Posts Tagged ‘FTOPS’

Tournament Statistics

Certainly an above average year in tournaments, with an FTOPS win, a WCOOP final table, a SCOOP final table bubble, and a top 100 finish in the WSOP Main Event. No room to complain about anything here. My true ROI is probably in the neighborhood of 100%, so I ran well above expectation. The high average buy-in and field size indicate that I focused my play on big buy-in events and special huge-field events like the WCOOP, FTOPS, and Sunday tournaments, which was the goal.

ROI: 395.8%

ITM: 17.5%

Average Buy-In: $546

Average Field Size: 2,204

Average Finish: 38.7%

Win Rate: .73 Buy-Ins/Hour

Biggest Win: $2000 FTOPS 2-Day NLHE

Cash Game Statistics

These numbers aren’t as bad as they look. Basically I got creamed in some high stakes heads up games, and those dragged down my overall win rates. Excluding heads up games, I’m up across the board, even in high-stakes games (2.5 BB/100 win rate). Basically I just need to either get better at heads up, stop playing it, or at least practice better game selection.

I’m also a little unhappy with the number of hands played. Because of my nomadic lifestyle, I was on my laptop for most of the year, with just one monitor. Thus I often played just 4 tables at once. It’s been nice getting back on two monitors, and I’m looking forward to getting a lot more hands in for 2011.  Read the complete post...

Happy Thanksgiving! Here in the US, today is a day for reflecting on all that you’re thankful for in life. Here’s my poker list:

10. Sharron Angle- Thanks for being so goddamn crazy that you couldn’t even get elected as a Republican in Nevada during the 2010 midterms. If anyone remotely competent had gotten your party’s nomination, poker players would be without our friend Harry Reid in the Senate.

9. The 2+2 Pokercast- Fantastic free entertainment! They have consistently great guests and keep me in the loop about both important developments in the poker world and the best photoshop threads in BBV4L. The Pokercast is a regular companion when I’m grinding the Sunday Majors.

8. Barney Frank- If we see fully legalized and regulated online poker in the US anytime soon, it will be because of Barney Frank. So here’s to you, you beautiful curmudgeonly bastard!

7. Rush Poker- I buy the hype; this is a major development that will change the face of online poker. It’s fast, it’s fun, and it’s bringing in new recreational players. Now let’s see some heads up Rush in 2011!

6. My $25,000 Suckout- It was the single biggest pot of my career, and I needed a miracle to win it.  Read the complete post...

I started things off with a solid cold decking, and within minutes I was 3rd overall:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 10/20 Blinds 3 Ante (9 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG (t6043)
UTG+1 (t6006)
MP1 (t6253)
MP2 (t5929)
MP3 (t5889)
CO (t5949)
Button (t5949)
SB (t6133)
Hero (BB) (t5849)

Hero’s M: 102.61

Preflop: Hero is BB with 5, 6
1 fold, UTG+1 bets t50, 6 folds, Hero calls t30

Flop: (t137) 2, 3, 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets t80, Hero raises to t299, UTG+1 raises to t660, Hero raises to t1442, UTG+1 calls t782

Turn: (t3021) 6 (2 players)
Hero bets t1444, UTG+1 raises to t4511 (All-In), Hero calls t2910 (All-In)

River: (t11729) 6 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t11729

Results:
Hero had 5, 6 (straight flush, six high).
UTG+1 had A, J (flush, Ace high).
Outcome: Hero won t11729

The next few hours were brutal, and I never got much about 13K. I was getting 3- and 4-bet mercilessly, but no action when I had hands. Then finally I got some action when I had QQ, and, well, you can guess how that ended.

It’s actually an interesting hand. Villain is 24/20 and an aggressive tournament regular who probably views me in much the same way. I’d open folded to him once from my SB, then there was this:  Read the complete post...

One of my criticisms of Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time, which I generally liked, was that the authors neglected opportunities to play Ace-high for showdown value and turned such hands into a bluff too frequently. Today I had the misfortune of having one of the authors to my immediate left in the $200 FTOPS 6-Max, but I did catch him turning Ace-high into a bluff:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 30/60 Blinds (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP (t3970)
CO (t6725)
Button (t5075)
SB (t2240)
Hero (BB) (t6789)
UTG (t10726)

Hero’s M: 75.43

Preflop: Hero is BB with 2, 2
UTG bets t180, 4 folds, Hero calls t120

Flop: (t390) 7, 6, 10 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

Turn: (t390) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets t246, UTG raises to t645, Hero calls t399

River: (t1680) 9 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

Total pot: t1680

Results:
Hero had 2, 2 (two pair, sevens and twos).
UTG had Q, A (one pair, sevens).
Outcome: Hero won t1680

A lot of players are torn about what to do when they know an opponent is frequently betting the flop without a hand. Is it better to float, or to bluff-raise? I’ve written a strategy article on the subject, but in the 1K FTOPS tonight, I had the chance to do both in the same hand:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 30/60 Blinds (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Hero (Button) (t9676)
SB (t1885)
BB (t5429)
UTG (t9245)
MP (t2815)
CO (t8180)

Hero’s M: 107.51

Preflop: Hero is Button with J, 9
UTG bets t150, 2 folds, Hero calls t150, 2 folds

Flop: (t390) 2, 10, 4 (2 players)
UTG bets t210, Hero raises to t526, UTG raises to t1035, Hero calls t509

Turn: (t2460) 9 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets t999, 1 fold

Total pot: t2460

Results:
Hero didn’t show J, 9.
Outcome: Hero won t2460

Villain was tight and extremely aggressive when involved in a hand. Nevertheless, I don’t think there’s a single value hand he 3-bets on this flop. I was betting any turn and expecting him to fold, but I don’t think that’s a reason to check a 9, as I don’t feel I can call a bet on most any river.

Finished a very frustrating 12/500 in this, capping off a long and shitty day of poker. I was in very good shape approaching the bubble, then got scooped in two sizable pots to get busted down to average as we approach the final two tables. Cyndy Violette took two more big pots off of me, including a questionable value bet that I made with a rivered pair of Aces into her two pair. I can’t complain, really- I was never great at Stud/8 anyway, and I was really rusty to boot. Probably I didn’t even deserve to make it this far. Man another FTOPS win would have been sweet though. Maybe this weekend.

I was telling my girlfriend about the latest online poker gossip/scandal involving an alleged chatlog in which Thorladen and Imperium discuss multi-accounting with the help of services like GoToMyPC that allow you to access other computers remotely from a different computer anywhere in the world. The basic idea, and something that has surely happened dozens of times whether these two actually did it or not, is for a very good tournament player to stake several decent but less-good tournament players in super-profitable online events like the WCOOP or the FTOPS. Should one of the horses start to get deep in the tournament, the better player can take over for the decisions that will have the biggest impact on the team’s EV.

“They’re like poker fluffers,” she quipped without missing a beat. “They get it started, and then the pro comes in to finish it off. You’d have to be a pretty big tool to agree to something like that, not just ethically but like… as a matter of personal respect.”

I agree, though I’m sure plenty of people care a lot more about getting backed for these tournaments by any means necessary, not to mention getting to take credit for the win on sites like Pocket 5′s, than they do about stuff like ethics and personal respect. Anyway, I think “Poker Fluffers” is a brilliant names for these clowns, and I encourage you all to do your part to make it stick!

I won’t be a back-to-back champion in the $2000 2-day FTOPS. I actually had quite good luck with my table draws, recognizing no one at my starting table and only two players over the course of the three and a half hours I played: Eric Froehlich and Tmay. The two big pots I lost were with AA and KK:

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold’em Tournament, 30/60 Blinds 7 Ante (6 handed) – Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t1851)
BB (t2250)
UTG (t8364)
MP (t15220)
CO (t6557)
Hero (Button) (t5577)

Hero’s M: 42.25

Preflop: Hero is Button with A, A
UTG bets t150, 2 folds, Hero raises to t444, 2 folds, UTG raises to t1095, Hero calls t651

Flop: (t2322) 4, 9, 8 (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets t777, UTG calls t777

Turn: (t3876) K (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero checks

River: (t3876) A (2 players)
UTG bets t3876, Hero folds

Total pot: t3876

Results:
UTG didn’t show
Outcome: UTG won t3876

I flat the 4-bet because I think the hands that call a 5-bet shove are stacking off on most flops anyway, especially since an A isn’t too likely to flop nor is AK likely to be his hand given that I hold two A’s. This was not exactly the flop I was hoping for, though.  Read the complete post...