FTOPS Event 21: $300 Razz

It was Razz, so obviously nothing too interesting happened. I felt like I ran terrible, but I think everyone feels that way when they play Razz. I’m not going to bore you with any bad stories. Naturally there were a ton of players calling down to chase ridiculous stuff like … Read full post

FTOPS Event 20: $200 6-Max NLHE

This one was over quick. I 3-bet AT on the button against a pretty loose bad player in the CO whom I’d 3-bet several times before. He called. The flop came T-high with a flush draw. He checked and called. The turn was a 9, making the board something like … Read full post

FTOPS Event 18: $535 NLHE Triple Shootout

My first table was pretty unremarkable except for Erick Lindgren a few seats to my right. He was playing a kind of loose and passive style, but he was making it work for him. After I got myself knocked out in 4th (at that first table), he had more than … Read full post

Happy Birthday, Dad!

I was too inconsiderate to order your gift well in advance and too cheap to get expedited shipping, so it may not arrive tomorrow. But it will be there soon. In the meantime, here are photos from Bryce and Zion Canyons. For everyone who wasn’t there, I’ve included the occasional … Read full post

FTOPS Event 17: $300 Rebuy NLHE 6-Max

Once again I had some rough table draws, ending up with a lot of high-stakes cash players. As I previously explained, this is bad in an FTOPS tournament for a number of reasons. One of them took me to valuetown on the first hand of the tournament:

Full Tilt Poker, … Read full post

FTOPS Event 15: $200 NLHE Turbo

This ran simultaneously with the HORSE, and I didn’t even realize it was scheduled. I think turbo tournaments are stupid, but it was an FTOPS, I was already playing, and it as going to require close to 0% of my attention, so I played. Thankfully, it was over quick, as … Read full post

FTOPS Event 14: $500 HORSE

I wanted to make this post about how bad people are at Stud/8, because they are. Split pot games will rip clueless players to shreds. O/8 is a pretty easy game to get, so you don’t see quite as many huge mistakes. Plus there are fewer betting streets and it’s … Read full post

FTOPS Event 12: $1000 NLHE 6-Max

I knew Monday night’s FTOPS was a 1K NLHE, but I was pleasantly surprised when I was “seated” to find only five other players at my table. I had no idea it was a 6-max! I was less pleasantly surprised to find two other regulars in the FTP 10/20 games … Read full post

FTOPS Event 10: $300 NLHE

This event replaced the usual $200 FTP $750K Guarantee and had an appropriately weak field. I didn’t do anything special to chip up, aside from occasionally abusing the fish on my right. I did find check-folding Aces on the turn at one point:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 80/160 … Read full post

Shaun @#$%ing Deeb Wins FTOPS Event 9

2+2 forums mainstay and Poker Savvy Plus Guest Pro Shaundeeb (no relation to Freddy) won yesterday’s $500 heads up FTOPS tournament. He dusted his opponent in the Final Four in a single hand (sorry converter can’t seem to handle a HU tournament):

Full Tilt Poker Game #7600724839: FTOPS Event #9 … Read full post

FTOPS Event 9

I went pretty deep in the $500 heads up matches, finishing in the top 64. Here’s a blow-by-blow:

Round 1

My first two opponents were ridiculously soft. I polished the first off in minutes, then waited over an hour for round two.

Round 2

I was so busy playing other … Read full post

FTOPS Event 8

This was a $200 6-max tournament with a $40 bounty on each player. I lasted a few hours but only won one bounty. Because it was 6-max, I was able to accumulate chips without a lot of big hands. Eventually JCarver got moved to my left, which cramped my style. … Read full post

FTOPS Event 7

Event 7 was the $100 rebuy. On the first hand I raised AQ on the button, called a shove for half a stack (ie the guy didn’t double rebuy), and got shown AA. I reloaded $100 more and that’s all I was in for. It’s practically the only hand I … Read full post

FTOPS Event 6

I’m not great at PLO, but I played the $500 PLO 6-max FTOPS event because I want to get better and I was sure there would be plenty of worse players. There were. Unfortunately, they ran good:

Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $20/$40
6 players
ConverterRead full post

FTOPS Event 4/Rebuy Tournament Theory

Event 4 was a $300 NLHE tournament that allowed one $300 rebuy and one $3000 add-on. The initial $300 bought 2000 chips, the rebuy bought 2000 chips anytime during the first hour that you had 2000 chips or fewer, and the add-on bought $2500 chips at the end of first … Read full post

FTOPS Event 1

The ninth Full Tilt Online Poker Series commenced on Wednesday with a $200 NLHE freezeout. I lasted only about two hours, and this was the closest thing to an interesting hand I could find:

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 100/200 Blinds, 9 Players
LeggoPoker.comHand History Converter

MP2: … Read full post

Slowplaying in PLO8

Here are two pretty interesting hands from a small PLO8 tournament that I final tabled on Saturday ($100 buy-in, like 135 players, I finished 8th, not a big deal). It’s pretty rare that you would slowplay in PLO8 because a single card can easily make even huge hands an underdog. … Read full post

Going Pro

As of yesterday, I’m now a Core Pro, as opposed to a Guest Pro, at Poker Savvy Plus. This means I’ll be making videos more consistently for them: five times per month, so roughly one a week.

It’s a great honor to be affiliated with Poker Savvy Plus, because … Read full post

July

I had the best year of my poker career last month :-). Obviously that was thanks to cashing for $193,000 at the WSOP. It’s pretty freaky to think that there were several spots in the tournament, most notably when I was all in with AK vs JJ and spiked an … Read full post

Second Nuts in PLO

Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
5 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is SB with :9d :9s :8c :8h
UTG calls, CO raises to $11, Button calls, Hero calls, BB calls, UTG calls.

Flop: :6d :ks :9c ($55, 5 players)… Read full post

So Was I Right?

This was against some random in the weekly FTP 100 rebuy. I felt like although he probably was dumb enough to shove pocket pairs here, he’d raise most of them pre-flop. I felt like random diamonds, often with a dominated Ace, or just Ace-high would be his most likely holding. … Read full post

Dallas SWAT Raids Poker Game

This incident occurred a while ago, but I just came across this first-hand account from a hired chef who was not playing in the game posted on The Agitator:

The raid occurred around 7:40 p.m. I was in the kitchen area which was just inside the front door when

Read full post

Guess the Author

I was reading an autobiography of a guy whom I’d never known to be a poker player when I came across this rather detailed account of a big 5-card stud pot he once won. I’d be very surprised if anyone who hasn’t read this book himself were to guess the … Read full post

Great Strategy Posts

Sorry all, I know I’ve been a little light lately on posts and especially on strategy stuff. Truthfully I haven’t played much poker since the WSOP. This is due to some combination of having a lot of non-poker stuff to catch up on and also not feeling any pressure to … Read full post

Stud/8 Hand Reading

I was playing a little HORSE yesterday and made a read/laydown that might be standard/uninteresting for serious Stud/8 players but that made me happy. The villain, Berry Johnston, won the 1986 WSOP main event, and actually he and I played together live at Day 1 of the 2006 WSOP, … Read full post

WSOP 2008 Trip Report

Thanks to everyone who’s asked about these, and especially to Nick from London who prompted me to make this post I’ve been meaning to make. I’m really flattered that you all are so eager to read a trip report from the WSOP. I’m going to be publishing the trip report, … Read full post

Funny Search Terms

I was looking through my Stat Counter log today for a glimpse of how people were finding my blog, what links and search terms they were using, etc. I came across two funny ones. Well, the first is really more disturbing than funny. One person googled “How to kill … Read full post

Mike “Sir Watts” Watson Wins Bellagio 15K

The $15K World Poker Tour Bellagio event always attracts a star-studded field of pros fresh off competing in the World Series of Poker. The six-handed final table this year was no exception:

Seat 1: Ralph Perry – 1,635,000
Seat 2: Luke “IWearGoggles” Staudenmaier – 3,495,000
Seat 3: John “The Razor” … Read full post

Back in the Saddle

I played my first online session in weeks tonight, and it went great. Mostly just running well, though I do think I chose my spots well. I also may not have gotten paid off on the river here if I hadn’t gotten tricksy:

Poker Stars, $10/$20 NL Hold’em Cash Game, … Read full post

Brags

I’ll lead off with the big one. My girlfriend pointed out to me that although a few people posted it as a comment, I hadn’t actually made a post that included my finish at the World Series of Poker. Out of 6,844 players, I finished 35th and won $193,000. How … Read full post

Day 6 Table

Seat 1: Craig Stein – 440,000
Seat 2: Niklas Flisberg – 1,264,000
Seat 3: Mark Wilds – 485,000
Seat 4: Andrew Brokos – 4,444,000
Seat 6: Lisa Parsons – 581,000
Seat 7: Peter Neff – 1,275,000
Seat 8: Darus Suharto – 1,057,000
Seat 9: Owen Crowe – 1,050,000

Owen Crowe … Read full post

Day 5 Recap

Thanks for all the support guys. Today was ridiculous, such a tough table for most of the day, fought tooth and nail to get up to 2 mil then got moved to softer table and picked up quick 2 mil. Alex is an amazing player, had some awful luck today … Read full post

Day 5 Table

Seat 1: Garrett Beckman – 515,000
Seat 2: Allen Carter – 413,000
Seat 3: Brad Johnson – 237,000
Seat 4: Reagan Silber – 671,000
Seat 5: Brent Sheirbon – 919,000
Seat 6: Pontus Khosravi – 629,000
Seat 7: Alexander Kostritsyn – 1,137,000
Seat 8: Andrew Brokos – 678,000
Seat 9: … Read full post

Day 4

I’m listed as Andrew Brooks on Poker News, finished the day with 566,500. That’s down a fair bit from my peak of 750K but a hell of a lot better than the 65K I started with. I finished level 1 still at 65K, then won a flip for my life … Read full post

Day 3 Preview

Here’s my Day 3 lineup. I’ve never played with Brandon Adams, but from what I’ve heard, he’s very good. I played with Liv last night, she tells me she’s a professional, but I didn’t think she was especially tough. Very nice, though, and achingly beautiful. I can’t say I mind … Read full post

Going to Day 3

Wow crazy today. Climbed steadily to 145K by dinner, got 100K in drawing dead, pulled out AK JJ for a 90K coin flip, sucked out 6c 3c AQ on a Qc 4c 4x flop (running straight, baby!), won 12K 22 AK to get up to 180K, then got rivered for … Read full post

Day 2B

The numbers are in, and 6,844 players entered the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event. Fewer than half survived Day 1, and only about 1/3 of those will survive Day 2. Hopefully I will be among them.

I’ve done some research to learn my Day 2 seating assignment along … Read full post

Quite the Upgrade

Even though I eventually won a WSOP seat through Stars, they were out of hotel rooms at the Palms, so my only option was to take $1000 in exchange for their sponsorship. Cheapskate that I am, I spent my first few nights at the Imperial Palace. The room was nothing … Read full post

My First Day in Vegas

I came out to Vegas a few days early to get into the swing of things, to see some friends with whom I play and talk poker regularly online but rarely see in real life, and to take care of some business. This will be my third time playing in … Read full post

Still Alive

I finished my first day at the WSOP with 67,125. I think the average is like 40-50K, so I can’t complain. But I was up over 100K with 30 minutes to go and got myself in a really bad spot. I raised K4s to 1100 UTG (tight table, end of … Read full post

All I Said Was Wow

After working most of the morning, I got to the Rio about 4:30 and wandered through the Gaming Life Expo. It was pretty disappointing, way fewer scantily clad women than in past years. There were long lines to meet Chris Moneymaker and Doyle Brunson, but there was no wait for … Read full post

Sample Video on Cardplayer

There’s a free sample from one of my Poker Savvy videos up on Cardplayer this week:

Some of the scenarios that Brokos goes over include how to play a strong hand like A-Q after missing the flop or hitting a flop that leaves your A-Q weak. He discusses what kinds

Read full post

First Day in Vegas

My first day in Vegas was a blast. I’ll get into more detail tomorrow, but basically I got to pretend I was a big shot for a day. I had an interview with a reporter doing a story on poker and philanthropy, then a taping for Cardplayer with the Poker … Read full post

June

Hey, a winning month! Maybe I am not so bad at this game after all. There are still a few days to go, but I probably won’t be playing much if at all. As you may have noticed, I haven’t been playing the last few days either. I leave for … Read full post

Can’t Win ‘Em All

I was having trouble getting the ESPN360 feed to work. I finally got it streaming just in time to hear, “There are eight players left, Tom Chambers has busted out.” Whoops. I don’t know the full story, but apparently he got all in with top set and lost to a … Read full post

George Carlin on Death and Online Poker

George Carlin, one of my favorite stand-up comedians, died yesterday at the age of 71. I was fortunate enough to see him live at the Orleans in December, and of course now I’m doubly glad that I took advantage of the opportunity to see him when I had it.

I

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WSOP Here I Come!

After spending more than enough money to buy in directly, I finally won a freaking main event seat in one of the last $650 satellites Stars will be running. Counting the spending money and sponsorship deal that comes with the package, I think that I ended up breaking even on … Read full post

Collecting Casino Chips

The New York Times ran a neat article today about a convention of casino chip collectors this weekend in Las Vegas. In case you need another excuse not to play the slots, you can apparently hit the jackpot even if you don’t deposit your chip:

Last year, Eric Rosenblum, a

Read full post

WCOOP Schedule Nearly Finalized

BryanS, the awesome guy who represents Poker Stars on the 2+2 Forums, just posted a nearly final draft of the schedule for their annual World Championship of Online Poker. As usual, it looks like it’s going to be a ground-breaking event for internet poker, featuring some huge buy-ins, some … Read full post

Top Pair No Good?

More often than not I end up regretting big moves like this in tournaments, but I think this one is alright. It worked, anyway.

Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 120/240 Blinds, 25 Ante, 6 Players
LeggoPoker.comHand History Converter

MP: 25,020
CO: 25,268
BTN: 3,120
SB: 6,095
Hero … Read full post

Ramping Up the Aggression

With deeper stacks (these hands are all from deep tables), you need to be, not necessarily more aggressive, but aggressive in more situations. With 100 BBs’s, a 4-bet squeeze will almost always commit your stack, which means there’s only a narrow range of hands with which you can make this … Read full post

Tony “Bond18” Dunst Final Tables WSOP $3000 NLHE

Man I was around Vegas for most of the WSOP last summer and nothing spectacular happened. Then I sit it out this summer and all of my best poker buddies start kicking ass. Guess I am a jinx.

Payouts

1 $434,789
2 $277,452
3 $167,973
4 $137,343
5 $112,641
6 … Read full post

Happy Father’s Day

My dad keeps up with the blog, so I figured I’d make a post to wish him a Happy Father’s Day. I didn’t see him today, since he’s in Maryland and I’m in Boston, but he’ll be coming out to Las Vegas for the WSOP as he has for the … Read full post

Foxwoods For the Morning

Ran down to Foxwoods for a few hours today to get back in the swing of live poker in preparation for the WSOP. Mostly I reminded myself how mind-numblingly boring the games are and how god damn stupid and annoying the players are. Jesus it’s bad enough they take two … Read full post