Poker buddy, former student, and regular reader Diego (rvrmonkey ronfezbuddy for those who have been owned by him at the tables) welcomed his second child, Dahlia, into the world yesterday. She’s cute and all, but this pretty much dooms any chance of getting Diego into an NYC home game … Read full post
Had a decent morning at the tables but the real brag is for the Boston Debate League, which was awarded today a $50,000 grant from the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Foundation. The grant will support the BDL’s work with debate programs in the Boston Public Schools over the next … Read full post
My latest poker article, Knowing is (Only) Half the Battle, is now appearing in the November issue of the Two Plus Two Internet Magazine. The article focuses on the way different betting lines taken in an otherwise identical hand can change which player has the edge:
“In other … Read full post
Hatty was about my age, maybe a year older, but very much a teenager. The 7-11 where we worked was in Baltimore County, but it was just over the city line on Edmondson Avenue. Thus, it was quite accessible by public bus, which was how Hatty got there for her … Read full post
I haven’t played much poker of late, but for some reason I was compelled recently to write a series of vignettes from my days as a 7-11 employee. I figured I might as well post them here on days that I don’t have anything poker-related to say. Please let me … Read full post
A triple barrel bluff will by definition involve at least three bets. Especially when dealing with a player who can read hands well, sizing these bets will often be the difference between success and failure.
As I discussed in a previous post, your objective on early streets may actually … Read full post
Sorry for the lack of updates, I was at a BDL tournament on Friday then a wedding reception in New York yesterday. The good news I’m staying in New York with a friend from the old Harvard Law School game I used to play in, so we got in some … Read full post
Villain was decent but way too aggressive. His strategy would have been decent for a 100BB game but we were playing 200+BB stacks and he was stacking off too light and risking too much on his bluffs.
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand … Read full post
I put in a ton of hours today, and it was a real roller coaster ride. Mostly I was playing 25/50 cap, for some reason there were six fish-filled tables running today. A couple hours into the session, I was running like crap and having one of my worst days … Read full post
It’s been a while since we’ve played together, but Matusow was at two tables of 25/50 full ring today, so I took a seat as well. The game was pretty good, but once again Matusow “got the best of me” (scare quotes cuz really it was just a coin … Read full post
This guy was min-raising every time he opened the pot, so I started min-check-raising him on the flop. Naturally that frustrated him, so more min-raising ensued.
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $1,107
Hero (BB): $7,603
Pre-Flop: 8
K
dealt … Read full post
About five years ago, when I was a senior in college, I attended a panel on education reform that a professor of mine had organized. One of the panelists was “domestic terrorist” Bill Ayers. I don’t recall what Ayers was bloviating about, but he told some story about seeing a … Read full post
Neal Gersony’s Poker Slam is a novel about an aspiring professional poker player trying to track down his legendary uncle, who won millions in the world’s biggest tournaments and then disappeared. Great fiction it isn’t, but once the book gathers steam, it’s a fast-paced and engaging mystery flavored by the … Read full post
This one was against a not-very-good player:
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
Hero (UTG): $1,454.70
MP: $1,323.15
CO: $546.65
BTN: $318
SB: $621.75
BB: $590.95
Pre-Flop: A T dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $21, 4 folds, BB … Read full post
I’ve only played this high once before, but it went very well that time. The game tonight wasn’t nearly as soft, but for a 50/100 game it wasn’t too tough. As usual, it was built around an FTP pro, in this case winner of the WSOP PLHE championship Nenad … Read full post
Generally when we think of manipulating pot size, we think of playing pot control when we have a hand that we want to showdown cheaply or trying to inflate the pot when we have a monster. But there are times when you might want to build the pot in anticipation … Read full post
When you’re trying to add new elements to your game and new tricks to your arsenal, you may end up making some plays that are, in a vaccuum, negative EV. However, the overall process of experimentation and trying to open up your game going to be very profitable for you … Read full post
Here’s a pretty interesting spot where I made what might be called a pre-emptive blocking bet:
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $2,184
BB: $2,000
UTG: $1,000
MP: $1,000
CO: $2,413
Hero (BTN): $4,150
Pre-Flop: K
K
dealt to Hero … Read full post
Such a classic clip. The look on Ivy’s face is priceless. “I thought you had pocket Kings.”
This should give you a sense of how I was running today (not the result but the fact that I was so gun shy):
Full Tilt Poker: Table Fro (deep 6) – $5/$10
The finale of my trip report from the 2008 WSOP is now appearing in the October issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine. I must say, getting down to the final tables of this huge tournament is a pretty thrilling experience, at once exciting and surreal:
“On Day 6 of the main … Read full post
Despite a pretty rough WCOOP (or maybe because of- it did compel me to put in a lot of hours), September was a solid month. Even after some of those long sessions, though, I barely averaged twenty hours a week. I just don’t think I’m going to hit my goal … Read full post
Here’s my clip from last night’s broadcast on ESPN. I’m “Brokos”, appearing about 30 seconds in. That’s right, the lucksack who gets it in with two pair versus trips and rivers the miracle 8.
ESPN tells me that I’m scheduled to be on one of tonight’s broadcasts, though they’ve been wrong about that before. My best guess is that it will be the 8PM eastern one, which focuses on Day 3, as that was when I rivered a two outer on the bubble that … Read full post
I did a little interview with Cardplayer Online’s Shawn Green Friday night. Shawn actually contacted me initially to see if I had Tony “Bond18” Dunst’s phone number, because they were trying to do an interview with him. But I didn’t have it, and they didn’t have any other way of … Read full post
Yesterday was a long day. It was the first tournament of the BDL’s fifth season, and though I’m no longer the director, I still very much wanted and needed to be there. So I woke up around 6AM, spent the next twelve hours on my feet helping to run a … Read full post
Here are two fun hands played in pretty close succession. Although I finished down over all, I feel like I owned Villain pretty hard in both:
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
MP: $2,391
CO: $7,159.50
BTN: $3,358
SB: $2,000
Hero … Read full post
Here’s a fun hand against a smart and very aggressive player who was playing pretty strangely tonight:
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $1,643
BB: $1,399
UTG: $2,084.75
Hero (MP): $2,363
CO: $2,040
BTN: $1,000
Pre-Flop: 7 A dealt to … Read full post
The structure on this actually wasn’t quite as deep as I expected in the early-going, but I imagine it gave a lot of play in the later stages while still keeping things moving along at a good clip. It’s a tough balancing act to run a really well-structured tournament for … Read full post
I’m skipping past some of the other WCOOP events I played because I’ve fallen behind on them and don’t remember much of what happened, which is because there really wasn’t much of interest anyway. The $500 rebuy 6-max did produce some neat hands, though. My table wasn’t soft, but that’s … Read full post
This was a great idea for a tournament format, with half the hands playing as O/8 and half as PLO8. Many people are going to be good at one game but not the other. Personally, I’m pretty strong in PLO8 but not so good at O/8. Naturally, plenty of people … Read full post
Whining about every WCOOP I play is getting old, so I’ll just say that this was a pretty standard limit tournament in that I played for hours and didn’t come close to winning anything. At least it was fun and interesting though because it was Stud/8, which is one of … Read full post
Terrible starting tables have been the theme of my WCOOP thus far. Today was no exception, with no fewer than three successful 5/10+ NL players, soon to be joined by a fourth (in addition to yours truly, so I guess it sucked that much more for the other guys at … Read full post
Just kidding, I didn’t play this 😉… Read full post
God what a grind this thing was. There were a little over 2000 runners, and after five and a half hours of playing, I was eliminated in 665th. It took five hours to get through two-thirds of the field. That’s what happens when you play a very well-structure limit tournament … Read full post
I continued my poor luck with table draws and got Steve Paul-Ambrose on my left in a tournament where the field in general was a giant donkfest. Steve didn’t get too out of line, but his presence alone deterred me from a few hands I otherwise would have played. You … Read full post
I was actually only in for $400 because I didn’t rebuy immediately. Only one person at my table did this, and I decided that Omaha being a high variance game, my one rebuy would be more useful to me as an insurance policy than as an immediate add-on. However, I … Read full post
I’ve been working on my heads up game lately and was looking forward to this event. My first round opponent was just terrible. We started 200 BBs deep and I was thinking that with this structure it would be pretty much impossible for me to lose. But I was playing … Read full post
I was in for the minimum, but that’s about all that went right with this tournament. For the next hour and a half, I was catching absolutely nothing. AK, JJ, and TT were the best hands I saw. I won the AK with a re-raise, my JJ ran into QQ, … Read full post
I am just not very good at FLHE. The generic advice I’ve gotten about this game is to make tons of thin value bets and calls, which I try to do, but I think I’m choosing bad spots. My opponents yesterday did not even seem particularly good, but they were … Read full post
PLO8 is one of my favorite poker games, and it’s also one of the toughest to find played for meaningful stakes, so I was pretty stoked for this event. I did in fact have a good time, even though it ended in disappointment. Early on I was pretty tight passive, … Read full post
I encountered a few straight-up terrible opponents who were doing stuff like limp-calling with a T in the door, but honestly there was less of this than I expected. At least at my table, most people were playing reasonably well. I didn’t make any spectacular bluffs or call downs or … Read full post
This was an interesting tournament format, with only four players per table. My starting table actually had only three, and the other two were of course terrible. I doubled up fairly early on when a guy called my raise with 73s, flopped trip 7’s, then shoved the river after I … Read full post
I played a one hour heads up session at 5/10 NL today and had occasion to execute two triple barrel bluffs (against different opponents). I’m not on my main computer, so I don’t have the hand histories, but I’ll recreate them as best I can. The first one was against … Read full post
Didn’t get many NLHE cash games in this month. The month started with FTOPS, so I was playing more tournaments than usual. It wasn’t a good series for me, but I was doing alright on the side. Then I spent the second half of the month running a summer camp … Read full post
This was a fun hand. It was against this guy who kinda irks me. He’s a full ring grinder, meaning that he plays 9-handed NLHE games exclusively for his income. Needless to say, he’s a pretty uncreative nit with a bit of an inflated ego because he can make the … Read full post
My latest poker article, a strategy-filled narrative from my third and fourth days at the World Series of Poker Main Event, is now appearing in the September Issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine. Here’s an excerpt from early on Day 4:
… Read full postAt this point, I was rolling along with
There’s a 15-minute video interview with me over at Poker Savvy Plus that I think came out pretty well. It touches on how I got involved in poker, my playing style, some common mistakes I see, and how poker interacts with my non-profit work.… Read full post
I haven’t watched or followed much of the DNC Convention, but I’ve seen enough to make these two observations:
1. Hillary Clinton and the Glass Ceiling. Before Hillary’s speech, they did this video montage thing that was all about how she may not shattered the “glass ceiling” that restricts the … Read full post
Two kind of interesting spots from a recent PLO session. They don’t have much in common other than the fact that both involve AAxx hands.
Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
6 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $616.70
UTG+1: $236
CO: $345
Button: $806.40
Hero: $1024.30… Read full post
…but this one is kind of special. I shove flop cuz with these stacks on this board a short-stacker is check-raising any decent hand. Air is definitely the majority of his betting range here, and even when he does randomly call with top pair I have two overs and some … Read full post
I was really rolling in this for a few hours. There was a giant over-aggressive donkey at my starting table, and I was lucky enough to get more than a few hands against him early on to get up a nice stack.
Then I lost a good sized pot by … Read full post
It’s so rare to find a tournament with a structure as good as this one. Level increases were gradual and staggered every thirty minutes, and stacks started deep. There were a couple of good tournament players at my table, most notably SCTrojans and mattyv (AKA Plattsburgh). They both probably play … Read full post
It was Razz, so obviously nothing too interesting happened. I felt like I ran terrible, but I think everyone feels that way when they play Razz. I’m not going to bore you with any bad stories. Naturally there were a ton of players calling down to chase ridiculous stuff like … Read full post
This one was over quick. I 3-bet AT on the button against a pretty loose bad player in the CO whom I’d 3-bet several times before. He called. The flop came T-high with a flush draw. He checked and called. The turn was a 9, making the board something like … Read full post
My first table was pretty unremarkable except for Erick Lindgren a few seats to my right. He was playing a kind of loose and passive style, but he was making it work for him. After I got myself knocked out in 4th (at that first table), he had more than … Read full post
I was too inconsiderate to order your gift well in advance and too cheap to get expedited shipping, so it may not arrive tomorrow. But it will be there soon. In the meantime, here are photos from Bryce and Zion Canyons. For everyone who wasn’t there, I’ve included the occasional … Read full post
I’m not sure who this company is that they produced an ad of this length and production quality, but I thought it was awesome!
Once again I had some rough table draws, ending up with a lot of high-stakes cash players. As I previously explained, this is bad in an FTOPS tournament for a number of reasons. One of them took me to valuetown on the first hand of the tournament:
Full Tilt Poker, … Read full post
This ran simultaneously with the HORSE, and I didn’t even realize it was scheduled. I think turbo tournaments are stupid, but it was an FTOPS, I was already playing, and it as going to require close to 0% of my attention, so I played. Thankfully, it was over quick, as … Read full post
I wanted to make this post about how bad people are at Stud/8, because they are. Split pot games will rip clueless players to shreds. O/8 is a pretty easy game to get, so you don’t see quite as many huge mistakes. Plus there are fewer betting streets and it’s … Read full post
I knew Monday night’s FTOPS was a 1K NLHE, but I was pleasantly surprised when I was “seated” to find only five other players at my table. I had no idea it was a 6-max! I was less pleasantly surprised to find two other regulars in the FTP 10/20 games … Read full post
This event replaced the usual $200 FTP $750K Guarantee and had an appropriately weak field. I didn’t do anything special to chip up, aside from occasionally abusing the fish on my right. I did find check-folding Aces on the turn at one point:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 80/160 … Read full post
2+2 forums mainstay and Poker Savvy Plus Guest Pro Shaundeeb (no relation to Freddy) won yesterday’s $500 heads up FTOPS tournament. He dusted his opponent in the Final Four in a single hand (sorry converter can’t seem to handle a HU tournament):
Full Tilt Poker Game #7600724839: FTOPS Event #9 … Read full post
I went pretty deep in the $500 heads up matches, finishing in the top 64. Here’s a blow-by-blow:
Round 1
My first two opponents were ridiculously soft. I polished the first off in minutes, then waited over an hour for round two.
Round 2
I was so busy playing other … Read full post
This was a $200 6-max tournament with a $40 bounty on each player. I lasted a few hours but only won one bounty. Because it was 6-max, I was able to accumulate chips without a lot of big hands. Eventually JCarver got moved to my left, which cramped my style. … Read full post
Event 7 was the $100 rebuy. On the first hand I raised AQ on the button, called a shove for half a stack (ie the guy didn’t double rebuy), and got shown AA. I reloaded $100 more and that’s all I was in for. It’s practically the only hand I … Read full post