I grew up playing tournaments with fast structures. It was fun for me as a kid, just playing was enjoyable so I didn’t mind playing in tournaments with 20 minute levels and huge jumps. I’m not a kid anymore, though, and I find fast paced structures to get boring very quickly. I simply don’t enjoy the pre-flop aspects of the game nearly as much as the post flop part of the game, but the faster the structure, the less of an opportunity you have to really take advantage of the weaker players at the table. You are forced to take coin flips much faster than I’d like and it just isn’t what I love about hold’em.
I went broke in level 6 today playing 400-800 with a 100 ante. Unlike other EPT’s with 60 minute levels, the PCA (PokerStars Caribbean Adventure) offered 75 minutes. That’s a nice little boost for sure, but skipping a level early on kind of takes a bit away from that addition.
I’m a structure geek as most of you should know by now! I love tournaments and designing structures. I practically memorize structures from various locations to compare them and look for any flaws there might be.
Now the PCA has the difficult task of trying to accommodate 1400 odd people for their event. There are only two real ways to address this: lengthen the amount of time for the tournament, or cut out levels. I personally side with lengthening the tournament.
I’ve had this discussion with several people in regards to structuring tournaments. Years ago there was a system called “TEARS” which I was immediately opposed to and hated right from the get go. With TEARS the amount of actual play a tournament had was defined by the number of entrants. The more players who paid the entry fee, the more of a crap shoot they’d receive. For example, if 200 signed up the blinds might increase every 90 minutes, but if 400 signed up the blinds would go up every hour. So essentially, while the house percentage would be much higher for the bigger field in total, the tournament structure would essentially penalize the bigger field events with a more crap shooty structure.
At the WSOP, for example, there was discussion about speeding up the $1500 NL hold’em event since they’d expect a larger field. Once again, not what I would do at all. The fairest way to run a tournament is to first, make a fair structure based on the buy in amount, and then guesstimate how many days it will take based on expected participation. So for the $1500 no limit hold’em events, rather than speed up the structure, I say make them four day events to accommodate the larger field which will simply require more time to finish.
The WPT structures, aside from the fast paced final table offer an enormous amount of play on average. A typical WPT structure looks like this:
20,000 in starting chips and 90 minute levels
50-100
100-200
100-200 (25)
150-300 (25)
200-400 (50)
300-600 (75)
400-800 (100)
Some are a bit faster, some even slower. Typically Matt Savage run tournaments offer a 250-500 level as do many WSOP events. To accommodate for the large field the PCA went like this:
20,000 in starting chips with 75 minute levels
50-100
100-200
100-200 (25)
200-400 (50)
300-600 (75)
400-800 (100)
After six levels, essentially you’ve lost close to 3 hours of playing time which forces your hand very early on. The 400-800 level you face at level 6 is precisely double the size of a typical deep stacked tournament. That’s a really big deal, especially if you’ve just been hovering around even for most of day one.
Say you are sitting on 15,000. At 400-800 that gives you a shoving stack with less than 20 big blinds. At 200-400 you still have plenty of room to see flops and be patient with close to 40 big blinds.
20 big blind poker and 40 big blind poker are two completely different things. Frankly, both are more like faster paced online tournaments, but 20 big blinds leaves you very limited. Skill becomes much less of a factor than does winning loads of races. That’s not fun for me. Some guys like that, some love it! I’m just not one of those people.
The EPT’s crown jewel, the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo does offer an excellent structure with 90 minute levels. The second best structure on the tour is, in fact, the PCA since it offers 75 minutes to the normal 60 minute levels. Considering the enormous field for the PCA every year, I believe they should make it a 7 day event rather than a 5 day event next year. Even with the current fast paced structure it’s going to be a long haul for those that make it to the final table. Five very long days of play.
So now that I’m out I’ll be focused on playing in the World Cup of Poker for Canada. It’s a fun event and I usually enjoy team competitions. The structure for that one in unique and fun. It’s fast paced obviously, but every member of the team contributes. They made a change to the point distribution that I think is a big improvement. During each heat, only the top six of nine players receive points. Those points get traded in for chips at the final table, with no country being eliminated during the qualifying round. Last year only four of the eight teams qualified for the final, and I’d like to see a hybrid of that with six of the top nine teams squaring off at the final table. That way the preliminary heats are a bit more meaningful. As it stands, you could be the last place team going into the final table but not be very bad off. The last place team will start with 25,000 in chips while the top team will have 50,000 to start. Also, being the tournament structure geek that I am 🙂 the antes being smaller than normal in some places annoys me! At 300-600 it’s a 50 ante and then at 400-800 it’s a 75 ante, for example. Normally you’d race for the green chips prior to the 400-800 level but they’ll still have greens on the table for a 150 ante later at the 600-1200 level.
After this event, I’m sticking with my plan of not playing another tournament till the LAPC at the Commerce. Matt Savage has taken over as the tournament director there and I’ve always been a big fan of his structures. I’ll be there for three events, the $10,000 HORSE, the $10,000 Heads Up event, and of course, the $10,000 WPT event.
I am considering making a quick trip to New York straight from the Bahamas. I have to do the voice over work for the APPT’s second season and it’s a bit easier for the crew if I fly there rather than have them all fly out to Vegas. I’m still working on the details for that, though, but if I go to New York it won’t be to party- it will be to work…
OK, I’m off to find a juicy $0.01-$0.02 game on PokerStars…
Then the day after that I’ll throw my dice at the $25,000 high roller event which is scheduled for two days and will have a fast structure as well. More starting chips with 50,000 at the 50-100 level, but 60 minute levels and skipped levels along the way will ensure that it gets done fast.
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Day 1A is going to be a long one. Play is scheduled to start at noon and not finish till about 1:00am. I plan on still being in with about 65,000 in chips. Just sayin’.
On the off day I’ll be playing another tournament, the World Cup of Poker which is a lot of fun and it’s always cool to play for your country (Canada by the way).
Tonight I attended the welcome party with Mommy and she loved it. I took some pics, lots of pics, signed a few autographs, and stayed the duration. I did not drink. I had half of a beer and three glasses of pineapple juice. Now I’m sitting in the lobby checking e-mails, hockey scores, etc. and will call it an early night, falling asleep to season 4 of Lost.
In my last blog I mentioned cutting back big time on extra curricular activity. I’m a man of my word. I used to write for both CardPlayer magazine as well as a syndicated newspaper column. Last year I stopped writing for CardPlayer, and this year, after a four year run I’ve decided to stop writing the syndicated column as well. Deadlines are really stressful and I found myself getting less and less motivated to meet them. 200 newspaper columns and probably about 300 CardPlayer columns is enough.
I’m still going to be just as focused, if not more focused on winning every tournament I play. I also, totally randomly decided to try a little fun experiment. Starting with a $10 bankroll I’m playing ring game NL hold’em on PokerStars, starting out at $0.01-$0.02 and not moving up in limits until I have 500 big blinds at the next limit. Why? It’s kinda fun. Also, I’ll be documenting the results in a thread in the Full Contact Poker forum as well as making videos of it at PokerVT. So far I’ve played two sessions, 145 hands total and have had a good run winning $6.29. When I get to $25 I’ll jump to $0.02-$0.05.
The goal is to run it up to like $100,000 in about three years or so. If I go broke I’m just going to quit, but I’m trying to avoid brokedom by being careful with my buy in amounts. Whatever my bankroll is, I will always buy in for 1/5th of my total bankroll. So, in the $0.01-$0.02 game I’ll start with $2.00. If I were to happen to lose the $2.00 my next session would be 1/5th of the $8.00 bankroll I have left (1.60). I’ll continue to do that as long as the game allows, meaning if I dip below the minimum buy in I’ll be forced to gamble. I won’t go down in limits.
I think it will be a bit enlightening too. Starting at the very bottom and really getting a feel for the differences between micro limits and higher limits. I realized after shooting a micro limit video for PokerVT a few months ago that I was a bit out of touch with some of the random goofiness you’ll see in the micro games. I’m getting a much better feel for it which will help me make better videos.
Other than that, I’m just livin’ man. Enjoying my life, sorting things out in my personal life, and just really looking forward to having a good 2009. Peace.
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In a nutshell- I’m cutting back… big time. Cutting back on all of the extra “stuff” that I do and also going to lighten my load in terms of travel. PokerVT is something I’ll continue to put my efforts into and teach those that sign up, but aside from that I’ll be doing a lot less teaching. People are already getting better and just giving away my secrets is starting to feel like a bad idea. Not because I don’t think I’ll be able to win, but more a case of, why should I? Seriously, for like 10 years now I’ve been doing that and I’m not so sure I want to anymore. I’ve done enough.
My tournament schedule will also be lighter in 2009. I’ll still fight hard at the WSOP and work by butt off in the higher buy in events, but outside of that I’ll be doing much less traveling. Frankly, I’m excited about taking control of my life and only doing things I really want to do. I’m going to be a bit more selfish in terms of looking out for numero uno.
January:
Jan 4-11 PokerStars Carribeaean Adventure (may play three events there, the World Cup of Poker and the $25,000 High Rollers event also).
That’s it for January. I’m not going to Australia, France, Biloxi, or the Borgata. What I’ll be doing or where I’ll be is still undecided outside of needing to do some commentary for the APPT’s second season. If you didn’t see the first season you should check it out. I did the commentary for all the episodes and the production quality has a WSOP feel to it since it’s the same crew and all.
February:
Feb 16-18 $10,000 HORSE LAPC
Feb 18-20 $10,000 Heads Up LAPC
Feb 21-26 $10,000 WPT LAPC
A couple new events at the LAPC this year will keep me from traveling to the Scandinavian event on the EPT.
March:
Mar 1-4 NBC Heads Up (dates unclear still but approximate)
Mar 16-20 $10,000 WPT Bay 101
That’s it for March. I ain’t doing nothing else in March. Probably a perfect opportunity to start getting back into golfing on a regular basis.
April:
Apr 18-25 $25,000 WPT Championship
Apr 28–3 EPT Grand Final
I had Foxwoods on my list before but screw them, I’m not going back. They withheld my taxes for no good reason since they changed their policy. I used to love going there, but seriously, screw them. It’s not even the fact that they withhold the money, I don’t care as much about that as I do the fact that the morons in charge don’t even realize that legally, they don’t have to do that at all.
April will be a good poker month with back-to-back well structured events that suit me perfectly. Lots of chips, lots of play= lots of time for me to wait on people to go bonkers and give away their chips.
May:
Leave me alone! I’ll be on the golf course and the only poker I’ll be playing is online at PokerStars.
June/July:
World Series of Poker. I want to focus a lot of my attention on this coming WSOP and really have an incredible year. I’ve come close two years in a row in the $50,000 HORSE event, coming 19th, then 13th last year. I want that win and I want it now.
After the WSOP I’m not really sure what I’m doing just yet, I usually only schedule things in six month blocks. I’m sure that in the next six months things will be added to my schedule, but it won’t be more tournament play. I’m sure I’ll have some things scheduled to do for both PokerStars and PokerVT, but man, other than that, I’m going to stay home in Vegas with Mushu. I’m going to hang out with my boys, play pool, play golf, play Golden Tee, and work out some as well.
I started playing pool a bit lately by myself. In fact, I haven’t left my house in quite a while and don’t plan on leaving until Bahamas. I’ve never been all that good at 8-ball and 9-ball growing up with snooker, but I want to learn and improve my skills at both those games. I think I still make some mistakes in terms of strategy and my positional game can use a lot of work.
My golf game has suffered because I don’t like playing in bad weather. I practice on my simulator a little bit, but lately it’s been pool and Golden Tee that have got me hooked. I should be better at Golden Tee, but again, I think I’m just making dumb mistakes due to a lack of knowledge. I also hate left to right putts on that game.
I’m probably not going to blog as much either. I’ll still blog from tournaments and when I play poker, but aside from that, I’m going to keep to myself a little bit more and hang out with my family and friends.
I might even make some random trips, just for fun. I really liked San Diego when I visited there and I know my buddies like it there too. Maybe some golf trips there, or just a real vacation here and there. I don’t know, not entirely sure what I want to do exactly, I just know that I definitely want to be more selfish! Not in a bad way, but I definitely want to spend more time taking care of ME and making sure that I’m getting the most out of life.
On that note, I’m going to go downstairs and practice on the pool table. After that I’ll be headed over to Mommy’s place for dinner. She cooked up a storm for me and my friends as she’s done the last few years now.
Merry Christmas….
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We start with 45,000 and the worst shape I was ever in was like 43,750. My high point was about 71,000 and I ended the day with 58,500. I played not a single big pot the entire day. I played one decent sized pot, but I flopped the nuts that hand and still had it on the river. It was my biggest bet, either calling or betting the whole tournament- by a lot. I bet 6800 on the river with my nut flush and got called by top pair top picker. In no hand the entire day did I have 10% of my stack at risk.
Number of re-raises pre-flop: 0
Bluffs attempted/bluffs successful: 4/3
Number of pocket pairs JJ or higher: 1 (AA)
Number of times I raised on the flop: 1
Number of times I raised on the turn or river: 1 (had the nuts)
Number of dead money steals attempted: 0
I hear people talk about their styles of play as “LAG” or “TAG” and when asked what I was, my answer is pretty simple: loose passive. What’s the acronym for that? Whatever it is, that’s how I play tournament poker.
My patience today: 100% (didn’t make one bored play all day)
My focus today: 38% (i got a bit of a head cold and was a bit fatigued.)
My luck today: Slightly below par. Didn’t hit a ton of hands, but didn’t really get cold decked at all either.
So in a nutshell it was a pretty smooth/boring day of chipping up a little bit with virtually no risk. I’m more than happy to end the day ahead, and frankly, even if I had as little as 18,000 in chips I’d still feel comfortable in a deep stacked tournament such as this. This kind of tournament really allows the better players more than enough time to wait things out and look for good opportunities to build a stack. The 9:00pm finish each day is also fantastic and I know all the players love that format- it’s less taxing on the brain and body, plus you have the evenings open to do what you please.
I was pleased to see two of my friends do well on day one also. I gave them a very simple lesson on the proper way to build a stack on day one and both players did very well using the strategy I gave them. It’s an approach they’d never used before, and both of them called me to tell me how much they loved it, and also how easy it was! It feels good to share with your friends, and feels even better to know that they not only appreciate it, but that they also see how effective it is.
I honestly don’t have even a single hand to share with you all because I really didn’t play even one interesting hand on day one. As I said, no big pots, no tough decisions, just a tidy little low-risk profit on day one.
The blinds tomorrow will be 400-800 which gives me a little over 73 big blinds to work with. That’s a ton of chips. The average stack is right around 70 big blinds which means the style of play will continue to have a deep stack feel for most players, and that’ll be the case well into day three.
Tomorrow I look forward to another day of playing my system and ending the day with about 215,000 or so. If I end up with 75,000 that will be fine also, but If I catch some hands I could easily hit the 200,000 mark by the end of the day. No rush, patience is king, and I’ll worry about taking the chip lead sometime on day four.
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Tonight, I’ll be vegging with the dog, trying to get over this cold I picked up today, and watching Nip/Tuck, a truly twisted TV show.
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So, I haven’t been as busy as I normally am and when that happens I often find myself staying up all night and then sleeping days. I don’t play any of the prelims at Bellagio, I have that up in 2004. Since 2004 I only play the WSOP events and other deep stacked tournaments like the WPT or EPT. I don’t really enjoy crapshoot tournaments, and that includes the $1500 NLH events at the WSOP. I don’t find that type of poker to be very beautiful and while I play the occasional online tournament, I much prefer 5 day events with slow structures and big prize pools. We’ve got one of those coming up and I’ll likely play on day two. My strategy going into the first two days is pretty transparent and I could care less. I won’t be doing any re-raising pre–flop, I’ll be min-raising until the antes come into play, and I won’t be playing a ton of big pots. It’s what I do at pretty much every WPT Bellagio event until day three and that strategy has worked extremely well for me so I don’t see any reason to change that up at all. I’ve cashed in three straight Bellagio events. I haven’t played any live poker recently but I’ve logged a pretty good amount of hours on PokerStars this month. I’ve also been thinking about poker a lot too and doing more work for www.pokervt.com. I shot a few tournament videos and also did some interesting experimenting online and had a few epiphanies that sort of reconfirmed some theories I’ve always believed in. Other than that, I’ve been doing a lot of vegging and am completely caught up on my Tivo’d shows and even watched a full season of Nip/Tuck on DVD. What a twisted show that is! I started playing some video games again, some games I haven’t touched in years. I watch a lot of hockey and sweat my fantasy hockey team which is doing amazingly well this year. Best team I’ve had in 12 years in the same keeper league. I even tried golfing yesterday! I haven’t golfed in ages so I guess it went about as well as expected. I played from the ladies tees and shot 50 on 9 holes. It’s a bad score but at least I was out there. It was fun nonetheless and I picked it up on the last few holes making some decent shots. Golf is fun, but way more fun when it’s warm and I can play everyday. I love being at home. It’s my favorite place in the whole world and when I get to be home for long stretches I find that I do so many other things that I really enjoy. Vegging being one of them! I’ll travel to the Bahamas in early January, but after that I think I’ll be skipping several tournaments. No go on Australia, nope to Borgata, and probably not going to Biloxi either. That means I might just have a very long stretch of freedom at home from mid-January until late February for the LAPC. Then in March I’ll do the Shooting Stars at Bay 101 and the NBC Heads Up, the WPT Championship in April followed by the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. After that, more alone time in May followed by another grueling month and a bit at the WSOP. I have some time before then to figure out my goals, but right now, I just like being at home. It’s peace and quiet and I like it. ]]>
I got a new laptop that’s really lightweight so I can bring it with me to the bathroom and the kitchen while I make food. My dog Mushu has been sitting here with me all day and he must be bored out of his mind!
I’m actually paying zero attention and haven’t all day, but I’m still a monster favorite in this game, it’s just super juicy every time. I just had a guy in Razz raise me on fourth street with K-A and my board was 5-9! Normally I crush this game but today have been running bad and losing all day, but I can honestly say that I don’t care one bit. Right now I’m stuck about $15,000 but that could change by the end of this blog.
I’ve actually been super productive today, though, despite not leaving my couch at all. I’ve done the following:
-caught up on my e-mails
-did three interviews
-had a call with my guy about some charity events as well as several other projects
-took a call about investing in a new Vegas restaurant that is unique and I think will be a really big hit
-chatted online and also texted my friends
-agreed to do some extra work tomorrow for The Real Deal and PokerVT
-checked out VT to make sure the content was being added properly
-watched two hockey games
-caught up on WSOP episodes I missed
I’m now at the tail end of this session, and then I’ll likely do the following:
-watch Heroes
-Stretch and run on the treadmill
-Hit Some golf balls (hopefully)
Tomorrow I’m going to be at a studio by 2L00pm and then after that I’ll head over to the VY studio to add some more content to the site for a couple hours.
Also, I did the Real Deal the other night and it’s more fun every time I do it. Our host, Vinnie Favarito is gone on Saturday so I’ll be hosting the show in his place and am looking forward to it. I think Scotty Nguyen and Jennifer Harman will be the pros on stage. If you are in town, come by the Venetian and check it out. After all, you could win a million dollars. lAll you have to do is make a Royal Flush- piece of cake!
I haven’t golfed in forever, but unless I put in the work hitting balls I can’t even go out on the course. Too awful. I’m going to try and het back into it soon enough.
Anyway, it’s my big blind in hold’em right now and I got K-J… let’s call the raise. Nice flop, K-10-5. Check-raise him… he called. Turn Ace, yuk, hate that card. I ‘ll check… he checks. River a 9, time for a value bet… what???? he raised? What in the world is that all about? Oh well, take it punk. Stuck $16,000 now 🙂
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It might have been a relatively inexperienced final table, but they were all god players. It amazes me how much better players are getting and I love it. Sure it makes it harder to win, but I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of playing high level poker in the late stages of a tournament.
This final table went very well for me. Here is a brief synopsis of how it all went down:
Hand #1: Literally the first hand dealt at the final table I pick up KK in the cut off. Since there was no small blind I decided to min-raise to 120k instead of my standard 136k at the 30k-60k level with a 6k ante. The player on the button had a bit over a million and shipped it with 10-10. He had no choice I don’t think, and he did the right thing as I’d usually fold there unless I had a big hand.
Hand #2: The kid Warren had me confused and outplayed me on back to back hands where I paid him off. The first went like this: He raised from the button and I called with Q-10. Flop K-8-4… check-check. Turn a 4… check-check. river a 10 and I check-called a bet of 310k. He showed KJ.
Hand #3: I raised the kid Warren’s blind with KJ and he called. The flop came Q-5-3 with two clubs. check-check. Turn the Qc… check-check. River came a 2 and he bet 350k this time. I called him with the King high and he showed Q-9… oops!
Hand #4: We were three handed at this point and I was behind in chips until I made it 178k from the button with 88, blinds at 40k-80k with an 8k ante. Warren called. The flop came A 8 6 with two clubs. He checked and I fired out a pretty quick bet of 210k. He called. The turn was an Ace and he fired 350k. I called pretty quickly trying to represent a hand like 10-10 and hope he might try to push me off of it on the river. That, plus if he’s drawing, I’d like him to hit! Most importantly, though, if a 6 hit the river I might be able to get away from the hand if he has an Ace and figure I’ll get paid on the river anyway. The river was a Jack and he moved me in for my last 1.3 million. I called, and he showed 4-5 off.
The heads up match started dead even with 5 million a piece and blinds of 50k-100k. I planned on using my standard approach heads up and would make any adjustments necessary. Based on the way he was playing me heads up, I quickly felt like I had the right strategy and should be able to grind him down with better fundamentals.
He later told me he’d never actually played heads up before, which gives me an even bigger advantage. I think I played perfectly against him. I laid down a pair twice to him on the river and he later told me I was right both times. I never let him win a big pot until he got really short. I raised to 20k with A-10 on the button and he went all in for a million more with Kd Qd. The flop came 9-6-5 and it looked good. The turn was a 7d putting a backdoor flush draw out there, and the Jd hit the river! He doubled up, and bizarre as this is going to sound I think I was genuinely happy for him and cheered for him. He’s a really nice kid and I was happy to see him get a bit psyched up, but I still felt strongly that I’d beat him.
The FINAL HAND: I min-raised to 200k with 10h 7h and he called. The flop came 8s 7s 3h. He checked and I bet 200k- he called. The turn was a Qd and he checked again. I felt like he was drawing so I bet 400k. He went all i for 1.6 million more. I didn’t think he would play Q-3 based on the heads up action thus far so I ruled that out. If he had a Queen high flush draw, I think he would have gambled with his hand on the flop. If he had the 8, a check-raise had to be his move.
I finally felt like it was a move with a hand like J-9 or something like that. I called and he showed: 9-7! I had him out kicked and it held up for the win. It’s the first tournament I’ve ever actually won with my favorite hand. That was pretty cool so I decided to keep the two cards and will put them somewhere.
690 players showed up for the tournament, the biggest field I’d ever beaten. To do it in Canada was legitimately special and I think it’s going to make for great TV when it airs. I’m really hoping that this might help spark an even bigger buy in event at the River Rock next year. I genuinely believe they could hold a 10k buy in and get 300 players easy, especially if they have online qualifiers. I’m looking forward to returning next year. They treated me very well and I had a great time.
After it was over a bunch of all went to dinner. I noticed that Adam, the second place finisher was having dinner with five of his friends. I invited them all to join us and picked up the tab. After dinner we changed and a large group of us, including Adam and his friends went to a club called Republic. Brad Booth hooked us up with a huge area to chill and we hung out there till pretty late. With dinner, and paying the bar tab, the night ended up being pretty expensive for me but it was all worth it.
Now I plan on… sleeping. I just finished doing some TV stuff and really need to catch up on some R and R and am already looking forward to the $15,000 Bellagio event. That event has been very good to me in the past and I’m coming in on a roll feeling very confident. With the Bellagio structure being so deep on the first three days I always feel great about my chances to do well there. ]]>
Gotta run down in 10 minutes for day 2. We started day one with 15,000 in chips I ended the day with 56,425 after folding Aces the last hand of the night on a flop of 9d-6d-3d (he had the flush). I played the whole day with a brutal hangover. They had me drinking at the bar till late and I didn’t realize the time went by so quickly. I spent the entire day paying ZERO attention and simply sticking to an extreme version of small ball that just… works. The only attention I paid the whole day was to my blackberry as I was texting the whole day. My battery actually died by the end of the night! Everybody went out partying again, but I said, “No thank you.” I really needed the rest. Obviously all of that night broke many of my rules, but luckily I got away with it. This place is gorgeous by the way and they’ve treated me better than I’ve ever been treated before, classy all the way. Today I plan on trying hard, paying attention all day… 10 minutes to go, bye!]]>