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Polling the Masses
Monday, January 31, 2005 I whiffed on four tournaments yesterday. That makes 15 in a row without a cash (not counting one or two-table tournaments, in which I've cashed in my last four straight). Isn't variance fun?? I want to pose a question to you, reader of my poker journal, who may know better than I how people play in PartyPoker tournaments (since I've played very few there). About 200 players left in the Party Sunday $200 No Limit tournament. 1600 and change started, 180 get paid. The blinds are 400-800. Ten-handed table. The first two players fold. The next player, a player I know next-to-nothing about (i.e., who didn't immediately identify himself as crazy), moves all-in for 8410. There are two players behind him that can bust him, and two others that can severely cripple him. What range of hands do you give this raiser? I'll explain why I ask in a future post. For now, please email your answers to jacksup@mattmatros.com. Not to Be Outdone Wednesday, January 26, 2005 My friend Chris Fargis has been telling me about some of the truly heinous play happening daily at PartyPoker.com. Some of the hands that go down at the $15-$30 level there...well, let's just say I wouldn't back these guys in a $.01-$.02 game against high school kids who have never played poker before. Anyway, I started playing at Party again a few days ago. I don't really like the software, so I had stayed away for many moons. When I came back, I started winning right away, certainly, but I didn't see any of the inane hands such as Chris describes in his blog. Until tonight. I give you, "brhjr." $15/$30 Hold'em - Wednesday, January 26, 21:17:45 EDT 2005 Table Table 12301 (Real Money) Seat 4 is the button Total number of players : 10 Seat 2: BaseFace ( $200 ) Seat 5: monkeytom1 ( $936 ) Seat 8: RokKosmac ( $620.5 ) Seat 4: jacksup ( $1333.5 ) Seat 6: James2882 ( $1814 ) Seat 1: tk158 ( $811.5 ) Seat 9: seber ( $720 ) Seat 7: brhjr ( $717 ) Seat 3: Jcardshark ( $750 ) Seat 10: tuesday99 ( $750 ) monkeytom1 posts small blind [$10]. James2882 posts big blind [$15]. tuesday99 posts big blind [$15]. BaseFace posts big blind + dead [$25]. Jcardshark is reconnected and has 20 seconds to respond. Jcardshark posts big blind [$15]. ** Dealing down cards ** Dealt to jacksup [ Jc Qh ] brhjr calls [$15]. RokKosmac folds. seber folds. tuesday99 raises [$15]. tk158 folds. BaseFace calls [$15]. Jcardshark folds. jacksup calls [$30]. monkeytom1 calls [$20]. James2882 folds. brhjr calls [$15]. ** Dealing Flop ** [ Jh, Js, 2d ] monkeytom1 checks. brhjr bets [$15]. tuesday99 folds. BaseFace calls [$15]. jacksup raises [$30]. monkeytom1 folds. brhjr raises [$30]. BaseFace folds. jacksup calls [$15]. ** Dealing Turn ** [ 5s ] brhjr bets [$30]. jacksup raises [$60]. brhjr raises [$60]. jacksup raises [$60]. brhjr calls [$30]. ** Dealing River ** [ 4c ] brhjr bets [$30]. jacksup calls [$30]. brhjr shows [ Kd, Tc ] a pair of jacks. jacksup shows [ Jc, Qh ] three of a kind, jacks. jacksup wins $592 from the main pot with three of a kind, jacks. Funny thing about Party--it seems every other hand there are two or more idiots posting their big blind out of turn rather than waiting to come in. Funny thing about this hand--I virtually never call a raise cold with QJo. I say virtually never because this is about the only time I think I might consider doing it. We have $10 in dead money, FOUR $15 big blinds and one $10 small blind posted before the cards are even dealt. Pretty rare to find a $15-$30 pot that starts with $80 in it. Now, when the preflop action gets to me, one of the out-of-turn posters has raised (which means almost nothing) and then THE OTHER TWO OUT-OF-TURN POSTERS MUCK. There's $125 in the pot when the action gets to me. I'm getting 4.33-1 on my call, and only three people have voluntarily put chips in. Not only that, one of these people is brhjr, which makes folding almost impossible. Here's a really sweet hand. $15/$30 Hold'em - Wednesday, January 26, 22:26:56 EDT 2005 Table Table 12301 (Real Money) Seat 6 is the button Total number of players : 10 Seat 4: jacksup ( $1687 ) Seat 1: tk158 ( $2270 ) Seat 9: seber ( $678 ) Seat 7: brhjr ( $1011 ) Seat 10: tuesday99 ( $729 ) Seat 5: sticks11 ( $1165 ) Seat 2: doctormatt ( $648 ) Seat 3: Zapadlo ( $630 ) Seat 8: GTE51 ( $440 ) Seat 6: pgscott67 ( $474 ) brhjr posts small blind [$10]. GTE51 posts big blind [$15]. ** Dealing down cards ** Dealt to jacksup [ 8s 8h ] tk158 folds. doctormatt folds. Zapadlo folds. jacksup raises [$30]. sticks11 folds. pgscott67 folds. brhjr calls [$20]. GTE51 folds. ** Dealing Flop ** [ 9d, Jh, 9s ] brhjr checks. jacksup bets [$15]. brhjr raises [$30]. jacksup calls [$15]. ** Dealing Turn ** [ Td ] brhjr bets [$30]. jacksup calls [$30]. ** Dealing River ** [ As ] brhjr bets [$30]. jacksup calls [$30]. brhjr shows [ 5h, 2s ] a pair of nines. jacksup shows [ 8s, 8h ] two pairs, nines and eights. jacksup wins $252 from the main pot with two pairs, nines and eights. So on the turn, I had two eights on a two-flush board of 99JT, and my opponent bet into me drawing dead (well, he had six outs to chop, but drawing dead to scoop). That's almost impossible. But then again, so are these hands. Bagels on Sunday Monday, January 24, 2005 I went 0-for-3 in the three Sunday afternoon tournaments I played yesterday--UB, Stars, and (gulp) Party. I had one sort of interesting hand in the UB tournament. It's the first hour so everyone's pretty deep (UB starts its players with 2500 chips). Blinds are 20 and 40. I get dealt 54o in the small blind. UTG, an idiot, limps. The button, an idiot, limps. The big blind is also an idiot. I usually don't call with 54o out of position, even getting 7-1 and likely closing the action. But against these three guys, I thought I'd show a long-term profit by playing. I wanted to engage with the clowns (you know what they say about what you wish for). So I call. The flop comes K76 rainbow. I bet 40. Everyone calls. The turn is an eight. I bet 60. The big blind calls, UTG mucks, the button calls. The river is a three, making the board K7683, in case you missed it. I bet 375. The big blind instantly makes it 750. The button folds. The big blind has about 1700 left after raising, and I've got him covered by about 800. What's your play? Think for a second about what you would do and then read on. I'm pretty sure I'm looking at a big hand. The thing is, what is a big hand for this guy? A straight, of course, but probably also a set, and possibly even two pair. I mean, whatever hand he has (except a set of threes) he must've slowplayed, and it's not really correct to slowplay anything on this board, so we know he's a little touched in the head. There are 28 hand combinations that give him a higher straight than mine. There are 12 ways he can have a set (assuming he doesn't have KK, since he failed to raise his option preflop). So the question of whether to reraise or call comes down to whether he'd play kings up this way. There are 36 combos that give him kings up. So if there is a better than 16/36 chance he'll play kings up this way, and if he would definitely play a set this way, then I'm supposed to move in. At the time, my thinking didn't go much further than "he's an idiot, he doesn't know what a good hand is, move in." I moved in and he (obviously) called with T9. In thinking about it later, some players (incorrectly) think it's OK to slowplay a straight but not a set or two pair, and that this guy was likely to be one of those players. I don't think he would play kings up this way, and I think there was maybe only a 50 percent chance he'd play a set this way. I think I was a significant underdog to this guy's range, and that moving in was a big mistake. I hadn't made what I consider a big mistake in a long time. When I first started learning the game I thought every hand I lost I must've played badly. About a year-and-a-half ago I had come full circle and realized that it was hard for any play in poker to be THAT bad (assuming you know what you're doing). Poker's been a lot more fun for me since. That's why when I do make a play I consider terrible, it really gets to me now. I can live with bad reads, overaggressive semi-bluffs, or thin value bets (in limit) that don't work out. None of those plays can ever be that wrong. But making a bad value reraise for about the size of the pot? That bothers me. To be fair, if the big blind plays his hand correctly and raises the turn, I reraise, he jams, I call, and I have no regrets about losing my chips to him. But that's the point--this guy played his hand badly enough that I didn't have to double him up, and I did anyway. There's no point engaging with bad players if you're not going to take advantage of their mistakes. One solution to this is not to watch football when playing poker. Watch the other players instead. Maybe I should start doing that. Harrah's Atlantic City - Out on Day Two Monday, January 17, 2005 I'm done in 25th. I lost with JJ to AQo, and then with AKs to JJ. Before those two hands I had almost 100k. It's a damn shame. One really interesting hand (at least I think so): I'm the small blind with about 39k. The button is a good, solid player with a biggish stack. The big blind is Ram Vaswani, a very good, very very aggressive player, with about 50k. Blinds are 600-1200 with a 100 ante. Folded to the button who opens for 3500. I make it 11,000 in the small blind with AcJc. Ram makes it 25,000 total in the big blind. The button folds. I decide that Ram does not need a huge hand to make this play, and that AJs is one of my better reraising hands in this spot. So I call, planning to move in on any flop. I actually get a great flop, KTx with two clubs. I move in for 14,000 into the 55,000 pot. Ram thinks for a while...and mucks!?!!! All for naught, though. Guess we'll have to get 'em next time. Harrah's Atlantic City - Day One Update Monday, January 17, 2005 We got 249 starters. They would've paid 27 places if we'd had 250 starters. Instead they're paying 18. This is just fine by me. I ran my T10,000 up to T28,000 by the first break. This was mostly due to my sucking out on Lee Watkinson with 77 on a board of 456 against his AA, and then getting a ton of chips from a terrible player with 53s against his 65s on a board of 55379. By the second break I was back down to T10,000. This was mostly from calling down a player who I could've sworn was bluffing, but instead was making bizarro-thin value bets with the same pair I had. He had me outkicked and took the pot. On just the third hand back from break I was up to T23,500 again. From the small blind, I check-raised a lunatic on the button all-in with K2 on a KQx two-club board, and got called all-in by a third party who had checked earlier. The lunatic folded, the caller had QcTc, didn't hit, and I busted him. I busted Ted Forrest with aces up that beat (what he says were) his aces up and got to T35,000. I snapped off an all-in overbet bluff with middle pair (the bettor had AJ unimproved) and got to T53,000. I lost T13,000 with QQ when some psycho called my preflop raise with A2s, flopped a pair and a flush draw, got all-in and hit the second deuce on the end. I dropped down to T30,000 in a blind-on-blind confrontation with the psycho. I got back to T48,000 when I flopped a set of fives (Presto!) and got action. Specifically, my opponent, who was steaming, called my preflop raise, called me on a flop of JT5 with two diamonds, and then bet the deuces of spades turn card after I checked. He mucked when I then moved in. I end Day One with T44,800. There are 86 players left, so average stack is T28,953. It's only a three-day event, so they're going to play down to the final nine tomorrow. We'll see what happens. Off to sleep. Harrah's AC Event - IN Saturday, January 15, 2005 I pretty much decided after the Bahamas event that I wouldn't buy into any more five-figure tournaments until the World Series in July (unless I make a big score somewhere). Well, it turns out I'm playing the very first $10,000 event on the schedule this year, as I won my way into the Atlantic City WSOP Circuit event in a super satellite yesterday. It was a $200 super with unlimited rebuys for the first three levels, and a double add-on available at the break. I had T625 at the break, and I spend $1400 to get that much. Yikes. But then I had a guy fold for me when I went all-in for T400 into a T900 pot on a flop of 6h6c5h (I had king-high). Then I moved in with AT, got called by 88, and the board came Q74KJ. From there I just started moving in a lot and everyone kept folding. They gave away three seats, and from the time we got to the ninehanded final table I was never in danger. Another day, another major tournament I guess. Quick Out in the Bahamas Sunday, January 09, 2005 This one didn't last too long for me. Level One, I open for the minimum (100) with 66. Get five callers. Flop 762. I bet 400. Yosh Nakano calls on the button. Turn ten. I bet 900. Yosh calls again. River 7. I bet 2200. Yosh moves in for 3500 more. I call. He has T7. I'm down to 2800 I work the 2800 up to 4500. Then the following hand happens in Level Two. A tight-solid player opens for 300. A loose player calls. Daniel Negreanu, sitting to my immediate right, calls. I call on the button with 9d8d. The blinds fold. Flop comes Td9c2d. Tight-solid leads out for 1000. He has like 5000 left after betting. The loose player folds. Daniel moves us in (he has us both covered by at least 2-1). Thinking Daniel's range is pretty wide here, and that tight-solid will probably fold if I play, I call for all my chips. Tight-solid folds (he told me later he had QQ, and I'm sure he's not lying). Daniel has a set of deuces. I don't improve. Time to go snorkeling. $200 UB Tournament Monday, January 03, 2005 I got the New Year off to a halfway decent start by coming in third in tonight's $200 No Limit Hold 'Em tournament on Ultimate Bet. I hadn't played UB's tournament in a while, and I was extremely pleased with the structure. They start us out with 250 big blinds (more than the WSOP main event), and the tournament takes about six hours to complete. That's a lot of play for an online event. I will add, however, that their software leaves something to be desired. I used to like their software the best. Now, I'm wondering what they're thinking over there in UB feature designs. Quick example: I was sick of clicking "You won, don't show," so I went to the Options page and checked the box to "never show winning hand." After I did that, a pop-up message came up the next time I won without showing, saying something like, "Your winning cards were mucked because you selected the option to never show them. If you want to change this, go to the options page." And I had to click "OK" to get rid of the message. This then happened EVERY TIME I won without showing. Morons? The point of not having to click "You won, don't show" is that it's annoying to click it every hand. With the new "feature" you just have to click a new button every time, and it's even worse because the pop-up opens in the middle of the table. At least with "You won, don't show," the buttons are in their usual spots. I switched it back quickly. Ridiculous. So anyway, yeah I'm doing OK for the first two days of the year. I'll tell you this, though--I'm getting pretty f*ing sick of coming in third. :)  September 2004 | October 2004 | December 2004 | January 2005 | February 2005 | March 2005 | April 2005 | May 2005 | June 2005 | July 2005 | August 2005 | September 2005 | October 2005 | November 2005 | December 2005 | January 2006 | February 2006 | March 2006 | April 2006 | May 2006 | June 2006 | July 2006 | August 2006 | September 2006 | October 2006 | December 2006 | January 2007 | April 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | July 2007 | October 2007 | January 2008 | |
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© 2004-2006 by Matt Matros | All Rights Reserved |
