I’ve been trying to play some higher stakes Razz games recently to feel them out, get some practice, and decide whether it’s worth trying to play the $1500 WSOP Razz event. It hasn’t been going great, but I don’t feel like I’m in over my head. I’ve certainly got some … Read full post
In general, I’ve found that my opponents at mid-stakes no limit are quite passive: they don’t make a lot of big bluffs, and they aren’t very good at value betting thin. In a lot of ways, this makes them easy to play against, but it generally means that when I … Read full post
I’ll explain why soon, but it looks like I’m going to be in Las Vegas for most of the preliminary WSOP events. After reviewing the schedule, I’ve identified these tournaments as the ones I’m most likely to play:
Friday, June 15th. $2000 NLHE 3-day event.
Saturday, June 16th. $1500 … Read full post
This is from today’s $300, 20-minute level Saturday tournament on Poker Stars. The Villain is a pretty solid regular, but I don’t have much of a read on him beyond that. Blinds are at 15/30, I have about 3600, a nice improvement from our 2500 starting stacks. Villain, who has … Read full post
I was doing some research yesterday when Joe from my old home game sent me an IM to tell me he was at a really juicy 2/4 PLHE game but had to leave. Thankfully there was no waiting list, so I was able to get into the seat he vacated … Read full post
Wowowow were there ever some donkeys out last night. I had a great session at 2/4 and 3/6 NL. I felt like I was doing quite a lot of things right: good table selection, applying a lot of pressure in position with deep stacks, building big pots against the fish, … Read full post
PokerStars Tournament #49464655, No Limit Hold’em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: $615.00/$35.00
551 players
Total Prize Pool: $338865.00
Target Tournament #43905792 Buy-In: $10000.00
30 tickets to the target tournament
Tournament started – 2007/05/13 – 18:00:00 (ET)
Dear foucault82,
You finished the tournament in 1st place.
This qualifies you for a seat in … Read full post
nTodd and I hit up the breakfast buffet at the Veranda Café. I mentioned that I like casino buffets for cheap meals because although some of the food is guaranteed to be terrible, you can keep rolling the dice until you find something you like. If you order a sandwich … Read full post
With about ten minutes to go before the 6PM $500 satellite, I spot Rich (2p2’er Shorty55), whom I first met in Vegas last summer and who took half my action in the 2K I played at Foxwoods a few months ago. Then again, he’s not tough to spot, partially because … Read full post
For some reason, Foxwoods decided it would be a good idea to have a $3000 deep stack tournament on a random Thursday. Todd invited me down to play satellites on Wednesday, and I took him up on it. I’m a time nit, so we left way earlier than we needed … Read full post
I came across an amazing post on 2+2 today. I can’t say that I’ve fully grasped its implications yet, but it’s the first time in a while that I’ve found myself moved to think about certain situations in a very different way. I don’t know much about the poster, soah, … Read full post
Sorry for the lack of updates guys, I haven’t played much recently and have generally been busier than usual. Every summer I have a pretty large research project that entails assembling some five hundred pages of materials on the upcoming debate topic. These materials are then distributed for free to … Read full post
A few weeks ago, Logan IM’ed me to say that there was a giant fish playing a 15/30 NL deep stack table. I watched for a few orbits of three-handed play and agreed that the guy was awful. He wasn’t particularly deep, so I sat down with $3000 to take … Read full post
I mentioned a few days ago that I was happy with a recent trend in my river play, which is that I tend to be the aggressor. I’m much more likely to make a thin value bet or a bold bluff than a crying call or even a check to … Read full post
Edit: The converter screwed up the results on two of these, showing me as the winner when in fact I got stacked. I’m fixing this now, sorry for the confusion.
For whatever reason, I decided during last night’s session that I was going to believe people a lot less than … Read full post
Two Plus Two Magazine has just published an article of mine entitled Hidden Costs in Tournament Poker in their May issue. Please take a look and tell me what you think either here or in my discussion thread in 2+2’s Magazine Forum.
And here’s a good example of me … Read full post
I’m posting here every pot for a two-hour session yesterday in which I either lost or won more than $100 and in which I either bet or raised the river. I think it’s a good sign that even when I lose, I’m usually the river aggressor. This means I’m missing … Read full post
Last Wednesday was the last ever session of the home game that my college roommate Logan has been hosting for the past three years. He and most of our fellow players are about to graduate from Harvard Law School and move away, so this was my last chance to play … Read full post
Sunday’s Boston Herald contained a very nice article about the Boston Debate League, a non-profit organization that I founded and now direct. Please click here to read it!
There are actually some audio clips also, though they’re hard to find. After the second paragraph, there’s a drop-down box that says … Read full post
This weekend I’m taking a two debaters from Boston to the J. B. Fuqua Urban Debate League Celebration in Atlanta. The two debaters, Charles and Peter, are a great team. Charles is a hefty black man, smart but reserved, very friendly and with a charming sense of humor once he … Read full post
I attended a pretty interesting meeting yesterday about the UIGEA and strategies for legitimating the game of poker in general. It was an impressive crowd consisting of some prominent lobbyists and lawyers for the gaming industry, Poker Players Alliance president Michael Bolcerek, professional poker players Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, and … Read full post
I got a note today from a young woman I first met last summer while teaching at a debate camp for the Los Angeles and Southern California Urban Debate Leagues. She was one of the smartest, nicest, and most mature teenagers I’ve had the pleasure to work with, and she’s … Read full post
We took a break from out usual Wednesday home game to play a $1/$2 game with a $500 buy in at the home of another Harvard Law student named Josh. Only Logan, Darren, and I elected to play, so it was a very deep, very loose and aggressive four-handed game … Read full post
Sorry for the recent silence, but I’ve had a busy few days. On Tuesday, my non-profit organization, the Boston Debate League (BDL), co-hosted a luncheon with the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues (NAUDL). To be brutally honest, the BDL’s organizational and institutional capacity is severely underdeveloped right now. That … Read full post
Ever since I first heard it on the soundtrack to Trainspotting, I’ve been a huge fan of the Lou Reed song, “Perfect Day.” Cameron from 2+2 just sent me this amazing link to a live performance in which Lou Reed sings a duet with a most unlikely partner.… Read full post
This isn’t really all that interesting of a hand, but I’m supposed to do one from every day I play, so this is from the $500 Sunday tournament that Full Tilt has quarterly or whatever.
We’re about two hours into the tournament, which has a very good structure. Blinds are … Read full post
I ran like ass in everything I played yesterday except the Stars $300, but I ran very well in that and finished 3rd for just under $9000, so it was still a quite good day. I’ve uploaded the entire hand history from the tournament using Pokerxfactor’s hand history replayer. … Read full post
I found a kind of interesting article on Card Runners recently by one of their guest pros named Zimba. The piece, entitled “The Myth of the Socially Non Redeeming Activity“, disputes not only the claim that poker is actively harmful but also the claim that it is, “inherently … Read full post
I’ve posted once before about my home game, (but something’s wrong with my permalinks- gonna have to figure that out, stupid Blogger), so I’m going to skip a lot of that introductory material. If you haven’t seen that, you can search for it (it’s in the February archives or under … Read full post
One of my goals for the year was to put some time into improving my play in poker games besides No Limit Hold ‘Em. I bought Poker Tracker Stud and spent a good deal of time in January playing Stud games, but since then I haven’t done much towards this … Read full post
I’ve been trying to balance a ton of stuff lately, between poker, my writing, my work with the Boston Debate League and the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues, my finances, etc. I’m also kind of absent minded and procrastinatory, so I’ve started keeping a To Do list. It’s just … Read full post
This hand came up fairly deep in the Poker Stars $20 rebuy. We were well into the money, and I had been playing very aggressively since assumulating a big stack. The player to my immediate left had expressed his frustration with me in the chat box and called or raised … Read full post
Poker Stars has recently implemented some very welcome changes to the structure of some of their most popular tournaments, including the weekly Million Dollar Guarantee and many of their daily guaranteed prize pool tournaments.
For those who don’t know, the ‘structure’ of a poker tournament refers to the number of … Read full post
I started watching the Sopranos after receiving the first two seasons on DVD for Christmas my senior year of college. My roommate, Logan, and I were hooked immediately, and we soon dragged our friend Jen in as well. At that time, Season Four had just come out on DVD, so … Read full post
I elected not to torture myself playing the big Sunday tournaments today, opting instead for Easter brunch with the girlfriend followed by Sopranos with friends in the evening.
Brunch was at the Doubletree Suites in Cambridge. It was a nice spread, with a pretty wide variety of breakfast, lunch, … Read full post
I played this hand early in a $650 WSOP satellite. My opponent seemed to quite loose, having already limped K9s pre-flop, overcalled a raise, and paid off two streets on an AKx board. I tried to take him to value town with a pretty sizeable river shove:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em … Read full post
Yesterday I made a spur of the moment decision (read: gamble) to buy in direct to a $1000 WSOP satellite on Poker Stars. The play was plenty weak, and in fact I doubled up on the first orbit with QQ versus AQ on a Q-high board. Unfortunately, within half an … Read full post
After reading Adam Junglen’s Monte Carlo trip report, I decided to set a little trap of my own with Ace-Jack. It was fairly early in a $50 freezeout on Poker Stars. The table chipleader had open limped from MP1, and then the action folded to me on the CO … Read full post
I came across this pretty cool article about a student I worked with when I was an administrator for the Chicago Debate League. Chime Asonye was definitely one of the most ambitious and talented of the hundreds of debaters in that League, and even after I left Chicago and … Read full post
A lot of you may have read this already, but for anyone who hasn’t, I encourage you to visit Adam Junglen’s blog and read his report from European Poker Tour Monte Carlo. I don’t want to ruin any of the suspense by saying more than this, but he is a … Read full post
In my last post, I talked about playing a big draw and the importance of being the one who puts in the last bet. Today I’m going to look at a hand where I played a big draw in just the opposite way, betting the flop in a situation where … Read full post
Even though it’s not from a tournament, this hand that I played last night illustrates a key concept from my recent article, “The Last Bet“, which appears in the April issue of 2+2 Magazine. In this hand, I flop two overcards and a flush draw against a … Read full post
I’ve got another article in this month’s 2+2 internet magazine, entitled The Last Bet. Please take a look at it and let me know what you think either by leaving a comment here or by posting in my thread in the 2+2 Magazine Forum.
In case you missed … Read full post
Gavin Griffin wins EPT Barcelona, good for 1,850,000 euros, or nearly $2.5 million. Wowowowowow.… Read full post
Getting fancy isn’t the only way to abuse the min-re-raisers.
About 3 hours into a $650 WSOP satellite on Stars. Blinds were 100/200 no ante. UTG+1 raises to 600, MP1 makes it 1400. I’ve seen him min-re-raise KK before. I had about 9000 and he covered. I folded QQ when … Read full post
Warning: shameless brag ahead.
It’s irrational, I know, but like a few others, I have a real hatred for the min-re-raise. I guess I should be more tolerant since it’s really an awful play, telling your opponents you have a monster hand while simultaneously giving them good direct + implied … Read full post
This hand comes from yesterday’s $300 6-max tournament on Full Tilt. This would be a great tournament if it got more runners, as 6-max tables make for deeper stacks and more opportunities to play pots. Anyway, I don’t remember exact stack sizes, but blinds were around 250/500, and we each … Read full post
I’ve been wanting to improve my trickiness/creativity on the river, and in particular I think I need to add more checkraise bluffing into the mix. I like being able to check-raise the river for value, just because there are situations where that’s the best option. However, if my river check-raises … Read full post
I’m very fortunate that Bond18 from 2+2, who had been dominating online tournaments lately as milwkid on Poker Stars and muckthenuts on most other sites, has chosen a hand history that I submitted to him as one of the ones he will review. Basically he put out an open call … Read full post
You may have noticed that I’ve updated the links section in the left sidebar. In particular, I’ve added some good blogs that I’ve started reading and deleted a few that hadn’t been updated in ages. This isn’t in any way a sleight to the authors of those blogs, who in … Read full post
When checking out the 2/4 NL games on FTP today, I saw that Full Tilt pro Lynette Chan was playing on several of them. I didn’t really know anything about her, but with a few very important exceptions (Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius), FTP pros tend not to be particularly good … Read full post
I played a few tables of 2/4 NL last night while finishing off the last tournament of a block I started in the early afternoon. I ran into another player who was intent on playing mediocre hands out of position against me, so I took the opportunity to experiment with … Read full post
Full Tilt has had a Beta version of its software available with resizable tables for some time, but it’s now been officially released. This might seem like good news for someone who plays up to eight tables of poker at once, as this will make it easier to fit them … Read full post
If you haven’t already, you should check out this article from Phil Galfond (2+2’s Jman, one of the best NLHE players online) in the latest issue of Bluff magazine. It’s an excellent discussion of how to think in terms of ranges of hands and how mixing up your range can … Read full post
I woke around 6 AM this morning so that I’d have time to shower, eat, and make the two hour drive to Foxwoods and arrive by 9AM. Though the $2,000 tournament didn’t start until 9, I needed to get a Wampum Rewards card (lost my old one) and register, and … Read full post
Saturday was the fourth Boston Debate League tournament of the 2006-07 season, the last before our two-day City Championships event. It got off to a rocky start. I had to bring coffee, donuts, awards, a computer, and a printer with me, which meant that I had to borrow my girlfriend’s … Read full post
Since I’m going to be getting up early tomorrow and hopefully spending the entire day playing the $2K at Foxwoods, I decided to pass on playing the big Sunday tournaments today. Another consideration was that the Sunday Million on Poker Stars today was a $1000 buy-in, which I didn’t really … Read full post
Got off to a good start in a bunch of stuff today but ended up cashing in nothing (well, I got my money back in the WSOP double shoot-out). I don’t even really remember any interesting hands, I guess this one kind of was from the UB $100:
Blinds are … Read full post
I found myself playing some 2/4 NL heads up games yesterday and really enjoying it. From time to time, I’ve gone through phases where I was really into heads up play. I think these are periods where I’m improving a lot as a poker player, because heads up really does … Read full post
I had some Mandalay Bay chips that I forgot to cash in on Saturday, and since I needed to go there anyway, I decided to check out their game. The guy keeping the wait list when I first got there didn’t seem to speak English very well, and I couldn’t … Read full post
Joe, Logan, and Darren all left on Sunday, which meant we had to check out of the Venetian. I was staying another night, but at the MGM, so the plan was for them to move all of their stuff into my room there. Since they didn’t get in until like … Read full post
Although it was after 5AM Saturday morning when we went to bed, I woke up in time to play the $500 Noon tournament feeling not the least bit hungover. It may have been better if I slept through it, though. Early on, I made a classic internet donkey mistake and … Read full post
I woke around 8AM Friday morning, it being 11 AM my time. When I finished showering and dressing, Logan was awake as well. Together we went across the street to the Mirage buffet.
Though the selection at breakfast wasn’t great, the food was quite good for a buffet. The bacon … Read full post
Ugh, I started working on this yesterday and somehow managed not to save what I had done. My apologies if laziness and irritation compel me to write less well than usual.
My friend Logan, his roommate Joe, and a regular from our poker game named Darren had been planning to … Read full post