Posts Tagged ‘Las Vegas’

My latest poker strategy article, Joseph Cheong WSOP Final Table “Blow Up“, has just been published in the December 2010 issue of 2+2 Magazine. It’s an in-depth analysis of the complex factors at play in the infamous A7 vs. QQ hand, many of which have been overlooked by commentary thus far:

Though some have questioned it, Duhamel’s decision to risk his tournament life with QQ seems intuitive enough when we see that Cheong is indeed capable of making a move like this. It was Cheong’s play with Ace-rag that really raised eyebrows. The conventional wisdom has been that this was a “blow up”, a spiraling out of control of the disciplined aggression that had kept Cheong in control of the final table for most of the day.

I am not so quick to agree. I can’t say for certain whether his play was correct, but I can imagine circumstances that would justify it. Whether those circumstances existed I don’t know, because I was not at the table that night, but neither were those rushing to condemn his play. The critiques that I’ve read have generally failed to address the possible justifications for this aggressive move. In short, I’ve concluded that while Cheong’s play certainly looks reckless, we don’t have the information we’d need to judge him definitively.  Read the complete post...

The exciting conclusion of my 2010 WSOP Main Event trip report, covering Days 5 and 6, is now appearing in the October issue of 2+2 Magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

My Day 6 felt like what the World Series of Poker is supposed to be about: a battle of wits and will amongst the poker world’s elite. Of the 7,319 people who entered the main event, only 205 of us remained. My 1.2 million chips put me right around the average.

At times, the final table felt so close I could taste it. After all, I’d already outlasted thousands of players, and I was a good player with a lot of chips. I was practically there!

Except not really. To make it to this point, I had outlasted 97% of the field. To make it to the final 9, I was going to have to do the same thing again. Only 9 of the 205 of us, or 4%, would make it there. There were quite a few good players remaining, many of whom had even more chips than I did, and all of whom wanted to be there just as badly as I did. I’d come a long way, of course, but there was still a long way to go and a lot of great players to go past.  Read the complete post...

The second installment of my trip report from the main event of the 2010 World Series of Poker, covering Days 3 and 4, has just been published in the September issue of 2+2 Magazine. Here’s an excerpt:

I came into Day 4 with a monster stack relative to the field. I had over 500,000 chips, when the average was about 180,000, ranking me 27th among the more than 1,200 players who remained. Day 4 was a particularly good day for this, as it was also the day that would separate the players who would win nothing from those who would take home at least $19,000. With 747 players to be paid, no one wanted to be eliminated in 748th place (or 762nd, for that matter), which meant that most people were playing more conservatively than usual.

I had the biggest stack at my table, and the only person who even came close was a guy two seats to my right whom I’d never heard of. He was sitting on about 400,000 chips. It looked like all the stars were aligned for me to steamroll the table and steal steal steal, but it didn’t go quite as flawlessly as I’d imagined it.

Please let me know what you think!

The first installment of my 2010 WSOP main event trip report, covering Days 1 and 2, is now appearing in the 2+2 Internet Magazine:

“We began play with 30,000 chips each and blinds of just 50 and 100. On the very first hand, about half the table folded before the player on my right, a young French Canadian in a red hoodie who looked sort of like a raccoon, made a small raise to 200. I was next to act holding K5s. I re-raised to 600. Everyone folded, and just like that I was up to 30,350 chips. It was the most I would have all day.”

If you want to find out what went wrong on Day 1 and why I got called a “douchebag” on Day 2, then read the article. And of course, let me know what you think of it!

This year’s WSOP journey ended for me about an hour ago. Out of more than 7000 players, I finished 87th and won just shy of $80,000. There was nothing dramatic about it. I lost two very standard pre-flop hands to Eric Baldwin, once with A4s < KJs for a 700K pot and once with A8s < JTs for a 1.6M chip pot. Then I made a standard preflop shove with A7, got called by QQ, and lost.

There is always a modest amount of disappointment when it’s all over, but of course all in all I’m quite pleased with the result. I’m also very happy that for the first time ever I feel like I played through this whole tournament without making any big mistakes and with only a few small ones. That doesn’t mean that everything always went my way, but as they say you play the cards you’re dealt, and I believe that I would play most of them the same way if I had it to do all over again.

I was on the secondary feature table for the first few hours today, meaning both that I managed to secure an endorsement deal that brought me a little extra money and also that I’ll likely make an appearance on the ESPN broadcast of this tournament. One hand in particular is quite likely to be on there:  Read the complete post...

What a run. In the last two days I’ve 20x’ed my chips without ever seeing TT, QQ, KK, or AA. I did have AK quite a few times today, though, and I connected with a few flops when it counted.

I stole more than my share of pots for a few hands, then made a questionable 4-bet shove with AKo. UTG+1 had raised to 2500, and I called with AKo next to his act. Then Brian Jensen re-raised to 8500, the raiser folded, and I shoved like 55K. He snap-called with KK, and then though I turned a flush draw, I couldn’t get there on the river. I probably should have just 3-bet the original raiser, and that would have had the added advantage of being able to get away if Brian cold 4-bet. Anyway, that didn’t help.

Not long after, I flatted a raise from a kind of active older Japanese guy with 99 on my BB. Flop was perfect: A92 with a flush draw. I check, he bets 4000, I raise to 14000, he calls. Turn A. I bet 30K, he puts me all in for like 75K total, I call and hold vs. his AQ.  Read the complete post...

Today was everything that Wednesday was not, namely fun and profitable. I had a very enjoyable table and showed a handsome profit to boot.

Early on I doubled up with Q’s vs. 9′s on a 4h 4s 3h 2h board. We both had a heart, so he was in real bad shape there.

Then after getting a kind of aggro image I opened to 1100 with Ad 9s UTG+1 at 200/400/25. Two loose guys on my left call and decent tourney player on button makes it 4400. I 4-bet him to 12K, and he called quite quickly. I was ready to be done with the hand, but I flopped Qd 6d 5d, so I had to go with it. I get 16K, and he quickly called again. The turn was 4s, and at this point even if I knew he had a pair I was basically committed to the pot, so I shoved my last 25K. He tanked for a long time and made what I think was a good call with JJ no diamond. Unfortunately for him I drilled the Jd on the river to double up again.  Read the complete post...

Well, today’s the day! I’ll be playing Day 1C, beginning in about 3 hours. I know I don’t tweet much outside of poker tournaments, but I will be sending updates from my phone about chip counts and big pots. You can follow me at www.twitter.com/thinkingpoker. Of course I’ll post some more detailed info to the blog tomorrow as well.

Thanks to all those who are rooting for me!