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APPT Sydney $3000 heads-up NLHE [Dec. 6th, 2009|06:42 pm]
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[Current Location |Sydney, Australia]

I officially came up empty for Sydney by busting out of the heads-up event. I was able to win my first round match 2-0. In the first game, I had my opponent down about 3-1, I limped on the button with aces and he shoved right into them with Q5. In game 2, I ran really well making a lot of pairs, and finally we got it all in when I pushed with A3 and he called with K3.

I had to wait around a long time for my second opponent, Christian. The first match was basically just a cooler; he opened the button with AJ, I re-raised with TT, he shoved, I called, and there was a jack in the door. The second match he just ran through me winning pot after pot after pot. Finally we got to 200/400 and he put my last 6200 in with A3 which held against my K9.

Very disappointing. I think the format/structure of this tournament is as good as it gets for a 1-day heads-up tournament. The combination of a faster structure with the best-of-3 format is the perfect compromise between allowing skilled play and finishing at a reasonable-ish hour (last year we played until after 5 AM but it was because the semifinals took forever).

So ends what is now definitely my last major festival for 2009. It's been a pretty lame year in live tournaments (I guess online tournaments went okay), but I still feel that I've been playing great and improving all the time.

Back to Hong Kong tomorrow.
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Observations on player behaviour [Dec. 5th, 2009|11:43 am]
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[Current Location |Sydney, Australia]

A couple thoughts hit me this week while playing in this pair of tournaments here in Sydney. Of course, the big news this week is the big fight/beatdown witnessed by over 200 poker players, but I'm putting that aside for now. At one point yesterday, I came to a startling conclusion about the behaviour of young teenaged/early 20s internet pros:

They're very well behaved.

I've seen some pretty piss-poor behaviour and etiquette at the poker tables this week. And I don't even mean the aggro-douchebag fight-picking and posturing. There's a lot of disrespect for the game. People holding their cards up chest high in the folding position when the action is three players to their right, then tossing their cards four feet high so the whole table can see. Making inappropriate comments in multiway pots. Tapping on the aquarium when the fish makes an awful (or not even necessarily awful) play.

At one point yesterday, I realized that in none of these cases was the offender a teenaged or 20something pro. The young pros I've played with are just quietly listening to their iPods while playing their hands. They are never being mouthy jackasses, they don't make condescending remarks at the table, they don't abuse dealers, they wait their turn until folding even when they have air, they don't expose cards or make inappropriate comments while the hand is still live. They don't stall and Hollywood every decision. And they definitely don't softplay their buddies.

These young internet pros -- some of whom have probably only played a few hundred hours of live poker in their lifetimes -- have managed to not only learn to play the game better than people who have been doing it for decades, they manage to demonstrate more maturity at the table than people twice and thrice their age! Perhaps it is because these young internet pros have the intelligence to treat the game that pays for their baller hotel rooms, clothes, watches and electronics with integrity. Or maybe their youth is an advantage in that they have not had the time to become as embittered as the 40-somethings (let's face it, most of whom are losing players in a big buy-in field and have not quite come to accept it). Whatever it is, it strikes me as a bit ironic that these kids -- many of whom aren't old enough to play in a U.S. casino -- who are so maligned for being cocky and arrogant are, as a group, gentlemanly, cordial and professional compared to most of the older casino generation.

I no longer belong to the whiz kid internet pro generation (I'm 29 on Tuesday and probably don't play enough online poker to really qualify as an internet pro any more), though I am certainly not in the bitter old poker player camp yet. I find both groups can relate to me, the former because I have "internet cred" playing high-stakes for a long time, and the latter because I finished school over a decade ago and have actually had a real job in my lifetime. I don't generally choose to hang out with the young pros in my private life as I do consider them a bit immature and what interests them tends not to interest me. A lot of them are young and rich and are a bit over-aware of that fact. But from what I've seen this week, I find myself on the whole more and more impressed with the relatively professional behaviour of the young players at the tables, and more and more dismayed with that of their elders.
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APPT Sydney main event, Day 2 [Dec. 5th, 2009|11:14 am]
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[Current Location |Sydney, Australia]

Day 2 started off reasonably well. On the first hand of the day I called down with 99 against a guy named Simon Watt who won APPT Auckland and was good. I picked up KK when a short stack shoved with AJs and it held. Then after a flurry of liberal preflop raising I was forced (heh) to defend my open with 55 by 4-betting over the top of Simon, and he folded. I then split a pair of coinflips, losing 99 to AQ but winning 55 vs AK.

But then pretty much nothing good happened after that. Nothing dramatically bad happened either; I simply had to give up on a lot of pots. I was really surprised at how much incredibly reckless play was still going on in Day 2. One example, blinds/bet sizes may be approximate:

600/1200/100: player opens to 4200 in middle position, only button calls. Flop A73. Opener checks, button bets 10k, opener calls. Turn is another ace, opener checks, button goes all-in for like 50k, opener snapcalls with A7. Button has... T5o?! Button nods, politely taps the table and exits stage left.

On another hand at 1000/2000/200, I don't remember what the preflop action was, but on the 3-handed flop a guy bet 30k in late position on a TT5 flop and called a shove of nearly 100k with 33. The other guy showed T9. 3 on the turn, obv.

All day I was licking my lips hoping to get some of this spew action, but I scarcely made so much as top pair all day long. At 1200/2400/300, I squeezed for my last 60k with K9 over the top of a late raise and a call from the SB. The opener folded but the SB (the guy with the 33 on the previous hand) called with A7s and held.

Today is my only day off of the week (since I've darn-near managed to as deep as humanly possible in two different tournaments without cashing), as I play the 3k heads-up tomorrow.
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APPT Sydney $6000 NLHE main event [Dec. 4th, 2009|12:02 am]
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[Current Location |Sydney, Australia]

Finished day one with a stack of 64,500 from a starting stack of 30,000. Pretty solid workmanlike Day 1, no real monster pots. Won a 25k race with 55 vs AJ, but also lost a 25k pot with JJ vs 55. Some pot stealing, only one real "move", mostly just getting paid off when I made decent hands. No fights.

Not the most exciting of days, but I'll be happy to take a drama-free double-up any day. Day 2 is in 12 hours. Glanced at my table for tomorrow and it's definitely below chip average, so that might come in useful as we approach the money, but a long way to go before that.
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APPT Sydney $15000 High Rollers: lol fightaments [Dec. 2nd, 2009|12:24 am]
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[Current Location |Sydney, Australia]

I've been playing live poker for over ten years now. Maybe 200 hours or so per year over that span; it's hard to say. And today was most likely the most colourful day of poker I've ever played in my life.

Not the poker itself mind you, that was quite mundane. Apart from a very brief heater about three hours into the day, I did nothing of interest at all. I did not play a single big pot, mostly missed flops badly and did a lot of folding, and finally ran my KJ into KQ. No, the poker was pretty uninteresting.

What was interesting was this. PokerNews asked me for an eyewitness account as I was two seats away the whole time, and they pretty accurately transcribed what I told them here:

Star City Brawl

Believe or not, a fist fight (albeit a one-sided affair) just broke out inside the Star City poker room. Our media desk is situated just outside of the poker room and upon hearing several cries for "Security!" and "Fight!" media row emptied itself to find out what was happening.

Inside the poker room, the scene was an ugly one. An unidentified and heavily tattooed man (who was not playing in either event) was on the floor and virtually mangling a player we've identified as Mark Ericksen, who had been playing in the high roller's event. Security was on the scene in a hurry and managed to separate the two men, but not before Ericksen's face received quite the battering.

Team PokerStars Pro Terrence Chan was sitting at Ericksen's table when the incident took place and we asked him to recount what happened. Without quoting Chan directly, here's the gist of what went down:

The unidentified man (we'll call him Mr. X) approached Ericksen's table and initiated a verbal altercation in which he told Ericksen to (paraphrased): "Stay the f*** out of my business." The two exchanged a few more words before Mr. X took a swing at Ericksen, connecting with his face. Mr. X then walked away from the table and it appeared (to Chan) as though the situation had resolved itself when Ericksen stood up and told Mr. X he was a "f***ing rat."

At this point, all hell broke loose. After throwing and landing several punches, the two hit the ground where Mr. X continued his assault of Ericksen. With each punch he threw, Mr. X yelled "Rat! Rat! Rat!"

Chan also explained that one of the tournament directors who stepped in (fully intending to help), grabbed and restrained Ericksen from behind, not knowing that he hadn't thrown a single punch and was actually the one being assaulted. After a long minute, Mr. X was escorted out of the poker room while Ericksen was tended to by security personnel.

The players in both tournaments were then sent on an impromptu break while the matter was investigated. Play has since resumed throughout the room.

Of note, Ericksen's chips have been removed from play and his money refunded, based on the premise that the incident did not involve another player or event staff member.

"I thought the fight was tomorrow night," joked one player during the break, referring to the Roy Jones Jr. v. Danny Green boxing match scheduled for tomorrow night.

"This was the undercard," replied a member of the media.


So there's one thing to take away here. As well-intentioned as it might be, don't break up a fight if you're not totally sure you can break it up fairly and effectively. It's easy to be a critic from where I was standing, but there were actually two people grabbing the arms of the guy getting the pounding. Why? It's quite simple -- the other guy was big and scary. And swinging. The guy being assaulted was covering up and simply trying to defend himself the whole time and it was his arms they were grabbing, because instinctively it's easier to grab the not-scary guy who is not winging punches. It turned what was most likely a mismatch to begin with into a completely unfair fight.

I really hate to be very critical here because I know everyone involved was well-intentioned. And most importantly they were not trained security guards; they were poker floormen. It's not in their training or their job description to break up fights. But please, don't break up fights unless you know you can do it fairly and effectively.

(Suffice it to say, I have a whole new respect for hockey linesmen today. Any hockey fan knows that the vast majority of the time, linesmen do a *fantastic* job fairly and efficiently breaking up a fight -- by waiting until both fighters are tired and then interceding at the exact same time on both participants.)

I was also asked like four or five times on the break why I didn't jiujitsu the attacker. (Yes, people who don't train like to use "jiujitsu" as a verb.) I thought about it. I really did. I got up from my seat and was right behind the guy and could have easily jumped on his back to RNC or t-shirt choked him. But this wasn't my fight and as bad as I felt for the guy I didn't even know his name. While it's noble to defend a stranger in a street fight, it's not really particularly smart. This guy was unquestionably unstable -- he continued yelling at the security guards who finally got him under control. I'm also very lucky I didn't -- unbeknownst to me, I would have been ejected from the casino and been kicked out of the tournament. This is, evidently, a security policy of the casino. I know this because I was informed that the victim of the assault was not allowed to continue in the tournament despite having 27,000 chips (the ended up refunding his buy-in). Apparently, if you are in any physical altercation at all -- even if you are simply defending yourself, as this guy was -- you will be ejected from the casino for a minimum of 24 hours. That this is incredibly unjust and incentivizes people to return violence with violence should be obvious, but we should be used to bizarre casino regulations by now, right?

So anyway, both of the tournaments are put on break for about 20-30 minutes. Then, maybe two hours later, incident #2!

It is folded around to the SB, who limps. The BB checks. They both check down an ace-high board, like A8552 or something. The SB shows AK! This looks pretty shady to me, but I don't say anything. 15 minutes after that hand, the exact same pattern repeats itself; this time the AK belonged to the BB, who checked preflop and checked every street in position after flopping top-pair/top-kicker.

This time I can't let it go, I call the floor and the TD Danny McDonaugh, and a warning is given. These two guys have absolutely no idea why I'm causing a fuss. The SB is telling me it's none of my business if I'm not in the hand. The BB even tells me "he's my buddy, I don't want to bet him." When Danny comes over, the BB changes his story to "I was trying to trap him", making it obvious that he knew what he was doing was against the rules. But I really do believe these two idiots are so completely clueless that they don't know why what they're doing is wrong.

The SB is telling me over and over to "take a breath" and "calm down". Then he challenges me to go outside, while the TD and the floor are still there! This is pretty amazing. They must have spiked the casino water supply with testosterone or something, wtf...

Anyway, while I would have loved nothing more than to give the guy the surprise beating of a lifetime, but again -- not so smart. I still had chips, I'm in a foreign country, I'm an FPP qualifier for the main event; just a few of the reasons why it'd be dumb to beat this guy up.

But if he wants a sanctioned, legal fight (MMA is legal in Australia), well, I'm down! :)
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more tournament poker [Nov. 21st, 2009|01:04 pm]
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[Current Location |Vancouver, BC]

$2500 BC Poker Championships -- Main Event

I busted out late in Day 1 of the BCPC. As in the 1k, I felt I had a fantastic table draw. I got to see tons of flops for really cheap, and a lot of people made poor post-flop decisions. We had one guy flat-call with the nuts closing action. I could go on. Maybe I'm being hard on people since this was a main event and thus a lot of people probably satellited in. And besides, I managed to get my money in about as badly as one can, doubling up an opponent with AK vs AA, and then going broke with a Q-high flush draw against an A-high flush draw.

PokerStars 50000 FPP satellite to APPT Sydney

First, the good news: I won a seat! I'm excited about this because I was really not sure if I was going to make it out to Sydney this year. After stone bubbling an $800 satellite last week, last night I played a 50000 FPP satellite on Stars with 9 seats guaranteed. Only 57 players entered, so overlay central! (107 would have been break-even.) Not to belabor this thing, but there was some atrocious play in this sat once we got down to two tables. People who had stacks where they could clearly fold their way to victory were getting involved raising and calling 3-bets with suited connectors. Others were playing huge pots with flush draws and second pair. I got to a point where I gave the same guy about 15 walks in a row and open-folded AK. It was bizarre to watch people not understand the idea that all they have to do is slip into 9th.

But anyway, I'm off to Hong Kong in a couple days, then Sydney a week after. (And yes, I do find it weird that I can be so excited about a $9000 supersatellite win and be relatively nonchalant about a $40000 cash-game win.)

***

My knee continues to be a bitch. I tried some light rolling with my (125 lb) cousin yesterday. I was doing well until I attempted to make a frame with my shin from bottom side control. He shoved his own leg in to retain side control and it sent a sharp pain to the same spot on the inside of my knee. I am wondering now whether I should see an orthopedist and possibly get an MRI or something when I get to Hong Kong.
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BC Poker Championships 1k NLHE - Day 2 [Nov. 17th, 2009|02:01 pm]
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[Current Location |Vancouver, BC]

Busted about an hour into the day, which is about 55 minutes later than I expected. I actually nearly doubled up without a showdown, which is always fun, then lost it all back when A8 in the SB outflopped my QQ in the BB. He probably should have shoved preflop and busted me, so I guess I was "fortunate" to only lose 10k.

A discussion arose at my table among me and a couple other young players. A middle-aged guy mentioned he doesn't play online due to superusers and "not totally random cards" to one of the young guy's comments about the benefit of live poker (there was an exposed card on the deal and some confusion about whether it was the burn). I made an off-hand remark about how the primary benefit of playing live is really just how much weaker the players are. The younger guy said something like, "yeah, I think any winning 25c-50c player could probably beat any 1-2 game in the Lower Mainland." I responded, "they would probably be a favourite in this tournament, actually." Then a third young guy re-raised: "They would be top 10% of this field. No doubt."

So almost immediately after this conversation closes, we have a limped 5-way pot at 1k/2k (200 ante). I check my option in the BB with T8. The flop comes 7c6s3c and I think about shoving, but I don't have a club, so I check. Original limper bets 6k, second limper calls, everyone else folds. Turn is a 5c. First limper moves in for about 14k, second guy goes into the tank. About a minute in, I start mentally thinking that I'll give him a few more minutes before calling the clock. Finally he calls.... with KcTc. Oooooook. In his defence (I'm not sure that is the right word, actually) he talked about how this was his first "big" tournament and such so he didn't want to go broke, but wow.

In the spirit of not tapping on the aquarium, someone said, "nice call" which was followed by a chorus of like four other guys also saying "nice call".

That was my short but nevertheless somewhat amusing day. $2500 main event on Thursday.
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BC Poker Championships 1k NLHE - Day 1 [Nov. 17th, 2009|12:14 am]
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[Current Location |Vancouver, BC]

I was up and down all day today. From the starting stack of 10k, I was up to 25k in the first hour, down to 12k at the second break, back up to 30k shortly thereafter, lost a 50k pot with an overpair versus a set, sucked out for 16k with QJ vs KQ on a QT8 flop, went all the way back up to 34k, but finished up with a lousy 15k. Blinds will be 800-1600 tomorrow so I'll be looking to move early and often.

My chips were obviously in play all day today. The more desirable the field, the more hands you get to play. I had pretty ideal Day 1 opponents; basically the kind that let you see flops for relatively cheap and then put way too many chips in the pot without a good hand. The entire day I only played more than an hour or so with only one opponent I thought was tough.

My main complaint with this tournament is the incredible amount of bureaucracy and inefficiency. It took over an hour to buy in, and over 35 minutes to bag and tag at the end of the night. The end of night procedure was especially tilting since they count down every single person's chips, ID them before giving their seat draw, and they have like 4 people doing this. Nowhere in the world have I played (and I've played poker tournaments in like 10 countries) has this much unnecessary and time-consuming protocol. It's unfortunate because I do like the people who work at this thing but c'mon, there is no way people should still be in the poker room waiting to leave half an hour after the last hand has been dealt.

Back at 'er at noon tomorrow. 150 or so players remaining.
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so unsyateesfying [Nov. 15th, 2009|09:59 pm]
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[Current Location |Vancouver, BC]

For most online poker pros, Sunday is the most important day of the week, with Stars running absolutely massive tournaments of varying buy-ins, and other sites also joining in to capitalize on the multi-tablers. For me, Sunday is usually spent sitting by myself at 200/400 and 500/1000 limit hold'em tables waiting for someone who is stuck and tilting to dust off some money to me.

But today I decided to play the Sunday tournaments today for the first time in a very long time. Stars' guarantee of two million turned the Million into the Sunday Three Point Six Million, so I decided that was worth it. I also wanted to play a satellite for APPT Sydney. I like this tournament and have had great results in Sydney, but availability is such that the host casino is charging something like $700/night for their remaining rooms. It seems a bit silly to spend $1000 on a flight and another $5000 on a room for a $5000 tournament, but I figured a satellite would be great. While playing these two events, I also played the Sunday $500 buy-in and a PCA satellite.

The PCA satellite was very uneventful. The Million started off okay until I ran AK into AA. The Sydney satellite was going well though; I hung around long enough to become the short-stack 3-handed, then started picking up a bunch of chips. I started heads-up play down 2-1 and wanted to buy out my opponent for the only seat only to find that Stars had disabled chat for this satellite. :( The match went a very long time and I felt I had great control over my opponent. I was playing excruciatingly small ball to try to take advantage of his mis-steps, but eventually he started getting wise and just jamming. Despite having him all-in and short multiple times, I never closed and his Q9 ended up outracing my 33. I was very tilted since I probably would have offered him a good deal given the hotel overlay, but I never got the chance.

But while I busted out of that, good things started happening in the Sunday 500. I swapped a small piece with Gavin when we both had 100k in chips and about 100 players left, then both of us started rocketing upwards. We finished 80th and 78th respectively...

And that's why I don't play the Sunday tournaments! :D

Tomorrow: $1000 BCPC NLHE event at the River Rock casino, 20 minutes from my house.
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Foxwoods main event, Day 4 [Nov. 9th, 2009|06:33 pm]
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[Current Location |Boston, MA]

Sigh.

At least Day 4 was an interesting day. My chips were all over the place from the start. I had a bad start, having to fold preflop a couple times, and doubling up a short stack with KJ vs AJ. Then there was this hand, one of the largest pots I played in the tournament:

With the board reading QdiamondJspadeTdiamond Terrence Chan checks in the big blind and Curt Kohlberg bets 30,000 from late position. Chan check raises to 80,000 total and Kohlberg calls.

The turn is the 4spade and Chan bets 150,000. Kohlberg deliberates then announces he is all-in.

"How much?," Chan asks with a sigh. They count Kohlberg's stack and he has 358,000 chips total. Chan reluctantly calls, showing Aspade5spade for the spade flush draw. Kohlberg shows KheartJclub for a pair of jacks with an open-ended straight draw.

The river 9diamond makes a straight for Kohlberg and he doubles up to more than 1 million chips.

Curt Kohlberg - 1,020,000
Terrence Chan - 375,000


I really mis-sized my flop raise here. I dunno why, I suck at math I guess. Credit to Curt to make a tough call/shove.

About five hands later, this hand came up. I think this hand is an example of what you often miss from just reading tournament reports of non-final tables. After doubling up Curt, I played the next five hands. I wasn't on tilt or anything, I just happened to keep getting hands. On this hand, my opponent raised utg and I called pretty much immediately with TT.



With the board reading 9spade5spade2club Alexi Lammi checks in early position, Terrence Chan bets 30,000 and Lammi calls. Chan leads out for 150,000 after the Tclub comes on the turn and Lammi pauses for a minute before announcing he is all-in.

Chan quickly calls, tabling TheartTspade for top set. Lammi shows Aheart5heart for third pair and is drawing dead. The river is a meaningless 6club and Chan doubles up to 700,000.

Terrence Chan - 700,000
Alexi Lammi - 85,000


Obviously, there's no way Alexi would have made this play had I not played five pots in a row after doubling up an opponent in a huge pot. I imagine he must have been pretty unhappy with himself. He asked me on this break whether I would have called his jam if I had had tens instead of jacks. I told him no.

I then doubled up Kenna James with a JJ vs. AQ clash that he won, then it was all over for me on this hand:

Kenna James raises from the cutoff to 32,000, Terrence Chan moves all in from the button for 216,000, and Kenna calls with Aspade8club. Chan shows AheartQheart, and he's a favorite to double up here.

The board comes KspadeJclub4heart8heart7spade, and Kenna James pairs his eight on the turn to win the pot. Terrence Chan is eliminated in 18th place, earning $31,533.

Kenna James - 930,000
Terrence Chan - Out in 18th Place ($31,533)


So, a disappointing finish, but obviously almost all of them are in tournament poker. It was a good run though and I didn't feel as bad as I often feel when I bust out late in a big tournament, despite the ugly beat on the end. While this result most definitely sucks, I suppose the tournament was for my confidence, being the chip leader for a huge chunk of Day 3 and peaking at 1.3M in chips (which would be 4th at the final table of six right now). I haven't even had a deep run with a bunch of chips in a live tournament for a long time, so that was nice.
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Foxwoods main event, Day 3 [Nov. 8th, 2009|01:10 am]
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[Current Location |north Stonington, CT]

Well, if you told me going into the day that I'd end with 760k, I'd have taken it. But I actually went on a rush very early and got up to 860k by the first break, winning a QQ/AK race, then flopping a set against aces. My peak was 1.3 million or so when I played a big pot against Soheil, but then doubled him up when he flopped trips (with 82o in a raised flop, heh) and now he is the chip leader again.

Anyhow, I'm pretty tired and don't feel like blogging too much about this, and I also played too many hands to remember and detail them all in any reasonable way. I guess you could click my tag on the WPT website if you were really that curious.

But I'm having a lot of fun and am only 21 players from my first televised major final table! Yay!
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Foxwoods main event, Day 2 [Nov. 7th, 2009|12:58 am]
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[Current Location |north Stonington, CT]

This morning, as I was in the shower, I thought to myself, "it'd be nice to like, 10x my stack today."

Turns out my expectations were too low! It's not often you get to go from 30k to nearly 400k on the second day of the tournament, but good things happened. All of the next three hands happened in the first (400/800/100) level.

Big hand #1: I raise to 2100 from middle position with 22 and get two callers. One has just moved to the table with a ton of chips. The flop comes A82 rainbow, they check to me, I bet 3000, the guy with lots of chips check-raises to 9k, I call. Turn is a 5, he checks I check. He asks me for a count as the river is dealt (24000ish) and puts me in, I snap-call, and he says "nice hand". Up to 72k.

Big hand #2: Really aggressive guy raises to 2600 early, button calls, I make it 10500 with KK, original raiser folds, button calls. Flop is Q76 with two hearts, I bet 11k, he moves in for his 60k, I call. He has Ah8h and I fade everything. Up to 110k.

Big hand #3: AK opens from middle position, I 3-bet with AA, he shoves, I call, I hold. Up to 185k at the first break!

I only had one more big pot the entire day. In the 500/1000/100 level, I open to 2500 with Ks6s and am called in three places. Flop is AsJcTs, checked to me, I bet 6k, player on my immediate left raises to 16k, all fold, I put him in for another 45k. He thinks for a while and calls with AT. I hit a spade on the turn and a queen on the river, just to put the punctuation on my run-good. That took me to 267k.

The rest of the day was pretty calm. I don't really remember how I went from 260k to 394k at the end of the day. The rest of the pots I won were quite small. I called a 2-barrel from Christian Harder that added another 20k to my stack, but really, I don't even remember how I accumulated chips, which is nice. I guess I 3-bet a bunch of times and was never called, and I never really lost a pot of significance. I hope to do more of the same.

Weird funny hand: On the last break of the day, a crowd gathered around the one remaining hand still going. I came over to look at a T42 rainbow flop, and all of Jason Mercier's chips in the middle against a single opponent. It is a very big pot; the bet was effectively for over 100k and there was at least that much in the middle. The guy facing the bet starts trying to extract information from Jason. First, he asks, "will you show if I fold?" Jason does not answer. After another minute, he says "will you show your aces if I fold?" Then a few more minutes go by -- at this point we are over seven minutes into the break -- and he asks, "will you show your aces if I fold my kings?" Finally eight minutes into the break he releases his cards. Jason immediately perks up, "you had kings?" pointing to the unprotected (and still unmucked hand). He then gives the guy a disgusted look and says "right, you had kings. You're wasting my fucking time." It was really funny.

Annoyance: At one point the ace of spades was dealt on the river and we noticed it was really bent. So we asked the floor for a new one. The dealer puts in the new deck and we continue playing; the floor gets us (what we thought was) a new ace of spades. Then on the next dealer push someone shows down AA and again it is pointed out that the ace of spades is bent. We ask the floor to replace it. The process repeats. After the next dealer push I am dealt the As5h early and muck the 5. I leave the As in front of me face down. It is so bowed the middle of the card is not touching the felt. I say, "anyone want to guess what card this is?" I can't believe the floor had the gall to give us back the same card *twice* and just think we wouldn't notice or care. We're playing for nearly a million dollars and they can't bother to get a new card fro a $3 deck.

Praise: For playing five 90-minute levels with no dinner break! I'm now quite convinced this is how all tournaments should be.

Anyway, I am hoping for someone really bad with a lot of chips sitting to my right tomorrow. Based on plays I've seen, I know that there are some of them still left in the field. :p

In other news, poker is fun and exciting again!
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Foxwoods main event, Day 1 [Nov. 6th, 2009|12:13 am]
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[Current Location |North Stonington, CT]

Finished Day 1 at Foxwoods with 30,775, barely better than what I started the day with. I thought my table was pretty good desirable [1], but from stories I heard around the room and from friends, perhaps it was a below-average desirability table draw. It seems the field is really soft, arguably the softest field of any 10k event on American soil outside of the WSOP main event. I had a couple of mediocre players and one really bad player at my table but it seems stories abounded of horribly misplayed hands.

For my part, I don't think I played particularly fantastic either. But I'm still around, so hopefully I get a good table draw for tomorrow. Back at 'er at noon; you can following along on my twitter.

[1] We decided in the WSOP house that using "good" to describe a table is ambiguous because it could mean "good to be at" or "there are good players at it", so we are trying to push forward the less-ambiguous "desirable/undesirable".
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knee/ankle update [Oct. 28th, 2009|10:43 pm]
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[Current Location |Vancouver, BC]

This week, my ankle has been steadily improving, with almost no pain while doing everyday activities. Dan came over yesterday to try some Z Health stuff with it, so I figured while he was there I could try some basic jiujitsu drills to see if I could go light, pain-free. We went about 30% speed with me trying to do some guardwork and him trying to pass. After about a minute, he passed to his left (my right)), dropped his weight on my legs, and -- bam! -- the knee gave way again and I was rolling around on the floor in pain.

I hadn't thought about the knee much since the injury. I'd noticed that as I walked, I had some occasional weird feeling in the knee, but I never really had any pain in it. With the ankle getting much stronger, I was hoping to return to training in a couple of weeks, but it does not look like that will be happening. I'm really annoyed and frustrated. I expect my ankle to be shit, but I've never had a knee injury before. It really blows that as one joint got better, another one decided to bail on me. :(

Off to Foxwoods in a week for the main event there.
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Machida-Shogun decision [Oct. 25th, 2009|12:04 pm]
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[Current Location |Vancouver, BC]

I'm sure I'll get a comment or two asking my opinion on the fight, so here goes. While watching the fight, I thought Shogun won, either 49-45 or 49-46, but these things often seem different in the sober light of day than with the emotion of the moment involved. So here are my thoughts upon second viewing, with the volume on mute to avoid the bias of Rogan, Goldberg and the crowd:

Round 1: This round is a typical Machida round in that if you watch it uncritically, it looks like Shogun is the aggressor and is landing lots of stuff, but Machida actually manages to avoid a lot of it and take a lot of strikes on the arms. That said, aside from a couple of good knees and one good body kick, Machida doesn't land much himself. Shogun gets a number of shots off as well, landing to the body, legs and even the head of Machida. The clinch is pretty much a stalemate. I go back and forth between this being a 10-9 Machida round and a 10-10 round, but in the end it's simply not a decisive round so I'm going to settle on it being a 10-10.

Officially, this round was scored for Machida by Cecil Peoples and Marcos Rosales, and scored for Shogun by Doc Hamilton.

Round 2: This is Shogun's round, though hardly a blowout. It's pretty much a draw up until the last two minutes, where Shogun is able to finally find a home for that body kick multiple times. In this round you see a serious contrast of the point karate vs muay thai, and I don't just mean the stances: Machida is throwing to try to score and connect but lands very few heavy shots in the rounds, whereas Shogun is throwing everything to hurt. As you would expect, Machida lands more shots but Shogun lands the harder ones. 10-9 Shogun.

All three of the official judges scored this round for Machida.

Round 3: This is Machida's round. In this round his straight leff counter off the body kick is a thing of beauty to watch. In this round more than any, Machida is the one doing the stalking and getting off first. He snaps Shogun's head back a few times. Machida gets the best of the flurry towards the end of the round. This is the most decisive round so far. 10-9 Machida.

All three of the official judges scored this round for Machida.

Round 4: In this round, Shogun does his best work attacking the legs of Machida. There are a few exchanges where both guys land power shots. Like Round 1, this is a very close one. I think Shogun does enough to steal this round in the last 90 seconds. I can see an argument for a 10-10 round, but I call it 10-9 Shogun.

Officially, Cecil Peoples and Marcos Rosales scored the round for Shogun; Doc Hamilton scored it for Machida.

Round 5: I actually remember this round being more dominant for Shogun. He won it solidly, but again, it wasn't a blowout. But for the first time we see Machida being punched in the face repeatedly. Shogun dictates the pace of this round with his kicks. We see both guys get tired, but Machida definitely more so as he sort of loses the will to evade the strikes of Shogun and kind of half-heartedly parries a lot of them. 10-9 Shogun.

Officially, all three judges gave the round to Shogun.

So I have it 49-47 for Shogun. But Rounds 1 and 4 are close; if you give R1 to Machida and make Round 4 a draw, which are quite defensible, then you get a score of 48-48. Not any one single round was a blowout. So while I have a hard time being convinced Machida won three rounds, the thing is that this fight was not a robbery. It was a poor decision. I got the benefit of replays and slow-motion, and all the good camera angles, the benefit of ignoring crowd reactions, and all the things that the judges don't get. I am no fan of judging in MMA (especially because so many of them are just old boxing judges) but if you're looking for an indictment of it you probably have to go farther than this fight. [1]

The good news is we'll almost certainly get a rematch (provided both guys are healthy), and even after watching these guys fight for 25 minutes (twice!), I don't have any idea what will happen! I don't think most MMA fans were super-excited for this fight going in, but I can imagine there will be a lot more hype for the rematch. Although the crappy LA fans were booing the lack of crazy wild swinging flurries, I thought it was a good fight and I'm very interested to see what strategy adjustments both guys make for the next time.

The bad news is that I had Shogun at +380. :( Oh well, hard to complain when I had a pretty good weekend at poker.

[1] The people at Fightlinker make a valid counterpoint that even though the fight was close, virtually no one scored the fight in favour of Machida, other than the three judges.
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interesting data for the interracial dating crowd [Oct. 17th, 2009|01:30 am]
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[Current Location |Vancouver, BC]

Dating site OKCupid's new blog has started to do some interesting stuff with the data they've collected from their site. Its most recent post, Your Race Affects Whether People Write You Back -- in addition to being a clear "like, duh, obv" title-of-the-year candidate -- talks about the response rate of men and women of various races to men and women of various races. As an example, the following table shows how frequently women of various races respond when a man of a given race messages them:



I was somewhat surprised by some of those data.

Anyhow, more curious stuff on the blog itself, so check it out.
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well, guess I *will* be playing some poker [Oct. 6th, 2009|02:06 pm]
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[Current Location |London, UK]

Went to jiujitsu last night here in London. Towards the end of the class, while training takedowns and standing attacks, I went for a seoi nage, my opponent blocked it, I stood my right foot up, he jumped on my back to attack, and my ankle gave out under the weight of both of us. I heard three scary-as-hell cracking sounds and I cried out. After a while, the guys at the gym convinced me to go to the NHS hospital here in London where the doctor diagnosed me with a sprain of both the MCL and the ankle. I was given ibuprofen and crutches and sent on my way.

Fuck.

I changed my flight to Vancouver from today to Friday so I wouldn't have to fly with this thing, since 10 hours with all the blood pooling to my legs can't be a good thing. As for today, I am sitting at home lying on the couch with my leg up on a pillow. Sigh.
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EPT London: £5000 main event NLHE [Oct. 4th, 2009|01:22 am]
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[Current Location |London, UK]

As alluded to in my previous post, I'm out. In a most annoying of ways.

( bunch of stupid hands for the 'poker content' crowd )

I walked out of that room and down the stairs of the Hilton basically wanting to punch everything I walked by. Everything just made a tempting target to put my fist through. Walls, framed paintings, panes of frosted glass ... I was expecting a guy in a clown suit to walk by at some point. As I got in the cab I thought about how I was less than a month removed from winning a big(ish) tournament that I was very proud to win.

And that made me start thinking that maybe the highs aren't really worth the lows. I mean, I've won first place in three notable tournaments this year. And I've only played about 50. And yet two weeks after winning one of them, I feel like utter crap about the current one, even though a Day 1 bustout is a fairly common and expected result. When you bust out of a poker tournament, so often either it's because you did something dumb or you got very unlucky. This is so much negativity that it can't really be healthy. I don't know if I'm mentally strong enough any more to handle being punished 100 (or more) times for every one time I am rewarded.

What sucks is that in spite of all of this, I still find tournament poker fun. I still get up for them, and for the most part I enjoy playing in them (at least the ante levels, anyway). But there's just so much negative feeling involved in playing your best all day or even for multiple days and then having the whole thing come down to one stupid hand. I mean if you think about it, Lisandro finished the day second in chips, and I finished it thinking about retiring from the game. And both of these things are because the turn was a king instead of like, a four.

It truly is soul-crushing now for me, and I'm starting to question whether I want any more of it. All the travel, all the hassle, all the long and grueling days, and knowing that the vast majority of the time you'll be unhappy with the result. Ugh.

The worst part about it is that I feel like I've been playing quite well. I thought I played great in the WCOOP main and in today's event, and aside from the misstep against Akkari, I think I did well in WSOPE too. I'm definitely playing NLHE better than I ever have, and I still feel like I have a lot to learn about the game too. I feel like it would be a shame if I quit while my game is still on the uptick, but if I'm not enjoying it, what's the upside to being better at it?

A big part of it is that for ten years poker has been a huge part of my life. Virtually all of my best friends play poker at least recreationally. I wouldn't say poker players are the only people I can relate to (and can relate to me), but I certainly feel like I understand them the best, and that they understand me the best. Almost everything I've done since 1999 has been in an effort to get better at the game and find ways to make money at it. Even the years where I had a job, it was in the poker industry. Further, I don't even know what I would do with my time if I quit playing poker. I don't really have any other skills. Most of my successful friends in poker are educated in or have work backgrounds in interesting things like math, finance or computer programming, and could move on to interesting projects. I have a degree in business, which will come in handy for when I run out of toilet paper. Aside from a handful of television stints, I have not demonstrated the ability to be useful to anyone in the world in over five years. Nor do I particularly want to return to the working world, anyway, because deep down I'm really quite lazy.

I'm considering just seeing if I can take a full year off of poker and train BJJ and muay thai full-time, 4-6 days a week, without any interruptions for poker-related overseas trips. I'd have my pro fight out of the way before age 30 and spend time doing something that provides me with substantially lower-variance happiness. I could continue playing online cash games now and then, or I could even walk away entirely.

The bottom line is that I have made a lot of money in this game, and met a lot of truly awesome people. I'm wondering if it's time to quit while I'm ahead, and still happy with what it has done for me.
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London, continued [Oct. 3rd, 2009|10:27 am]
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[Current Location |London, UK]

[I wrote this this morning and forgot to post it. Bustout report imminent.]

Well, the big news out of our house this week is that Hoss made another live, major final table in NLHE. It is pretty amusing (in a "wow, people are retarded" sort of way) that people will make semi-derisive remarks, even in a joking way, about being a limit hold'em player, how did you get so deep in this tournament, blah blah. I guess being one of like three non-November Niners who made over a million dollars in the WSOP this year doesn't count for much. I get much the same thing. I've actually played more hands of NLHE this year than LHE. Matt has probably played more 8-game than LHE. Of course, this is simply because almost no one is willing to play us at LHE.

With regards to the final table, I had read earlier in the day on a PokerNews update that Jack Effel was trying to encourage the crowd to make noise for the players, so I got the idea to make up signs (bottom of page) for Matt. Once I actually got there though and tried to wave them, security hassled me, wouldn't let me in the viewing area and told me "I'm going to ask you not to wave those signs again". I thought this was really lame, but then on a break I talked to Nolan Dalla, who in turn talked to Mori Eskandandi, who came to tell me in person that he thought the signs were awesome and definitely wanted to show them on the ESPN broadcast. So that was cool. Much love to Mori.

Less cool was me getting a bit of poker flu over the course of the day and missing out on The Fat Duck, which is supposedly just the most amazing restaurant in all of England. The place has like a 3-month wait list for reservations, and we somehow luckboxed our way into one since Matt is friends with this guy Kevin who knows the owner quite well. I woke up yesterday morning with a pretty nasty sore throat and just a bad head cold so I had to miss out on it, but based on the reviews coming from Matt and Kenny, I should probably get on the 2010 wait list.

I played in the EPT's £1000 6-max NL on Thursday. I ran my 6k into 18 by the first break, then went from 30k to bust in about 10 minutes. Gotta love one thing about 6-max tournaments is that it's rarely a slow death.

Today I am feeling much less sick, which is fortunate because it is Day 1B of the EPT main event. Last opportunity to win a live tournament for 2009!
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