A couple days ago I talked about a key hand from my last home game in which I overplayed pocket Kings and lost over 90% of my stack. That hand signaled the end of my time in the first tournament of the night. The second tournament started around 11:30 and featured all the same players and blind structure as the last one. We each started with 8000 in chips and my stack is up to 8325 after winning the first hand.

My buddy Rocco is 2nd to act and he doubles the blind. Everyone folds around to T-Mace in the small blind who calls. I’m in the big blind and it cost me 50 more to see the flop. I look at my hole cards and see 22. I call knowing that if I don’t hit a set I will be able to make an easy lay down. I like playing small pocket pairs early in a tournament but only if it doesn’t cost me much and only if my opponents has a decent chip stack. The flop comes down 4c 2c 10h. This is a great flop for me. There is three hundred in the pot and the small blind has checked to me. This is good flop for me for a couple reasons.

1. I caught the set
2. There is no Ace or King to scare off any pocket pairs like JJ or QQ which Rocco may have.
3. The only straight draws would come from someone holding a combination of A,3,5 or 6 (except A6). All of which are gut shot draws except the 35.

Rocco only doubled the blind which could mean one of two things for him. He has a very strong hand or a very mediocre hand. Rocco is very good a changing gears so it’s hard to tell if he is playing vey tight or very loose at this point. Mace on the other hand was in the small blind and he will often play any two cards from the blinds if it doesn’t cost him much. It’s possible he could have something like 35 at this point. I put out a probe bet of 150 to get a feel for where the other players are at. I’m hoping for either a raise or only one caller. The last thing I want is for Rocco to call thinking his preflop hand is still good and then mace to call with a straight or flush draw since at that point it will cost him 150 to go after a pot with 600 in it. In truth I should have bet closer to 250 since that would potentially give mace worst pot odds if he is drawing to a straight or flush.

Rocco raised to 600 making it 600 to mace and an additional 450 to me. Mace folds and now I need to figure out what I’m going to do. At this point my read on Rocco makes me think that he has a high pocket pair. If he has 10 10 then I’m smoked but I’m thinking more like QQ or KK. He could have Ax for a flush or straight draw, but he usually doesn’t bet into draws. He could have something like J10 or 9 10 and have hit the 10. He stays away from those hands when he is playing tight but he is capable of playing those hands when he is playing loose. The thing that is throwing me off is the doubling of the big blind preflop.

After some thought I put him on a high pocket pair like QQ, KK, AA. I decide to call thinking that if he doesn’t have the flush draw and that I want to string him along and not scare him away yet. I call and the next card is the King of diamonds. I’m kind of worried about this hand, but only because I thought he might have KK preflop. Still I can’t always worry about someone having the nuts against me. I want to put more money in the pot because I think I still have the best hand. I check, knowing that Rocco will bet. He bets 1200 and I think for a moment and raise it to 3000. Rocco thinks for a moment and then goes all in. At this point I’m lost. I really am not sure what he has. Some of the hands that cycle through my mind are KK, 10 10, AA, A10, AK suited clubs. Some of them fit the betting pattern but some don’t.

Rocco’s ability to switch gears and play different styles is what makes this hand hard to analyze. It would be a lot easier to figure out if I was playing against one of the other players who doesn’t change it up all that much. I’m just about 50/50 on whether or not I should call but one thing tips me on the side of calling. When facing a player who indicates through betting that their hand is strong, Rocco at times will push with a hand that other players would only call with. Rocco also saw me over play a high pocket pair in the last tournament which may make him think that something like top pair top kicker, or two pair is good even though I’m betting like the board has hit me hard.

I call the all in which leaves me with only 350 chips if I loose. Rocco turns over K 10 of clubs giving him two pair and a flush draw. I’m in the lead but my percentages aren’t as good as I like. There are 9 clubs that can win it for Rocco plus there are two kings and two 10s that would also give him the winning hand. That gives him a 29.55% chance of winning. T-Mace openly is rooting for a club, and sure enough nine of clubs comes on the river.

When I look back on the hand I can understand why Rocco played the hand the way he did. He was mixing it up and caught what at the time looked like a great flop. He then got even stronger on the turn. It looked like he had the best hand and may have had me drawing very slim. I’m happy with my call although I can’t pretend that I did it with anything close to a strong read.

On a posistive side note, I won a heads up Horse tournament and a heads up 7-card stud tournament playing against some of the other early round losers that night.

Later
Mike

About two years ago, my friends and I started to gather together every Friday night for some friendly tournament poker. Over the past two years the skill and intensity featured at these games has risen dramatically even though the stakes have stayed very low. We became so obsessed with the weekly game that we built a 10 person felt table and set up a website to track the results. While we do keep track of how much everyone wins and everyone looses, the real prize is bragging rights.

Tonight we held two 7 person tournaments with a $20 buy in. Most of the players in this game play for much higher stakes online or at casinos but like I said before; we’re playing for bragging rights. Each player started with 8000 chips and blinds at 25/50 and doubling every 20 min. There was one hand for me in each game that I’d like to break down for analysis.

Tournament #1 50/100 blinds, 7 players remaining. I have 8500 chips and am sixth to act. Earlier I had shown pocket Kings, pocket Aces, and J7 after taking the blinds with a 4x BB bet. My buddy “six” is under the gun and raises to 400. Everyone folds to me and I look down to see pocket Kings. I think about smooth calling but see little value in the play. I raise to 800 and Six calls. I am now ruling out QQ, AA, or KK from Six’s list of possible hands. He might have AK, KQ, or any pocket pair from JJ on down to 55 or 66. That’s a wide range of hands and I am leaning more toward the AK, JJ, 10 10 range since he raise from early position. His 4xBB bet vs a 2.5 or 3XBB makes me think that he doesn’t want to see a flop with this hand.

The Flop brings 5 2 6 rainbow. This is a fairly good flop for me against most of the hands I put six on. If six has a high pocket pair like JJ, 1010, 99, or even 88 and 77. He might think his over pair is best. If six has AK then I’ll only get more action out of him if he decides to bluff, and if he has a small pocket pair then I might be up against a set. I have two options, check or raise. If I raise then I might scare out some of the over pairs and the AK. If I raise and Six has a set then he will probably re raise me, or maybe slow play the hand. I felt the better play was to check and encourage a bet. I was hoping that my check would make six think that I had AK and missed. I check and six bets 1200.

That worked just like I wanted. Still I’m kind of worried about the six on the board. Six loves to play pocket 66 since his nickname is “Six”. Still, I can’t deviate from my plan just because of a silly nickname. So what is my goal now. If I had a dominate hand like a set i’d just call hoping to get more money in on 4th and 5th street, but with just a pair I decide that I want to take the pot down right now. I raise to 4200.

Six goes all in almost immediately. It costs me 2500 more to call his all in and there is 12500 in the pot. So should I call? Well what are the hands he could have that would make his move make sense? I already ruled out AA, KK, QQ based off of the pre flop play, but maybe six was trying to be cagey with one of those hands in hopes of getting me to over play a medium pocket pair. Still I rank that pretty low. What about the medium pairs like JJ, 10 10, 99? I think it’s important to analyze my betting as viewed by six. Six raises I re raise. I call. I check raise him on the flop. If I’m six and I see that series why would I go all in? If I was six, I would have to put my opponent on a high pocket pair like AA, KK, or QQ. For me to push all in I need to have those hands beat. So what’s left? The low pocket pairs, 88 on down. Three of those hands beat me, the 22, 55, and 66. So would he play any of those three hands the way he played this hand. Heck yeah.

Small pocket pair in early position you raise 4xBB hoping no one calls, or if someone does maybe you’ll get lucky and hit a set. Someone raises (only doubles the pot) and you think they have a big hand. IF you call and hit a set you might be able to double up through that person if he can’t get away from his hand. The flop brings a set with no high cards. The opponent checks and you bet to build the pot. The opponent re raises with what he feels is a strong hand. You go all in for not much more, knowing that the pot will offer great odds to your opponent.

I looked at six and said, you have to have pocket sixes, or maybe fives. The odd thing about this home games is that laying down the best hand hurts so much more than it does when playing against strangers. If I folded I’d only have 3000 or so left, plus if I lay down the best hand it would kill me. I also think, is there any shame in over playing KK or AA with a flop like that? It’s amazing how much your pride can influence your decisions. I make the call and six flips up 55. The turn and river fail to bring a king and I’m down to 500 chips.

Even though I was able to build my stack up to 3000 I didn’t last long once the blinds hit 400/800. Looking back on the hand I can think of a couple things I did wrong aside from making the all in call. Analyzing this hand should help me with later plays which brings me to the second hand of the second game. Well actually the second hand will come in tomorrows blog update. It’s three in the morning and I’m tired from finishing a couple of prop bets.

Later
Mike

Earlier this week I received something unexpected in my mail. As usual there were the credit cards bills, advertisements for credit cards, more advertisements that looked like real credit cards, and the obligatory get out of debt newsletter. One piece of mail stood out from the rest. It was a magazine of some sort enclosed in a black bag. My first thought was “Sweet, free porn.” Afterall I have been and always will be a fan of free porn. My hopes were slightly elevated when I ripped open the black bag and saw a woman smiling on the cover. My expectation level rose even higher when I saw the name of the magazine was “Party Life”. Then my dreams of free smut were dashed when I noticed a pair of PartyPoker.com logos on the cover.

Evidently PartyPoker had sent me a free issue of their brand new magazine in hopes of either getting me to play more often at their site, or maybe just to tease me with the hope of free smut. Regardless of what their intentions were, I felt oblige to read through the magazine. As you might guess, PartyLife is basically a multi page advertisement for everything relating to party poker with a few interesting articles and interviews thrown in to add legitimacy.

One thing I found interesting about the magazine was it’s listing of top PartyPoker.com tournament players. I’m not really sure what criteria is used to rank the players but, truthfully, I don’t care. All I cared about was reading the net handels of some of these players. Some I thought were kind of interesting, and some I thought were even more interesting and deserved an almost witty comments by me.

3. SevinFigures
6. JJsGramma
9. scrubs729 (not sure if this guy is a fan of the show, but I am)
11. TheAsgard (he could be a mythology profesor at Harvard but more likely he’s a big fan of the Thor comic books)
14. Burrito4Me
18. VolumeOverSkill
29. tblcaptain (I love watching players with self promoting names make donkish plays. Oh how I love sweet irony)
41. BvlyHls90210 (what a classic show)
46. DwightSchrute (Speaking of classic shows, the Office is freaking great)
49. MrChipLeeder
51. ChipVacuum9 (I honestly wonder if there are 8 other ChipVacuum(s) and if there are, they should get together for a sit n go)
74. OMGRigged
76. Wealthyfish
77. RissingShark (look at the names for 76 and 77 again and tell me there isn’t something a little too perfect about those rankings)
86. daviDBlaine9 (really? there’s nine people out there that like david blaine. That many?)
94. LoveMILFs (Amen brother)
99. munee4nuthun

I’m kind of interested to see if I get another issue next month. I have a feeling that future publications will only be available in card rooms kind of like how cardplayer and bluff started out. If that is the case then I will be curious to see how many people would grab a magazine in a black bag in the middle of a busy casino card room without blushing.

Later
Mike

Anyone who plays in a regular homegame has a friend who plays the role of “designated whipping boy”. This is the guy who throws his money away week after week - seemingly with no hope of winning whatsoever. On Toronto’s Harbourfront Poker Tour, this player is known ironically as “The Tournament Specialist”.

Due to the fact that the “Tournament Specialist” takes poker so seriously and claims to have “won a lot of money online” (don’t we all know this guy) it was intially entertaining to ridicule his weekly meltdowns. Week after week he would valiantly show up, fold for 3 hours, get blinded down to a few meaningless chips, and eventually go all-in with a weak hand and bust out.

After about 35 straight single table tournament losses, the chances of our resident “Tournament Specialist” to turn the tide seemed about as likely as Colin Montgomerie winning a major or Rosie O’Donnell becoming attractive. It was getting so bad/sad that the rest of us subliminally and openly started cheering for this underdog to win his first bracelet.

This week’s edition of the Harbourfront Poker Tour Misplay of the Week demonstrates one hand where the Tournament Specialist doubled-up, enabling him to gain some confidence and eventually win his first bracelet.

Players in the Hand:
Adrock - tight but aggressive
Tournament Specialist - ultra Jessica-Alba tight

Setting the Stage
Blinds: 100/200
Three handed

Chip Counts:
Adrock - 4000
The Probe - 5500
Tournament Specialist - 1500

Adrock raises to 600 from the button.
The Probe folds the small blind.
T.S. raises all-in
Adrock says: “You’re beating me, what the hell, I call”
T.S. shows A8o
Adrock shows QcJc

Flop, Turn and River come blank. A8 wins.
T.S. doubles up to 3100
Adrock falls to 2500

Adrock’s initial raise to 600 with QJ suited was very sound three handed. After TS’s all-in, there was 2200 (600 + small blind + 1500) in the pot and it cost Adrock 900 to call. His pot odds were 2.4 - 1 meaning that from a strictly pot odds perspective, he needed to have only about a 30%
(1/3.4 = 29%) chance to win the hand in order to call.

However, given The Tournament Specialist’s ultra tight-ass image, was this a reasonable assumption? If Tournament Specialist held AK, Adrock’s QJ was 37% to win, making it a fair call. In fact, the only hands that T.S. could hold that would make the call incorrect from a pot odds perspective were QQ KK or AA.

Adrock’s call turned out to be correct mathematically as he was only a very slight underdog with his QJ against A8. However, sometimes it’s best to ignore pot odds when you feel you can outplay your opponent over the long run, and you know you’ll be an underdog if you call an all-in.

Why risk your money on a coin-flip (or worse) when you are confident you can wear your opponent(s)down?

Until next time,

TAKE IT DOWN BIG MAN!

hey all, so you know, I’m blogging the final table of the $50,000 HORSE event over on Bluffmagazine.com. Come ride the rollercoaster with me.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

USA wins hockey gold over the USSR in Lake Placid.

Buster Douglas KO’s Mike Tyson to become Heavyweight Champion of the world.

Happy Gilmore out duels Shooter McGavin to win the Tour Championship and accompanying gold jacket.

Marisa Tomeii wins an academy award.

OJ finds the “real killers.”

Miracles can happen… Particularly in poker.
Here’s an example, courtesy of:
The Harbourfront Poker Tour Misplay of the Week

Players in the Hand:

Tom T-bone Samson - looser than Jenna Jameson, very aggressive
Toronto Speculator - loose, aggressive

Setting the Stage
Starting Chip Count is 1000
Blinds at 20/40
Chip Counts: T-Bone 2000
Toronto Speculator 1000

Toronto Speculator: J10
T-bone: ?

Speculator calls in the cut off seat.
T-bone raises to 80 from the small blind.
Big blind folds.
Speculator calls.

Flop: QK10

T-bone raises to 200 from small blind
Pot is now 400.

Speculator has seen T-Bone stealing pots and semi-bluff re-raises all-in with low pair (10s) and open ended straight draw.

T-bone calls and shows KJ - top pair and same open-ended straight draw.

Of course the only cards in the deck that could win the pot for the Speculator were the two remaining tens. An Ace or 9 would split the pot.

Turn: 10!
River: 2

This hand demonstrates the imperfect science of counting outs - particularly against loose and aggressive opponents. The Speculator put his aggressive opponent on top pair or a stone bluff and figured that if he got called on his all-in move, there were still 13 outs in the deck (8 straight draw cards, 2 tens, and 3 jacks). Fortunately for him he got luckier than David Copperfield in his Claudia Schiffer days on the turn, and went on to win the tourney.

Until next time…

TAKE IT DOWN BIG MAN

Hey guys,

things are even crazier than normal here today. The one and only Phil hellmuth and the singularly-entertaining Marcel Luske are at the final table today playing in the $5000 NLHE event here, and sadly, you aren’t going to get to see them on TV.

With 7 players left, Phil’s in the lead with 1.1 million, Marcel in second with over 700K. We’re looking at a potentially classic showdown between two good friends and titans of the game.

Be sure to check out my blog over at www.bluffmagazine.com’s series coverage section, then check back here tonight to hear how it all went down. Hope everyone’s having a good week; I know I am.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

hey all, sorry I’ve been non-communicative, but I think I wrote the same piece fifteen times yesterday without getting it posted. I’m going to head over to the Bluff blog and do some work there, so drop on by and find out everything that’s going on here.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

I recieved the following e-mail today and thought it would make sense to answer publicly. Answers follow the ‘-’;

Hi, Gary.

Excuse my ignorance.

I saw in today’s match of Vos vs. Le, there was over $500 in the pot, but Vos only took home $400k.

I’m sure every tournament is somewhat different, but in general, how do they work with entrance fees, table stakes, winnings, etc.?

- Usually, payouts go down to the top 10% of a field, but things are a little different at the world series with the huge fields and diminishing returns as impressive first place finishes go. You can find out more about the World Series payouts at www.worldseriesofpoker.com

What is a typical entrance fee?

- There really is no typical entrance fee, especially in the age of online poker where you can play for whatever you like. Most of the biggest tournaments have a $10,000 entrance fee.

Is each player playing with virtual money, with a pre-determined amount going to the winner?

- Tournament chips are just that; chips. They don

Things keep on moving here at the series. Last night I hung out with Norm MacDionald for three hours. Today I chatted with Johnny Chan over a cigar, Phill Hellmuth on break and a host of others. I