For years now I have been posting an annual poker goals blog and 2018 will be no different. Each year I set between 8-10 poker specific goals and then look back at how it all unfolded. The goals I set are lofty, so I’m really not attached to the results in terms of seeing the year as a success or failure, but I’m a big believer in setting hard to reach goals. Not so hard to reach that you are living in fantasy land, but not so attainable that you rate to achieve the goal quite easily.
So before we look at the goals for 2018, let’s take a look at the goals we set for 2017 and see how I fared:
1. Cash for $2.5 million- I set this same goal in 2016 and whiffed pretty badly, but had a bounce back year in 2017 and was able to cash for $2,700,646. With so many huge buy ins across the world today, if you play a steady schedule of high rollers and don’t cash for at least $2 million, that’s going to be a losing year. Guaranteed. As long as the trend in poker continues to higher and higher buy ins, I’ll need to elevate this total for 2018.
2. Win 3 WSOP Bracelets- Well, we didn’t quite hit the mark on this one despite so many chances!
3rd in $10k No Limit Hold’em Tag Team
2nd in $10k Omaha H/L
6th in $10k HORSE
5th in $50k Players Championship
I was deep A LOT with a total of 8 top 20 finishes. The Players Championship loss stung as did the second place finish to Abe Mosseri when I was so close to finishing him off I could taste it. The last few years my luck has really seemed to even out in comparison to my initial start in poker where I had 8 wins to start my career with no 2nd place finish. The last few years the elusive win has been hard to come by.I’ve posted roughly 9 straight top 3 finishes without a win.
3. Cross the 100 cashes mark at the WSOP- We got this one done also. With fields paying 15% these days cashing for 10+ times during a WSOP is hardly all that impressive anymore. Imagine an average player who plays a full grind for 40 events. If he runs average, the average player should cash six times. If you are a pro player who plays the large field no limit hold’em events, it’s not a stretch to say you should be able to average about 10-12 cashes a year. In some of these events its as easy as doing a max late reg, then hanging in there for maybe 2-3 hours to lock up a cash! Currently I sit second with 103 cashes, 2 ahead of Erik Seidel and 24 behind Phil Hellmuth. While both guys had a 10 year head start, there are more events today with more places paid so racking up cashes is much easier than it was in the old days.
4. End the year #1 on the All-Time Money List- Erik Seidel came into the year posting back to back $5 million years. If he did that again in 2017 I’d currently be in second. Erik posted a respectable $2.2 million in 2017 which actually helped widen my lead by a half million.
Daniel Negreanu $35,319,815
Erik Seidel $33,277,777
2018 is going to see a massive challenge to this spot with the $1 million One Drop coming back. You will see loads of players spend $4 million+ in buyins throughout 2018. If I were to not cash in One Drop, it’s close to even money to assume there will be a new All-Time Money leader.
5. Win WSOP Player of the Year for the 3rd Time- This attempt was a bit frustrating after having an opening week where I posted a 2nd and a 3rd in $10k events and wasn’t even on the leaderboard. The Tag Team 3rd place ended up landing me less points than a Colossus min cash. An event I didn’t play but has as close to a guaranteed cash as you will find with all the opportunities to re-enter. I continued to post consistent results throughout, but the points system in place really didn’t reward those runs and I kept losing ground to people min cashing the large field NLH events. I gave up about 2/3 of the way in and chose not to attend the WSOP Europe to contend for the title. Needless to say I was a little bitter about the points system and felt it was kind of silly and disappointing. I do think next year’s POY system will be much improved from what I’m hearing.
6. Make the November 9- This one didn’t happen either as I had a really goofy WSOP run. I was on a short stack, 10-20bbs for quite a while and grinding hard looking for spots to survive and chip up. Then I just had the goofiest hands come up where a couple opponents, for shits and giggles played some really odd hands against me that I never could have expected in a million years!
Having said that, I pressed too much in the early stages and need to scale it back in 2018 for this event if I’m going to make another deep run.
7. Win $250,000 playing cash games- OK, so unfortunately I lost some of my records from the early part of the year and overall didn’t play much at all, but I’m pretty confident that I did accomplish this goal in 2017 by a nose. I played cash on Poker After Dark one session and think I won $140,000 and had a few other 6 figure winning sessions that likely had me hit this number.
8. Produce more content for poker fans- Safe to say that we accomplished this goal despite tailing off drastically by the end of the year. I produced a daily WSOP VLOG for the duration, Podcasts, and various YouTube videos ranging from Poker Tips, to Hand Breakdowns, to Poker related issues. I didn’t actually write many blogs but think I’ll go back to that in 2018. In a lot of ways I much prefer writing.
So all told that’s 5 out of 8! I’d say overall that is a good result and above expectation. Let’s take a look at the goals I have in store for 2018:
1. Top $40 million in Live Earnings- That’s going to require a $4,680,186 year from me which would just slightly be my second highest overall total ever. In 2004, before any $25k or above events existed, I cashed for a whopping $4,465,907 playing $10k buy in events. Those days are over, but it’s far easier today to post $4 million in cashes than ever before. It’s not easier because the game is easier, quite the contrary, but you are just going to see more and more high roller grinders shoot up the all-time leader board. Even players who are breaking even over the last few years will still show anywhere from $6-$8 million in earnings.
2. Win a WSOP Bracelet- OK so it’s been a few years since I won a WSOP bracelet. In fact, it’s been a few years since I actually WON a live tournament! So I’m modifying the previously lofty goal of winning 3 WSOP bracelets to winning just one. Not as easy as it looks!
3. Get to 115 WSOP cashes and/or close gap on PH- This shouldn’t be that difficult if I play a full WSOP schedule including maybe adding a few large field events I don’t typically play. It would either require 12 cashes, or just one more than Hellmuth gets.
4. Profit $2 million- So I’ve already established that I want to cash for close to $5 million this year, but that doesn’t guarantee a $2 million profit on the year. I expect to spend over $3 million in buy ins throughout 2018 so its going to take at least $5 million in cashes to make this a reality.
5. Finish Year Top 30 in GPI- For the GPI POY I ended the year in 40th place, but my actual GPI ranking ends the year at 73rd. Its tough to compete with guys who play a lot more volume than I do, especially in the smaller field high buy in events that rack up a ton of points, but I think top 30 is doable with the schedule I plan to play which should range between 65-75 events.
6. Final Table SHRB or One Drop- I’ve played some of my best poker in the Super High Roller Bowl but have yet to cash due to some bad luck each year when the cards are on their backs. I plan to be lucky in 2018 and make it to the final table of at least one of the two biggest buy in events of the year.
7. Win Poker Masters or US Poker Open- I’m a sucker for any best all around player award and there will be a new one to shoot for this year in the US Poker Open which incorporates PLO and a mixed game event. My only concern here is that I tore my ACL about a month ago and it requires surgery. My plan was to have the surgery when I return from Bahamas in January, but I’m not so sure I will be physically able to play the US Poker Open less than two weeks after surgery. I may choose to postpone my surgery till Feb 15th so that I can play the full slate of events, but I’m still stressing over the decision and haven’t committed yet.
8. Hang on the the #1 spot on the All-Time Money List- I have held this spot many times throughout my career, even before high rollers were a thing. This run has been about four years long in the top spot, and I hope to hold it for at least one more year. It will be tough as you can all but guarantee at least one player is going to cross the $35 million mark this year.
9. Win a Super High Roller- I’ve had so many seconds an thirds the last few years it’s become quite frustrating to not close the deal. To finish off the year I had a chance to do so against Dan Smith heads up in the $100k at Bellagio. We got it all in on the flop where I was an 84% favorite to have him crippled and give me a chance to knock off my first ever $100k, but the river helped him and I bit the dust.
10. 120 hours of Poker Study- For all these other things to happen this part is essential. I expect to ebb and flow how much study time I have, but averaging 10 hours a month shouldn’t be too difficult and be really worthwhile. My study plan includes working with my coaches as well as watching a lot of game film on my opponents. For my entire career I’ve always felt like it was imperative to study what my younger opponents are doing. Without having a deep understanding as to why they make certain plays, it becomes more and more difficult to succeed in beating them. The challenge has never been tougher with a solid group of young Germans studying together as well as plenty of other great young players from across the globe, but that is what makes this game fun for me! If it was too easy, I genuinely wouldn’t enjoy it.
I posted a poll on Twitter mentioning that in 2017 I cashed for $2,792, 104 and asked if people thought that was more or less than the total number of buyins I spent on the year. I mention this because I think my 2017 was a good illustration of the illusion that players cashing for $2 million in a single year is a great accomplishment. In the old days, before super high rollers, you could all but guarantee that cashing for $2 million would mean the player had a winning year. Well, the truth is, if a player plays the full high roller schedule and cashes for $2 million, they are all but certain to have had a losing year, and that’s before expenses.
I felt like I had a decent year in terms of results, but when you break down the numbers into an actual profit vs loss, I essentially broke even!
Buyins: $2,874,164
Payouts:$2,792,104
Profit: -$86,140
Considering my average buy in on the year was $40,481 this is about as close as you can get to breaking even. In fact, after my $936,000 score I was up on the year but played a couple of the one day $25k events at Bellagio, rebought a few times, and ended the year in the red.
With the $1 million buy in One Drop coming back this year, and the Super High Roller Bowl, and countless high rollers held here in Vegas and across the globe, it won’t be much of a stretch to see players spending upwards of $5 million in buy ins. $5 million dollars. Just in buy ins.
Granted, most of the players do not fund 100% of their action, but that’s irrelevant to the jaw dropping numbers we will see in 2018. I do stake myself in these events. I have separate deals with companies like PokerStars and Poker Central, but this income is unrelated to my buy ins. I make the decision to play and risk money that I’ve earned. Having said that, I will likely be selling action into the One Drop as it just seems like a bit of a crazy amount of money to risk in one tournament. I’ll likely sell about 50% of the action and I don’t charge mark up.
Here is a closer look at my last 5 years on the circuit followed by the totals. I would have provided a longer history but I didn’t keep accurate enough records of my tournament play until 2013 so this will have to do:
2013
Events 66
Cashes 13
ITM % 19.7
Buy ins $1,211,883
Payouts $3,203,423
Profit $1,963,500
Avg Buy In $18,363
Hourly Rate $3200
2014
Events 56
Cashes 13
ITM % 23.2
Buy ins $3,183,926
Payouts $10,284,090
Profit $7,100,164
Avg Buy In $56,855
Hourly Rate $14,045
2015
Events 49
Cashes 11
ITM % 22.4
Buy ins $1,513,125
Payouts $2,482,479
Profit $952,920
Avg Buy In $30,880
Hourly Rate $3388
2016
Events 49
Cashes 10
ITM % 20.4
Buy ins $1,546,355
Payouts $300,431
Profit (-$1,246,693)
Avg Buy In $31,558
Hourly Rate (-$3097)
2017
Events 71
Cashes 21
ITM % 29.6
Buy ins $2,874,164
Payouts $2,792,104
Profit (-$86,140)
Avg Buy In $40,481
Hourly Rate (-$144)
FIVE YEAR TOTAL
Events 291
Cashes 68
ITM % 23.4
Buy Ins $10,329,453
Payouts $19,062,527
Profit $8,733,074
Avg Buy In $35,496
Hourly Rate (Hours 2565) $3405
In the next few days I’ll write a follow up blog with what my goals for 2018 as I do each year. We’ll also look back at how I did for my 2017 goals. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Let’s make 2018 a kick ass year!
I have some ideas that I think would improve the WSOP POY system that would give the player who had the best series the best chance to win the award:
1. Limit Cashes to the best 8- To win player of the year you are going to have to play 20+ tournaments so 8 cashes with 15% of the field getting paid is more than reasonable. Capping the number of cashes that count ensures that the cashes being used are all quality scores and also limits the advantage players who double dip in tournaments and play the full schedule have. That’s good for the average Joe. If he strings together some big scores in the smaller events, that accomplishment isn’t negated by a ton of insignificant min cashes that are inevitable for players playing 50+ events. If you play 50 events, you rate to cash about 10 times even in a bad year.
2. Min Cash to Win ratio at 8-1- In a 600 player field, the current system rewarded the winner the equivalent of 4 min cashes. That’s not a good ratio. A ratio closer to 8-1 seems a lot more fair. When creating the formula you can embed this once you have decided what a win is worth. If a win is worth 100 points, a min cash could be something like 12 points sliding up as you progress to the final table where you can create another formula that looks something like:
Win 100 points
2nd 75% of 1st place points
3rd 65% of 1st place points
4th 60% and so on….
3. Value the $10ks buy in events higher- It is much tougher to cash in a 100 player field in a $10k event than it is to cash in a large field event that pays hundreds of spots. It takes roughly 3 times more play, the structures are slower on day two, and you are also fighting against top notch competition in the Championship events when you near the bubble. It often takes 3-4 hours to go from 23 to 20 players. These events should be special since the strength of field on average is going to be special.
4. Field Size Cap of 8000- The outlier in the 2017 system is definitely the Colossus which has multiple re-entries that bloats the field size as high as 20,000. A win in this event should absolutely be weighted heavily, but the min cash shouldn’t be given much weight. By capping the field size it becomes less distorted within the system.
5. Must Win a Bracelet- This one might be controversial, but I like it. We have never had a POY winner that didn’t win a bracelet, but that is very possible this year. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to require at least one win to be rewarded POY. In fact I think it adds a cool dynamic to the race. You may have a points leader at the top without a bracelet who in the homestretch needs that win to win the title. Yes, I’m aware that this would exclude me from contention in the 2017 race, but it isn’t about me, it’s about a system that absolutely guarantees the ultimate winner will be deserving.
By implementing these five adjustments the award will maintain it’s prestige for years to come. Even if just 2-3 of these ideas were implemented, I would see that as a positive shift in the right direction.
We just did a 14 person draft tonight and I figured I would break it down round by round. It was a snake draft and each person ended up with 4 players. It’s important to note that these picks were made after the table draws were released so most people strategically put more value on players who they deemed to have softer tables
Round 1:
Igor Kurganov picks Nick Petrangelo
Fedor Holz picks Steffen Sontheimer
Brian Rast picks Erik Seidel
Scott Seiver picks Justin Bonomo
Adrian Mateos picks Fedor Holz
Bill Perkins picks Brian Rast
Bill Perkins 2 picks Tom Marchese
Henrik Latz picks Dan Colman
Daniel Negreanu picks Dan Smith
Jason Mercier picks Brynn Kenney
Dan Smith picks Ben Tollerene
Brynn Kenney picks Scott Seiver
Dan Shak picks Connor Drinan
Ankush Mandavia picks Christoph Voselang
Best pick of the first round: Dan Colman at #8
Round 2 reverse order:
Ankush: Rainer Kempe
Shak: David Peters
BK: Ben Sulksy
DSmith: Andrew Lichtenberger
JM: Sean Winter
DN: Jake Schindler
HL: Isaac Haxton
BP2: Antonio Esfandiari
BP: Andrew Robl
Adrian: Doug Polk
SS: Dominik Nitsche
BR: Koray Aldemir
FH: Jason Koon
IK: Igor Kurganov
Best pick of second round: David Peters at #16
Round 3:
IK: Jason Mercier
FH: Christian Christner
BR: Byron Kaverman
SS: Ben Lamb
Adrian: Pratyush Buddiga
BP: Bill Perkins
BP2: John Juanda
HL: Ankush Mandavia
DN: Daniel Negreanu
JM: Stefan Schillhabel
DSmith: Sam Soveral
BK: Talal Shakerchi
Shak: Matt Berkey
Ankush: Jason Les
Best pick of third round: Ankush Mandavia
Round 4:
Ankush: Carey Katz
Shak: Phil Hellmuth
BK: Dan Shak
DSmith: Haralabos Voulgaris
JM: Brandon Steven
DN: David Einhorn
HL: Antanas Guoga
BP2: Bill Klein
BP: Kevin Hart
Adrian: Dan Perper
SS: Zachary Hyman
BR: Giuseppe Ladisernia
FH: Leon Tsoukernik
IK: Lauren Roberts
Best pick of fourth round: Zachary Hyman
Twice Henrik Latz took the player I was going after. First with Dan Colman, than in the third round Ankush Mandavia. Seems to me like its arguably the best overall team drafted:
Dan Colman, Isaac Haxton, Ankush Mandavia, Tony G
I really had no intention of drafting myself but when Ankush went right in front of me, I was between Sam Soveral and Stefan Schillhabel and I just wasn’t comfortable taking either pick in that spot, so I figured, what the heck, I’ll draft myself despite not drawing the best table for day one. Anything can happen, though, and I don’t really mind my table draw all that much. I have lots of tough cookies at my table, but also a decent grasp of what to expect.
Wish me luck!
So as many of you know I’ve been running a $25,000 buy in WSOP Fantasy draft every year since 2011. The first WSOP fantasy draft actually occurred in 2010 at Howard Lederer’s house and it was the only time I’ve ever cashed, coming in 3rd place. For obvious reasons, in 2011 Howard wasn’t “available” to host the draft so I decided to take over what I thought was a really great idea to help create buzz around the WSOP.
The Aria Hotel and Casino has been gracious enough to host the event each year and they will again in 2017. PokerCentral will be on hand to stream the event live so fans of the game can sweat along with the draft. Now, we don’t do the boring, standard, snake draft. It’s an auction draft. I’ve been doing auction style drafts since 1996 contrary to what Rich Ryan was spouting last year about me not having “experience” with this type of draft. Pfft!!!! Just 20 years worth buddy, no big deal.
The way an auction draft works looks like this: each team has a $200 budget to spend on a total of 8 players. A player is nominated to be chosen and the highest bidder gets him. So for example, let’s say the highest bidder on Phil Ivey spends $105 of his budget. That means he only has $95 left to spend and has to fill 7 more spots! We keep throwing out players until each team has a complete roster of 8.
There are obviously various strategies you could employ in a draft like this, depending on whatever inside info you may have. If you have some real sleepers you think you can get cheap, you could spend big bucks on a guy like Jason Mercier or Paul Volpe. Or you can take the steady Eddy strategy and look to build a more balanced team void of the top seeded superstars.
The point system we use is final table heavy. You get a lot of points for final tables and also events with higher buyins are more heavily weighted. We do have a field size bonus as well, so deep runs in those monster sized NLH events can reward you with big points. Mainly though, the best approach is to fill your team with talented mixed game players who play in the big buy in events like the $50,000 Poker Players Championship.
One of the cooler things that have come out of this draft is the work put in by David Baker to create a $500 pool using the point totals per player in our draft. You can enter as many teams as you like and choose whoever you want. It works much like daily fantasy sports would, where you get a $200 budget and just fill 8 spots however you choose to based on the values associated with the player drafted in the $25k Fantasy.
David puts in a lot of work to make this happen and I think it goes under the “good for poker” category. To make the $25k happen, I also put in a lot of work and money out of my own pocket. We charge no rake and I personally cover all the expenses associated with running it. I don’t mind, because I love it so much and really think its important for poker. I really do. At the tables, the WSOP Fantasy draft is a hot topic of conversation and gives people a really fun sweat for the duration. In addition to what I spend on overhead to make this happen, it’s cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars in side bets! It’s common for people after the draft to want to make side bets on their team versus yours. Regardless of how good I think their team is, I just auto accept all bets. Yes, I realize that’s not a good strategy!
Typically we get between 10-14 teams and I think that’s a really good number:
2011- 15 teams Team Jason Somerville/Mercier winners
2012- 11 teams Team Jason Somerville/Mercier winners
2013- 14 teams Team Matt Waxman winners
2014- 12 teams Team Gypsy winners
2015- 11 teams Team Brian Hastings winners
2016- 11 teams Team Danny Alaei winners
(For full stats and info visit www.25kfantasy.com)
Many people wonder if people always draft themselves and I would say definitely not. I’ve only had myself on my team one year. I figure, if I have a great WSOP I won’t care about the fantasy as much. I really enjoy the rooting aspect. It created a bit of camaraderie among players and I know that when someone drafts me I always want to give it my all to not disappoint them!
I won’t be able to attend the draft personally this year, but I will be right next door playing the final table of the Super High Roller Bowl. I have a buddy drafting for me who I trust. This year the draft takes place May 30th 8pm the day before a fun first event, the $10k Tag Team NLH event.
In recent years Aria also runs one day high buy in NLH tournaments that have cost us a few entries. Not much I can do about that, because we need to do the draft right before WSOP event #1 starts. I’m hopeful that we have a great turnout this year, and if any of you want a team, or want to put together a group that takes pieces for an entry, reach out to me on Twitter @realkidpoker and also add @dnassistant and @twoacesgolf to ensure I get the message.
Also, I have a team dedicated to creating daily VLOGS on my YouTube Channel
I think you are going to really enjoy the daily VLOGS both from the perspective of quality and the behind the scenes look at what it’s like to grind the WSOP everyday for 6 weeks. There will be ups and downs, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to get started. Here is a teaser: WSOPVLOG2017
Below you will find a list of potential events at the WSOP I may play, not including any re-entries which could add to the total buy in number which sits at $384,600
May 31 3pm $10k NLH Tag Team
June 1 11am $3k NLH Shootout
June 1 3pm $1500 O8
June 2 3pm $111k NLH
June 3 3pm $2.5 Triple Draw Mix
June 4 3pm $10k O8
June 5 11am $1k NLH Tag Team
June 5 3pm $1.5 Dealers Choice 6 max
June 6 3pm $1.5 2-7 Single Draw NL
June 7 11am $1.5 HORSE
June 7 3pm $10k NLH Heads Up
June 8 3pm $10k Dealers Choice 6 max
June 9 DAY OFF
June 10 3pm $1.5 8-Game
June 11 3pm $10k 2-7 Single Draw NL
June 12 3pm $1.5 LH
June 13 3pm $10k RAZZ
June 14 3pm $1.5 2-7 Triple Draw
June 15 3pm $10kHORSE
June 16 3pm $1.5 O8 Mix
June 17 3pm $10k 2-7 Triple Draw
June 18 3pm $5k NLH 6 max
June 19 3pm $10k LH
June 20 3pm $1.5 Stud8
June 21 3pm $10k NLH 6 max
June 22 3pm $3k HORSE
June 23 11am $5k NLH 30 min levels
June 23 3pm $1.5 PLO8
June 24 3pm $10k Stud8
June 25 3pm $3k PLO 6 max
June 26 3pm $10k PLO8
June 27 3pm $3k LH 6 max
June 28 11am $10k PLO
June 28 3pm $1.5 Stud
June 29 3pm $2.5 Omaha 8/Stud 8
June 30 3pm $2.5 Big Bet Mix
July 1 DAY OFF
July 2 3pm $50k Poker Players Championship
July 5 3pm $25k PLO
July 6 3pm $1.5 RAZZ
July 7 3pm $10k Stud
July 8 DAY OFF
July 9 DAY OFF
July 10 11am Main Event!
The week leading up to the WSOP will also require a heavy investment. I’m already committed to the $300k Super High Roller Bowl at Aria and before that event there are two $25k and $15k 10-Game mixed events at Bellagio followed by a $10k, $25k, $50k, and $100k at Aria before the Super High Roller Bowl. All of these events offer unlimited re-entries.
This is a big summer with a lot at stake and buyins likely exceeding $1 million. I put up 100% of my buyins so it’s imperative that I am prepared and focused for the duration.
I will be documenting the entire journey and you will be able to get a glimpse into what it’s like to play these kind of stakes and how I mentally deal with both successes and failures. If you haven’t seen any of my blogs, here is my latest from Monte Carlo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IDuEixJRZs
Until then I plan to stick to a healthy routine of journaling, meditation, study, soccer, gym, golf, and eating clean. Once the action starts I’m going to put soccer, gym, and golf on the back burner and focus on SLEEP! Above all else, for me I know that sleep is the most important thing for me to be aware of during the grind. When I am fatigued, mistakes happen. For example, this Monte Carlo trip I blew it in the main event coming in 51st after making a sloppy, gambly call against Elky with KQ suited in a spot I would normally fold correctly. He had Aces. Oops! Anyway, it was the perfect reminder for me to focus on being well rested.
One other consideration related to rest will be my strategy in the $1500 events on my schedule. I plan to show up on time and grind the $10k and above buyins from the start, but in the larger field $1500 events my plan is to late register at the last minute rather than expend mental energy on the early levels. That certainly makes it tougher to win the smaller events, but not impossible. I think the value of the rest I’ll be able to get during those periods will go a long way towards me being mentally fresh when it matters.
My intention for the summer is to cash for over $1.5 million and win 3 WSOP Bracelets along the way. My intention is to win the WSOP Player of the Year award for the 3rd time.
If you happen to be involved in any WSOP fantasy pools, I can tell you that I will be giving it 100% and think I’m worth picking! I am so excited to make that first walk into the Rio and get started.
The first event is a tag team event and I’m likely going to play with people I draft at the annual WSOP Fantasy draft May 30th 8pm at Aria. My plan is to be the #1 seed on the team and play the majority, while having a clear #2 seed and then a #3 seed who will only play sparingly.
As you can tell by looking at my schedule you won’t see a lot of NLH on my schedule. We haven’t added a shot clock to any events at the WSOP as of yet, but I am very hopeful that we can do that for at least some events in 2018. I do not find it enjoyable playing most no limit hold’em tournaments without a shot clock. Most all high buy in events employ one now, and I think it’s only a matter of time before the WSOP adopts the same format for it’s high buy in events. In any of the NLH events I do happen to play, I will be taking advantage of my right to call for clocks on any habitual tankers. It is not personal guys, but if I think a player is taking more than their fair share of time I will be calling the clock on them as early as 30 seconds before the flop, and in some cases, as soon as 60 seconds post flop. Normally I won’t call for a clock until the 2 minute mark, and for players who normally play quickly, I won’t call a clock until the 5 minute mark if they need that much time.
Hope to see you guys at the WSOP this year! Good luck this summer!
So for a while now there has been a misconception that I think raising the rake in poker games is “good for poker.” I’ve never actually said that, but I understand where the confusion may come from because I was talking about some things (facts) that a lot of pros don’t want to hear, and like a game of broken telephone, my position has been distorted. I do not believe that raising the rake is good for poker. Rake increases take more money out of the game and benefit whoever is collecting the rake. That is my position on rake. Period. (Insert Sean Spicer jokes here)
Now, let’s take a deeper look at how an increased rake affects players. I’m going to discuss a real world example from my early days as a professional poker player in Toronto. The casino I played at charges a $5 session fee every 30 minutes in a $10-$20 limit hold’em game, while the game across the street charged $10 a hand! Excluding tips, in the game I played in, $100 came off the table every hour. In the game across the street, they were taking $300 out of the game per hour!
So obviously I chose to play in the game with the lower rake as did many other pros I know because we didn’t really think we would be able to beat the rake across the street. What ended up happening was the game I played in consisted of eight pros and two recreational players, while the game across the street had no pros in it at all. The game with the higher rake was obviously juicier, but because the rake was so high it wasn’t really worth it for me and my other pro friends to play it. Our win rate was still better overall playing in the game with the lower rake.
We used to have this recreational player named Bhupan come play with us and while we did what we could to ensure he had fun at the table, he was so bad at poker that he got absolutely destroyed when he played with us. In our game, he was constantly playing in heads up or three way pots, while the game across the street routinely saw eight players limping in to see the flop and chasing all the way to the river.
Bhupan also played across the street, and while he lost there too, he didn’t get humiliated and crushed nearly as hard as he did when he was facing a table full of regs. He paid a lot more in rake across the street, but also lost less money. His hourly loss rate was better in the game with the higher rake because the competition he faced was more on his level.
So if you are reading this, ask yourself the following question and be honest: given the choice of these two options, which is a better game to choose if you are Bhupan? Sitting with the sharks, or paying the extra rake and facing off against weaker opponents? Be honest.
I know you don’t want to hear this but it just happens to be true. I get why you would scoff and get your pitchforks out when this point is illustrated and not want to believe it, but its true. For Bhupan and other players at his skill level, HIGHER RAKE WAS BETTER FOR THEM than paying a lower rake in a game against pros. Oh no! Did he just say that? How dare he! Turncoat! Shill! Ahhhhhhhh. Say what you will, but it is true.
I understand why me saying this would lead people to believe that I think raising the rake is good for poker. I get it, I really do, but it is not the same thing. I do not think raising the rake is good for poker. No rake is “good for poker.” But you need to understand that a game full of pros is far worse for the game than a high rake. To the extreme, if a game is nine close to equally skilled pros and no weak link, guess what happens to the game? POOF. It doesn’t exist. They won’t play.
Now, if you are the guy running the poker game its in your best interest that your players/customers don’t go broke. They go broke, you have no games, you have no rake. If you are the guy running the game, the number one cause of players going broke is WINNING PLAYERS. Professionals who bust weaker players. When the weaker players go broke, the winning players don’t play each other, then you are left with no game, and no rake. The primary cause of a losing player losing is WINNING PLAYERS. The secondary cause, usually by a wide margin, is RAKE.
If you think about it, nothing I’m saying here should be all that controversial. It’s common sense, but obviously pros don’t want to hear it. For the professional poker community, RAKE is enemy #1, but for recreational players, what busts them is the better players they are facing. If the balance in an ecosystem swings too far in the direction of a pro dominated poker game, the ecosystem as a whole suffers. I don’t think raising the rake is the solution to fixing the ecosystem, but I do think reducing or eliminating reward bonuses to high volume winning players is a no-brainer.
Think about it: if you are running a poker game why would you want to add extra incentive for the best players in your game to play more often and longer? Doesn’t it make far more logical sense to incentivize recreational players to redeposit and play longer? If you incentivize the winning players to play more, then its only natural that each game available will be more dominated by winning pros and how is that good for you if you are the one running the poker game? How is that good for the recreational players? The only group who benefits from giving rewards to high volume winning players is… high volume winning players. Everyone else in the ecosystem suffers.
In closing, NO I do not think higher rake is good for poker, but YES, I do think it makes sense to give the majority of the bonuses or rewards to recreational players.
Before we get to this year’s goals, as always, we first need to take look back at 2016 and see how we fared. When I envision most of these goals, after they are written in this blog I don’t really look to see how I’m progressing. The main reason for that is that I don’t want to be, nor am I, attached to the results. The intention for this public blog is to share with you some things I would like to see happen for me in poker by the end of the year. Some of the goals are a real stretch, while others on the list seem very reasonable. Its a mixed bag, but none of my goals are so outlandish that they let me off the hook. For example, I don’t post a goal to win 10 WSOP bracelets in 2017. Is that theoretically possible? Sure. Is it fantasy land? Absolutely. So instead, I set the lofty goal at 3 bracelets. A feat that has been achieved several times by other players and I want to add my name to that list. OK, so lets break down what worked, and what didn’t work in 2016:
1. Cash for $2.5 million- This was a big whiff! I ended up cashing for just $302, 452 which amounts to my lowest total since the year 2000. Even in 1999 when I was playing mostly $100-$300 buy ins I cashed for more than that! So what didn’t work? A combination of two things:
a) lack of volume. I didn’t play enough high buy in events. The Aria has tons of $25k+ events with 20-30 players, but when I’m home in Las Vegas the last thing I typically want to do is go to the strip and play poker. These events appear to be a regular thing so if I want to have more results in higher buy in tournaments I would have to start playing these. I’ve only played one time in a $100k event there and I actually enjoyed the event and the atmosphere.
b) cashed in the wrong tournaments! The way the tournament poker landscape looks these days, if you don’t have a good year in super high roller events, that’s going to define your year. My biggest cash on the year was just $96,670 which is less than a single super high roller buy in!
2. 55 Tournament minimum- didn’t get there! This would seem like one of the easier goals to hit since I put in a lot of volume during the summer at the WSOP but I ended up playing just 49 events total. Had there been a WSOP Europe I likely would have hit the goal.
3. 12 cashes- I cashed in 10 of 49 events which is a decent percentage, and had I put in a bit more volume and hit my 55 tournament minimum, I likely would have hit this goal. Same story, not enough volume.
4. 5 final tables- I really bombed on this one hitting just one. I had a lot of close opportunities that just didn’t pan out, but I think this has to be a record low for me since I started playing tournament poker and I chalk this one up to an anomaly.
5. 3 WSOP Bracelets- Ha! Had a shot in the $1500 Razz coming in 4th place and really felt like I played well in that tournament. Such is Razz. I once saw a poker player that had a tattoo that went Ace, 2, 3, 4 and then a picture of three consecutive bananas! (High cards in Razz are often referred to as bananas)
6. Move to 3rd on WSOP All-Time Cashes List- Alright we got one! I sit in 3rd place with 92 behind Phil Hellmuth’s 118 and Erik Seidel’s 101. Each year I make up ground in this category and before I’m dead and buried I’m very confident I will take over the #1 spot all time. I love playing the WSOP and I don’t see that ever changing.
7. Move to 2nd on WSOP All-Time Money List- This one was doable with a good year, but I remain in 3rd and made up zero ground on Antonio Esfandiari and Dan Colman.
8. End 2016 in the top 10 of the GPI- In order to end the year in the top 10 you need to make some final tables. I did not! Ended the year in 71st place I believe.
9. Play 200 hours of cash games- I really thought I was going to make the time to play the big mixed game in Bobby’s Room but I ended up well short playing just 106 hours total. There were plenty of games and opportunities, but ultimately when given the choice to go to the gym and play soccer three times a week, I chose the physical exercise. It just never became a priority for me.
10. Win $250,000 in Cash Games- Within the first 45 minutes of my very first session of 2016 I was up $350,000 in the Big Bet Mixed Game at Aria. I followed that up with two more small wins, but over at Bobby’s Room that all took a nose dive by the end of the year! Year total was -$236,000 in just 106 hours of play. While that’s a lot of actual money, its essentially just one good winning session away from being even.
So whats in store for 2017? An acknowledgment of my shifted priorities and setting myself up to win by focusing on QUALITY over QUANTITY. I won’t be posting a minimum tournaments goal, but in the events I do choose to play I plan to play my best and be hyper focused. I have been doing this for 20 years and I know when I’m playing well and running bad, versus playing bad and running bad. I felt like I played pretty well in 2016. The WSOP is such a grueling mental grind that its tough to bring your A Game every day for 12 hours a day, for 6 weeks. It’s grueling, but I love it and always feel like there is room for improvement in terms of my mental preparation. So without further adieu, here are my 2017 poker goals:
1. Cash for $2.5 million- If you want to have a winning year in super high rollers, this is a target you need to achieve. You could easily spend more than that in buy ins if you play every $25k buy in event and up.
2. Win 3 WSOP Bracelets- stop laughing! I want it.
3. Cross the 100 cashes mark at the WSOP- I would need 8 cashes which is reasonable with a full schedule. If I played no limit hold’em tournaments rather than the mixed game events, it would be a virtual lock, but I intend to do it playing the high buy in events.
4. End the year #1 on the All-Time Money List- With me having an off year and Erik Seidel putting in a full schedule including the high buy in events in Australia and the regular events at Aria he has closed the gap to about $1.5 million after another big year. He followed up a $5 million year in 2015 with yet another $5 million year in 2016. Erik will have a chance to pass me in Australia as I won’t be attending again this year.
5. Win WSOP Player of the Year for the 3rd Time- I’m currently the only person who has won the award twice, once in 2004 and then again in 2013, and I’d really like to get to 3 before anyone hits 2! I know I can do it, and my playing schedule is tailored with this specific goal in mind: Avoid the big field small buy in no limit hold’em events, focus on the $10k+ schedule.
6. Make the November 9- I know, it sounds crazy, but not to me. Crazy is more along the lines of setting the goal at winning the entire thing, which I intend to every year, but this event was tailor made for me. Two hour levels, a field comprised of varying skill levels, and reasonable playing schedule. My style of play was tailor made for this event. The “small ball” approach is perfectly suited to the main event. It allows you to avoid as many landmines as you can until the very end. I can get there. I don’t believe in my heart that anyone is better suited to succeed in this specific event than I am.
7. Win $250,000 playing cash games- I won’t be setting a number of hours I want to log as I don’t know that this is a priority for me any time soon. I just have a wide array of interests that occupy my time. Obviously in 2016 there was the heated presidential race that I was extremely passionate about and enthralled with to the bitter end, and while I’m still just as passionate about the direction of the country, I’m spending my time more wisely. I’m still a dedicated listener to many of the great political podcasts you can find on NPR, Keepin’ it 1600, 538, and Slate, but I won’t be engaging on social media with people nearly as often as I did in 2016. It took up a lot of my time and it was a cause I believed in, and still do.
8. Produce more content for poker fans- I’ve always enjoyed social media and its a really fun way to engage with people who love this game. Many of you may remember my “Weekly Rant” YouTube show and while I have no plans to revive that show, I definitely want to continue producing the Full Contact Poker podcast. I really enjoy this medium and listen to a ton of podcasts. I have no set goals on how I want the podcast to look and I plan to keep it flexible. Sometimes a guest, other times poker world updates, and may other times it will just be about any poker issues I find worthwhile to discuss. I will remain active on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, but have no plans to understand the whole SnapChat thing! I also plan to continue doing occasional hand breakdowns during study sessions and a few off the cuff vlogs. I don’t put a lot of effort into the quality of those videos from a production standpoint, but I figure its easy, the content is good, and most of you just want to learn how to play better anyway, so doing them off the cuff just means more content for you all. One interview I can promise you I will have in 2017 will be one with Phil Ivey that you could never find anywhere else.
Normally I post 10 specific poker goals I want to achieve throughout the year, but because I’m adjusting to being more flexible with the amount of time I play and not feeling forced to play when I don’t want to, we are down to 8 this year. 8 streamlined, clear, powerful and juicy goals. An 8-8 year would be epic!
If you have any ideas for content you want to see in 2017, or if you have some suggestions for poker goals I could set in the future, email the Podcast at DNegsPodcast@gmail.com. I plan to get some content while out here in Bahamas, but that will take a backseat to the grind at hand. It is my intention to start the year off with a BANG and knock off the first event of the year, the PokerStars Championship Super High Roller.
Just a quick blog to explain a fun game I just played while on my trip to Norway. It’s called Super Power Poker and is a no limit hold’em tournament with a few fun and interesting wrinkles. At the start of the tournament each player is given three additional cards. Each card represents a specific advantage that you can use throughout the game:
Run It Twice- Whenever you go all in you must use this card simultaneously. If no one calls, you get this card back. If you are called by at least one player they will run the remaining cards out twice. So if you are all in preflop and called after using your Run It Twice Card, the dealer will deal two full boards. If you go all in on the flop, the dealer will deal the turn and river twice. If you win both, you get the whole pot. If you lose both, you lose the whole pot. Win one out of two and you get half the pot.
Pineapple- This card must be used preflop before the player takes any action. So if its raised and re-raised to you and you are in the big blind, for example, you can use your pineapple card and then choose to fold, call, or re-raise as normal. You now have a three card hand and after the flop you can choose which of those three cards to throw away.
Show One Card- This one is quite simple. Anytime you are in a heads up pot you can play this card and your opponent must choose which of the two cards in his hand he will turn face up and show you.
You can use more than one card on the same action. For example, if you are short stacked and all in you can play your Run It Twice card AND your pineapple card at the same time. Or, if you are 3 bet by a player and want to see one of his cards, you can play your Show One Card, then you could go all in and play your Run It Twice card. You could even play all three cards in the same hand! Example:
You are in the small blind and it’s folded around to you. You can play your Show One Card and the big blind must turn a card over. Then you can play your pineapple card, and if you like what you see, you can go all in and play your Run It Twice card! I wouldn’t advise wasting all your cards in one shot, though, since you only get one opportunity to use each card.
We didn’t think of this before this event, but realized quickly it would be even more fun that when you bust a player you also win any Super Power Cards your opponent didn’t use.
If you want to add a little spice to your home games, I say give this a try! It was really great fun and creates the kind of atmosphere at the table we all want to see.
I’m off to the Isle of Mann to visit the PokerStars HQ, but before I go I also wanted to take a moment to thank everyone in Norway for their tremendous hospitality. I most certainly felt loved and cared for during my brief stay. A special thanks to Bjorn Petter for making sure I had food, a free gym membership, a Norwegian Rap Spotify playlist, as much water as I can drink, and of course, for loaning me his car, his cellphone, and his ex-girlfriend for the trip. Thanks buddy!
So William Kassouf and his antics at this years WSOP brings forth an opportunity to do something really good for the game of poker. Clearly, many of the floor staff had a tough time dealing with this unique individual and found themselves unclear on exactly what rules he was breaking. It just seemed like he had to be breaking some kind of rule right?
The thing is, every time we saw an argument between Kassouf and the floor staff, Kassouf put forth a winning argument that he wasn’t breaking any rules. This put the floor staff in a tough spot. Clearly it seemed like he was being annoying and disruptive and we saw clear evidence that he was totally wasting time in certain spots with no intention to call. The combination of overly aggressive “speech play” as well as the excessive tanking and time wasting, can both be covered with the following rule:
“If the Tournament Director deems a player to be disruptive to the game either by their behavior or slow pace of play, the TD reserves the right to issue a penalty after a warning has been given.”
Any player who decides to flirt with the line puts themselves in a position where they could be penalized and that is based solely on the discretion of the floor staff. This certainly gives a TD lots of power over controlling unique situations and doesn’t back them into a corner where they end up arguing over rules that may not be totally applicable to the situation.
What I like most about this phrasing is not simply that it punishes excessive behavior, but more importantly this rule alone can powerfully address the detrimental issue poker faces today: excessive tanking and stalling.
If a player is habitually taking far more time than the rest of his opponents, the floor may issue him a warning that if his pace of play doesn’t speed up, that may result in a one round penalty. This would apply at all stages of the tournament, including, most importantly, around the bubble and in spots where there is a significant pay jump.
Once a player is given a warning, and this should happen only when it becomes clear this player is wasting time, it’s upon him to adjust his play accordingly or face the repercussions of his disruptive actions. Excessive and intrusive banter is disruptive. Habitual tanking and stalling is disruptive. This rule would help tournament directors make sure that the playing experience for everyone in their tournament is enjoyable and played at an acceptable pace.