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Lame
Monday, May 05, 2008 I got in to Atlantic City at about 12:30 a.m. late Saturday night (technically Sunday morning). I tried to register for the next day's tournament (the Deep Stack--the one I came to town for), but naturally Borgata closes its tournament registration at midnight. It reopened at eight the next morning. At about 8:15 a.m. I rolled over in bed and thought about running downstairs in my pajamas, registering, and then going back to sleep. Instead I just went back to sleep. At 10 a.m. I got a call from my friend Ed. The registration line was ten-fifteen minutes long, and did I want him to wait in line for me while I made my way downstairs to register? "I haven't showered or anything, so I'll be more than ten minutes." I said. "It's not gonna sell out, right?" "No," he said. "You just might miss some of the first level waiting on line." "That's fine, I don't care about that." At 10:25 a.m., showered and ready, I went downstairs and got on the registration line. To reiterate, I was there a solid 35 minutes before the scheduled start time of 11 a.m. The line went out of the poker room, all the way to the Wolfgang Puck restaurant down the hall. The following pieces of information soon became apparent. 1) About 700 seats had already been sold. 2) They only had tables to accommodate about 700 people (they had been expecting 400-500--how they came up with that expectation I don't know). 3) I was about 90th in line. 4) There were at least another 100 people lined up behind me (and that's being conservative). A little after 11, the tournament director started handing out alternate tickets to those of us in line who hadn't yet paid for seats. I got alternate #70. The tournament started, and a funny thing happened--a bidding war broke out for the alternate tickets. Alternates 1-11 were seated immediately because the director made one new table. We'd been told they were going to try to open a few more tables once the tournament got going (at least ten tables were being used for cash games), so it looked like my #70 had a real shot of getting in. Ticket #13 was immediately sold for $850. (The buy-in for this event was $2,150.) #31 went for $400. I was offered $200 for my #70, but declined. #78 went for $150. The buyers reeked of gambling addicts desperate to be playing poker for the next three days. I get pretty sick just thinking about paying juice. These guys were willing to pay almost half the buy-in on top of the juice, just to have the right to buy in to the tournament. After two hours of this, I asked around to see if they were going to break any of the cash tables, as we'd been led to believe they would. They didn't. And we were only on alternate #17 (meaning only six people had busted--not too surprising given the 600-big blind starting stacks). At that point I knew I had no shot and kicked myself for not taking the $200 when I had a chance. Of course, everyone who's heard this story says I would've been crazy to take that $200 at that point, and I agree. So even though it was a bad result, I think it was a good decision at the time to pass on the money. When all was said and done, I think #43 was the magic alternate. The guy immediately ahead of me in line (#69) bought #25 for $800 and got in. On the one hand, I'm glad I wasn't one of the throngs of gamblers so desperate to play this tournament that they were willing to pay $800+ just for the privilege of buying in two hours after the event started. On the other hand, it was pretty damn annoying to travel all the way to AC and not play a hand of poker. I was actually looking forward to playing this thing! In Borgata's defense, they did a lot to help the players. They went 11-handed, and they allowed alternates for three levels instead of two. I think their failing was in their severely restricted registration process. If they'd had registrations open at more hours for more days leading up to the event, they would've had a suspicion they were getting closer to 1,000 players than 400, and they would've had more time to figure out how to deal with that. On the day of, they couldn't secure more room, or fight to get more cash games broken. Pretty unfortunate. I'm officially alienated, and I wonder if I'll play there again. I mean, don't advertise a Deep Stack tournament, and then turn away 20 percent of the people who show up to play it. I'll probably end up playing there at some point in the future, but right now I'm annoyed. Oh well, good thing another FTOPS starts up this week! I know I won't get shut out of those! Almost Tuesday, April 22, 2008 I came damn close to winning Bodog on Sunday for $25k (die-hards will remember that I won this tournament about a year ago). Instead I had to settle for 7th place and $3500. I ran pretty damn good all the way to the final table, at which point I decided to reraise the very active chip leader with KTo. He flat-called, and I happily moved all-in on the KJT flop. Unfortunately he showed me AQ and that was that. I'll be playing the Borgata deep stack event the weekend after this one, so if any readers are going to be in AC at that time, please shoot me a message. Brief Foxwoods Report Tuesday, April 08, 2008 I recently went to the Foxwoods Poker Classic for a few days. I played the $2,000 event and got knocked out earlyish when my 88 couldn't beat 33 for a 7k pot (we started with 8k in chips), and my AK couldn't win a flip for the rest. I got pretty deep in the $3,000 event. The highlight hand came at the 100-200/25 level. A weak loose-passive player limped in the cutoff, and I made it 800 from the button with KQo. A tight/straightforward older player (a polite gentleman type) called in the big blind and the cutoff of course called as well. The flop came K62 rainbow. It checked to me and I bet 1600 into the 2700 pot. The big blind minimum raised to 3200. The cutoff folded and I called. The turn paired the king, also bringing a backdoor diamond draw. The big blind checked, and I bet 5,500. He started shaking his head and muttering, and then thought for a long time. If he was acting, it was an Oscar-worthy performance. He then called. The river brought the backdoor flush, and the big blind checked again. I really didn't think he called the turn with a flush draw, and I really thought I had the best hand as this player was very straightforward and it seemed clear he didn't like the king on the turn. So I moved all-in for 12,575. (This was at a point in the tournament when the average stack was probably 15k.) He practically jumped out of his seat as he shook his head in disbelief. He had me covered by only a few hundred. After several minutes, he counted out the chips to call and then continued to ponder. I finally called the clock, and once I did he called me after only a few more seconds' thought. I tabled my hand and it was good. What do people think he had? (I've only come up with one reasonable guess.) Unfortunately I lost a few showdowns later on and finished 22nd when 18 were getting paid. Oh well, that's tournament poker. I decided not to play the main event for a number of reasons (mostly I didn't get much rest the previous two nights and I didn't feel I was in the right frame of mind to start a six-day event and risk $10,000 doing it). But I feel that I've been playing well over the last six months (I think doing these stoxpoker videos has actually helped me in my own game), and I want to take another crack at a big tournament soon. I think maybe I'll do the big stack tournament at Borgata the first weekend in May, and then of course the good old World Series of Poker. Anybody else have suggestions? Good luck to all in your next tournament. A good Sunday Monday, March 10, 2008 I entered four tournaments yesterday. First was the $500 buy-in main event of the Bodog Poker Open. I was stunned at how good the structure was for this thing. They started us with 500 blinds and the levels were 20 minutes long. I check-raised the flop and then bluffed the turn early (and lost), and ran top two into bottom set (and lost), and still had sixty percent of my starting stack two hours in. Eventually I ran KQs into AK blind-on-blind and busted. I actually could've thought about folding. I opened for 3 and the big blind moved in for about 28 if I recall correctly. Nah, who am I kidding--I'm never folding KQs blind-on-blind for those stack sizes. I "played" the $535 WSOP super satellite on FTP next. I say "played" because I was the first out. On hand number one, I thought AK might be a pretty good hand on the J86AA board. But my opponent liked his sixes full better. With starting stacks of 150 blinds, I didn't have any way to avoid going broke (in my opinion), and busted. Stars started at 5:30 p.m. eastern because apparently they can't figure out daylight savings time. I got ahold of a few chips, and then I got in position to make a serious run when a guy just handed me 147,000 more. With blinds of 1500-3000 and some tiny ante, UTG min-raised. I called in the small blind with 44. By the way, we were literally on the bubble, and playing hand-for-hand. The big blind made it 12k more. UTG folded. I had 159k left and my opponent had me covered. I believe we were the two biggest stacks at the table. I called. The flop came ace-high. Check-check. The turn was (obviously, since I'm writing about it) a four. I led out for 29k. My opponent min-raised to 58k. I was suspicious of three aces, but not nearly suspicious enough to slow down, and I moved in for 89k more. My opponent called like a shot and I actually thought I was toast. But no, he turned over...two kings????!!!!! The poor guy clearly didn't know much about poker to lose so many chips in that fashion, but I'll never turn down a gift. As we entered the money, I was the tournament's chip leader. While this was going on, I was also making a run in the FTP tournament. In fact, I was in second place in chips with 190 players left. But then I lost with two tens to two fours (all-in preflop) and that dropped me back to merely a very good stack. A few orbits later I lost with QQ to AK and was left with less than one blind and busted on the next hand. If I'd won that flip I would've been top five in chips again, but oh well. It was on to Stars. I stayed right around 340k for a long while after the big hand on Stars, not finding any good spots to put my chips in play. Eventually the blinds got big and I was able to chip up quite nicely to about 1 mil. I did that partially by winning a showdown with A6 against A2s. It was especially lucky, since my opponent flopped a flush draw! I then got it to 2 mil when I beat two sevens with my two kings. But I lost three medium pots against short stacks. I had the worst hand every time, but not usually by much. And I stole enough that I still had 1.6 mil when I ran QQ into KK and lost. Left with .27 blinds, I busted on the next hand. I finished 35th out of 7,349, which isn't too shabby, but in my opinion should be worth more than 17 buy-ins. The guy who beat my QQ with his KK ended up winning the tournament. It's actually kind of sick. I had clearly a good Sunday of tournaments, but I made a profit of only $2,538. Given that the buy-ins totaled $1,466, I didn't really exceed expectation by that much. I'm sure I'm spitting into the wind here, but I'd love it if online sites only paid ten percent of the field, and took the money they're currently paying out to the bottom places and save it for the people who finish in the top 0.5% or so. This pay structure would better suit the styles of anyone playing good tournament strategy. My final table video from the FTOPS event will be released on stoxpoker.com this week. At that point, I'll share some of the hands from that tournament in this space. Best of luck if you're playing cards this week. Results from Sunday Tuesday, February 26, 2008 Result: I had 5h4h, my opponent had a set of sevens. Those of you who put me on 98s or a set, those hands are also in my range, as are (probably) AhKh and AhQh. AA and KK are not in my range. Those of you who had my opponent on AA or KK, it would be a big mistake for my opponent to call me with those hands (although that doesn't necessarily mean you've made a bad read). He should, of course, call with middle set or better. Bottom set actually puts him in a tough spot as he is often drawing to one out. I wouldn't fault a call or a fold with bottom set there. It's funny, people who know me from this journal seemed to put me on a semibluff, and people who know me from stoxpoker seemed to put me on a set/straight. I guess images are created even away from the table! Matt A New Sunday Sunday, February 24, 2008 OK, I promised a more-detailed post about my second-place finish in the FTOPs event. Unfortunately, I don't remember a lot of hands to regale you with, but I'll give some general impressions. I was very happy with the way I played. I felt I really thought through all my options well in each spot--sometimes continuation betting, other times trying a check-raise instead, sometimes restealing all-in, sometimes NOT restealing all-in (that one is very hard for me). Tell you what, I'll give you a bunch of hands from the final table after the video of my final table play is posted to stoxpoker.com. Incidentally, you can already see an hour's worth of my play from the event at stox now, for those of you who might be interested in becoming members. As for today, let's see wha happen? I got through two hours of the Bodog event, but lost a chunk of chips with KK to KQs (all-in preflop). Can I remember how I finally went broke...ah yes, I got involved against a short stack's JJ with my 66 and lost. And then I stuck in my remaining 6 blinds with QJ, only to run into AQ and lose again. That one wasn't so fun. Stars kicked off at 4:30 eastern. I had about 9200 at the 50-100 level when the following hand went down. I raised to 200 from UTG+1. The player to my right called, as did the button and the big blind. The flop came T76 with two hearts. I bet 600. The next seat made it 1,450. The others folded, and I moved in for 7,550 more. My opponent called. What are the two hands? Feel free to email me your guesses. I'll post the result tomorrow. I busted in this hand, but I won't taint your thinking by telling you whether it was a bad beat. On FTP, I bravely made it to the 25-50 level. At that point, a player opened for 225 with 5 players behind him. I had a total of 3,110 to start the hand, he had me slightly covered, and I had an awkward decision in the big blind with AQo after everyone folded to me. I didn't want to reraise to 750 and then fold getting a good price, but I didn't want to just shove all-in for 3,110 to win 300 either. I decided to call. The flop came J54 with two diamonds. I checked and my opponent bet 225. I decided he was weak and raised to 825. He called. The turn came an offsuit 9, and at that point I was ready to check and fold. My opponent, surprisingly, checked behind me. The river came an offsuit king. I thought this was a great card, as I had my opponent on a middle pair or possibly a jack or flush draw (that was less likely, because I had the Ad in my hand), and I didn't think he'd call with any of those hands. I moved in for 2,060 into the 2,125 pot. The dude had the old Kd7d and called after a few seconds, ending my tournament in a hurry. We'll have to get 'em next time! When you play for first... Sunday, February 10, 2008 ...sometimes you finish second. Longer post to follow, eventually.  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