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 … Read more…
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 … Read more…
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 … Read more…
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 … Read more…
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 … Read more…
I’m not great at PLO, but I played the $500 PLO 6-max FTOPS event because I want to get better and I was sure there would be plenty of worse players. There were. Unfortunately, they ran good: Full Tilt PokerPot … Read more…
Event 4 was a $300 NLHE tournament that allowed one $300 rebuy and one $3000 add-on. The initial $300 bought 2000 chips, the rebuy bought 2000 chips anytime during the first hour that you had 2000 chips or fewer, and … Read more…
The ninth Full Tilt Online Poker Series commenced on Wednesday with a $200 NLHE freezeout. I lasted only about two hours, and this was the closest thing to an interesting hand I could find: Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, … Read more…
Here are two pretty interesting hands from a small PLO8 tournament that I final tabled on Saturday ($100 buy-in, like 135 players, I finished 8th, not a big deal). It’s pretty rare that you would slowplay in PLO8 because a … Read more…
Can’t complain about this. All three of these hands were from a single session at the same table over the course of about four hours: Poker Stars, $25/$50 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 8 Players LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter SB: … Read more…
I just happened to notice this post on fellow Poker Savvy Plus pro Dani “Ansky” Stern’s blog. He posted the details on PokerHand, but I find it annoying to click a link just to see the action, so here’s my … Read more…
Full Tilt Poker Pot Limit Omaha Ring game Blinds: $2/$4 5 players Converter Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is SB with :9d :9s :8c :8h UTG calls, CO raises to $11, Button calls, Hero calls, BB calls, UTG calls. Flop: :6d … Read more…
I was playing a little HORSE yesterday and made a read/laydown that might be standard/uninteresting for serious Stud/8 players but that made me happy. The villain, Berry Johnston, won the 1986 WSOP main event, and actually he and I played … Read more…
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 PlayersLeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter Hero (BTN): $2,517SB: $1,000BB: $1,888.75UTG: $5,702.90CO: $1,017 Pre-Flop: A T dealt to Hero (BTN)3 folds, Hero raises to $30, SB raises to $90, Hero calls $60 … Read more…
I played my first online session in weeks tonight, and it went great. Mostly just running well, though I do think I chose my spots well. I also may not have gotten paid off on the river here if I … Read more…
I’m listed as Andrew Brooks on Poker News, finished the day with 566,500. That’s down a fair bit from my peak of 750K but a hell of a lot better than the 65K I started with. I finished level 1 … Read more…
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 PlayersLeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter BTN: $1,249.10SB: $600BB: $1,385.25Hero (UTG): $1,542.65 Pre-Flop: Q J dealt to Hero (UTG)Hero raises to $21, BTN calls $21, SB folds, BB calls $15 Flop: ($66) … Read more…
More often than not I end up regretting big moves like this in tournaments, but I think this one is alright. It worked, anyway. Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 120/240 Blinds, 25 Ante, 6 Players LeggoPoker.com – Hand History … Read more…
With deeper stacks (these hands are all from deep tables), you need to be, not necessarily more aggressive, but aggressive in more situations. With 100 BBs’s, a 4-bet squeeze will almost always commit your stack, which means there’s only a … Read more…
is that the bad beats are more expensive than ever! Here are some monsters I lost today: Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter UTG: $1,006.70 MP: $448.30 CO: $870.20 Hero (BTN): … Read more…
Ran down to Foxwoods for a few hours today to get back in the swing of live poker in preparation for the WSOP. Mostly I reminded myself how mind-numblingly boring the games are and how god damn stupid and annoying … Read more…
Doyle Brunson’s Super/System was the first poker book I ever read, and one part that has always stuck out in my mind is a play that he suggests to bluff an opponent off of a chop when you both a … Read more…
When you play a lot of tables at once, one thing you need to factor into the decision is that you will occasionally make mistakes. And I don’t just mean poker mistakes like missing a value bet, I mean actually … Read more…
Ugh I can’t even tell you how gross the weather is in Boston right now. It is so humid, and my window fan is doing nothing. I really was in no mood to play poker today, and I think it … Read more…
Well, I final tabled the Stars $300 today, but I took 9th which was only good for under five buyins. I actually want to look at a hand from the FTP $50 1 rebuy/1 add-on (not sure why I played … Read more…
I like trying to bluff into multiple players. Not only do I sometimes surprise myself with the fold equity I have, but it’s also nice for balancing my ranges and helping me to get paid off the many times that … Read more…
Sorry, forgot to post this before going to bed last night. If you haven’t read it already, here’s Part 1. I’d just won a series of big pots and was ready to abuse my commanding chip lead: Grrrrrrrr Min-Raise Full … Read more…
This is the third and final part in my review of a recent final table finish in the FTP $100 rebuy 6-max weekly tournament last Wednesday. If you haven’t already, check out Part 1 and Part 2. We were down … Read more…
I had a bunch of interesting hands from my final table run in the FTP $100 rebuy 6-max last night. Over the next few days, I’m going to post them here along with my analysis. Skipping the not-very-interesting rebuy period, … Read more…
I almost didn’t play the $500 PLO 6-max, but a few people convinced me I should, and I’m glad I did. The field was really weak, and it was a lot of fun to boot. Well, except for losing a … Read more…
This was a $200 Stud/8. I got off to a great start and scooped like three reasonably sized pots in the first level. Unfortunately, the first level of a limit tournament is pretty irrelevent. After that I was getting run … Read more…
This was a $200 PLO tournament with a $40 bounty. Predictably, there were a ton of people playing trashy hands. I imagine a really good PLO player could have done a lot more to take advantage of that, but the … Read more…
The $200 buy-in for this event was actually smaller than that of the regularly scheduled tournament it replaced: the weekly $300 6-max. Still, it was an FTOPS with thousands of entrants and thousands of fish. I didn’t recognize many names … Read more…
I had a decent run in the monthly $500 on Stars today, though it ultimately ended in tragedy. As you’ll see, I had some lucky cooler situations early on, but there was usually at least an element of my opponent … Read more…
I’ve written before about the importance of thin value bets, but I think at least some of these are too thin: Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners Seat 0: Villain ($13917.50) – Seat 1: Hero ($5098.50) – – … Read more…
I got up big stacks in both the $200 UB and the $500 FTP tournaments today. The UB went south when I called a tiny raise from the CO with 64s in my BB. He had been active, we were … Read more…
We were down to the final five in last night’s $1000 WSOP satellite. We were all getting our entry fee back, but there was only one seat to be awarded (which was annoying as hell- just one or two more … Read more…
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners Seat 0: Villain ($5899) – – Seat 1: Hero ($6298) – PRE-FLOP: Villain posts small blind $25Hero posts BIG blind $50Dealt To: Hero RAISE Villain ($150)CALL Hero ($150) FLOP: Pot: $350 CHECK … Read more…
In general, I think it’s important, for meta-game reasons, to bet hands like this on the river (see my article Value Flows Downstream). If you aren’t betting the second nut full house here, then it will be very difficult for … Read more…
A lot of weakish players will broadcast their hand strength with their bet sizing especially when in position on the river. Thus, I sometimes like to check to them without a specific plan. Instead, I want to see what they … Read more…
Full Tilt Poker, $25/$50 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 PlayersLeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter Hero (BB): $5,498SB: $5,674 Pre-Flop: 9 9 dealt to Hero (BB)SB raises to $150, Hero raises to $498, SB calls $348 Flop: ($996) T 7 Q … Read more…
As I move into higher stakes games, I’m constantly reminded of a poker principle that’s been important all along: you make most of your money from playing with bad players. When I sit in a 25/50 game, it’s because there’s … Read more…
You know you’re in for a rough time when the Sunday Majors haven’t even started yet and you’re already ready to tear your hair out. I was just thinking yesterday how lucky I was to experience so much positive variance … Read more…
An illustrative S/8 hand I played recently: Hand #154526177047 Card Stud *High-Low* ($10/$20), Ante $1 *3rd Street* – (0.60 SB) somebody: xx xx Ah___raises___callsfoucault82: 4d 4h 4s___raisesbadabang: xx xx Jc___foldsluckymonkey9: xx xx 7c___foldsJshorts7: xx xx 5d___callsumhmm: xx xx 3h___folds *4th … Read more…
On the night of the O/8 FTOPS, I decided to play some O/8 cash as well and came upon what seems to be a pretty common profitable spot in low limit O/8 ring games: Poker Stars Limit Omaha Ring game … Read more…
Back in December, I made a post about sitting briefly with Mike Matusow in a 25/50 6-Max NLHE game. It was one of the first times I played that high, and it ended with Mike stacking me when he flopped … Read more…
I was sitting in a 50/100 NL game on Ultimate Bet with a full-stacked player against whom I felt I had a pretty good edge when who should come and sit us than poker brat Phil Hellmuth. Unfortunately, he only … Read more…
The day started well enough. I began my Sunday earlier than usual to play the $240 knock-out FTPS event and the Poker Stars $2 Million Frequent Player Point tournament. I got up nice stacks in both, and did manage to … Read more…
Ray Zee, the author of High-Low Split Poker for Advanced Players, posted a brief response to my review of his book on the Two Plus Two forums: “tnx for the review. i do believe all players would greatly benefit from … Read more…
AT $2500, this was one of the largest buy-in online tournaments I’d ever entered, and the first two-day event. It had a great structure, with gradual blind increases every half hour and deep starting stacks. I got a pretty good … Read more…
Ray Zee’s book is rightly called, “For Advanced Players.” Players new to Stud/8 or O/8 will need to find another resource, as Zee largely glosses over basic material in favor of advanced thinking and plays. Though occasionally scattershot and disorganized, … Read more…
$200 6-max NLHE. Same old, same old. I’ve already posted most of the key hands on 2+2, and I don’t feel like re-converting them, but you can check out that thread if you want to see them. Two were kind … Read more…
If you haven’t picked up on the pattern yet, last night’s $300 Razz tournament involved me running terribly against a bunch of atrocious calling stations. I’ll try to include some discussion on a few interesting spots so that this isn’t … Read more…
This was a $200 PLHE/PLO mixed event. I was thinking it would be pretty juice because of how poorly even some of the better hold ’em players would do in the PLO portion, and boy was I right. Unfortunately, I … Read more…
Last night was the $300 rebuy 6-max. I was in for “the minimum”, meaning a double rebuy initially and the add-on, but I use scare quotes because soooooooooo many people weren’t rebuying. I was the only one to double rebuy … Read more…
Tuesday night’s $200 O/8 event was the best I’ve done in this year’s FTOPS, which just means I got to play for five hours and leave empty-handed. The play was atrocious, but it’s tough to do much in O/8 if … Read more…
I’ve never played this tournament before, but since I was going to be playing the FTOPS anyway, I decided to give it a go. I’ve generally assumed it would attract a fairly strong field and be a high-variance, low-profit venture. … Read more…
This was a $1000 6 max, a great event for me, but it just didn’t come together. I was getting re-raised left and right, and I’m not sure if people were catching hands or just that stupidly aggressive but it … Read more…
Edit: Mistitled, this was Event 9. Been too busy for the kinda weak events of the last few days. Looking forward to this week’s lineup though, starting with the $1K tomorrow night. I was rocking it pretty good tonight, winning … Read more…
Lasted a little over three hours in the $500 HORSE, then made an illustrative Stud mistake: FullTiltPoker Game #5166723748: FTOPS Event #3 (35825861), Table 26 – 500/1000 Ante 100 – Limit Stud Hi – 0:35:56 ET – 2008/02/08Seat 1: zartarious … Read more…
Grrrrrrrr I missed the PLO Bounty event, I didn’t realize it was an afternoon tournament. The $500 HORSE is tonight, so that’s what I’ll be playing instead.
This was just a standard $200 NLHE event, but it attracted 5000 runners, more than FTP’s Sunday tournament. I got off to a slow start but eventually built up a big stack and was 55th with 2000 remaining. Then I … Read more…
Until this year, I’d taken two shots at 25/50 NL games when I saw a fish sitting. It didn’t go well, as this post from last month documents. Anyway, Matusow was at three full ring tables tonight, so I had … Read more…
I think I might be trying a little too hard to make thin value bets, especially when I’ve already shown a lot of strength. People are generally pretty reluctant to make big river calls in tournaments, which means they either … Read more…
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners Seat 0: VaMtnGal ($647.90) – – Seat 3: urbandb888 ($3836.55) – PRE-FLOP: VaMtnGal posts small blind $10urbandb888 posts BIG blind $25Dealt To: urbandb888 CALL VaMtnGal ($25)CHECK urbandb888 FLOP: Pot: $60 CHECK urbandb888CHECK … Read more…
This guy wasn’t great, but he was better than I gave him credit for sometimes. In particular, he did a reasonable job of adapting to my thin calls and not bluffing in some obvious spots, which should have made me … Read more…