WBCOOP mis-step

After an hour, I have doubled up twice and have about $6500 in chips. There are SEVEN post-and-folds at my table now and the remaining player on my left is from Finland. He is not only stealing the blinds, but doing it to me. I am 2 to his left however, and when I realize he isnt going to share (or alternate), I start playing back HARD. I play it as a heads-up battle and we are fighting on every hand.

I call him all the way down with a pair of aces and now I have $8k and he has probably $12k. BIG stacks compared to the avg of just under $4k. But the battle rages on. Twice I call him down and take a pot. Then, I call his pre-flop with AK and an ace flops. (A85). The money goes in and he has 85 and I am out.

Where did it all go wrong?

I got into a competitive situation even though it was not time to do so.
With a way above avg stack, I stacked off with TPTK.

But most important of all, I repeated my most common mistake. I dont respect the 3 bet post-flop enough. Once I re-raise, I am mentally committed and RARELY then fold to the 3bet shove. This has been fatal to me and I have got to get it corrected.

I don't get American Idol

Really. I don't get it. Is Carrie Underwood the Apex of Talent?

I remember the show that American Idol is based on being better and funnier. It was called "The Gong Show".

"Pants on the ground!" Perfect.

Chuck Barris, the godfather of Idol and Letterman.

The $84k ?!?!

I went to register for the $32k $42k today and it came up as the $82k! And its DOUBLE STACKS. The guarantee is done (it seems) by expanding the payout field to 20%.

$25 Million Double Guarantees Week
Win your share of $25 million in guaranteed tournament prize pools with Full Tilt Poker’s $25 Million Double Guarantees Week.

I never saw the announcement, but sure, sign me up!

Poker Tracker 3 Auto-rate rules

Does anyone have an updated rules import? I used to use IGGY's for PT2, but it doesn't translate to PT3.

RUSH POKER!

After two straight days of RUSH POKER on Full Tilt, I finally feel I have enough information to comment. and not just OMG! I haz more cardz!

RUSH poker is "Virtual Multi-tabling". Each hand, every player without a hand in front of them is whisked to a insta-table to play a hand. When the hand is over, they are instantly whisked to a new one. Think of it as Multi-Tabling but there are not hand conflicts (being in two important hands at once).

For the non-grinder semi-pro, this could be the most important update of your life. Think about it. These phenom players get that way by playing 8 tables (or more), 8 hours a day. As the semi-pro or non-grinder, you can not afford that time nor that punishment. But now, you can "drop into" a multi-table and drop out again AT WILL. That means that I can easily play about 300 hands an hour without that time commitment.

And what do you learn playing that type of volume? The brain is forced to "pattern burn". This is AI term based on pattern recognition. The brain subconsciously becomes better at catagorizing and patterning the data. Assuming you are not donking off all your chips. (big assumption?)

I had quite an adjustment. In the first 3-4 hours, I was down almost $100. Then, something clicked. 3 hours later I had won it all back. And then I entered the $42k. And I won. Coincidence?

Here are the PROs and CONs of crack Rush Poker.

PRO
LOTS of Hands. LOTS. Its really really a lot (Don't Panic!)
Great for working on your SITUATIONAL plays
Poker cheat tools can not be used against you
Much easier to fold to "peppered beef" bet since EVERYONE is grinding.
(another way to say it is that you are "surprised less".)
Exposes Flaws in your game

CON
Random seat. (I would like the whisk to be smarter and draw players to the next logical seat in their rotation)
No hero calls
No results. Once you fold, you are gone.
Forces you to be RESULTS oriented.

PRO & CON
removes some of the finer nuances of the game (stack size, blind defense, setting up a play, etc)

Overall, I am impressed, amazed and in a position to benefit from RUSH POKER more than the pros.

Columbo takes his 2nd $42k!!! (well a deal with 2 left)

This is an automated message sent from Full Tilt Poker.

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #134111189 $42,000 Guarantee NL Hold'em
Buy-In: $24.00 + $2.00
1972 players
Total Prize Pool: $47328.00
Start Date: January 21 2:00 PM ET

Dear columbo,

You made a deal and finished the tournament in 2nd place according to your chip count position.
There has been $7844.49 added to your account.

You have earned leaderboard points for this tournament.
To view your current leaderboard points use the My Promotions button in the Cashier window.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

HERO CALL!!!!

Live Blog post:
Full Tilt Poker Game #17795291622: $42,000 Guarantee (134111189), Table 55 - 6000/12000 Ante 1500 - No Limit Hold'em - 19:44:06 ET - 2010/01/21

THERE ARE 16 left at this point...

Seat 1: columbo (301,760)
Seat 2: lamiffa (312,020)
Seat 3: Anguz (87,070)
Seat 4: villivey (540,670)
Seat 6: PacMan2121 (325,586)
Seat 7: thang911 (310,965)
Seat 8: Troyz68 (1,390,531)
Seat 9: qwerty108 (382,193)
antes 1,500

villivey posts the small blind of 6,000
PacMan2121 posts the big blind of 12,000

The button is in seat #3

thang911 folds
Troyz68 folds
qwerty108 raises to 30,000

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to columbo [9h 9s]
columbo calls 30,000

lamiffa folds
Anguz folds
villivey has 15 seconds left to act
villivey folds
PacMan2121 calls 18,000
*** FLOP *** [3h 7c Kd]
PacMan2121 checks
qwerty108 checks
columbo checks
*** TURN *** [3h 7c Kd] [7s]
PacMan2121 checks
qwerty108 bets 36,000
columbo calls 36,000
PacMan2121 folds
*** RIVER *** [3h 7c Kd 7s] [Ts]
qwerty108 bets 48,000
columbo calls 48,000
*** SHOW DOWN ***
qwerty108 shows [Ah Jc] a pair of Sevens
columbo shows [9h 9s] two pair, Nines and Sevens
columbo wins the pot (276,000) with two pair, Nines and Sevens

Call me crazy...

Full Tilt Poker Game #17793754081: $42,000 Guarantee (134111189), Table 79 - 2500/5000 Ante 600 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:44:37 ET - 2010/01/21

At this stage of the $42k, we are down to FIVE tables.

Seat 1: Sick_Ko (179,909)
Seat 2: imonfulltilt420 (34,796)
Seat 3: acryte87 (269,505)
Seat 4: thang911 (254,159)
Seat 5: lobao777 (153,090)
Seat 6: villivey (227,554)
Seat 7: qwerty108 (160,249)
Seat 8: MarcOBR (120,154)
Seat 9: columbo (73,042)
antes 600

Sick_Ko posts the small blind of 2,500
imonfulltilt420 posts the big blind of 5,000
The button is in seat #9
acryte87 folds
thang911 folds
lobao777 folds
villivey folds
qwerty108 folds
MarcOBR folds

Folds around to me on the button with
Dealt to columbo [Qh Ah]

I go to raise, and then I remember that the BB re-raises EVERY TIME he sees a late position limp.

columbo calls 5,000
Sick_Ko raises to 35,000
imonfulltilt420 calls 29,196, and is all in

AND THE SQUEEZE!!!
columbo raises to 72,442, and is all in

Sick_Ko calls 37,442 (surprised? wait until you see the hands!!!)

columbo shows [Qh Ah]

Sick_Ko shows [8c Kc]
imonfulltilt420 shows [Qc Js]

WTF? QJ and K8??? for all the stacks?!?!!?

*** FLOP *** [3d Ts Jd]
ugh. gez.

*** TURN *** [3d Ts Jd] [6d]
*** RIVER *** [3d Ts Jd 6d] [Kh]
ONE TIME!

columbo shows a straight, Ace high
Sick_Ko shows a pair of Kings
columbo wins the side pot (76,492) with a straight, Ace high
imonfulltilt420 shows a pair of Jacks
columbo wins the main pot (107,988) with a straight, Ace high
imonfulltilt420 stands up
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 184,480

Brain Exploding... Thought on... well EVERYTHING!

My brain is overloading! I must dump thoughts into text. Here they come... Brace Yourselves!

1. I FINALLY got iTunes to work with windows 7 x64. How? In the words of Justin Bateman on my favorite sitcom of all time It's Your Move, "You're gonna laugh..."
I had to turn on C-State Tech in the BIOS. What is C-State Tech?
"Its a technology by intel which allows the OS to independently lower the frequency of the cores when the need be thus saving power. If it's disabled then both the cores will run at a fixed frequency. Enabling it will allow the OS to make the core's run at different frequencies thus making optimum use of power."
Umm, HUH? Anyway, based on this it should be DISABLED on a desktop, enabled on a laptop. Yet, the iPhone will not tolerate it being off. Gez.

2. Memeo connect (for google apps). A desktop add-in that creates a virtual sync link for google apps. This could be a game changer for google vs. word/excel.

3. RUSH poker from Full Tilt. WOW, I dont even know what to think of this. I am going to test it out today and this week and report back. But think about this: no poker tracking tools are worth a damn during the game. Ha! BUT, the "flash" implementation of "last hand" is killing me on x64. There is no x64 version of flash, although adobe has promised it in v10.2 (10.1 is in beta now).

4. My XBOX is finally fixed and I accept the fact that I will play that in the evernings for a while vs. poker. I just wish I had more friends!

5. The Lions have the SECOND pick in the draft. They need to fill 5 starter positions on Defense. If they draft ANY offensive player on Day 1, just write us off again.

That being said, the CBA is doomed for 2010. Doomed.

6. RockBandNetwork is coming in the next 3-4 weeks. Might be good, might be gosh awful. We shall see. I am going to get a "You rock guitar" when they come out which lets you use a real guitar with Rockband. Should go over like a Lead Zepplin.

7. The White House now has an iPhone app. That is actually BRILLIANT.

Fire in the hole

There has been a recent theme in poker blogs about min-cashes. Feeling like an expert on the subject, I feel the need to comment or contribute.

Thought on the min-cash

1. Depending on your mood, this really really sucks or is a feel-good save of the day. IF you are playing well and then a suck-out happens just inside the money vs. some donk open-shoving with A2, then yes you are going to feel bad. On the other hand, if you have been getting beaten up for 2 hours in the middle levels and still squeak into the money, then it can be quite encouraging.

2. I recently have run up a monster string on min cashes. It almost feels like I can walk into any tournament and finish at the 12% mark. But getting to the real money has been a real challenge in 2009 and its a matter of the A game not coming out in the last stages.

Recently, the hand of the bubble even, a cut-off limp, SB limp and I check the BB with K5o. Flop is King high (K86). Not bad. rainbow even. Everyone checks for their own reasons. Turn is a 5. Check to me and I bet. cutoff folds but the SB raises. What do I do? I re-raise. But I do it without thought, my course pre-determined at this point. He shoves and what do I do? I insta-call! Sad really. Even if I am correct, which I am not, that is a BAD play. Worse, I know it. (He had 97o, aka the nuts).

So, if you have 1 min cash, do not lament what could have been. But if you are having a series of min-cashes as I am, perhaps your B game is getting in the way or your A game...

Satellite math

I have been thinking about this for a while and need a bit of math help here.

Its a satellite that pays the top 25% (like a token frenzy). Starting stacks are $1500. Let say 140 play, so it pays 27.

There are 96 left. How may chips do you expect to need to be better than 27th when there are 27 left.

Asked another way, what is the average chip stack with 27 left? And what chips stack would you need to post and fold with 50 left?

I have been taking the 27th place chip and multiplying by the multiple of 27 players lift. So with 81 players left, I guess I need 27th place chips * 3. Is this a good quick formula or a fatally flawed one?

It's that time again...

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 234828

Poker Tracker INIT

So it has come to pass that the PC loaded with XP that has served me well for over half a decade, ate itself. Now, being anal like I am, I had backups of EVERYTHING. I could not save the XP partition, so I bit the bullet and installed windows 7.

I am close to 100% back up and running with everything loaded, but I made a curious choice. I chose to reset PT3 and start from scratch. Lets see how it looks in a month or 2, eh?

Reflections

With the new year ringing in, its time to take a hard look at my progress in 2009. I played in my monthly league game last night, just came back from Vegas, and played in a 1-2 game over the weekend, so I have a good sampling of the Good, Bad and Ugly.

First the good: I play situations well. Many players spend way too much time trying to put players on a hand instead of playing a situation. (and other times it doesn't really matter). Over the weekend, I decided to take a flop short handed which was not typical. UTG I limp with 55 (only 6 seats occupied this hand). Button raises to $20. Now, he liked to button raise, but this was bigger than most raises for the table. The BB calls. So, I expect the implied odds are better than 8-1. I expect that if I do hit a set of fives, I will make $160 bucks. That is a big if. There is $40 opponent dollars in the pot, so I would have to get $120 more opponent dollars into that pot of now $60. The flop is 5d8s9s. BB now bets $92. WTF? I stop and realize that this is a situation that does not require me to put them on hands. Why? If its set over set, I am willing to go broke in this cash game, especially since the BB only has $150 or so. Secondly, I am willing to just take the $92 (Even though I said I wanted $120) because its so close to my mark. And if the BB calls, I get a 9-1 payout. So I move all in for $350. The Button now tanks. REALLY? He really, really wants his Kings to be good, but he has almost exactly $350 left and I eroded that down from the $600 he had when I sat down. After a very long internal debate, he figures he CANT FOLD KINGS and calls. Now the BB tanks! This is ridiculous, because what can the BB BEAT HERE? He eventually folds his JJ. The turn and river are bricks and I win a pot with $500 in opponent monies.

The BAD: I don't put players on cards enough. It is a very important skill and I don't do it enough and therefore don't do it as well as I should for my experience level.

The UGLY: Because I CAN lay down Kings, I have done it 3 times in the recent past. One was pre-flop at a cash game in Vegas against an aspiring player who wanted to play professionally. I put the guy on either QQ or AA. It was his ONLY pre-flop all-in for the session, and he re-raised me so he expected a call. The other two were where I opted out of a c-bet when an Ace flopped. Pathetic and Ugly. In one (if not both cases), the c-bet actually would have won the pot, instead the player in position pwnd me. KK in EP is not as easy as it looks. And in BOTH cases, I had 2 or 3 opponents. BUT, if you are going to play a Big Pair from EP, you HAVE TO C-BET. Sad.

In the end, I am mostly being hard on myself for not putting players on hands enough and only playing the situation and the basic math. I need to at least NARROW ranges on the flop and turn.

Time to get to work.