Archive for August, 2008

There’s a 15-minute video interview with me over at Poker Savvy Plus that I think came out pretty well. It touches on how I got involved in poker, my playing style, some common mistakes I see, and how poker interacts with my non-profit work.

I haven’t watched or followed much of the DNC Convention, but I’ve seen enough to make these two observations:

1. Hillary Clinton and the Glass Ceiling. Before Hillary’s speech, they did this video montage thing that was all about how she may not shattered the “glass ceiling” that restricts the opportunities available to women in America but she cracked in 1000 places or something. The insinuation was very much that she lost not because Obama was the better candidate but because he was a man and she was a woman and America is unfair. I’m generally fairly sympathetic to that kind of argument, but I don’t think it holds much water in this case given that Obama is contending with a glass ceiling of his own.

More importantly, though, this is just the wrong message for her to be sending. She lost the primariy, and her role now is to suck it up and throw her support behind Obama. McCain is proof that candidates who lose in a primary but toe the party line for the general election can still be viable candidates eight years down the road. McCain had much more legitimate grievances in light of the dirty tricks that Bush/Rove employed against him in 2000, but he swallowed his pride, fell into line, and now he’s getting his moment.  Read the complete post...

Two kind of interesting spots from a recent PLO session. They don’t have much in common other than the fact that both involve AAxx hands.

Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
6 players
Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $616.70
UTG+1: $236
CO: $345
Button: $806.40
Hero: $1024.30
BB: $929.40

Pre-flop: (6 players) Hero is SB with :9h :kc :as :ad
UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, 2 folds, Hero calls, BB checks.

Flop: :4s :th :ah ($16, 4 players)
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks, UTG+1 checks.

Turn: :7s ($16, 4 players)
Hero checks, BB bets $18, UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $72, Hero raises to $252, BB folds, UTG+1 calls all-in $160.
Uncalled bets: $20 returned to Hero.

River: :9c ($498, 1 player + 1 all-in – Main pot: $498)

Results:
Final pot: $498
Hero showed 9h Kc As Ad
UTG+1 showed 7c 4d 7d Kd

I just complete because I’m in the worst position and I have dry Aces, which is to say no suited cards or connectivity or anything to go along with them. These limpers are never folding, and I can pretty much only win the pot by flopping a set, so I might as well keep it small.  Read the complete post...

…but this one is kind of special. I shove flop cuz with these stacks on this board a short-stacker is check-raising any decent hand. Air is definitely the majority of his betting range here, and even when he does randomly call with top pair I have two overs and some backdoor draws. Of course, I didn’t expect him to call with air, but that was fine, too. Well, until the river, it was fine.

Poker Stars, $25/$50 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 7 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $14,462
BTN: $850
SB: $5,741
BB: $1,569
UTG: $1,000
UTG+1: $4,666
MP: $7,485

Pre-Flop: K J dealt to Hero (CO)
3 folds, Hero raises to $150, 2 folds, BB calls $100

Flop: ($325) 2 5 9 (2 Players)
BB bets $250, Hero raises to $14,312 and is All-In, BB calls $1,169 and is All-In

Turn: ($3,163) 8 (2 Players – 1 is All-In)

River: ($3,163) 7 (2 Players – 1 is All-In)

Results: $3,163 Pot ($3 Rake)
Hero mucked K J and LOST (-$1,569 NET)
BB showed J T (a straight, Seven to Jack) and WON $3,160 (+$1,591 NET)

I was really rolling in this for a few hours. There was a giant over-aggressive donkey at my starting table, and I was lucky enough to get more than a few hands against him early on to get up a nice stack.

Then I lost a good sized pot by raising up a bunch of limpers with AQ on my Button. Only the last limper called, and the pot was like twice her stack at that point. She shoved in on a QhJhTc flop and showed me KhQh, which got there.

Other than that I was running pretty well on all ins, won from the wrong end of a few 40/60′s against short stacks, and my AK held against Phwap’s AJ (pretty bad shove by him but also pretty standard for him) to pick up a nice pot.

We’d cut the field by about 85%, and I was rocking a well-above average stack. I’d been raising a lot from late position, and the table knew that. I’d shown down stuff like K2. But only one guy had been 3-betting me a lot. So I made a play at him:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 500/1,000 Blinds, 125 Ante, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

UTG+2: 9,674
MP1: 19,105
MP2: 21,027
Hero (CO): 40,285
BTN: 45,691
SB: 35,075
BB: 56,239
UTG: 34,537
UTG+1: 20,960  Read the complete post...

It’s so rare to find a tournament with a structure as good as this one. Level increases were gradual and staggered every thirty minutes, and stacks started deep. There were a couple of good tournament players at my table, most notably SCTrojans and mattyv (AKA Plattsburgh). They both probably play better 25 BB poker than I do. But in a deep-stacked, high buy-in tournament, they are welcome at my table. There was no one particularly good at the start and a few downright awful players.

Trojans is famous for being a nit, so I made a kind of big fold to him early in the tournament. Turns out I was good, but I still think it was a good fold, because I imagine he plays KK and AA the same way:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 10/20 Blinds, 7 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter

CO: 4,990
BTN: 4,960
SB: 4,980
BB: 5,060
UTG: 5,000
UTG+1: 4,980
Hero (MP): 5,030

Pre-Flop: (30) Q Q dealt to Hero (MP)
UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 60, Hero calls 60, CO folds, BTN raises to 260, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls 200, Hero calls 200

Flop: (810) 8 7 6 (3 Players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero checks, BTN bets 500, UTG+1 calls 500, Hero folds

Turn: (1,810) A (2 Players)
UTG+1 checks, BTN checks  Read the complete post...

It was Razz, so obviously nothing too interesting happened. I felt like I ran terrible, but I think everyone feels that way when they play Razz. I’m not going to bore you with any bad stories. Naturally there were a ton of players calling down to chase ridiculous stuff like rough 9′s.

This one was over quick. I 3-bet AT on the button against a pretty loose bad player in the CO whom I’d 3-bet several times before. He called. The flop came T-high with a flush draw. He checked and called. The turn was a 9, making the board something like T973. He shoved into me for about 120% of the pot. I figured the 9 had improved his hand, but I thought it was most likely to something that I still beat. 87 or or something would make sense. I called, he showed me T9, and that was all she wrote.