My latest poker article, The Myth of any Two Cards, has just been published in the December 2007 issue of Two Plus Two Internet Magazine. It’s about how a lot of tournament players rely too much on moves like the resteal where they just figure their opponent is … Read full post
I played this for a few hours last night, thinking the games would be softer than usual because of the current Five Diamond series they are running. Wrong. Almost everyone in the game was a regular, and although I was still one of the best players at the table, there … Read full post
I might as well disclose up front that I am not very good at or knowledgeable about fixed limit hold ’em. In some ways, that makes me unqualified to review a text on the subject, but it also plants me squarely within the target audience of Howard Lederer’s contribution to … Read full post
Sorry I don’t have an exact hand history, as this came from a heads up match on UB, which doesn’t write HH files to your hard drive, and on a computer without Poker Tracker. I was playing against an aggressive but not great player, and we had a history of … Read full post
Although retired FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro is the primary author of this book, the largest name on the cover is that of Phil Hellmuth. This establishes the tone of the entire book, whose very valuable core content is surrounded by an equal amount of fluff, hero worship, and self-promotion.… Read full post
Man I hate live poker tournaments. Only the biggest buy-in events have a reasonable structure, such that even when you’re playing for thousands of dollars, you don’t get a lot of room to play poker. But every now and again I tempted by them, because the atrocious play does kind … Read full post
Andy Bloch and Rafe Furst co-authored this chapter of the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition. It’s a solid if elementary introduction to pot limit for players of no limit hold ’em and outlines the basic differences between the games, though not in great detail.
They correctly identify … Read full post
Poker Stars
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
5 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
CO: $784.95
Button: $146.10
SB: $662.20
Foucault: $702.30
UTG: $397.40
Pre-flop: (5 players) Foucault is BB with :4s :2d :3s :5d
UTG raises to $12, CO calls, Button folds, SB calls Foucault calls.… Read full post
Richard Brodie’s contribution to the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition is a solid introduction to playing online poker tournaments. As is appropriate for the format of a relatively short chapter on the subject, he focuses on broad strategic concepts such as when implied odds, blind stealing, continuation betting, … Read full post
On Friday morning, we got the chance to explore the region of Zion called The Narrows that we had to pass on Sunday. As the name suggests, it’s a particularly narrow portion of the canyon that is both one of the most scenic and one of the most difficult to … Read full post
The plan for Thursday was to rise early, rent appropriate gear, and hike/wade Zion’s most famous region, The Narrows. Emily woke up not feeling particularly well, however, and so we nixed that and I got breakfast alone while she slept.
I’m currently on vacation, spending Thanksgiving with my girlfriend in Utah’s Zion Canyon. Yesterday, we hiked a beautiful trail called Angel’s Landing. Though most of it was paved, it was still strenuous at times, as were ascending over 1000 feet in about two miles of horizontal distance.
We departed from … Read full post
The $500 NLHE Main Event was yet another in a long series “close but no cigar” FTOPS finishes for me. We started with quite deep stacks, and so I came out of the gate swinging:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 15/30 Blinds, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter… Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
UTG+1: $1,960
UTG+2: $2,468
MP1: $2,114
Hero (MP2): $6,516
CO: $336
BTN: $1,092.70
SB: $2,411
BB: $2,543
UTG: $2,484
Pre-Flop: J
T dealt to Hero (MP2)
UTG raises to $70, 3 folds, Hero calls … Read full post
There are a lot of things I like about living in Boston that I didn’t like about the area where I grew up in Maryland. But I do miss my family, which particularly on my father’s side is very close, and nothing kills me like my 10-year old cousin Hannah, … Read full post
These hands were both against an absolutely atrocious player. The first one is pretty straightforward and solidified for me just how wide is range is going to be when he makes these stupid little 4-bets pre-flop:
Full Tilt Poker, $4/$8 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History … Read full post
I almost didn’t play the $500 HORSE FTOPS event last night because I was pretty tired, but generally the quality of play in these things is so bad, and the opportunity to play large-field, mixed-game tournaments so rare, that I didn’t want to pass it up. I had also forgotten … Read full post
Last night was the $300 rebuy with 6-handed tables, which is the FTOPS event in which I felt my edge would be largest. Though my finish wasn’t anything spectacular, I was quite happy with how I played. Here’s one kind of interesting hand:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 80/160 … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker Hand History Converter
SB: $1,408.50
Hero (BB): $1,525
Pre-Flop: 4
4
dealt to Hero (BB)
SB raises to $30, Hero calls $20
Flop: ($60) J 7 7 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets $40, Hero calls $40… Read full post
The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing yesterday morning entitled, “Establishing Consistent Enforcement Policies in the Context of Online Wagers“. Annie Duke’s testimony has gotten particularly good reviews. It definitely helps to portray poker as a wholesome pursuit when a witness can open her testimony with, “As a … Read full post
The New Frontier was significant because it was the first of the ‘theme hotels’ that have become a Vegas staple.
My girlfriend was there in person and said there was like two inches of dust on the cars and sidewalk and everything in the vicinity and that the people nearby
This was a $200 PLO8 tournament, and needless to say there was some extraordinarily bad play to be seen. I ended up bubbling it, but you don’t care about that. Let’s look at some hands.
Coming Through the Back Door
Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Ring game
Blinds: … Read full post
These hands were all against StorkDelaMork. He’s a regular in the mid- to high stakes on FTP, pretty tight but also smart and capable of tricky play.
I Don’t Fold Sets
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $3,374.50
UTG: $3,160.50… Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker Hand History Converter
Hero (BTN): $3,400.50
SB: $2,154
BB: $2,077
UTG: $3,869.50
CO: $3,701
Pre-Flop: A
T dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, CO calls $20, Hero raises to $90, SB calls $80, BB calls $70, CO folds… Read full post
Since I was away over the weekend, this was only the second FTOPS event I played. It was a $1000 NLHE tournament, and although I lasted about three hours, I really didn’t have any interesting hands come up. I ended up busting to this psychotic mouth-breather:
Full Tilt Poker, NL … Read full post
I spent the last few days in New Jersey and New York, visiting first a friend from high school who is now studying German literature at Princeton, then two friends from college who recently got engaged and are now living together in NYC, and finally having dinner at the home … Read full post
I’m in New York this weekend visiting my old friend and roommate Logan, and since two other players from the home game Logan ran for three years in Cambridge are also in NYC now, we were able to get a game going last night. We started out playing with $.50/$1 … Read full post
I’m currently reading Robert Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities,” a gift from a friend of mine who is a student of German literature. It’s a very insightful and well-written book with a lot of humorous passages, though it’s a bit long-winded at times. Anyway, I recently came across a few … Read full post
Sorry I don’t have the exact HH for this, but it was from early in a nightly $129 bounty tournament on Ultimate Bet. Effective stacks were about 3000, with blinds 15/30.
The UTG player opened with a pot-sized raise to 105. The action folded to me in the BB, and … Read full post
I mentioned some time ago that Nat Arem was working on a documentary about a group of college students who had made a small fortune playing online poker. Well, the movie is finished now, and I’d suggest having a look. It’s broken into five parts, so you don’t have to … Read full post
Nothing exciting to report. It was a $200 tournament with 6 players to a table. My starting table was pretty soft but I never got anything going, despite a run of big starting hands. In the first hour I had Aces twice and Kings once but got no action with … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker blogger and editor (their book is pretty good, and addresses some subjects not covered by a lot of the poker literature) has an interesting piece on the applicability of international law to online gaming in the US. He mentions that superstar attorney Alan Dershowitz, representing BetOnSports, … Read full post
During the early stages of my Sunday tournaments, I was also playing a few cash tables, and ended up getting into a very interesting heads up match. The other guy was a decent player, reasonably aggressive, and in it for the long haul. In many circumstances, I’d actually prefer to … Read full post
Harvard Law School’s Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society is hosting a conference this Saturday entitled “Innovative Thinking: The Educational Value of Poker” featuring Jim McManus, Mike Sexton, and Dr. Alan Schoonmaker.
The conference will be a convening of academics, teachers, students, and other interested parties to analyze and discuss the … Read full post
Today’s Boston Globe ran an article about the Harvard Law School seminar that I attended recently. I remembered meeting this reporter but thought she was from Harvard’s paper, the Crimson. I probably would have put more thought into how I portrayed myself, but I think I come off … Read full post
After more than a year of playing all of the big Sunday internet poker tournaments, I finally won one of the @#$% things. There were 815 entrants in Ultimate Bet’s weekly $215 tournament, but they guarantee a $200K prizepool, so there was an overlay of about 20%. After just over … Read full post
Adanthar wrote a great piece recently about the potential effect of the Absolute Poker scandal on the Poker Player Alliance’s efforts to legitimize online poker in the US. He cites the lack of a market response to the revelations of cheating as evidence that informal regulation by the community of … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
7 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $588
UTG+1: $1034.10
Hero: $531
CO: $276.10
Button: $405
SB: $193.50
BB: $770.30
Pre-flop: (7 players) Hero is MP1 with :ad :7s :4s :jd
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls $6 … Read full post
As some of you may know, the pending Massachusetts legislation that would legalize casino gambling also has the potential to make internet poker a crime. The Poker Players Alliance offers this quick and easy web application for generating a letter to Governor Deval Patrick and the appropriate representatives. I urge … Read full post
Ultimate Bet has recently introduced resizable tables for their poker client, meaning that you can now treat them like any other window on your computer and adjust their dimensions to fit as many as you like on your computer screen. This will likely have the effect of making the games … Read full post
Wednesday is the only weekday when I play tournaments anymore. I like the $300 weekly on Poker Stars with 20-minute blind levels, and because I’ve found that tournaments and cash games don’t mix well, I play some of the other big nightly tournaments to round it out. I can’t really … Read full post
October was a solid month for me. Unfortunately, I’m still not putting in enough hours. I’m only playing about 25 hours/week. Overall this year, I’ve only played about 2/3 as much as I was hoping to play. Combined with some sustained bad luck in tournaments, this means that I’m only … Read full post
My latest article for 2+2 Magazine, entitled Level-Headed Thinking, is now available. It’s about the various levels of thinking about a poker hand and how these influence river ranges.
This month, I’ve also got some bonus material just for my blog readers. Because I don’t learn from my … Read full post
For those who don’t know, LAGtard refers to a player who is loose and aggressive to a fault. He’s often a reasonably smart and tricky opponent who just gets too fancy and ends up making some fundamental mistakes such as playing too many pots out of position or calling too … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $1.50/$3 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $1,077.85
SB: $303.05
Pre-Flop: 2 T dealt to Hero (BB)
SB calls $1.50, Hero checks
Flop: ($6) T 4 6 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets $3, Hero calls $3
Turn: ($12) 6… Read full post
This kind of thing happens in Stud/8 sometimes: the pot goes multiway, and the players leading for each half of the pot keep jamming small edges but everyone else is priced in to keep calling along. The guy showing the Q is nuts to 3-bet 3rd with a K calling … Read full post
Hand #12886186626
7 Card Stud *High-Low* ($5/$10), Ante $0.50
*3rd Street* – (0.80 SB)
JRod34: xx xx 5d___folds
foucault82: Jc Jd 3c
360CF: xx xx 8d___calls
KoolAidKills: xx xx 6h___folds
jcards911: xx xx 6s___calls
panther44: xx xx 4d___calls
MR WHOOOPS: xx xx Qd___folds
lajollan: xx xx Jh___folds
*4th Street* – … Read full post
Barry Greenstein has just launched a new website called Poker Road which looks pretty sweet. It features blogs by Barry himself, his son Joe Sebok, Kevin “BelowAbove” Saul, and others, plus regularly scheduled radio and TV shows, articles, and even a comic. The general tone seems to be fun and … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $1,142
UTG: $1,241
BTN: $3,029.05
SB: $1,411
Pre-Flop: A Q dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, BTN raises to $30, SB folds, Hero raises to $102, BTN calls $72
Flop: ($209) 2… Read full post
Here’s the hand that prompted this line of thinking:
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
SB: $704.60
BB: $791
UTG: $1,075.05
MP: $537.70
Hero (CO): $1,817.85
BTN: $731.65
Pre-Flop: T J dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $21, … Read full post
Villain is a decent LAG but he does have trouble getting away from kinda strong hands when he should. I’ve got a pretty wild pre-flop image but have only shown down big hands when I play big pots. The guy in the middle is new to the table, don’t know … Read full post
This animated visualization of higher dimensions is one of the cooler things I’ve come across on the internet. To be fair, I don’t think it’s consistent with the most widely accepted theories among physicists, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.… Read full post
3-betting pre-flop has become very popular in the mid-stakes FTP cash games, in part because it’s tough to counteract with 100BB stacks. Recently, though (and I am part of this trend), people have started making smallish 4-bets leaving themselves room to fold to an all in. Particularly when you are … Read full post
This hand is from a while ago, but I just bought Poker Tracker Omaha and so have been looking through old hand histories:
Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
6 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $179
UTG+1: $56.70
CO: $208.50
Button: $1029.90
Hero: $620.30
BB: $572.50… Read full post
A site called “Point Spreads” is now claiming that the AP superuser cheating has been going on for much longer than previously suspected:
“Point-Spreads.com sources in Costa Rica are claiming the Absolute Poker Super-User account scam has been going on for three years and the actual amount that … Read full post
The first round of the first tournament of the Boston Debate League’s fourth season has just gotten underway. With about forty students competing, it is one of our largest events ever. Unfortunately, 90% of the debaters are from 50% of the schools in the League. While these schools are doing … Read full post
As most of you probably know by now, there have been very credible allegations of cheating on a site called Absolute Poker. Many of the most reliable players in the highest stakes games online are taking these accusations seriously, and Nat Arem in particular has done some amazing investigative work … Read full post
I can’t even think of a hand worth posting.
Stars Million: Flop set under set to lose most of my chips, then AQ
On Thursday, I won this little $100 PLHE tournament with 6-person tables that Poker Stars runs every afternoon. For some reason most NLHE players don’t play PLHE tournaments, so this always has small fields. There were 18 runners in this particular tournament, and 16 of them were awful. That’s par … Read full post
Heads up against a decent player. He’s not great by any means, but generally when I’m playing heads up I look for softer competition.
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
BB: $1,000
Hero (SB): $1,517.50
Pre-Flop: A A dealt to Hero (SB)… Read full post
So I was playing at a random 5/10 table the other day and had been at the table for only a few dozen hands when this happened:
Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
SB ($1753.50)
BB ($2343.75)
UTG ($1015)
MP ($725.10)… Read full post
Last night I attended a panel discussion hosted by Harvard Law School’s newly formed Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society. I hadn’t realized this at the time, but the discussion was actually part of a class taught by Professor Charles Nesson, so seating was at a premium. I … Read full post
Word on the street is that TheVOid, winner of over $2 million in the WCOOP main event, has been disqualified for entering more than one account in the event in violation of Poker Stars’ Terms and Conditions. The prize money is being reallocated so that all the other winners are … Read full post
I played a longer heads up session recently against the same opponent I mentioned in my recent post entitled, “Pwned :-(“. I ended up dropping about three buyins to him, which from what I’ve heard is fairly trivial for an aggressive heads up game. I definitely started to get a … Read full post
An important part of any fixed limit game, where multiway pots are more common, is maximizing your equity by driving out other players. This is particularly true in split pot games, where you can dramatically increase your equity if you becomethe only player with a shot at one half of … Read full post
I was in the mood for some heads up poker yesterday, but when I started my own table, everyone who sat down kept buying in for less than half the maximum. This isn’t really a problem, because these guys tend to be terrible and usually just hand you $100 or … Read full post