The frustrating thing about monster hands like Quads is that they rarely get paid off, since it’s so hard for your opponents to make second best hands. But I managed to win two stacks with quads tonight:
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 5 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand … Read full post
I guess this is fairly standard and notable mostly for the sum of money involved:
Full Tilt Poker, $25/$50 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
CO: $12,483
BTN: $16,645
Hero (SB): $10,000
BB: $17,688
UTG: $5,000
MP: $9,875
Pre-Flop: 9
8 dealt to Hero (SB)… Read full post
Villain was some random I’d never seen before and knew nothing about:
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
UTG: $534.20
MP: $2,144.40
CO: $2,000
Hero (BTN): $2,000
SB: $2,215
BB: $1,015
Pre-Flop: J
J dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, MP … Read full post
There are some hands that I almost always 3-bet (AA, KK) and some that I almost never 3-bet (72, 95), but in the middle are a whole bunch of hands and spots that are at least kind of close. What if you are 100BB deep, a tight-aggressive player opens UTG, … Read full post
Last night was my biggest to date playing exclusively cash games, topped only by the WSOP (obviously- not sure that even counts since it took two weeks) and my win in the UB 200K last November. Funny thing is while I wasn’t playing badly I don’t think I was playing … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
BB: $1,154
Hero (UTG): $2,707
BTN: $1,072
SB: $5,637.50
Pre-Flop: 2 2
dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $35, BTN folds, SB calls $30, BB folds
Flop: ($80) 5 8
Q (2 Players)… Read full post
In light of my recent article on Creative Bet Sizing, here are two river check-raise overbets I made against the same player. The situations are similar: I have an unlikely monster hand and my opponent has a well-defined strong-but-not-too-strong hand. By “well-defined”, I mean that he probably realizes that … Read full post
Bear wasn’t an employee, but he was one of our most colorful regular customers. I mean that both figuratively and literally: he was a hulking biker dude covered in ink from head to toe. Rose bushes encircled naked women on his arms, and his shiny bald head was decorated with … Read full post
This is an honest-to-God quote from the City of Boston’s official calendar:
Join the Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC) to kick off the start of the city’s holiday season! The singers will join Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino for one of the city’s most cherished events- the lighting of Boston’s … Read full post
My latest poker strategy article, Creative Bet Sizing, is now appearing in the December edition of 2+2 Internet Magazine. The article examines underbetting and overbetting as examples of how to add unconventional plays into your arsenal. Here’s an excerpt from the section on overbetting the pot:
… Read full postBig bets are
The cheating scandal at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker made national news yesterday with an article in the Washington Post and a segment on CBS’ 60 Minutes. There was a lot of doom and gloom predictions about what this coverage would look like, but in the end I thought … Read full post
There was a great 25/50 deep game going last night, with two really big fish sitting on $10,000+ each. I had to compete with three very good players for them, but it was still a great spot. Unfortunately, I missed a pretty important bluff against one of the sharks.
The … Read full post
I hope all the Americans and anyone else who celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday had a nice time. I’d like to express my gratitude to everyone who reads and/or comments here at thinkingpoker. It’s enormously gratifying to know that there are people out there interested in what I have to say about … Read full post
Gary was a tough guy to work with. He had some mental disabilities that prevented him from engaging fully in the idle banter that generally passed between co-workers. Most of the time he did his job just as well as if not better than the other employees, but his strength … Read full post
The Boston Herald ran an article this morning about the Boston Debate League and one of its member schools which was nearly closed by the school district:
… Read full postThe debate team at the Academy of Public Service sailed into the “elite eight” last year at the national championships in Chicago.
Now,
Mark was our youngest employee. I knew him first as a customer who came in nearly every day and talked about how badly he wanted to work in the store. Sure enough, he started work on his sixteenth birthday.
The 7-11 was just a stepping stone for Mark, though. His … Read full post
I thought this new layout would kill two birds with one stone, both giving the blog a fresh look and fixing the font issue I’ve had for the last few days. Apparently only the former was successful. Sorry, I’m still working on getting rid of this ugly font. In the … Read full post
Eugene asked a great question about my recent post, A Random Call, which reminded me that I’d meant to post this hand as well. It happened not long after I snapped off a 2x pot river bluff with top pair, weak kicker. This was against the same opponent but … Read full post
I think the river 3-bet bluff is one of the sexiest plays in poker. Precisely because it’s so hard to pull off, it’s something I rarely attempt. But today I managed a good one:
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: … Read full post
I am a strong advocate of exploitive poker strategy. That is, I believe that you ought to tailor your play to exploit specific mistakes that you believe your opponents will make, even if this means that you are yourself open to exploitation. By definition, the more skillful player will do … Read full post
Thought I’m not playing the FTOPS events as compulsively as I have in the past, I am playing my favorites. So far, though, it hasn’t been too interesting and I decided to spare you the litany of bad beats. Last night I had my first … Read full post
It’s been nearly two years since the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act snuck its way through Congress as a rider on a port security bill. The UIGEA criminalized not the gambling itself but the facilitation of financial transactions for the purpose of gambling online. In other words, you could play, … Read full post
I put in one of my longest online poker sessions ever yesterday, starting at 2PM to play the $256 FTOPS 6-max knockout event (ran like ass but as you’ll see I’ve got no room to complain), then making a deep run in the Stars Sunday Million that kept me up … Read full post
I was feeling so on top of my game the other day. I was just really alert and creative, picking up on a ton of spots where I could steal pots if I applied enough pressure in the right way. This was the best one. Unless they have exactly Khxh, … Read full post
I spent the better part of last week in Sedona, Arizona, which is a beautiful part of the American Southwest featuring tremendous red rock structures. Unfortunately, someone decided that these red rock formations have somehow created spiritual vortexes (and yes that is the correct pluralization, not vortices, I checked):
… Read full post“In
Norman was in his early thirties when I worked with him, and in retrospect a giant fuck-up. He was a lot of fun to work with, though. When we were bored, which of course was quite often, Norman would sporadically break into a verse or two of a self-invented ditty. … Read full post
I wrote this yesterday, about 12 hours after McCain’s concession, but didn’t get a chance to post it until today.
I can’t bring myself to get as excited as I feel I should be about Obama’s victory. I was pulling for him- he was in fact the first major party … Read full post
Bear wasn’t an employee, but he was one of our most colorful regular customers. I mean that both figuratively and literally: he was a hulking biker dude covered in ink from head to toe. Rose bushes entangled themselves with naked women on his arms, and his shiny bald head was … Read full post
Sorry at the airport on laptop so no easy access to HH but playing 10/20 HU guy opens for 60 on the button, I make it 211 with AKo, he makes it 533, I shove for a little over 2K, he CALLS with 42s. Naturally I am drawing dead when … Read full post
OK I paired the river but 8-high would have been good anyway:
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
MP: $600
CO: $1,712.40
Hero (BTN): $1,495
SB: $1,992.90
BB: $318
UTG: $1,206
Pre-Flop: 7 8 dealt to Hero (BTN)
UTG folds, MP … Read full post
Poker buddy, former student, and regular reader Diego (rvrmonkey ronfezbuddy for those who have been owned by him at the tables) welcomed his second child, Dahlia, into the world yesterday. She’s cute and all, but this pretty much dooms any chance of getting Diego into an NYC home game … Read full post
Had a decent morning at the tables but the real brag is for the Boston Debate League, which was awarded today a $50,000 grant from the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Foundation. The grant will support the BDL’s work with debate programs in the Boston Public Schools over the next … Read full post
My latest poker article, Knowing is (Only) Half the Battle, is now appearing in the November issue of the Two Plus Two Internet Magazine. The article focuses on the way different betting lines taken in an otherwise identical hand can change which player has the edge:
“In other … Read full post
Hatty was about my age, maybe a year older, but very much a teenager. The 7-11 where we worked was in Baltimore County, but it was just over the city line on Edmondson Avenue. Thus, it was quite accessible by public bus, which was how Hatty got there for her … Read full post
I haven’t played much poker of late, but for some reason I was compelled recently to write a series of vignettes from my days as a 7-11 employee. I figured I might as well post them here on days that I don’t have anything poker-related to say. Please let me … Read full post
A triple barrel bluff will by definition involve at least three bets. Especially when dealing with a player who can read hands well, sizing these bets will often be the difference between success and failure.
As I discussed in a previous post, your objective on early streets may actually … Read full post
Sorry for the lack of updates, I was at a BDL tournament on Friday then a wedding reception in New York yesterday. The good news I’m staying in New York with a friend from the old Harvard Law School game I used to play in, so we got in some … Read full post
Villain was decent but way too aggressive. His strategy would have been decent for a 100BB game but we were playing 200+BB stacks and he was stacking off too light and risking too much on his bluffs.
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand … Read full post
I put in a ton of hours today, and it was a real roller coaster ride. Mostly I was playing 25/50 cap, for some reason there were six fish-filled tables running today. A couple hours into the session, I was running like crap and having one of my worst days … Read full post
It’s been a while since we’ve played together, but Matusow was at two tables of 25/50 full ring today, so I took a seat as well. The game was pretty good, but once again Matusow “got the best of me” (scare quotes cuz really it was just a coin … Read full post
This guy was min-raising every time he opened the pot, so I started min-check-raising him on the flop. Naturally that frustrated him, so more min-raising ensued.
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $1,107
Hero (BB): $7,603
Pre-Flop: 8 K dealt … Read full post
About five years ago, when I was a senior in college, I attended a panel on education reform that a professor of mine had organized. One of the panelists was “domestic terrorist” Bill Ayers. I don’t recall what Ayers was bloviating about, but he told some story about seeing a … Read full post
Neal Gersony’s Poker Slam is a novel about an aspiring professional poker player trying to track down his legendary uncle, who won millions in the world’s biggest tournaments and then disappeared. Great fiction it isn’t, but once the book gathers steam, it’s a fast-paced and engaging mystery flavored by the … Read full post
This one was against a not-very-good player:
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
Hero (UTG): $1,454.70
MP: $1,323.15
CO: $546.65
BTN: $318
SB: $621.75
BB: $590.95
Pre-Flop: A T dealt to Hero (UTG)
Hero raises to $21, 4 folds, BB … Read full post
I’ve only played this high once before, but it went very well that time. The game tonight wasn’t nearly as soft, but for a 50/100 game it wasn’t too tough. As usual, it was built around an FTP pro, in this case winner of the WSOP PLHE championship Nenad … Read full post
Generally when we think of manipulating pot size, we think of playing pot control when we have a hand that we want to showdown cheaply or trying to inflate the pot when we have a monster. But there are times when you might want to build the pot in anticipation … Read full post
When you’re trying to add new elements to your game and new tricks to your arsenal, you may end up making some plays that are, in a vaccuum, negative EV. However, the overall process of experimentation and trying to open up your game going to be very profitable for you … Read full post
Here’s a pretty interesting spot where I made what might be called a pre-emptive blocking bet:
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $2,184
BB: $2,000
UTG: $1,000
MP: $1,000
CO: $2,413
Hero (BTN): $4,150
Pre-Flop: K K dealt to Hero … Read full post
Such a classic clip. The look on Ivy’s face is priceless. “I thought you had pocket Kings.”
This should give you a sense of how I was running today (not the result but the fact that I was so gun shy):
Full Tilt Poker: Table Fro (deep 6) – $5/$10
The finale of my trip report from the 2008 WSOP is now appearing in the October issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine. I must say, getting down to the final tables of this huge tournament is a pretty thrilling experience, at once exciting and surreal:
“On Day 6 of the main … Read full post
Despite a pretty rough WCOOP (or maybe because of- it did compel me to put in a lot of hours), September was a solid month. Even after some of those long sessions, though, I barely averaged twenty hours a week. I just don’t think I’m going to hit my goal … Read full post
Here’s my clip from last night’s broadcast on ESPN. I’m “Brokos”, appearing about 30 seconds in. That’s right, the lucksack who gets it in with two pair versus trips and rivers the miracle 8.
ESPN tells me that I’m scheduled to be on one of tonight’s broadcasts, though they’ve been wrong about that before. My best guess is that it will be the 8PM eastern one, which focuses on Day 3, as that was when I rivered a two outer on the bubble that … Read full post
I did a little interview with Cardplayer Online’s Shawn Green Friday night. Shawn actually contacted me initially to see if I had Tony “Bond18” Dunst’s phone number, because they were trying to do an interview with him. But I didn’t have it, and they didn’t have any other way of … Read full post
Yesterday was a long day. It was the first tournament of the BDL’s fifth season, and though I’m no longer the director, I still very much wanted and needed to be there. So I woke up around 6AM, spent the next twelve hours on my feet helping to run a … Read full post
Here are two fun hands played in pretty close succession. Although I finished down over all, I feel like I owned Villain pretty hard in both:
Full Tilt Poker, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
MP: $2,391
CO: $7,159.50
BTN: $3,358
SB: $2,000
Hero … Read full post
Here’s a fun hand against a smart and very aggressive player who was playing pretty strangely tonight:
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.com – Hand History Converter
SB: $1,643
BB: $1,399
UTG: $2,084.75
Hero (MP): $2,363
CO: $2,040
BTN: $1,000
Pre-Flop: 7 A dealt to … Read full post
The structure on this actually wasn’t quite as deep as I expected in the early-going, but I imagine it gave a lot of play in the later stages while still keeping things moving along at a good clip. It’s a tough balancing act to run a really well-structured tournament for … Read full post
I’m skipping past some of the other WCOOP events I played because I’ve fallen behind on them and don’t remember much of what happened, which is because there really wasn’t much of interest anyway. The $500 rebuy 6-max did produce some neat hands, though. My table wasn’t soft, but that’s … Read full post
This was a great idea for a tournament format, with half the hands playing as O/8 and half as PLO8. Many people are going to be good at one game but not the other. Personally, I’m pretty strong in PLO8 but not so good at O/8. Naturally, plenty of people … Read full post
Whining about every WCOOP I play is getting old, so I’ll just say that this was a pretty standard limit tournament in that I played for hours and didn’t come close to winning anything. At least it was fun and interesting though because it was Stud/8, which is one of … Read full post
Terrible starting tables have been the theme of my WCOOP thus far. Today was no exception, with no fewer than three successful 5/10+ NL players, soon to be joined by a fourth (in addition to yours truly, so I guess it sucked that much more for the other guys at … Read full post
Just kidding, I didn’t play this 😉… Read full post
God what a grind this thing was. There were a little over 2000 runners, and after five and a half hours of playing, I was eliminated in 665th. It took five hours to get through two-thirds of the field. That’s what happens when you play a very well-structure limit tournament … Read full post
I continued my poor luck with table draws and got Steve Paul-Ambrose on my left in a tournament where the field in general was a giant donkfest. Steve didn’t get too out of line, but his presence alone deterred me from a few hands I otherwise would have played. You … Read full post
I was actually only in for $400 because I didn’t rebuy immediately. Only one person at my table did this, and I decided that Omaha being a high variance game, my one rebuy would be more useful to me as an insurance policy than as an immediate add-on. However, I … Read full post