Posts Tagged ‘WCOOP’

As part of their 10th anniversary celebration, PokerStars asked their sponsored players for our early memories of playing on the site. You can find out how I got started on PokerStars in my recent piece for the PokerStars blog:

PokerStars was the first place that seemed to be in it for the long term. They had clearly invested in their product and their personnel. As a result, it seemed to be where all the best players were playing, both those I recognized from TV and the legends of the online poker forums.

What do you remember about the early days of PokerStars? When and why did you start playing there?

Three weeks gone by and thousands spent,

I fled my homeland for this event,

matched wits with the pros and the keyboard droolers,

but fell to a series of beats and coolers.

Pay attention, friends! Don’t let those eyelids droop,

as I sing to you of my WCOOP.

On September 4th, bright and fresh,

I sat to find Liv Boeree on my left.

Immediately my equity took a dive,

without the benefits of meeting her live!

Nothing doing, quickly busted.

Have my long-dormant skills have gone rusted?

Another 6-max, another chance for Yahtzee,

Another seating draw beat, as I met with Raaszi.

He 4-bet shoved, my Queens held out,

and that was the end of de heer Veldhuis.

I ran over the table, never let up,

got down to two, and crushed it heads up.

Second table the same, got it heads up again,

but he made Kings and Queens, when I had Queens and Tens.

‘Twas was not the end of the sweat for me,

a player I backed was heads up at table 3!

But the bad beat fairy was right on track,

And he bubbled the final table Ace-King to Ace-Jack.  Read the complete post...

I suppose my main event was a fitting end to the series and a paradigmatic WCOOP experience. In the early stages I plundered the satellite qualifiers, going on an early rush that made me chipleader with 1400 players remaining. Over time the table got tougher and tougher, with 3-bet pots becoming the norm and 4-bets not uncommon. I went card dead for a few hours, with people coming over the top every time I tried to steal, except for the few times that I actually legitimate hands, when I either won the blinds or ended up having to make a big fold post-flop. I spent the last few hours of the day rocking a 20-40 BB stack and finding spots to pick up pots without showdown. Eventually I got into a coin flip, the first time I’d been all in for my tournament life, and won it to reach my high point for the tournament, which by that time was still just 75% of the average. Then it was back to card dead as I blinded down, finally getting all in with AK for my last 19 BBs. Villain had Aces, and I was eliminated with an hour to go in the day and about 10% of the remaining field needing to be eliminated before we made the money.  Read the complete post...

This was one of the more frustrating events I played, probably because it came on the tail end of so many other frustrations. I played for nearly 7.5 hours and finished in something like 140th place with 108 paying. This is the hand that I went out on:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 530 Tournament, 1000/2000 Blinds 250 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t183638)
BB (t37589)
UTG (t51714)
Hero (UTG+1) (t100357)
MP1 (t185740)
MP2 (t104500)
MP3 (t22619)
CO (t171688)
Button (t73031)

Hero’s M: 19.12

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with A♠, K♠
1 fold, Hero bets t4000, 5 folds, SB raises to t10475, 1 fold, Hero calls t6475

Flop: (t25200) 5♠, J♠, 7♦ (2 players)
SB bets t10480, Hero calls t10480

Turn: (t46160) K♥ (2 players)
SB bets t19925, Hero calls t19925

River: (t86010) 9♦ (2 players)
SB bets t142508 (All-In), Hero calls t59227 (All-In)

Total pot: t204464

Results:
SB had K♣, J♦ (two pair, Kings and Jacks).
Hero had A♠, K♠ (one pair, Kings).
Outcome: SB won t204464

Villain is a very good player who ended up final tabling this tournament. He plays in high stakes tournaments and cash games as big as 50/100. He’d been very quiet up to this point, but I’m sure he’s capable of making moves, so if anything that probably makes him more likely to try something.  Read the complete post...

Sorry for the lack of posts on here. It’s just that I’ve been playing so much poker that when I’m finished I don’t feel like spending another half-hour at the computer putting together a blog post.

Also I haven’t done anything of great interest in any of the recent WCOOPs. In fact, this is going to be a bit of a whine post. I’ve lost a lot of big pots with set under set and similar “cooler” situations. In most cases, though, I think there’s at least a case to be made that I could have played the hand differently and lost less, so hopefully it will be a little interesting to look at these. I’m actually less likely to make hero folds when I know I’ve been getting coolered a lot recently, because I start to trust my judgment less. I question whether I’m really beat or just seeing monsters under the bed.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 215 Tournament, 60/120 Blinds 25 Ante (9 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP2 (t6562)
MP3 (t18842)
CO (t9399)
Button (t1569)
SB (t4358)
BB (t5425)
UTG (t8312)
UTG+1 (t1171)
Hero (MP1) (t14061)

Hero’s M: 34.72

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A♥, Q♥
2 folds, Hero bets t300, 1 fold, MP3 calls t300, 2 folds, SB calls t240, 1 fold  Read the complete post...

Round 1

My first opponent was a guy I didn’t recognize from China. Before cards were even dealt, he typed “lololol pro so cool”. Based on that alone, I predicted that he was going to give me no credit and try to outplay me.

Picking up JJ on the first hand was a dream come true. Blinds were 25/50, and he opened to 150. I made it 550, and he shoved for 7500.

This wasn’t precisely the result I wanted. I generally prefer not to play big pre-flop pots in these tournaments when I’m up against someone I expect to have an edge against, because in deep-stacked HU NLHE, edges can be very big. Based on his pre-flop chatter, I expected that he would be spazzing here a lot and dominating me rarely to never. It’s unfortunate that some of his spazzes are near-coinflips against me, but I’m on the right side of the coinflip, and even a 5% edge in a 300BB pot is pretty significant. He could also have some pairs that I dominate. So I called and won a flip against KQo to win the match on the first hand.

FWIW I probably would have folded AQ, not because I expected to be behind, but because I’d expect to find better spots.  Read the complete post...

The biggest news is that fellow PokerStars Team Online member and old-school MTT forum member Shane “Shaniac” Schleger won the 2-7 Triple Draw WCOOP yesterday! My excitement for him was tempered only slightly when I double-checked the terms of our staking arrangement and confirmed that I had 20% of him in all of the NLHE events but 0% in the other games. As some of you may know, he was a hair’s breadth away from final tabling the 6-Max Shootout last week, which was a tournament in which I did have an interest! Oh well, he’ll just have to run deep in yet another one.

Speaking of running deep, I had two solid WCOOP finishes today, 89/1253 in the $200 NLHE Rebuy and 13/1426 in the $109 8-Game. Almost everything I did in the NLHE event would qualify as a standard, and I busted on a bit of bad luck:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, 215 Tournament, 1500/3000 Blinds 375 Ante (8 handed) – PokerStars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

SB (t91766)
BB (t466222)
UTG (t63769)
UTG+1 (t100304)
Hero (MP1) (t72475)
MP2 (t121184)
CO (t45801)
Button (t121198)

Hero’s M: 9.66

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with 7, 7
2 folds, Hero bets t6000, 4 folds, BB calls t3000

Flop: (t16500) 3, 10, 10 (2 players)

BB checks, Hero bets t7777, BB calls t7777  Read the complete post...

I don’t have much of interest to report from the other WCOOPs I’ve played recently, which were the $1K NLHE and the $500 NLHE Triple Shootout. I registered 2.5 hours late for the 8-Game but ended up running up a big stack almost immediately but running well in PLO, Triple Draw, and O/8. I lost about 1/3 of my stack in a Stud hand that I probably played badly because I suck at Stud, and then there was this hand in Stud/8.

I think it’s interesting primarily for the 5th street action. I’ve got a small pair, a low draw, and a flush draw, but presumably not yet a winner for anything. Although Villain catches an A, two of the others are dead, it seemed like a good spot for me to try to rep that I had a made Aces up or trip deuces. I doubted he would have better than Kings up. Even that seems unlikely when I end up rivering Kings up myself, but I think his raise on 6th has to be extremely strong. I tanked for a long time before folding the river, and I posted the hand on 2p2 because I’m far from certain I played it correctly.  Read the complete post...