My first day in Vegas was a blast. I’ll get into more detail tomorrow, but basically I got to pretend I was a big shot for a day. I had an interview with a reporter doing a story on poker and philanthropy, then a taping for Cardplayer with the Poker … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
BTN: $1,249.10
SB: $600
BB: $1,385.25
Hero (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) 9 3
K (3 … Read full post
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 Converter
MP: 25,020
CO: 25,268
BTN: 3,120
SB: 6,095
Hero … Read full post
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 narrow range of hands with which you can make this … Read full post
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): $1,021.50
SB: $416
BB: $525
Pre-Flop: A A
dealt to … Read full post
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 the players are. Jesus it’s bad enough they take two … Read full post
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 one-card straight. Essentially, he suggests that if your opponent makes … Read full post
I was playing a bit lower than usual tonight, as I’m wont to do when on a downswing, and that means that I was up against a lot of players I’d never seen before. When trying to get a read on unknowns at a 6-max table, there are some really … Read full post
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 showed. Here’s my bustout hand from the FTP 750K:
Full … Read full post
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 this, was just in the mood for tournaments today):
Full … Read full post
15K hands at -2.5 BB/100 is the short version of the story. And despite a final table appearance in an FTP $100 rebuy, I lost money on tournaments as well, thought I didn’t play that many. I very nearly rallied on the last day of the month, only to get … Read full post
It’s one of the hallmarks of the Sunday Million that interesting hands just aren’t likely to come up. This is owing both to the remarkable weak players, against whom fancy play is largely a liability, and the shallow structure, which leaves little room to maneuver. But in thinking over my … Read full post
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 I have big hands in these spots. Here are two … Read full post
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 Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 800/1,600 Blinds, 200 Ante, … Read full post
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 to the final few tables, and at this point … Read full post
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, here’s Part 1.
I was only in for $309, but … Read full post
I was playing around with Poker Tracker today and came across something pretty surprising: over my last 112,000 hands, I have lost more BB’s with AQs than with anything else. In the interest of public shaming and hopefully improving, here are the five biggest pots (measured by BB) I’ve lost … Read full post
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 at my table, but the play actually seemed to be … Read full post
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 making a questionable slowplay and the money going in after … Read full post
There’s not much similarity to these hands aside from the fact that they both involve playing KT in the Stars $300. This one might seem like kind of a crazy fold:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t250 (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
UTG+1 (t6077)
MP1 … Read full post
It’s funny but not really surprising that even many good players succumb to a certain fishiness. Virtually anyone’s natural inclination is against folding. You’re guaranteed to lose- how much fun is that? The first big step that any player has to take to go from losing to winning is acquiring … Read full post
For some reason, FTP has a $54321 guaranteed tournament today where everyone started with 4321 chips. I played this hand about three hours in. I got an unlucky flop, but I thought this was kind of an interesting play:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 200/400 Blinds, 50 Ante, 9 … Read full post
This is a pretty consistent problem for me:
Poker Stars
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
6 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $302.70
UTG+1: $361.75
CO: $338
Foucault: $400
SB: $76
BB: $304
Pre-flop: (6 players) Foucault is Button with 
2 folds, CO raises to $12… Read full post
Here’s a tricky little play I made early in tonight’s session. I’m going to try using an embeddable replayer that one of my readers suggested to me, but if you have trouble watching it, please leave a comment to let me know. I won’t use it again if it causes … Read full post
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) – 
– 
PRE-FLOP:
Hero posts small blind $25
Villain posts BIG … Read full post
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 both kinda deep stacked, and there were antes, so I … Read full post
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 entrants, and there would have been two seats, which makes … Read full post
DJ Sensei had a good post a while back about advertising. The general idea is that early in a match, especially when heads up, you might make an extra aggressive play in the hopes of convincing your opponent you are a maniac for the rest of the match. These aren’t … Read full post
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners
Seat 0: Villain ($5899) – –
Seat 1: Hero ($6298) –
PRE-FLOP:
Villain posts small blind $25
Hero posts BIG blind $50
Dealt To: Hero
RAISE Villain ($150)
CALL Hero ($150)
FLOP:
Pot: $350
CHECK Hero
BET Villain ($225)
RAISE Hero ($650)… Read full post
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 you to take advantage of your position on boards like … Read full post
I distinctly recall telling one of my students in our most recent session, “Don’t try to bluff a guy off of top pair or an overpair. People just don’t like to fold them.” So of course I go and try it in the donkfest that is the Sunday Million:
Poker … Read full post
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 do and then decide whether to raise for value, raise … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $25/$50 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $5,498
SB: $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 (2 Players)
Hero checks, SB … Read full post
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 someone at the table (or more than one someone, if … Read full post
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 in my first shots at the big games. I was … Read full post
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em, $20 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
MP ($1394)
CO ($1202.10)
Button ($2459.50)
Hero ($2030)
BB ($1224)
UTG ($3402.50)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 9s, 8s.
UTG raises to $60, MP calls $60, 2 folds, Hero calls $50, 1 fold.
Flop:… Read full post
An illustrative S/8 hand I played recently:
Hand #15452617704
7 Card Stud *High-Low* ($10/$20), Ante $1
*3rd Street* – (0.60 SB)
somebody: xx xx Ah___raises___calls
foucault82: 4d 4h 4s___raises
badabang: xx xx Jc___folds
luckymonkey9: xx xx 7c___folds
Jshorts7: xx xx 5d___calls
umhmm: xx xx 3h___folds
*4th Street* – (6.90 SB)… Read full post
In Pot Limit Omaha, hand values tend to run close, which means that people often do not fold to re-raises. Consequently, a lot of players will never reraise without Aces, and any time you do re-raise, your thinking opponents will put you on Aces. By occasionally re-raising with other hands, … Read full post
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
Limit: $5/$10
9 players
Converter
Pre-flop: (9 players) … Read full post
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 trips against my KK in a re-raised pot.
Now that … Read full post
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 sat with $3000. If it weren’t for the other guy … Read full post
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 cash for a few hundred in the FPP (though in … Read full post
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 starting table, with the only names I recognized being a … Read full post
$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 of big folds, one was a bad beat/questionable call. It … Read full post
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 a pure whine. Oh and these aren’t necessary in the … Read full post
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 didn’t get much chance to push my edge. I lost … Read full post
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 initially at my table of six. Thankfully the others were … Read full post
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 you aren’t hitting flops. Once we got shallow, the willingness … Read full post
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. But really even most good tournament players are people I … Read full post
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 made things tough. No particularly interesting hands, I lost a … Read full post
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 some flips, stacked bigegypt in a big pot:
Full Tilt … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $2/$4 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $807
UTG: $400
BTN: $599.40
SB: $415.50
Pre-Flop: 5
4 dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, BTN calls $4, SB raises to $17, Hero calls $13, BTN calls $13
Flop: ($51) 9… Read full post
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 – 2008/02/08
Seat 1: zartarious (10,468)
Seat 2: WCJOKER (16,873)
Seat 3: Rambo no5 … Read full post
Ultimate Bet sent me some gear today for making the final table of one of their UBOC events back in December. Specifically, I got a t-shirt, a hat, and a backpack. It’s all kind of low-quality (the hat size is adjustable with velcro), but the hat and shirt were made … Read full post
These were all against a strong but possibly over-aggressive opponent:
Full Tilt Poker, $4/$8 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
UTG: $1,325.80
Hero (BTN): $1,910.90
SB: $1,626
BB: $1,600
Pre-Flop: 3 3
dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $28, SB folds, … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 7 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
Hero (SB): $2,330
BB: $1,770
UTG: $1,854
UTG+1: $2,227
MP: $2,000
CO: $2,018.25
BTN: $2,000
Pre-Flop: A
K dealt to Hero (SB)
5 folds, Hero raises to $80, BB raises to $240, Hero … Read full post
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 a seat and things went a bit better. I think … Read full post
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 fold or call with a better hand and crush me. … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 3 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
BTN: $2,573.50
SB: $2,737.70
Hero (BB): $3,441.50
Pre-Flop: T T
dealt to Hero (BB)
BTN raises to $70, SB raises to $260, Hero raises to $591, 2 folds
Results: $590 Pot
Hero … Read full post
Free hand converter brought to you by CardRunners
Seat 0: VaMtnGal ($647.90) – –
Seat 3: urbandb888 ($3836.55) –
PRE-FLOP:
VaMtnGal posts small blind $10
urbandb888 posts BIG blind $25
Dealt To: urbandb888
CALL VaMtnGal ($25)
CHECK urbandb888
FLOP:
Pot: $60
CHECK urbandb888
CHECK VaMtnGal
TURN:
Pot: $60 
CHECK urbandb888… Read full post
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 a little more reluctant to call him down in some … Read full post
Too Thin
Full Tilt Poker Pot-Limit , $6 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
BB ($386.55)
UTG ($428.05)
Hero ($986.50)
CO ($618.45)
Button ($249.30)
SB ($538.15)
Preflop: Hero is MP with 5d, 6d, As, Ah.
1 fold, Hero raises to $21, CO calls $21, 1 … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $2,054
BB: $710
UTG: $412
Hero (BTN): $2,020
Pre-Flop: 8 9 dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $50, SB folds, BB calls $30
Flop: ($110) T 7 2 (2 Players)… Read full post
Full Tilt Poker Pot-Limit , $6 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
MP ($425.65)
Button ($588)
Hero ($620.55)
BB ($388.55)
UTG ($978.80)
Preflop: Hero is SB with 7c, 5h, 8s, 9h.
3 folds, Hero raises to $18, BB calls $12.
Flop: ($36) Ac, Js, 2h … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
BB: $470
UTG: $2,067
Hero (CO): $4,166
BTN: $2,117.50
SB: $2,080
Pre-Flop: J J dealt to Hero (CO)
UTG folds, Hero raises to $66, BTN raises to $228, 2 folds, Hero raises to … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
Hero (BTN): $1,000
SB: $1,083
BB: $1,300
UTG: $230.20
CO: $866.90
Pre-Flop: Q A dealt to Hero (BTN)
2 folds, CO calls $10, Hero raises to $50, SB folds, CO calls $40
Flop: ($110) … Read full post