Thinking Poker

My website is finally up! It’s still a little rough around the edges, but check out https://www.thinkingpoker.net. It’s not just for redirecting anymore!

At the moment, there are just a few links to some of what I consider my best poker writing. I’m hoping eventually to add a section … Read full post

WSOP $2000 Pot-Limit Hold ‘Em

Today I played my second preliminary event in the 2007 World Series of Poker. The game was pot-limit, rather than no limit, Texas Hold ‘Em, with a $2000 buy-in. As the name implies, a player may not at any point bet or raise more than the amount in the pot. … Read full post

WSOP $2500 6-Max

On Monday, I played my first WSOP preliminary event, a $2500 6-max tournament. This is a little beyond my bankroll, but there are so few opportunities to play 6-max tournaments, and I’m not playing many other events, so I decided to go for it.

The dealer at my first table … Read full post

Some Live 5/10 Hands

On Friday I played some 5/10 NL at the Rio with Tom (LearnedFromTV on 2+2). He took a seat to my immediate left, but didn’t give me much trouble and provided a welcome relief from the boredom of live cash play. No particularly interesting hands, but here, I think, were … Read full post

More WSOP Final Tableage

Justin ended up chopping the $2000 NLHE with three players remaining. Rumor is that he got like $370K, but that’s not confirmed. I’m sure it was a sick score regardless. Way to go, J!

In other news, 2+2’er T_Mac has final tabled the $1500 NLHE. I haven’t been reporting on … Read full post

Jurollo at Final Table of WSOP $2K!!!

I invited Justin to a lunch with Andy Bloch and Howard Lederer (more on this later) like two weeks ago. Here was his response:

“Andrew, I should be available that day. I am in Vegas on June 12th. I can take that day off from tournaments if it is definitely … Read full post

Cross-Country Road Trip Part 2:

Over continental breakfast, Emily and I discuss what to do about the last episode of Sopranos, which was to air that night. Though Emily is not a fan of the show, I very much am. The complication was that, lacking either cable or ready access to friends with cable, I’d … Read full post

Quick Update From Des Moines

We’re now three days into road trip to Vegas. Sorry for the lack of updates, we’re spending most of each day on the road and getting in too late for me to do something coherent with limited internet access. Not much of note has happened, though I did find myself … Read full post

Another Sunday

I played a bunch of tournaments yesterday and some cash tables as well, including a substantial amout of 5/10 NL. I’ll get my tournament whining out of the way early. Most of what I played went badly, though I came close to winning a fourth WSOP seat. I was in … Read full post

Live Poker Updates

Thayer finished up 4/228 in the WPT Mandalay Bay event, winning $131,170. Nice job, kid.

Meanwhile, Steve Paul-Ambrose has final tabled the $5000 mixed hold ’em event at the WSOP. Good luck today, Steve!… Read full post

First Prize!

I won the afternoon $100 tournament on Ultimate Bet. It was a small field, just 99 players, but it was nice to win, since I final tabled yesterday only to go out on the first hand (TTQQ.

At that point, I was the chipleader, and mostly I just coasted … Read full post

Criminalizing the Classroom

I came across a very interesting/disturbing report today from the New York Civil Liberties Union entitled “Criminalizing the Classroom“. The following is an excerpt from the Executive Summary:

“Since the NYPD took control of school safety in 1998, the number of police personnel in schools and the extent … Read full post

Leaving (for) Las Vegas

As some of you may already know, my girlfriend Emily has accepted a job doing public relations and marketing work for an adventure tours company based out of Las Vegas. Believe it or not, Vegas was in no way my idea, and in fact I was not thrilled to hear … Read full post

Divine Intervention

Playing the afternoon $150 on FTP, I pick up KK UTG+1 and type in my bet amount. Click raise, nothing happens. kahfldhaglashgdsajhfdashfdaslf piece of [censored] router fklahgdhafkashgdsaf. After much swearing, my connection comes back in time for me to see a bet and a raise all in on an Ace … Read full post

Too much credit?

I almost always fold to raises like this, because even though my hand is under-repped, I feel like these low- to mid-stakes players are almost universally incapable of taking advantage of that. From time to time, I talk myself into a call, though. The Villain in this hand was new … Read full post

Bluffing a Calling Station

Most of the Razz hands I’ve posted here lately have been against this same fish. He’s mostly just way too loose aggressive, hates to let go of a hand even when he’s been caught bluffing. That can make him tough to play against, but it also makes him easy to … Read full post

Another WSOP Seat

I won another WSOP seat tonight in a $650 satellite. Man, these things are soft. I mean, there are some good players, but you don’t even have to get first. Plus you get half hour levels, so nice deep stacks to outplay the donks. Three and a half hours into … Read full post

Humorous Home Game Hand

Even though we’d technically had our last game a few weeks ago, Logan invited some regulars over for $.50/$1 NLHE game on Wednesday with a $150 buy-in. I played really poorly and got kind of tilty towards the end, which I don’t usually do, and as a result I was … Read full post

20/40 Razz

I’ve been trying to play some higher stakes Razz games recently to feel them out, get some practice, and decide whether it’s worth trying to play the $1500 WSOP Razz event. It hasn’t been going great, but I don’t feel like I’m in over my head. I’ve certainly got some … Read full post

Inducing a Bluff

In general, I’ve found that my opponents at mid-stakes no limit are quite passive: they don’t make a lot of big bluffs, and they aren’t very good at value betting thin. In a lot of ways, this makes them easy to play against, but it generally means that when I … Read full post

WSOP Prelim Events

I’ll explain why soon, but it looks like I’m going to be in Las Vegas for most of the preliminary WSOP events. After reviewing the schedule, I’ve identified these tournaments as the ones I’m most likely to play:

Friday, June 15th. $2000 NLHE 3-day event.

Saturday, June 16th. $1500 … Read full post

One of my more suicidal stack-offs

This is from today’s $300, 20-minute level Saturday tournament on Poker Stars. The Villain is a pretty solid regular, but I don’t have much of a read on him beyond that. Blinds are at 15/30, I have about 3600, a nice improvement from our 2500 starting stacks. Villain, who has … Read full post

Thanks Joe!

I was doing some research yesterday when Joe from my old home game sent me an IM to tell me he was at a really juicy 2/4 PLHE game but had to leave. Thankfully there was no waiting list, so I was able to get into the seat he vacated … Read full post

Juicy Juicy Cash Games

Wowowow were there ever some donkeys out last night. I had a great session at 2/4 and 3/6 NL. I felt like I was doing quite a lot of things right: good table selection, applying a lot of pressure in position with deep stacks, building big pots against the fish, … Read full post

Booyah!

PokerStars Tournament #49464655, No Limit Hold’em
Super Satellite
Buy-In: $615.00/$35.00
551 players
Total Prize Pool: $338865.00
Target Tournament #43905792 Buy-In: $10000.00
30 tickets to the target tournament

Tournament started – 2007/05/13 – 18:00:00 (ET)

Dear foucault82,

You finished the tournament in 1st place.

This qualifies you for a seat in … Read full post

Foxwoods Mega Trip Report: Part 3

nTodd and I hit up the breakfast buffet at the Veranda Café. I mentioned that I like casino buffets for cheap meals because although some of the food is guaranteed to be terrible, you can keep rolling the dice until you find something you like. If you order a sandwich … Read full post

Foxwoods Mega Trip Report: Part 2

With about ten minutes to go before the 6PM $500 satellite, I spot Rich (2p2’er Shorty55), whom I first met in Vegas last summer and who took half my action in the 2K I played at Foxwoods a few months ago. Then again, he’s not tough to spot, partially because … Read full post

Foxwoods Mega Trip Report: Part 1

For some reason, Foxwoods decided it would be a good idea to have a $3000 deep stack tournament on a random Thursday. Todd invited me down to play satellites on Wednesday, and I took him up on it. I’m a time nit, so we left way earlier than we needed … Read full post

Looking For Something to Read?

I came across an amazing post on 2+2 today. I can’t say that I’ve fully grasped its implications yet, but it’s the first time in a while that I’ve found myself moved to think about certain situations in a very different way. I don’t know much about the poster, soah, … Read full post

Updates?

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, I haven’t played much recently and have generally been busier than usual. Every summer I have a pretty large research project that entails assembling some five hundred pages of materials on the upcoming debate topic. These materials are then distributed for free to … Read full post

I Need to Get Better at Shot Taking

A few weeks ago, Logan IM’ed me to say that there was a giant fish playing a 15/30 NL deep stack table. I watched for a few orbits of three-handed play and agreed that the guy was awful. He wasn’t particularly deep, so I sat down with $3000 to take … Read full post

Bluffing With Showdown Value

I mentioned a few days ago that I was happy with a recent trend in my river play, which is that I tend to be the aggressor. I’m much more likely to make a thin value bet or a bold bluff than a crying call or even a check to … Read full post

Some Stack-Offs

Edit: The converter screwed up the results on two of these, showing me as the winner when in fact I got stacked. I’m fixing this now, sorry for the confusion.

For whatever reason, I decided during last night’s session that I was going to believe people a lot less than … Read full post

Yesterday’s Rivers

I’m posting here every pot for a two-hour session yesterday in which I either lost or won more than $100 and in which I either bet or raised the river. I think it’s a good sign that even when I lose, I’m usually the river aggressor. This means I’m missing … Read full post

The Last Home Game

Last Wednesday was the last ever session of the home game that my college roommate Logan has been hosting for the past three years. He and most of our fellow players are about to graduate from Harvard Law School and move away, so this was my last chance to play … Read full post

Boston Debate League in the News

Sunday’s Boston Herald contained a very nice article about the Boston Debate League, a non-profit organization that I founded and now direct. Please click here to read it!

There are actually some audio clips also, though they’re hard to find. After the second paragraph, there’s a drop-down box that says … Read full post

I Spent Thursday Night in an Atlanta Hospital

This weekend I’m taking a two debaters from Boston to the J. B. Fuqua Urban Debate League Celebration in Atlanta. The two debaters, Charles and Peter, are a great team. Charles is a hefty black man, smart but reserved, very friendly and with a charming sense of humor once he … Read full post

Trip Report: Poker in the Court of Public Opinion

I attended a pretty interesting meeting yesterday about the UIGEA and strategies for legitimating the game of poker in general. It was an impressive crowd consisting of some prominent lobbyists and lawyers for the gaming industry, Poker Players Alliance president Michael Bolcerek, professional poker players Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, and … Read full post

California’s Loss is Massachusetts’ Gain

I got a note today from a young woman I first met last summer while teaching at a debate camp for the Los Angeles and Southern California Urban Debate Leagues. She was one of the smartest, nicest, and most mature teenagers I’ve had the pleasure to work with, and she’s … Read full post

The Deep Stacked Home Game

We took a break from out usual Wednesday home game to play a $1/$2 game with a $500 buy in at the home of another Harvard Law student named Josh. Only Logan, Darren, and I elected to play, so it was a very deep, very loose and aggressive four-handed game … Read full post

Perfect Day

Ever since I first heard it on the soundtrack to Trainspotting, I’ve been a huge fan of the Lou Reed song, “Perfect Day.” Cameron from 2+2 just sent me this amazing link to a live performance in which Lou Reed sings a duet with a most unlikely partner.… Read full post

Folding Queens Pre-Flop

This isn’t really all that interesting of a hand, but I’m supposed to do one from every day I play, so this is from the $500 Sunday tournament that Full Tilt has quarterly or whatever.

We’re about two hours into the tournament, which has a very good structure. Blinds are … Read full post

A Welcome Change for a Saturday

I ran like ass in everything I played yesterday except the Stars $300, but I ran very well in that and finished 3rd for just under $9000, so it was still a quite good day. I’ve uploaded the entire hand history from the tournament using Pokerxfactor’s hand history replayer. … Read full post

Home Game Trip Report

I’ve posted once before about my home game, (but something’s wrong with my permalinks- gonna have to figure that out, stupid Blogger), so I’m going to skip a lot of that introductory material. If you haven’t seen that, you can search for it (it’s in the February archives or under … Read full post

Played a little Stud/8 today

One of my goals for the year was to put some time into improving my play in poker games besides No Limit Hold ‘Em. I bought Poker Tracker Stud and spent a good deal of time in January playing Stud games, but since then I haven’t done much towards this … Read full post

Try not to vomit on your keyboard

I sat today in a 5/10 NL full ring game on Full Tilt. This is slightly higher than the stakes I usually play, but mostly it is odd for me because I almost never play full ring online. But FTP pro Layne Flack was at the table, and judging from
… Read full post

To Do List

I’ve been trying to balance a ton of stuff lately, between poker, my writing, my work with the Boston Debate League and the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues, my finances, etc. I’m also kind of absent minded and procrastinatory, so I’ve started keeping a To Do list. It’s just … Read full post

A Flop 3-Bet Bluff

This hand came up fairly deep in the Poker Stars $20 rebuy. We were well into the money, and I had been playing very aggressively since assumulating a big stack. The player to my immediate left had expressed his frustration with me in the chat box and called or raised … Read full post

Some Welcome Changes to Poker Stars Tournament Structures

Poker Stars has recently implemented some very welcome changes to the structure of some of their most popular tournaments, including the weekly Million Dollar Guarantee and many of their daily guaranteed prize pool tournaments.

For those who don’t know, the ‘structure’ of a poker tournament refers to the number of … Read full post

Soprano Home Movies

I started watching the Sopranos after receiving the first two seasons on DVD for Christmas my senior year of college. My roommate, Logan, and I were hooked immediately, and we soon dragged our friend Jen in as well. At that time, Season Four had just come out on DVD, so … Read full post

Easter Brunch

I elected not to torture myself playing the big Sunday tournaments today, opting instead for Easter brunch with the girlfriend followed by Sopranos with friends in the evening.

Brunch was at the Doubletree Suites in Cambridge. It was a nice spread, with a pretty wide variety of breakfast, lunch, … Read full post

Thin River Value Shove

I played this hand early in a $650 WSOP satellite. My opponent seemed to quite loose, having already limped K9s pre-flop, overcalled a raise, and paid off two streets on an AKx board. I tried to take him to value town with a pretty sizeable river shove:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em … Read full post

Finally Some Interesting Hands

Yesterday I made a spur of the moment decision (read: gamble) to buy in direct to a $1000 WSOP satellite on Poker Stars. The play was plenty weak, and in fact I doubled up on the first orbit with QQ versus AQ on a Q-high board. Unfortunately, within half an … Read full post

A Differently Played Big Draw

In my last post, I talked about playing a big draw and the importance of being the one who puts in the last bet. Today I’m going to look at a hand where I played a big draw in just the opposite way, betting the flop in a situation where … Read full post