it up with a c-bet of about 2/3 the pot even if I didn't connect. It worked often enough for me to keep accumulating chips.

A few times, I found myself getting short stacked, and I had to abandon the small-ball approach - taking a deep breath, closing my eyes and shoving all my chips in. I almost always tried to make my move without junk - almost. A couple of times, the blinds were approaching and the time (meaning my targets) were just right so I went all-in with trash. Thanks to my reads and a bit of luck, I managed to take down those pots without showdowns.

A couple of times when I had better starting cards (suited connecters, small pairs) I did get called. Two of these incidents stick out in my memory. Once with AJ and another time with pocket tens. Both times, thankfully, my hands won the day, flopping two pair with my AJ and trips with my tens.

Despite my apparently relentless success in large MTT's of late, I'm still very much aware, that one has to get lucky multiple times to go deep in these things.

And so there it is. As of January 12, in less than four months, I have built an online bankroll from 0 dollars, to just over $407.

I've contemplated withdrawing most of it, but instead have decided for now to 'let it ride' so to speak, and see if I can grow my roll even more. Sticking with Chris Ferguson's bankroll guidelines, I plan to step up a little bit in stakes with Sit-N-Go's, where hopefully I can fare a little better than I did against the devastating rake and unequivocally retarded players of the $1.25 level.

As for MTT's, I don't think I'll play that much more expensive events than I have - I love the concept of spending very little and winning very big. I don't know that I'll ever beat my mark of turning .60c into $360! But I would love to try!

Good News Bad News

Mostly good news actually.

I outlasted over 500 players last night at HPC's Poker Derby tournament Event #1, a deep stack NLHE $125 freeze out. I finished 17th.

That's the good news.

The bad news - I only pocketed $490 total for my ten hours of work and walked out of the casino at 5 in the morning. And although it was a non-smoking room, people were cheating in the hallways because it was so cold outside, so my eyes and lungs burned throughout the event.

I did have fun, but talk about a grind. I said aloud when I sat down, after glancing at the structure and seeing how many players there were, "This will last till 7 in the morning." The table mate to my right (who it turned out would bust me over 10 hours later) said something to the effect of "Oh no, this will be shorter than that. Fast structure here."

Wrong. I nailed it - I knew what had to be done to go deep. And I almost made it just right, I just didn't get lucky at the end when everyone was virtually short stacked anyway. The real money was in the top 6 players. That would have been sweet.

Still, it was nice to more than double my money I guess - there were plenty of others who played for over 9 hours and made 30% on their investment or less - and even those who played for 8 hours and made nothing.

And don't think that this is a regular thing for me now. I had planned for almost two months to play in this event; the other tournament I played on 12/21 was an impulsive getaway. Sven and I had been talking about going to this event together for awhile and it was kind of fun to make it happen. Though he felt the same way about the smoke and the grind - he busted at about 100th place, and was one of those who had invested cash and substantial time only to walk away with just smelly clothes and burned lungs.

I love live poker, but I won't be doing one of those again. I'll be sticking to the 10K guarantee on Sunday at 1130 in the morning. HPC's regular tourneys are in a much less ghetto and much less smokey area of the casino. If I do ever another deepstack in the smoke room (I did in fact love that the structure favored skill, plus there was a chance to win real money for a low buy-in) it will have to start in the morning.

Not much to say about my play - except super tight with an occasional move thrown in seemed to work out pretty well. I got paid with my monsters, especially when I was deceptive (limping with Aces, etc.) and I did manage to c-bet successfully on a number of occasions despite my lack of connection with the flop.

I feel good about my game and play, but I know I still have lots to learn. What I don't want to be is what the majority of players are when they get a big stack - aggressive without selection. Time after time I saw a big stack sit down, and then splash around without a plan of escape or even worse, without an aggressive follow through.

I had a big stack through the last third of the tournament, and I basically folded my way to the second table, before once again I was eaten alive by the monster blinds. Not great, but so much better than imploding with A7 suited the way a lady with a mountain of chips did, tangling with the only other big stack at our table who woke up with kings. And then she got mad at the dealer. Classless and just plain stupid.

Not for me. My goal is that when I get the stack, to EFFECTIVELY bully with SELECTIVE aggression. There were a couple of guys who had it right, and accumulated rather than spewed their chips. Someday, I'll get there. For now, I'm just having a blast.