Links

Twitch
Twitter
Joe Ingram Interview

Timestamps

0:30 – hello
4:45 – KL
62:49 – strat

For the first time in a while, my girlfriend is here with me. Understandably she wasn’t interested in spending the summer in some sad, low-end studio apartment of the sort I’ve rented for past WSOP trips. But she also wasn’t interested in some luxury one-bedroom condo – she wouldn’t be my girlfriend if she were! #nitcast

Her suggestion was that we rent a house instead. I was a bit reluctant, because I didn’t have any clear idea of who would occupy the other bedrooms, but it looks like it’s going to work out well. Dara O’Kearney will be here for most of the summer, and then a variety of friends and students will rotate through the third bedroom over the course of the series. I’ve often said that one of my biggest regrets is that I never did the whole “rent a house with a bunch of other players and spend the summer immersed in poker and learning from each other” thing, and this is the closest I’m likely to get.

It’s what I think of as a typical Las Vegas house: newly built, blandly functional, and fundamentally cheap beneath a facade of luxury. I’ve always said that Las Vegas is a microcosm of everything that’s wrong with America.

Speaking of which, the house is in a little gated community that, judging by the packet of rules that was waiting for us when we arrived, seems to be governed by an aggressive Homeowner’s Association. Though ridiculous (No fake plants of any kind on exterior property! No decorations except for American flags or appropriate holiday decorations that are promptly removed!), none of these seems likely to affect us except for aggressive street parking restrictions which could be an issue because the house has a two-car garage but we’re likely to have three cars here at various times (returning again to the theme of everything that’s wrong with America). In all likelihood we’ll just be able to get a visitor parking permit and it will all be fine, but I’ll feel better once that’s sorted out with the landlord.

Anyway, on our first night here, I dreamt that a high school friend of mine, his family, and his dog (I don’t know where that last part came from, as he doesn’t have a dog and never has) came to stay with us. Also my boyhood dog, Paul, was alive and with us. My friend’s dog ran away, and while we were out look looking for it, Paul made a mess of the living room carpet.

We found my friend’s dog, but it escaped again while we were cleaning up Paul’s mess. This time a community security guard brought the dog back to us with a stern warning and also a referral code for a doggie daycare, in the style of the “Girls Direct to Your Hotel Room!” cards that are omnipresent on The Strip, because of course this is Las Vegas and even in your dreams everyone is getting a kickback.

I woke up enough to realize that my pounding heart was just the result of the dream. “None of that really happened,” I reassured myself. “The dogs haven’t gotten out.” Then I woke up a bit further and remembered that there are no dogs here and Paul has been dead for 15 years.

Happy WSOP everyone!

Clayton previously discussed his deep run in the WSOP Main Event on this show. Follow Clayton on Twitter@claytoncomic and learn more about his upcoming shows from his website. His podcast is Broadway Comedy Club Radio.

Timestamps

0:30 – Hello & Welcome
29:09 – Strategy

WSOP Prep

Tournament Poker Edge
Zach Elwood on poker tells

Strategy

Playing £1/£2 NLHE with £420 effective stacks. Hero opens to £8 with Ad 4d on the Button. Small blind folds and villain calls in the BB.

Pot is £17
Flop – JdJs5d

Villain checks, Hero bets £12, Villain raises to £28, Hero calls.

Pot £73
Turn is 7d

Villain bets £100, Hero calls.

Pot £273
River – 8h
Final board – JdJs5d7d8h

Villain checks, Hero?

Cliff’s Notes: Selling action in a full slate of Las Vegas summer tournaments. Increments as small as 1% are available, with discounts for larger pieces. I run my packages a bit differently than most, so if you’re interested, please read carefully: 

This Google spreadsheet lists all of the tournaments that could be played on the stake, but there are no guarantees. I’ll collect money up front that hopefully will be enough to cover the entire summer, but depending on how things go there’s some chance that further investment will be required in order to have a piece of some of the final events. Any unused buyins will be returned along with your share of winnings at the end of the series (mid-July).

This package does not include the WSOP Main Event. I will be selling that separately and posting details in the next few weeks.

In the left column are the events I’m more likely to play, on the right are other possibilities. Even among those on the left, some are much more likely than others. The idea is, on any day that I feel like playing a tournament, to have an easy answer to the question, “What is the best tournament to play today?”

Largely for my own reference, tournaments with multiple flights are generally listed more than once. Any flight for any tournament on this list is authorized, even if that particular flight isn’t explicitly listed. In other words, if I only listed Flights A – F for the Planet Hollywood event, but I end up playing Flight G, that will still be on the stake.

I’m going to start by collecting money based on $40K worth of buy-ins. That’s a pretty conservative number, but again, there is no guarantee that this will be enough to cover all of the events, so additional investment could be required if you want a piece of the later events. I’ll keep you updated on progress throughout the summer.

Mark-up will be 1.3 for pieces smaller than 5%, and 1.25 for 5% or more. That means each 1% share is $520 up front, and each 5% share is $2500. I’m looking to sell 50% of the package, and 35% is already sold as of this posting. I will update when sold out.

Please comment here or email andrew (at) thinkingpoker (dot) net with questions or if you’d like buy a piece.

Terms:

1. Several of these events are re-entries. I will not forfeit a stack in order to re-enter on a subsequent flight, except in an extreme circumstance where I believe this decision to be +EV for the stake (and not merely for my own hourly rate). This would require the stack to be quite miniscule and the value of playing another flight quite high, a situation that’s unlikely to arise.

2. Decisions about which of the listed tournaments to play and whether to enter late will be at my sole discretion. There’s a real chance that, if I bust a Primary tournament early and it is not a re-entry, that I will late register one of the Secondary tournaments. If I do so, I may reduce the mark-up on that event, but that will be at my discretion.

3. My winnings as well as any payments I make to you may be reported to the IRS, and you will need to provide address, social security number (or equivalent, for non-Americans), and any other information required for this purpose. This isn’t information that I need in advance, but in the event that I need to pay out profits to you, it’s information I’ll need to collect before paying out your share of the winnings.

4. Payment can be made via Venmo, customer-to-customer bank transfer (I have accounts with Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Capital One 360), in-person deposit into my Wells Fargo or Bank of America account, or cash in Vegas if you can get it to me around the start of the series. Paypal insists that I pay a 3% fee on this sort of transaction, so I’m inclined not to use them, but if it’s your only option we can discuss it. I will do my best to pay you back in the same form in which you paid me, but especially in the happy event that I owe you a lot of money, I can’t guarantee that.

5. Only the tournaments listed on the linked spreadsheet are part of the stake. Any other cash games or tournaments I play during this time, whether or not they are part of the WSOP, will not be paid for using stake money, nor will stakers be entitled to anything I win in them.

6. Sponsorships, promotions, and anything else I receive as a result of playing these tournaments will not be shared with stakers unless they are funded from the prize pool (I don’t believe there’s anything that fits this bill, but I could be mistaken). That’s right, if I make quad jacks, I’m keeping the jerky for myself!

Please let me know if you’re interested or if you have any questions. Thanks as always for considering it!

Brian is the host of The Moment podcast, where he’s interviewed many prominent athletes and artists as well as Phil Hellmuth and Vanessa Selbst. You can follow him on Twitter @BrianKoppelman. There’s plenty more to link for this show, so I’m making a whole section for links below. Hopefully I caught everything, but if you have trouble finding anything referenced in the show, please leave a comment.

Timestamps

0:30 Hello & Welcome
11:14 Strategy
35:05 Brian Koppelman

Links

An Elegy for a Carpet Joint

Requiem for a Rounder (RIP Joel Bagels)

Billions

Hesitation Wounds by Amy Koppelman

David Foster Wallace reads How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart

Open by Andre Agassi

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki by Haruki Murakami

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist by Roger Lowenstein

Poker’s 1% by Ed Miller

Expert Heads Up No Limit by Will Tipton

Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo

Thinking Tournament Poker by Nate Meyvis

Screen shots of Teddy KGB’s hand

Interview with Matt Sienkiewicz (speculation about why Grama is angry)

Brian Koppelman on WTF (subscription required)

Big thanks to Clayton Fletcher for helping to make this happen!

In this volume, you’ll find essays covering the following topics:

Navigating the Early Stages of a Tournament
Balance
Playing Your Image
Catching Bluffs
(Not) Talking at the Table
The Tournament Mindset

You can buy The Thinking Poker Diaries Volume 5 at www.nitcast.com (you’ll get Kindle, PDF, or EPUB versions) or in Kindle form on Amazon.

You certainly don’t need to have read the earlier volumes to make sense of this one, but if you need to get caught up, the first four books are available as a bundle at a discounted rate!

Please also be aware that my winnings as well as any payments I make to you may be reported to the IRS, and you will need to provide address, social security number (or equivalent, for non-Americans), and any other information required for this purpose. This isn’t information that I need in advance, but in the event that I need to pay out profits to you, it’s information I’ll need to collect before paying out your share of the winnings.

Gareth’s last appearance on the show was Episode 123. For those who don’t know who he is, his first appearance was Episode 6.

Timestamps

0:30 – hello & welcome
46:10 – strategy: folding an overpair

Strategy

Blinds 300/600/75. Hero (12K) opens to 1450 with Kd Kh. Late middle position (15K), SB (10K), and BB (20K) call.

T96cc. Check, check, check, 3000, fold, shove for 15K, Hero folds.

Hot off the virtual presses, my latest e-book chronicling the 2009 WSOP Main Event is now available in the Amazon Kindle Store or from www.nitcast.com.

2009 wasn’t my best year in the Main Event – in fact it was one of my worst – but understanding the agony of defeat is even more important to appreciating the WSOP experience than is understanding the thrill of victory. As always, I take you inside of my head, to see both the strategy and the emotion, the excitement and the disappointment, the great plays and the mistakes and the we’ll-never-knows.

It’ll set you back less than three bucks, so please check it out and let me know what you think, preferably in the form of an Amazon review. Thanks and enjoy!

“[T]his looks like a textbook example of a “leveling war”, with each player trying to anticipate and stay one step ahead of his opponent’s exploitive strategy. Clearly, Tonking got the upper hand in this case.

That’s not to say that Newhouse was completely misguided to think that a bluff could succeed at an extremely high frequency. It was the final table of poker’s most prestigious tournament, both players had a lot at stake, and he’d already made clear that he did not want to finish in ninth place for a second year in a row. Then again, Tonking may have known and taken all of those factors into consideration.

The point I want to make is that Newhouse did not have to enter into this war at all. When you are genuinely unsure of how your opponent will respond, there are alternatives to taking your best guess. There is more to poker than good reads and “heart”. The fundamental mathematics of the game limit how much you can get away with, at least against a skilled opponent, even when you have the right read and the nerve to act on it.”

I also have an article called “Keep ‘Em Guessing” appearing on Poker News:

“The best guide I’ve found to judging my own play is my opponents’ reactions. If they seem consistently confused about whether to bet or how to respond to my bets, then I’m probably doing something right.”

Hope you enjoy them, please let me know what you think!

For just $2.99, you can purchase The Thinking Poker Diaries, Volume 1 directly from me (you’ll get an EPUB, a PDF, and a Kindle file) or from Amazon (Kindle file only).

There’s a substantial preview available on Amazon, but for a better idea of what to expect, here’s the Table of Contents:

Introduction
How I Became A Poker Player
Introduction to the WSOP
Day One
Three-Betting Light
Day Two
The Bubble
Day Three
Playing a Short Stack
Day Four
More Stories! More Strategy! More Poker!

For those who do read it, please star & review on Amazon and recommend to your friends. I deliberately made the book very inexpensive because I’m more interested in reaching a wide audience than in maximizing my profit.

I’d also be very appreciate for any constructive criticism, as I plan to do a lot more of these and would love to see them improve with each volume.

Thanks!

Andrw

Action folds to Villain on the Button, where he opens for his usual 1100. The player in the BB is a pretty soft spot, and between that and the fact that it’s the last hand before break I think Villain may well be opening any two cards. I have Jc 9c in the SB, and already I think I have a few options. Folding can’t be too bad, but I do think it’s a little bad considering how wide I expect him to be. I didn’t want to get into a pre-flop war, so I called. With my hand, I really don’t mind BB coming along, which he does.

Flop (3750 in the pot) Tc 5d 2c. I bet 1800, BB folds, Villain raises to 4500, I shove for about 18500 total, Villain calls with T5o and busts me.

On the one hand, I feel validated about his opening range being any two, and of course part of me wishes I had 3-bet. With his range being that wide, I think I’m right to want to commit on this flop. With a somewhat shorter stack, I’d just check-shove the flop (or shove pre), but my stack is awkward for that so I thought I’d do better inducing a light call or raise this way. So far so good.

It wouldn’t have changed the outcome here, but I think it’s possible that calling and check-shoving the turn or bluffing rivers if he checks behind turn could be better than shoving the flop, because his raising range is probably pretty polarized. He doesn’t seem like the sort to raise-fold 88 or something here, so I think my Jack isn’t live too often if he calls the shove. It may be better to give him more rope with the air part of his range rather than shove. Also if he expects me to shove clubs on the flop then he may try to represent them or pay me off if they come in.

Like I said, wouldn’t have changed the outcome here, but I think it was an interesting hand and I look forward to talking to Nate about it on the next podcast. Of course I mostly hope we won’t have time to record a show this week because he’s still in it!

This is the final episode of the Thinking Poker Podcast that will appear on this feed. I’ll continue to post announcements of new episodes here, but the only place to hear the show will be on the PokerNews/iBus Media podcast feed. If you haven’t already, please bookmark http://www.pokernews.com/podcast/ or subscribe to the PokerNews feed to ensure you won’t miss future episodes of the show. Thanks!

” The bottom line is that you need to do that work of actually identifying the hands that you think it makes sense for him to bluff with, rather than simply saying “I can beat a bluff!” or “It’s hard to have a hand better than mine!” There are many cases where it’s actually quite difficult for your opponent to show up with a hand worse than yours, and he has to have something.”

Also appearing is the conclusion to Carlos Welch’s three-part series about how small stakes players can make the most of the World Series of Poker:

Small stakes tournaments in Vegas are some kind of weird lovechild of skilled WSOP events and your average home game where players routinely get splinters from shoving a pile of toothpicks into the center of a dinner table and yelling “I’m all in!” If you want to have a good summer, you have to handle this ugly baby with care.

Yeah, Carlos is a little funnier than I am.

Simply being in contention for it was proof enough of that. Actually winning it doesn’t make him the best of the best, nor even the one who played the best this year. There is no objective way of measuring who is the single greatest poker player, nor for that matter is there even such a thing as “the single greatest poker player.” What the various Player of the Year rankings actually measure is which of the best players in the world have been running hottest of late and also playing the most aggressive schedules.

I imagine they’re good publicity for the game. Sports fans like rankings and statistics, and they give television commentators something to talk about and tournament administrators something to promote. Such rankings have even proved a good way to translate daily happenings in the poker world into the kinds of items that can get a little traction in the mainstream media.

I’ve got nothing against such rankings as a publicity tool, but as a player, I don’t care and I don’t think they actually measure anything important in a particularly meaningful way. So I have to laugh when I see players who are clearly ego-invested in seeing their name move up a notch or two on those scales or getting into heated arguments over how exactly those rankings are determined or which bracelets are “real” bracelets, etc.

It reminds me of Lisa Simpson’s anxiety when Springfield’s teachers are on strike and there’s no one to pat her on the head and tell her what a good student she is: “Look at me! Grade me! Evaluate and rank me! I’m good, good, good and oh so smart!”

Poker frustrates our innate sense of justice. People – maybe Americans especially? – like to see a clear correlation between skill, hard work, and success. It doesn’t always happen that way in poker, and even the best sometimes doubt themselves. I can understand the desire to have some objective, external assurance that you really are one of the best. I just don’t think such a thing is possible, and it surprises me to see players who surely know better acting as though these rankings were anything more than an extremely rough approximation whose primary objective is to serve the agendas of media organizations and tournament organizers, not to settle the unsettleable argument about who is really the best.

Most WSOP events start at either noon or 5, but this one was bumped back to 11AM to free up more tables later in the day. Even so, one of the daily deepstack tournaments was cancelled and the other postponed for hours for lack of tables. When I arrived, the convention center parking lot was slammed, and I joined the mass of humanity surging towards the entrance from either their private vehicle or the steady stream of taxis depositing them at the foot of the red carpet.

I was happy with my starting table. Out of eight opponents (it was a ten-handed tournament, but the seat on my immediate left was unoccupied), only two seemed capable of giving me tough decisions. The only downside was that they were one and two seats to my left. One of them lost a flip to a weaker player and was eliminated early, which was nice. I later realized that the other was Mike Sowers, whom I really should have recognized sooner given that he is a fellow Tournament Poker Edge instructor. Ana Marquez eventually claimed that empty seat on my left, but she was playing pretty tight, and before too long the table broke anyway.

I ran my stack up to about 10K without any big confrontations, then I lost a big pot to a pretty nasty beat. I limped 22 behind an early position limper and got a 552 flop. I called his flop bet and shoved over his turn bet. He called with AA and rivered a 5 for a higher full house. I was proud of myself not only for not reacting externally but for not even really getting upset on the inside. I just shrugged it off and settled in to play some 20 BB poker. That proved boring but quite profitable, and I got up over 30BB without any showdowns.

Because we started with just 4500 chips and blinds were doubling every level, players started dropping quickly. A vacant seat on my left was filled with a very nice Canadian who was a paradigmatic example of the sort of guy you come to the WSOP to play with. On the first hand that he played, he accidentally bet out of turn, confidently declaring, “3000” and throwing his chips eagerly into the pot. When the dealer told him it wasn’t his turn to act, he started stammering and apologizing profusely. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I just… ah… sorry. I get… sorry… I get… ah… nervous, y’know?” If any of you are Pokercast listeners, his accent was even more pronounced version of Mike Johnson’s, which made it that much funnier.

He left the table for a minute, and there was actually speculation as to whether he was putting us on, that’s how over-the-top his nervousness was. Also, he had to ask how antes worked. If he was acting, though, he deserved an Academy Award. “He took second in the PCA High Roller, so he must be doing something right,” I said, which drew a few astonished explanations before the table realized that I was pulling their leg.

A few minutes after the nervous Canadian returned to the seat on my left, Scott Seiver showed up holding a seat card for that same seat. Apparently when the floor seated the Canadian there, they hadn’t given the seat card to the dealer as they were supposed to but instead held on to it and reassigned it to Seiver, so he ended up at another table instead of on my immediate left. Talk about a suckout!

With blinds of 100/200, I opened to 450 with KJo in late middle position. The Canadian on my left called me, and the big blind called. We checked around a QJ6r flop. The turn was a T, and the big blind checked again. Given the lack of action, I was pretty sure my second pair was good, so I bet 650. The Canadian folded, and the big blind called. I decided I could still get value on a river 5, so I bet 1600 out of my 3800 stack, and he called with Q9. That hurt, and I’m conscious that overly thin value betting is sometimes a leak of mine in tournaments, but even in retrospect I like this bet. This and maybe AJ are about the only better hands than mine that I could see him playing this way.

That left me short stacked, which wasn’t the end of the world. A lot of good spots came up, I just never had quite the right cards to take advantage of them, but I could see that the potential was there. For example, the action folded to me on both the button and the CO, where my shoving ranges there would be extremely wide, but I found 62o and 82o respectively.

I lost a flip with 77 against the AKs of an even shorter stack, but it left me with just 3 BBs. Thankfully I was in late position and the ante was just 25, so I had a little room to wait for a hand. I got 99, got it in against three others, and miraculously held up. The next hand I open shoved KTo and lost to AJo.

I think this was pretty typical for a low buy-in WSOP event. There was a bit of play in the beginning, but not a lot of room to recover from early hiccups. I spent much of the tournament short-stacked, and on the whole the experience felt both (theoretically) profitable and boring.

The seminar will be conducted over Skype on Wednesday, May 15th from 9PM – 11PM Eastern time. Cost is $150/person, and registration is capped at five participants. To participate, you’ll need a Skype account (free), a microphone, and headphones!

A combination of slide show presentation and interactive hand discussion will cover subjects such as:

• Designing broad strategies for each phase of the tournament;
• Assessing a new table;
• Survival and playing conservatively;
• Dealing with amateurs
• Dealing with world-class players;
• Managing table image;
• Nutrition, hydration, and urination strategies;
• And more!

The 2013 series will be my eighth World Series of Poker main event. I’ve cashed five times in the Main Event, with three finishes in the top 100 and gross winnings of over $500,000.

To register, please e-mail andrew@thinkingpoker.net with subject line “WSOP Seminar”. If you have questions or ideas for future seminars, please leave them in the comments section below. Also if you’re interested in the seminar but can’t make it on Wednesday, please let me know what times would be better for you – depending on the level of interest I may schedule another of these.

The article Nate mentions at the beginning of the strategy segment is Winning in a Tight Game, published by Card Player.

This week’s music comes from Czech indie rock group Please the Trees. A New Heart is the song from the outro. You can download their new album A Forest Affair and listen to select tracks at that website.

Do you think there’s sexism in poker? Do you think it’s a problem? Please let us know your opinions on this or any other aspect of the show in the comments section below or by e-mailing us.

Click here to read my full review!

As “The Poker Philosopher”, and in honor of one of my favorite non-poker blogs, I occasionally consider the ethical dimensions of a high-profile controversy or occurrence in the poker community. This is the first in a series of posts about the major players in the recent Poker Stars – Full Tilt Poker – Department of Justice settlement. Older editions of The Poker Ethicist are available in the archives.

Q: As you’ve probably heard by now, the Department of Justice recently approved a settlement in which PokerStars will buy the remaining assets of Full Tilt Poker, pay a fine to the DOJ, restore the FTP balances of non-American players, and ultimately re-open the site. American players (more specifically those of us who were Americans as of June 29, 2011), via a process yet to be determined, will be able to apply to the DOJ for restitution of our money. The online poker community, myself included, is understandably elated about this near-ideal resolution to perhaps the darkest chapter in our short history.

Many direct their gratitude towards PokerStars. The word “savior” has been tossed around liberally. Numerous Stars-sponsored players have expressed pride at representing the company. Short Stacked Shamus, in a characteristically entertaining blog post, paints PokerStars as the hero in a John Wayne-esque narrative of law-breaking and vigilantism. Dominic Kofert, CEO of PokerStrategy.com, sees them as the benevolent dictator of the new world order of online poker:

Once the acquisition is completed and Full Tilt goes back online, PokerStars, which already has a world-wide market share of around 60%, will have substantially grown the margin by which it is the largest operator in the world. With most competitors severely struggling, I will not be surprised if PokerStars/Full Tilt’s market share reaches 75% by the end of 2013.

For many, this market dominance will be something to worry about. However, judging by PokerStars’ conduct over the past years and assuming that the company’s great philosophy does not change now that PokerStars.com co-founder Isai Scheinberg has to step down, I think that PokerStars will act responsibly and with the players in mind going forward – as it has always done in the past.

Do we owe PokerStars our gratitude? Or was this just a savvy maneuver to acquire their largest competitor and establish a near-monopoly on online poker? Should the average player really be celebrating this deal?

A: To quote Grandpa Simpson, “A little from column A and a little from column B.”

Let’s start with the obvious: PokerStars isn’t doing anything out of the goodness of their heart. There’s been rampant speculation about why the company would be interested in Full Tilt. Did they seek its customer database? Good will with the DOJ? Good will with the online poker community? Re-entry to the US market? All of the above?

Your guess is as good as mine. Whatever their reasons, I believe Stars wouldn’t have purchased FTP unless they believed it was in their interest to do so.

I know they’re playing a game and acting strategically in their own best interest, but that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful. What I’ve always respected about Stars – I used to represent them myself – is that they are playing a long game, and that’s good for customers.

Among other things, PokerStars has just purchased a generous helping of legitimacy for online poker. Black Friday and subsequent revelations about the FTP “Ponzi scheme” made mainstream headlines around the world and surely scared away thousands of would-be depositors from other online poker sites. Making the affected players whole may not undo the public relations damage entirely, but it’s a gigantic step in the right direction.

The companies that have done the most harm to online poker – Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker – were playing a short game. Common wisdom once held that no company would risk slaying the goose that laid the golden egg by stealing customer money. That assumption proved wrong. Principals at all of those companies chose a short-term windfall over an uncertain but potentially even more profitable future. In other words, they took the money and ran (or not).

In ways large and small, PokerStars has repeatedly demonstrated that they are in it for the long haul. It’s clear from their recent actions that they expect to be in the online poker business 10 years from now, and they’ve just made an investment that may take that long to mature.

That makes them a good company to work with, because it means that good customer service is in their interest. They want satisfied customers and repeat business. They want legitimacy and a regulated, predictable marketplace. Their business model seems to align with the interests of their players in a way that, at least in retrospect, FTP’s and UB’s did not (though also in retrospect, the signs were there: re-entry tournaments, anyone?).

Arguably, FTP and UB made the wrong choice, not just ethically, but financially. They may well have made more money by running honest businesses. Sometimes greed overtakes good business sense, and sometimes people are just short-sighted.

I’m grateful that PokerStars has so far eluded these pitfalls, but I don’t delude myself into thinking that they are playing sheriff out of an innate sense of justice. Nor have they claimed to be. In fact, I would distrust any company that did claim such.

I expect a large corporation to act in its own self-interest. If one tries to tell me they are not, then they’re lying, and that makes me suspicious. I’m far more comfortable in a relationship where I know what game the other party is playing and I can see how their interests align with mine. Both PokerStars and I have an interest in the long-term viability and legitimacy of the online poker industry, and that makes me glad to be their customer, even if I’m not kissing their feet. I’m grateful that they seem to have the foresight that some of their competitors lacked, and that even as they close this landmark deal they continue to work tirelessly to serve their customers.

That doesn’t mean that I’m sanguine about a single company possessing such a large share of the market. I feel better when a company, no matter how benevolent the owner (who, by the way, is stepping down as a condition of this settlement) or how strong the track record, feels that treating their customers right is good business and not simply “the right thing to do” as a matter of principle. Principles change, especially when there’s a lot of money at stake.

Thankfully PokerStars still has a lot of self-interested reasons to treat its customers well. They may soon face competition from gaming mega-brands like Caesar’s/World Series of Poker in a regulated US marketplace. They know that they can’t afford to rest on their laurels if they want to gain access to that market at all, let alone be competitive in it. It’s no coincidence that PokerStars’ own announcement of the settlement concludes with these words:

Our settlement acknowledges that both PokerStars and Full Tilt are eligible to apply for a license in the U.S. to offer real money poker when states or the federal government offer such an opportunity. We look forward to this opportunity and are confident that we bring tremendous value, regulatory experience, market credibility and financial integrity to the marketplace.

We’re optimistic about the future and we look forward to sharing the next chapters in our history with you.

My sentiments exactly.

This spot demonstrates the dangers of wistful thinking at the poker table. You must be rigorous in thinking about your opponents are actually likely to have and do rather than what you would like them to have and do. For example, I think Hero’s options here are betting for value and checking, expecting to win somewhat often when it checks through but planning to fold if Villain bets.

There’s an understandable desire to see showdown when you have a strong hand in a large pot, but that can’t be a substitute for considering your opponents’ ranges before acting. Reading some of the comments here (to be clear, this isn’t directed at everyone who considered checking and calling), I got the sense that some people took for granted that they would be going to showdown and considered only whether to bet or check and call.

Check-Calling

Checking and calling makes sense only when you believe that Villain’s bluffing range will be larger than his bluff-catching range. By his bluff-catching range, I mean the hands that will call a bet but will not bet if checked to. These are the hands from which you lose value by checking, so they must be outweighed by the value you gain when Villain bluffs.

Many commenters advocated check-calling, but Alistair is one of the few who made much of an effort to explain how and why Villain could get to the river with a hand that he would want to bluff: “One thing I haven’t seen anyone mention yet is what a great spot the turn is for Villain to float. He may have seen flop check as weakness and the turn bet as just a stab with no diamond, so i think we need to put comeplete air in his range….”

I happen to disagree about the likelihood of a float with air – that’s an awfully fancy play, especially with a third player in the pot, for a guy who so far has been relatively tight and straightforward and doesn’t seem interested in tangling with me unnecessarily – but at least there’s a consistent thought process there. I believe Villain’s turn call represents either a full house draw or a hand with showdown value. Most of the former got there, and most of the latter will continue to play as showdown hands rather than turn into bluffs. In other words, if he calls the turn with top pair, it’s because he thinks it could be good. In my experience, all but the most elite players will opt to take a showdown if they think they have a shot of winning that way rather than turning hands into bluffs, even when it’s a good time to do the latter, as it would be here.

Eric also mentions a number of possibilities, but I think most of them are inconsistent with Villain’s pre-flop action and/or with what I explained above. As Chris says, “If we check then I can’t imagine any hand that he bets that we beat. he surely checks back any smaller flushes, straights, trips or pairs. It also seems highly unlikely that he’s got to this point with a hand he feels he needs to bluff with. Therefore, if we check then I’d say we have to fold to any reasonably-sized bet.”

If you disagree about the likelihood of Villain showing up with air or turning a made hand into a bluff, then by all means check and call, but don’t start by presuming that you’re going to see showdown. If you’re going to check and call, you should be able to enumerate the hands that you expect your opponent to bluff.

Value Betting

At the table, I was a little to quick to put Villain on a lesser flush and discount full houses from his range. My thinking was that he would have bet two-pair or a set on the turn, and I’m a little embarrassed to say that I didn’t take my own advice in thinking through how exactly he could show up with a worse diamond. Several commenters have done a good job of discussing what sorts of hands he would limp-call in early position, and I wish I’d thought more about it at the time.

Kelley makes a good case for why this information argues against value betting:

“Sets could check behind on a suited flop if playing carefully, so the board pairing is not a good sign for us. AA could have tried to trap you pre flop (although most limp raise), and JJ or 88 could easily limp call pre flop to set mine so early in the ME.

Check call if you think he may bluff (unlikley), and check fold it you believe him.

If he checks behind with a worse flush or 2P, you may lose a little value, but you don’t know if he would have called any bet.”

I do think it’s an easy fold if raised. For all the same reasons that I’m not anticipating bluffs if Hero checks, I’m even moreso not anticipating bluff raises. It’s actually quite difficult for Hero to have better than an Ace-high flush here, making it a good time for Villain to turn hands as strong as Td into a bluff, but that’s a move I’d expect only from the absolute trickiest and most fearless opponents. Most people are not bluff-raising rivers for most or all of their chips in the WSOP main event.

Check-Evaluating

I do actually think there’s a little bit of room for Hero to check and decide. This is a spot where many players will give away a lot of information with their bet sizing. In particular, if Villain bets a hand like the Td at all, it’s likely to be a small bet. Because this is live poker, there’s also room to consider physical tells before making a decision. As Mat suggests, I’d probably call bets of up to about 1/3 pot, but with anything bigger I’d give Villain a good staredown with the intention of folding unless his body language gave me a reason not to.

In conclusion, I think cEV-wise it’s awfully close between bet-folding or check-folding (well, check-evaluating, but usually folding). The reason I wish I’d checked is that, as Mat says, “the possible loss of the chips is more concerning than the gain, i.e. losing 4-6k from a ~54k stack is worse than the benefit of gaining 4-6k on 74k stack.” Day 1 of the main event ought to be about avoiding variance once large amounts of chips are stake. That means, among other things, avoiding large, thin value bets.

Results

I bet 8K. Villain called and rolled 88 for a full house. Which brings us to my…

Last Question

Should Villain have raised? If not, what is the worst hand he should raise?

Villain (UTG+1, 45K stack) is probably mid-30s, part native Hawaiian and part mountain – he’s a big guy, is what I’m saying. I don’t think he’s a professional, but he did ask me earlier in the day if my last name was Brokos and told me that he enjoyed my articles.

It’s level 3 of the WSOP Main Event. Blinds are 150/300 without an ante. Villain open limps. That’s not unheard of for our table – maybe 5% of pots were open limped – nor for this Villain, though he’s generally pretty tight aggressive and raises more often than he limps. UTG+2 limps, VMP2 limps, the button limps, and the SB completes.

Hero (60K stack) has Ac Kd in the BB and raises to 1800. Villain calls quickly, UTG+2 folds, MP2 thinks for a bit and then calls, and the others fold.

We’re three to the flop with 6300 in the pot. Flop comes Ad Jd 8d, giving Hero top pair with top kicker and the nut flush draw. Hero checks, and others check behind.

Turn is the Qd. Hero bets 4000, Villain reaches for his chips when the action is on him, looks a little displeased, and then tosses his 4000 in. MP2 folds.

River is the Qc. There’s 14,300 in the pot. What’s your play and why? Remember that if you’re betting you need a plan for a raise, and if you’re checking you need a plan for a bet.

Post thoughts and comments here, and I’ll be back with results on Friday.

Gareth gets a lot right in his comment, but we disagree that, “this is a spot where one could in fact go for three streets of value.” I’ve caused myself a lot of problems by overestimating how wide I can value bet in tournaments, where everyone tends to play more cautiously than in comparable cash games, and nowhere is that caution higher than in the WSOP main event. I just don’t see Hero getting three streets of value with top pair, top kicker even if the board never gets any scarier.

Consequently, I believe little is lost by checking when we’re ahead. Having the highest possible pair and the nut redraw makes me quite unafraid of anything that could come on the turn and river. Checking may induce bluffs, but I’m actually hoping that it checks through because at that point I expect to get called a lot lighter on the turn and river. We need that because as Scott says, “our villains have a TON of hands that are just snap folding on this flop.”

Once I check, I’m definitely just calling if someone bets. Even moreso than betting out, check-raising is going to narrow people’s ranges down to the hands we least want to be up against. Just because we have OK equity against those hands doesn’t mean we’re eager to play the biggest pot we can. There are other ways to realize your equity besides getting all-in on the flop. That’s particularly true when you’ve got good showdown value and a draw to the nuts.

What do I mean by that? Let’s look at this comment from Kevko_2000:

Even if we aren’t ahead here percentages suggest we very likely could be ahead by the end of the hand. I think we are too strong here to be very far behind so I say build that pot so we can take down a nice one!!

What he’s suggesting here, essentially, is building a pot to win with a flush we don’t yet have. With TPTK, which is the hand we have now, we want to play a medium pot, but not a big one. With a flush we want to play a big pot, but since we’ll make that flush only about 1/3 of the time by the river, we’d like to avoid building that pot until we make the hand.

It’s often correct to bet flopped flush draws not to build a pot but to take one without showdown. Here that’s not important – in fact it’s undesirable – because we have a hand good enough to beat anything that would fold to a bet anyway. So there’s no sense in semi-bluffing, and no sense in setting up to play a huge pot that we won’t end up wanting on the majority of rivers.

I checked, and both Villains checked behind without any noteworthy delay. Next decision point coming in the next post.

Gareth Chantler, whom you may know from CardRunners or from his frequent comments here at Thinking Poker, picked me up at the airport. I’ve known Gareth for over a year and we’ve spoken by Skype many times, but this was our first in-person meeting.

He was kind enough to drive me to Whole Foods, enabling me to get some milk and fresh fruit. I can’t tell you how great it is not to be wholly dependent on the Poker Kitchen and the Rio’s many fine (LOL) eateries while I’m here. I didn’t buy too much because I was expecting to have to cram things into the minibar fridge or failing that set up a makeshift freezer with the help of the ice machine, but it turned out there was actually a mini fridge in my room so that was a nice surprise.

I was also surprised to find a coffee maker, something I’ve never before seen in a Las Vegas hotel room. Not that I want their shitty coffee, but having a way to make hot water means I could have brought dehydrated backpacker meals and my own coffee along with my French press coffee mug. I nearly brought the coffee just because I hate Starbucks and resent the hell out of having to pay them $3/cup for my dark addiction, but it’s just so unlike the penny pinching Caesar’s Entertainment to provide anything for free that I figured no way in hell there would be a coffee maker. The whole thing made a lot more sense to me when I saw the sign that “K-cups” (the little pre-measured packets of coffee that you have to use with this machine) are available in the minibar for the low low price of 3 for $8.

I’m not anti-balling quite as hard as I did at the PCA, but I did bring cereal, peanut butter, jelly, packets of tuna fish, granola bars, and a few other snacks with me. Along with the milk, bread, and fruit I bought last night, I’m well-stocked to provide a lot of my own meals.

Gareth and I planned to eat dinner at Lotus of Siam, but finding a one-hour wait, we went across the street to another Thai place that emphasized its many vegan and vegetarian options. Komol had perhaps the largest menu I’ve seen at any restaurant ever, but the food and service were both quite good.

So was the company. Gareth is a fascinating guy. After dropping out of college for the third time and increasingly depressed by the harsh Canadian winter, he decided, as he put it, “to take responsibility for my own happiness” and moved to Peru. He paid the bills playing both online and in Peruvian casinos, sometimes from rented apartments and sometimes from the common room of hostels, first from Lima and then from Cuzco. His travels took him to Trinidad and then back to his native Ontario, where he spent several weeks practicing in live poker tournaments before moving on to Las Vegas for his first ever WSOP.

Having just returned from Europe myself, I was eager to talk travel with him. We discussed the stress and exhilaration of fumbling through unfamiliar situations, the best way to eat guinea pig, and the time that he was mistaken for a member of the Campus Crusade for Christ and invited back to the dorm room of another member for some gay porn. His observations about America were consistent with those of many people I met in Europe, namely that it’s a lovely country but that everyone here is really very fat and the murder rate is simply unbelievable. In short we had a great time.

Still feeling the effects of jet lag from my return from Europe, now supplemented by another three-hour shift from the east coast, I went to bed early and woke up early. The professional poker player is a nocturnal hunter, so I took advantage of the early hour and entered the $550 10 AM mega satellite. Sure enough the field was super soft, though it probably would have been anyway. The tournament was a success in the sense that I got my run bad out of the way, so now I’m ready to take on my 7th WSOP Main Event!

I am 24 years old and I live in Henderson, NV. Following the shut down of service to US players on Pokerstars I decided to play a few live tournaments.  I instantly final tabled two Bellagio WPT $540′s back to back.  During one of those deep runs I was offered, by another player in the tournament, to join his team of players that are backed.  I had made out plans and set out a schedule of tournaments over the course of the summer only to find out that the backer of their team just went on $400k downswing and they are not adding any new players.

Now I am stuck in a bad spot, I am scrambling to find any sort of staking/coaching deal for the summer and I do not know anyone in the poker world….  Any help you could offer, even if just some words of advice, would be greatly appreciated.

My suggestion to this player was for him to focus on the games he could afford on his own bankroll rather than entering into a staking relationship that would have constrained his options. After hearing that he final tabled the first Venetian event and had a few other good cashes as well, I concluded that, “it looks like he’s going to be alright.”

How right I was. He recently got back to me with a pretty extraordinary success story:

I’m not sure if you remember me, but… I had originally emailed you asking for staking/coaching or just any advice that you could give me. I wound up having a very solid series without needing any kind of backing. After the series I moved up to Canada to maintain Supernova Elite status on Pokerstars….

I recently came home to Chicago to play live tournaments, for the first time since the series, at the Chicago Poker Classic. I won ‘Player of the Turbo Series’ (winning a car that I took $30k cash option for) and ‘Overall Player of the Series’ (for $50k in cash).

The combination of skills that I have obtained from grinding online, and my many years of dealing poker and playing live have made for a great mixture of skills that make me a beast in live tournaments. I’m absolutely giddy about the WSOP being just around the corner, and I want to take my game to the next level and maximize my chances of success and making a run at a bracelet.

I’ve been watching your training vids since I was a broke noob, and reading your articles and blogs as well. I really like the way that you go into such depth explaining even just a single hand of poker…. Again I ask for just any bit of advice you’d have for someone in my situation. Last year when I asked the same thing I was a good player playing with a limited bankroll. This year I am fresh off of 10 months of very hard work online, with a nice bankroll, and my confidence has me believing that I can win every tournament that I play.

I’ve already written back to him, but I want to post a bit of advice here. Obviously this player has had a ton of success recently, more than could be attributed to luck alone. In other words, he’s clearly a talented tournament player.

It’s important, however, not to get overconfident. He’s surely had more than his share of luck as well. There’s always room for improvement no matter how good you are, and even the best must work hard to stay on top of the game.

It seems like this player is taking the right message from his recent success: he has skill and talent that is well worth investing in. He’s taking the right approach by being inspired to play more and study harder rather than resting on his laurels.

As a blogger, I love hearing from people who have found my writing or my advice helpful. Hell, just knowing people read at all is nice. If you’re a reader, I’d love to hear your story: how you got into poker, how you’re improving, what you like most about the blog, constructive criticism, and by all means your proudest poker accomplishments!

You can leave comments here or contact me directly. Please let me know if you don’t want me to share your story, because I’m looking for a few more good ones like this to post.

It’s early on Day 5 of the WSOP main event. We’re in the shallow money, with 574 players remaining out of 7319, and Hero’s table draw is a great one for such a late day in the tournament, featuring several pretty weak amateurs. Hero (me, in my late twenties with dark sunglasses and no logos on my clothing) begins the hand with a slightly below average stack of 500K. Blinds are at 4K/8K/1K.

One of the weak players, a guy about my age sitting on a stack of about 450K, raises to 20K in first position. I call with 2c 2h in middle position, and a middle-aged player new to the table and sitting on 600K calls in the big blind. The three of us see a 7s 4s 2d flop, and both of my opponents check relatively quickly. What’s your play and why?

Post your thoughts in the comments section below. I’ll be back with my thoughts, as well as the flop action and the turn card (don’t think I’m giving away too much by revealing that Hero does not fold the flop), on Friday.

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?

Almost immediately after moving to Vancouver, I’ll be heading to Cannes for the World Series of Poker Europe, most likely just the main event. Although I never considered this event worth traveling for in the past, I expect that the relocation to France is going to make it a very good tournament. I’m looking to sell up to 2/3 of my action at 150% markup. In other words, the buyin is 10K euros or about $13,563 US. With markup, shares will go for

1% = $203.45
5% = 1017.25
10% = 2034.50
67% = $13563

I’ve played nearly 1000 tournaments since January 1, 2008 with 149% ROI. Notable scores include 1st in an FTOPS $2K, 3rd in a WCOOP $500 1R1A, 5th in a SCOOP $300 4-Max, and five cashes in six years in the WSOP Main Event, including three finishes in the top 100.

Preferred methods of payment are PokerStars, Bank of America, ING, or Interac. If none of those are options for you, let me know and we’ll work something out.

Please e-mail me at andrew (at) thinkingpoker.net if you’re interested. Do NOT send money or assume that you have  a piece until I’ve written back to confirm, which may take a day or two.

Should I cash, payouts to shareholders will be based on a dollar:euro exchange rate of 1:1.3563 (ie the same rate you bought at), regardless of what the exchange rate is at that time.

There are people who are good at poker, and then there are people who are downright intimidating, players who are ready to fight for literally every pot that they believe they can win. A player like that is not someone you want on your left when you have a lot of chips. I tightened up my game pre-emptively, folding hands I otherwise would have raised because I knew that Gonzalez was waiting to attack me and I needed better than average cards to stand up to him. I watched him give hell to a lot of others at the table.

If you haven’t read Part 1, you can find it here.

In other news, the weather here in Canmore has been fascinating. Last week it was warm, sunny, and clear. This week clouds rolled in, blanketing the valley in fog and rain. Today they started to clear, and through the breaks in the clouds you can see all the snow that fell in the mountains. I never realized the extent to which the weather could be both cloudy and sunny at the same time!

Card Player

For example:

BP: Can you give our readers a sense of why cash games are a great tool for becoming a better tournament player?

AB: If you only play tournaments, odds are that you don’t have a lot of experience handling turn and river decisions or playing 100 or more big blinds deep. Those situations just don’t come up that much in tournaments. You may not have a lot of heads up or short-handed experience either. So when tournaments like the WSOP main event, which have a really deep structure, roll around, you aren’t going to be as experienced as a cash game player. And if you’re fortunate enough to make a final table, you’ll benefit from the experience of having played short-handed and heads up cash games.

With regard to all the controversy about the WSOP prioritizing ESPN’s interests over those of the players, I do want to ask, “Why shouldn’t they?” I certainly don’t like it and think it is pretty bastardly, but the truth is that they have a monopoly on the greatest poker tournament there is, and most people are going to play it no matter what. Given the choice between the “live feed”, with all the attendant problems of delays, weird schedules, players getting jostled by camera crews, etc. or no “live feed”, I’d opt for the live feed.

That said, that doesn’t have to the choice. Caesar’s could choose to compensate players with reduced rake or to strike a better balance between the interests of ESPN and those of the players. They simply choose not to because ESPN has a lot more leverage than the players do. The reality is that as much as we complain, most of us doing the complaining will continue to play the tournament. Until we demonstrate that we’re willing to vote with our feet and our wallets, it’s silly to expect accommodation. Caesar’s has the best hand, and they are betting it hard for value.

Some of you may have heard that Phil Hellmuth overslept yesterday morning and was getting blinded off in the tournament. Apparently Mike Matusow called security at Phil’s hotel and got them to enter his room and wake him up. I didn’t know any of this at the time, but I was still at my starting table with Russel Rosenblum and Sorel Mizzi when Phil came dashing into the Amazon room, with a floorman shouting after him about whether he knew which table he was going to.

Russel: I wonder if the floor is going to scurry to get me to my seat if I show up late.
Me: I don’t understand why Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke aren’t getting the kind of shit that the Full Tilt guys are getting.
Russel: I don’t want to say too much here, but Phil and Annie are just paid spokespeople, whereas the Full Tilt guys may have been somewhat more that that.
Sorel: That’s… putting it very carefully.
Me: Yes, sorry, I know that. I guess I misspoke. I do understand why they don’t get as much shit as Lederer, but people still put money on UB because Phil and Annie were endorsing them, and those people are never going to see that money. I just don’t think Phil and Annie should be getting invited on stage at the WSOP like they’re the best and brightest in the poker world.
Sorel: But they’re just sponsors. They aren’t on the inside. They don’t know anything more about what’s going on behind the scenes than you do.
Me: Based on what I knew, I wouldn’t have worn a UB patch.
Sorel: But come on, if they are just throwing money at you…

I had to change the subject at this point, because the irony and Sorel’s total lack of self-awareness was getting too much for me, and I nearly said something pretty rude to him.

Security is Called

The table broke not too long after, which was very welcome, though my new table was still pretty tough. I went on a nice little tear and chipped up to 170K while acquiring a relatively aggressive table image. Blinds were 400/800/100.

I opened to 2200 with 33 in the CO. A loose French player called me on the BTN, the SB folded, and the BB, who’d been quietly chipping up with very few showdowns and seemed pretty table aware re-raised to 6800 with about 45K behind.

I wasn’t getting the right odds to setmine, and online I’d just fold this even though I suspect the guy is light. I don’t want to get it in pre, and it’s just going to be too hard to figure out where I stand post-flop. In live play, however, the added information available through tells makes it a little more feasible and call and evaluate, and that’s what I did. The BTN quickly folded behind me.

The flop came 742r. BB bet 7500, and I called. The turn was another 4, and he checked. At this point he had barely a pot-sized bet left in his stack, and I think there are a lot of hands he wouldn’t check, including big draws and vulnerable hands like medium pairs. This was either an elaborate trap with like QQ+ or he was giving up.

I had no delusions of getting him to fold a hand better than mine, but I didn’t want to give him a free card or a shot at bluffing a scary river, so I bet 9000. After a bit of thought, he moved all in for 24,500. Now I had to think.

This is another spot I simply wouldn’t get myself in online. Before I bet the flop I’d have a plan for whether I was going to call a check-raise. Live, though, there is more room to figure out exactly which part of his range he has and what he’s up to. I let him sweat for about 3 minutes and then counted out the chips for a call. He looked uncomfortable. I placed them gently in the pot. He tapped the table. I tabled my treys. He whistled. “Very nice call, sir.” He showed AQ. Q on the river.

Where it gets really crazy is that while he’s still stacking his chips, three guys from security walk up to him. Two of them stand back, flanking a third who taps him on the shoulder. “Finish stacking your chips and then we need to ask you a few questions, sir.”

Naturally the whole table is staring at this scene trying to figure out what’s going on. The player in question looks totally nonplussed. He stacks his chips and then leaves the table with them. “That beat was so bad it was criminal!” I quip after he’s gone, earning me a few groans from my tablemates.

The guy returned after just two hands and seemed unperturbed. Curious about what was going on, I said to him, “I wish they’d come a hand earlier.” He laughed. I heard the player next to him asking him what happened, and he said it was something to do with a friend of his and that everything was fine. He remained at the table until late in the day, when he shoved AJ over one of my raises. I called with 99 to eliminate him and win back about a quarter of what I’d lost to him in that earlier hand.

French Fish

As I previously mentioned, the guy on my left was a loose and generally bad French player. Blinds were 500/1000/100. A tightish player in the HJ opened to 2500, and I called with 77 in the SB. The poisson re-raised to 11,000 with 15K behind. I was pretty sure I was going to fold but gave him the old stare down first.

He’d been watching a movie on his iPad, and when he saw me looking for a read, he pressed play and turned his attention to his screen. I could see perfectly well that he wasn’t cheating, but I wanted to get a reaction from him, so I told him to put the computer away during the hand.

He removed his headphones and looked up at me. “What?”

“You can’t be on your computer during the hand.”

He sneered. “Whatchu going to do? Time.”

“You’re calling time on me?”

“Yes. Time.”

“OK. Put the computer away.” He made a point of putting his headphones back on and pressing play. I looked over at the dealer, who was doing nothing. She hadn’t even called the floor to clock me. Of course by this point I had all the information I needed to fold, but now I was upset that the dealer wasn’t enforcing the rules.

“Player has called time,” I informed her.

She turned to another dealer who was waiting to push her after this hand. “Am I supposed to call the floor if a player has asked for time?”

The floor finally got called and came over. I informed her that I twice asked this player to stop using his computer during the hand. She ignored me and started telling him that he would have 70 seconds to act.

“Time was called on me,” I told her.

“OK then you have 70 seconds to act.”

“Are you going to do anything about the computer?”

“First you need to act on your hand.” I folded without a second’s thought.

“You can’t be on your computer or phone while you have a live hand,” she informed him and walked away.

I thought there was some chance that his reaction was also an act and that he was trying to make me angry to get a call. He said something to me after the hand, though, which made me think he was legitimately upset.

The very next hand I got black Queens in the CO and opened to 2600. I was 110% sure that the poisson would at least call. He angrily threw 7500 chips into the pot. The blinds folded, and after a cursory glance at his stack (he had about 35K behind), I shoved a stack of orange into the pot. He snap-called and turned over TT like it was the nuts, which it pretty much was in that spot. I think there’s a legitimate chance that his angry chip tossing was an act and that he thought he was baiting me. I got no reaction when I showed the QQ.

The dealer went to deal the flop, and there was the Tc in the door. The other two cards were also clubs, so I had a lot of outs, but none of them got there. I calmly counted out an appropriate number of chips and passed them to him.

He finished the day with over 300K. I’ve got 135K, though, so no complaints here.

I’m about to leave for the airport, and it occurs to me that I haven’t actually posted about my Main Event plans! I’ll be at the 2+2 party tonight and then playing my first day on July 9th, Day 1C. I’m in Vegas until at least the 12th, hopefully longer, so please let me know if you’re in town. I don’t have a lot of plans past the 9th.

Despite the record-setting turnout in the preliminary events, I’m predicting a smaller main event than we’ve seen in recent years. I think the influx at the prelims is largely due to relatively serious American players who in past years skipped the prelims to play online but this year didn’t have that option. I believe most of the players were already playing in the Main Event, so there won’t be the same surge of new players. Add to that the lack of online satellites for US players and I expect to see fewer than 6000 this year. Of course I hope to be proven wrong.

I know the Twitter account hasn’t been too active lately, but now is a good time to start following @thinkingpoker, because there will be plenty to say while I’m in Vegas.

Wish me luck and stay tuned!

As “The Poker Philosopher”, and in honor of one of my favorite non-poker blogs, I occasionally consider the ethical dimensions of a high-profile controversy in the poker community. Today, I consider the WSOP Ladies’ Event, which began yesterday and is scheduled to conclude tomorrow. Older editions of The Poker Ethicist are available in the archives.

Once again this year, a handful of men have entered the WSOP Ladies’ Event, citing a belief that a women-only event is discriminatory and a Nevada Gaming Commission policy that prevents the WSOP from actually excluding, rather than just discouraging, male players. Critics of these men say that they are only playing because they expect the field to be softer (no pun intended) than open events of comparable buy-in.

Do these men have a case for discrimination? Is it ethical for the WSOP to offer an event that excludes (or at least attempts to exclude) players based on their gender?

It is. This event serves not to exclude but to include.

Segregation is reprehensible when it carries with it a “badge of inferiority” or assigns privileges and opportunities to people based on factors beyond their control. This is not the case here, where men have 50+ other WSOP events, including numerous other $1000 buy-in events, to play. Significantly, every single one of these is a male-dominated affair. Any male player would be hard-pressed to demonstrate how the existence of a single Ladies’ Event harms him personally. The purpose of this tournament is not to push men away from the game but to draw women in.

Historically, only about 3% of players in the main event have been women. Walk into any poker room at any hour of the day and it’s easy to see that women are in the distinct minority. There may be reasons why poker is intrinsically more appealing to men than to women, but surely it is not thirty times more appealing. There must be other reasons for women’s underrepresentation at the poker tables.

Granted, as a man, I am not the best spokesperson for this cause, and it is not my intent to speak for female players or to claim that my observations are perfectly consistent with their experiences. In my experience, though, a female poker player is virtually guaranteed to get comments at the table. These range from relatively innocuous banter (“That’s a big raise for a little lady”) to outright sexual harassment. Casinos may be empowered to stop the worst of it, though they generally don’t, but on the whole there seems to be no avoiding the fact that a female poker player must deal with comments and attention directed at her because of her gender.

Granted, needling and table talk can be part of the game. I don’t mean to argue that women are necessarily entitled to a poker game free of such talk or that males who “fold to the pretty lady” ought to be penalized in anyway. I do think, however, that a desire to avoid such situations keeps many women from playing live poker, and that’s an unfortunate outcome.

Having more women playing poker is valuable in a number of ways. For one, it’s generally good for the game when more people, whoever they are, play. There are a wider selection of games available and more money in the poker economy. Women represent a tremendous, largely untapped market into which the game could expand. This is a worthy goal for the WSOP to pursue, and if they believe that a Ladies’ Event will help them to accomplish it, then they are justified in hosting such an event.

Second, appealing to a broader pool of players is a good thing. Our game is embattled in many parts of the world right now, and winning hearts and minds will require demonstrating that poker is a game with mass appeal, not an unhealthy fixation for criminals and degenerates. There’s a reason that the Poker Players Alliance repeatedly chose Annie Duke to testify before Congress, and it’s because as a mother of four she portrays a wholesome image.

Duke actually argues that,

the Ladies event is not bringing more women into the WSOP. If that were the case we would expect the % of women playing in open WSOP events to have grown over the years and that is just not the case. The % of women entering open WSOP events has remained pretty steady at 3 to 5% of the field

Over 1000 women played in the Ladies’ Event last year. Of course some of these women probably would have played a different event has this one not been available, but many of them surely would not have played at all. Whether they go on to play open events in the future or not, they are still playing at a higher level and stepping up their involvement in the game. They may be more likely to host home games, to play at their local casinos, and to talk about and share the game with friends. When people learn that respectable folk like their friends and neighbors play poker, the stigma that the game still faces in some circles will be broken down.

Duke also asks,

“Why is there a Ladies Event if poker is measuring mental acumen? Are we saying there is a difference between the intellect of men and women that means that somehow we need a separate championship event just for the women? What is that really saying about how we view women in comparison to men on the mental playing field?”

To my knowledge, no one has said this. It’s possible that the event had its origins in some patronizing thinking, but these days I’m not aware of any proponent who argues that women need their own tournament because of some mental deficit relative to their male counterparts. The Ladies’ Event is a marketing tactic designed to draw women into the game, not to demean them or to marginalize male players in any way. If the argument is not that women can’t compete with men but rather that many choose not to for reasons that have nothing to do with a perceived inferiority, then it makes no statement about the skills or capabilities of female players.

The World Series of Poker is about a lot more than crowning the best of the best these days. The WSOP is now the world’s largest poker festival and the dream destination for millions of recreational players. The smaller buy-in tournaments are where amateurs get a chance to play for life-changing money and rub elbows with their heroes from TV. If a Ladies’ Event can encourage more women to have these experiences, then that’s good for the game and everyone who plays it.

What sets these tournaments apart is that, unlike the $20 donkament, they also attract some of the best tournament players in the world. This means that if you run bad at table drawing, you could end up with David Baker or Tony Dunst on your left. Understandably, this is a stressful thought for less experienced players considering these events. I have a couple of pieces of advice for these players:

1. Take Advantage of the Opportunity. Presumably part of the reason you are playing this tournament is for the experience of playing at the WSOP. Well, part of that experience is butting heads with the best of the world. Of course you’d rather watch them from afar than from their immediate right, but you can’t control that now. Observe them closely and try to pick up a few things that you can add to your own game. Even if they end up taking your chips, at least you’ll have learned something in the process.

2. Don’t Freak Out. Not even the best pros are gods. Their cards are dealt from the same deck that yours are, and when the action is on them, they have the same three choices: raise, call, or fold. Don’t assume that they are capable of feats of superhuman card skill. In fact, the correct strategy for them is generally to play a relatively straightforward game when stacks are shallowish and the table is full of amateurs. If you make the effort to study them and think through what they are doing, you may be surprised at how much you can figure out.

3. Don’t Be a Hero. Any type of poker play that could be preceded by the adjective “hero”, as in “hero call”, “hero fold”, etc., is generally not going to be a good idea against a player who is better than you. As I understand it, this terms generally refers to making a play with the opposite extreme of your range, so a hero fold means folding one of the best hands you could have in a given spot, where a hero call is calling with one of the worst hands you could have. By definition, these are exploitive plays that seek to take advantage of a perceived glaring imbalance in an opponent’s range, ie that it will be either extremely bluff-heavy or extremely value-heavy. Also by definition, you will have trouble identifying such holes in the game of a superior player, if he even has them in the first place. Better not to get into a leveling war against such a player in the first place.

4. Re-read Rule #1. The bottom line is that you should just relax, play your best, and make the most of the experience no matter what happens.

I woke up feeling miserable this morning, so much so that I didn’t feel up to the long flight from Charleston, SC to Las Vegas, nor was I confident that I’d feel up to playing the $5K tomorrow, which was my primary reason for going. After looking over my schedule again, it didn’t seem worth it to fly out there for just a $1K, a $1500, and a small-field $10K, so I just canceled the whole trip.

Despite having reservations for a flight and a room at the Rio that together amounted to more than $800, it cost me barely $50 to cancel everything. I lost my first night at the Rio, which was wicked cheap because it was a weeknight, and the cost of my flight is fully reusable within one year. Heart Southwest Airlines!

My biggest regret is that I was planning on meeting a few of you in Las Vegas, and that isn’t going to happen now. I’m very sorry to miss you, but hopefully some of you will be around during the Main Event as well, which I still fully intend to play.

Nevertheless, I feel like they still cater too much to the lowest common denominator. I realize there are (hopefully) tons of people watching who aren’t going to care one lick about table dynamics or anything like that, but I don’t see how it hurts them to include some information that is slightly beyond their understanding. I feel like that’s generally how sports are covered. Presumably football commentators sometimes talk about plays or factors that are beyond the understanding of some appreciable chunk of their audience, but they get away with it.

Given that they are making some effort to speculate as to why players are playing hands the way they are, I believe that they ought to try to get it right. On the 2+2 Pokercast recently, Lon Mceachern said something to the effect of, “There are 100 different ways to play a hand, so no matter what explanation you’re going to give, you’re not going to please everyone.”

That strikes me as a total cop-out. I remember seeing a hand once where UTG raised with 88 and a good player in early position called with A4s. The flop comes down A72, both players checked, and the commentator said something like, “He’s checking the Ace to set a trap for his opponent.”

I don’t see why it would be so difficult to say instead, “He’s flopped top pair, but he’s got to play it carefully. He’s only got a 4 for a kicker, and if too much money goes into the pot, he could be in big trouble.” There’s nothing particularly complicated about that explanation, and it’s far more accurate.

The hand that really disappointed me from this year’s final table was Cheong’s infamous 6-bet with A7 into Duhamel’s QQ. This was such a critical hand that I feel like it deserved more explanation than it got. Basically they just made it look like Cheong’s head exploded or he made some atrocious play or something, and while I do think it was probably a mistake, I’m sure his reasoning for it was a lot more complex than 99% of the audience could intuit for themselves. At the very least, I feel it deserved some explanation such as the following:

“Cheong’s made excellent use of aggression this whole final table, and now it’s really time for him to turn up the heat. Duhamel has Racener outchipped nearly 3:1. If he can outlast Racener, he stands to earn an extra $1.5 million, which means that he shouldn’t be looking to tangle with chipleader Joseph Cheong. Here we see Cheong trying to leverage his chip lead with an aggressive move, and unfortunately for him, he’s run into one of the few hands that is simply too good for Duhamel to fold.”

Over time, this kind of commentary would probably raise the audience’s sophistication and improve their ability to appreciate the strategy behind the hands that they see. We’ve already seen this effect in the first few years of serious WSOP coverage, as they are now comfortable presuming a level of knowledge that they couldn’t take for granted back in 2005. I believe they owe it to their audience to keep raising the bar, and hopefully we’ll see more of that in future years. If we do, I might even start watching again.

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.

I opened Qc8c UTG+1, and same guy called on his button. Flop Js9d4c. I bet 7K, he calls. Turn As, I bet 21K, he quickly calls. River 4s. He checked out of turn, and I was really tempted to fire at it, but this guy seemed loose and his quick turn call worried me. I checked and told him he was good. He indicated for me to show, so I did. He showed QT, and we chopped the pot. Guess I should have bluffed river, but what an awful turn call, especially since he wasn’t even going to represent the flush. Whatever, I was thrilled to get half back.

It was a while before I played another interesting hand. I pretty much ran my image into the ground. Vince Van Patten in particular was complaining about how I was fighting him for every pot. So I raised his BB with 75s, and he called. Flop came A52 with a flush draw. He checked, I bet 4400, he quickly raised to 20K, and I called. Turn 5, he checked, I bet 28K, he hemmed and hawed for a long time before folding. I showed him the 7c.

Image was still terrible a while later when I opened ATo UTG+1 to 5700 at 1000/2000/300. Kid who was kinda new to table and hadn’t done much (but had observed me being aggro) called. Flop AA9 with a flush draw. I bet 11K, he calls. Turn 4 makes a second flush draw possible. I check, he checks. River 9. I check again, expecting him to bluff counterfeited pairs and to value bet anything good enough to call a bet. He bets 15K, I raised to 60K, he tanks for a long time, calls, and mucks. I go to dinner with 300K.

After dinner, old Japanese guy had just gotten rivered and seemed tilted. Active guy raises to 3500 from early position, Asian guy shoves 35K, I call with AKo in my SB, first guy folds, I hold vs. A8.

Same active guy opens early position again, VVP calls, and I call 88 in SB. Flop T97 with a flush draw checks around. Turn offsuit 2, checks to VVP, he bets 20K, which is nearly pot. I call, other guy folds. River offsuit 9, I check, VVP quickly bets 35K. I think it’s very unlikely he slowplayed two pair or better on this flop and I can’t see him value betting a T here, so I called and won.

My next button I open to 4500 with K3o, Jensen calls in BB. Flop A42, we both check. Turn T, he bets 6000, I call. River blank, we both check, he announces J-high, I show and win.

Jensen raises early position, I flat AKo on my BB. Flop K62r, we check it through. Turn A, I’m thinking maybe I should have bet this but we checked it through again. River blank, I think about overbetting but settle on 15K, which is practically pot. He snaps and nods knowingly when I show the winner.

My next button I raise to 4500 with AKo on my button and Jensen calls. Flop AhTh5s. He checks and calls 7K. Turn Jh, he checks and calls 17K. River blank, we both check and again I show the winner.

Going into tomorrow with 503,300. Average is like 180K. Feeling good.

Thanks to all those who are rooting for me!

Like I say, I’m embarrassed I hadn’t heard of him, because it’s clear to me that he’s soon going to be recognized as a top-tier player. He final tabled the most recent WSOP Europe and now has won his second bracelet in a huge field $1500 NLHE tournament. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Praz, but hopefully not at my tables.

I had the pleasure of playing with Liv Boeree in the 2008 WSOP, spent basically an entire day sitting on her immediate left. Poker media are generally pretty quick to promote anyone who can handle chips and has two X-chromosomes as both ravishing and a competent card player, and it’s a nice change of pace to meet a woman who actually fits the bill. She was certainly easier on the eyes than most of the greasy, overweight slobs I find myself staring down (and yes, I’m aware that I could fairly be described as a greasy, overweight slob myself- thanks for pointing it out, though).

That said, I don’t think this Maxim spread is particularly flattering to her. I bet you’ll look anyway though. Just be warned- I chose a pretty tame one for the blog, but obviously some of the pictures are Not Suitable For Work. Oh, and thanks to Wicked Chops Poker for first bringing my attention to Liv Boeree’s photos. If you weren’t satisfied with these pictures, they’ve got quite a few more of other women, most of whom have no connection whatsoever to poker. You’re welcome.

My first reaction was that, this close call notwithstanding, this was a pretty good spot for Bloch. Granted everything I’ve heard about Ivey is that he’s both incredibly good at poker and insanely intimidating in person, but is he really 24 times more likely than the average player to take it down? The one thing I don’t know, which would make a big difference, is what his chip stack was like at the time. I guess if he was already at like three times the average when he took the bet, it might not be so unreasonable to think he’d close out eight times as often as anyone else sitting on a stack that big.

Even against bad players in a great structure, that’s an awfully huge edge. Then again, if Ivey does make it to the final four with a decent stack, I imagine he takes it down a large percentage of the time.

What do you think? Was Ivey getting the best of Bloch when he took 99:1?