As some of you know, my poker playing for the last few years has supported not only myself but a debate league in the Boston Public Schools. It started as just a volunteer thing that I did with a few teachers, but we soon realized that it had potential … Read full post
I’ve never even heard of this magazine, but their ad is clever and pretty funny. It took me a minute to get it. If you can’t read it, the text at the bottom says, “Become the King of Bluff.”
Doyle Brunson’s Super/System was the first poker book I ever read, and one part that has always stuck out in my mind is a play that he suggests to bluff an opponent off of a chop when you both a one-card straight. Essentially, he suggests that if your opponent makes … Read full post
When you play a lot of tables at once, one thing you need to factor into the decision is that you will occasionally make mistakes. And I don’t just mean poker mistakes like missing a value bet, I mean actually “Oh crap I clicked call and meant to click fold” … Read full post
I was playing a bit lower than usual tonight, as I’m wont to do when on a downswing, and that means that I was up against a lot of players I’d never seen before. When trying to get a read on unknowns at a 6-max table, there are some really … Read full post
Ugh I can’t even tell you how gross the weather is in Boston right now. It is so humid, and my window fan is doing nothing. I really was in no mood to play poker today, and I think it showed. Here’s my bustout hand from the FTP 750K:
Full … Read full post
Before Greg Raymer was a World Series of Poker champion, he was 2+2 Forums poster Fossilman8. And even before his 2004 main event victory proved it to the world, his status as a world-class poker player and theorist was well-known to the 2+2 community. One of his most famous contributions … Read full post
Sweet run, bro, congratulations. Rouhani wins it, but Chambers down 140K for 2nd. Not too freaking shabby.… Read full post
Well, I final tabled the Stars $300 today, but I took 9th which was only good for under five buyins. I actually want to look at a hand from the FTP $50 1 rebuy/1 add-on (not sure why I played this, was just in the mood for tournaments today):
Full … Read full post
Tom Chambers, 2+2’s LearnedFromTV, has just made the final table of WSOP Event 10! It’s a $2500 tournament that alternates between Omaha 8-or-better split and Stud 8-or-better split. Tom is a former math teacher and a mixed games expert (he’s got a win in the Stars $200 Sunday HORSE under … Read full post
Mike and Adam managed to get a 35-minute interview with Chief Operating Officer of the heretofore tight-lipped Tokwiro Enterprises, Paul Leggett, on this week’s 2+2 Pokercast. The subject, of course, was the recent cheating scandal at Ultimate Bet. I imagine these kinds of interviews, where the interviewer needs … Read full post
Cardplayer just posted a great interview with the always entertaining Tony “Bond18” Dunst. On why he enjoys being a professional poker player:
“I get to play a game all day, every day, and take any day off I want. What could be better? Last time I got a little burnt … Read full post
15K hands at -2.5 BB/100 is the short version of the story. And despite a final table appearance in an FTP $100 rebuy, I lost money on tournaments as well, thought I didn’t play that many. I very nearly rallied on the last day of the month, only to get … Read full post
It’s one of the hallmarks of the Sunday Million that interesting hands just aren’t likely to come up. This is owing both to the remarkable weak players, against whom fancy play is largely a liability, and the shallow structure, which leaves little room to maneuver. But in thinking over my … Read full post
Had my deepest run ever in the Stars Million tonight, but it still wasn’t quite good enough. After 7.5 hours, I finished 69th out of nearly 7000 runners and earned less than $2000 for my trouble. I really don’t recall any especially interesting hands, I just picked up a lot … Read full post
My latest poker strategy article, Thinking About Ranges, has just been published in the June issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine. Here’s a little preview:
… Read full postYour perception of an opponent’s possible holdings should influence everything from whether you bluff to how you size your value bets, sometimes in rather
Ultimate Bet released a press release today admitting that employees of “the previous ownership of UltimateBet” were responsible for cheating high limit players out of an unspecified amount of money, largely believed to run into the millions, thanks to “unauthorized software code that allowed the perpetrators to obtain hole card … Read full post
Yesterday was the first day of the 2008 World Series of Poker, at least for satellites and cash games. I won’t be out there until July, as I’m only playing the main event, but I was excited to read on Daniel Negreanu’s blog about some improvements to the facilities. Harrah’s … Read full post
I like trying to bluff into multiple players. Not only do I sometimes surprise myself with the fold equity I have, but it’s also nice for balancing my ranges and helping me to get paid off the many times that I have big hands in these spots. Here are two … Read full post
During a short coaching session this evening, I touched on two kind of broad and complex theoretical topics. The student asked if he could get something in writing so that he could review them more closely, and I figured they might be of interest to everyone. So here’s a paraphrase … Read full post
I just came across a hilarious photoshop thread on 2+2 called “If They Never Played Poker…” Here are a few of my favorite pictures; they should give you a pretty good idea of what you’ll find in the thread:
For those who don’t know, Eric ‘Rizen’ Lynch, Jon ‘Pearljammer’ Turner, and Jon ‘Apestyles’ Van Fleet are working on a series of tournament books called “Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time.” The first volume is now available for pre-order from Amazon.
There really aren’t that many … Read full post
My One Minute Recommendation: Kill Everyone is one of the better tournament books on the market. It will be most useful for those interested in big live tournaments, but the excellent section of the math of late game situations is enough to make the book worth buying for any tournament … Read full post
Sorry, forgot to post this before going to bed last night. If you haven’t read it already, here’s Part 1. I’d just won a series of big pots and was ready to abuse my commanding chip lead:
Grrrrrrrr Min-Raise
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 800/1,600 Blinds, 200 Ante, … Read full post
This is the third and final part in my review of a recent final table finish in the FTP $100 rebuy 6-max weekly tournament last Wednesday. If you haven’t already, check out Part 1 and Part 2.
We were down to the final few tables, and at this point … Read full post
I had a bunch of interesting hands from my final table run in the FTP $100 rebuy 6-max last night. Over the next few days, I’m going to post them here along with my analysis. Skipping the not-very-interesting rebuy period, here’s Part 1.
I was only in for $309, but … Read full post
Finally got good runs going in the Stars $300 and Tilt $100 rebuy Wednesday tournaments. At one time, I was chipleader in the Tilt and 2nd on Stars with like 3-4 tables left at each. Unfortunately, I ended up busting 21st on Stars with AT < AJ on an AsKsJc6c board in a Button vs CO spot against a pretty aggressive player. I'm ok with how I played it and wasn't too frustrated. I managed to take 5th in the FTP, lost AK <> Q9 (which was itself a … Read full post
I was playing around with Poker Tracker today and came across something pretty surprising: over my last 112,000 hands, I have lost more BB’s with AQs than with anything else. In the interest of public shaming and hopefully improving, here are the five biggest pots (measured by BB) I’ve lost … Read full post
Apparently this guy is a super aggressive regular in the big Fixed Limit Hold ‘Em games at Commerce and occasionally Borgata:
… Read full postSources confirmed the suspect, Kang Hyuk Choi, 32, was arrested in Los Angeles at about 3 a.m. PST, police said, and booked by the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.
A few days ago, as part of our cross-country road trip, Emily and I spend the better part of a day in Little Rock, Arkansas. I found it to be quite an interesting place, kind of a hip and relatively liberal mecca in a region of the US often stereotyped … Read full post
I’d forgotten about this, but apparently I knocked an FTP pro out of some long ago tournament. Recently I got this t-shirt in the mail:
And here it is displayed along with my other trophies, an autographed picture of the toeker player I eliminated from the 2006 WSOP and my … Read full post
Today is the commercial release of Poker Tracker 3! I’m still on vacation, so I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but I’m sure it’s going to be great and an amazing bargain at any price. It has an integrated HUD and gathers crucial NLHE statistics … Read full post
My stepfather found this in a published book of poetry. I really hope this was self-published, as I rejected better poems from my high school’s literary magazine (thinly veiled brag/beat). I swear to God I have reproduced every forced rhyme and arbitrary punctuation faithfully.
Love and Poker
Love is like … Read full post
Here’s a cool little toy that will help you create anagrams from your name or whatever other words you choose to give it. Definitely check out the advanced features, there are a lot of good ways to narrow down the thousands of possibilities it gives you. What do you think … Read full post
Nat Arem, creator of ThePokerDB, has a new project called Poker Forum Traffic. It tracks some statistics about how active various poker forums are. Naturally 2+2 is way out in front. Kinda neat to see how active some of these forums are. Of course, those familiar with … Read full post
I almost didn’t play the $500 PLO 6-max, but a few people convinced me I should, and I’m glad I did. The field was really weak, and it was a lot of fun to boot. Well, except for losing a monster pot, but I’m getting ahead of myself. For a … Read full post
Apparently I can post from my phone. Perhaps there will be scant updates from the road after all. I'll have to get faster at texting though….… Read full post
This was a $200 Stud/8. I got off to a great start and scooped like three reasonably sized pots in the first level. Unfortunately, the first level of a limit tournament is pretty irrelevent. After that I was getting run down incessantly by a reasonably good NLHE tournament player who … Read full post
This was a $200 PLO tournament with a $40 bounty. Predictably, there were a ton of people playing trashy hands. I imagine a really good PLO player could have done a lot more to take advantage of that, but the best I could do was tighten up and try to … Read full post
The $200 buy-in for this event was actually smaller than that of the regularly scheduled tournament it replaced: the weekly $300 6-max. Still, it was an FTOPS with thousands of entrants and thousands of fish. I didn’t recognize many names at my table, but the play actually seemed to be … Read full post
Tony Dunst, my friend and fellow Poker Savvy guest pro, has just departed for his own world poker tour. Better yet, Full Tilt Poker has hired him to chronicle the journey for their blog. As Bond explains it:
… Read full postI go on a trip starting from Melbourne and ending in
I was initially disappointed to see that FTP had eliminated its $4/$8, $15/$30, etc. deep stack tables. Then I saw that they’d replaced them with deep-stacked versions of “regular” games like $5/$10. What a brilliant idea! The action is much better at these than it ever was in the old … Read full post
I’ve done a pretty good job of cutting back on my tournament play, but with FTOPS VIII starting on Wednesday, that will probably change, at least for this week. I’m leaving town on the 11th and probably won’t be back in time to play the main event on the 18th, … Read full post
I complained recently that I felt Harrah’s was improperly prioritizing ESPN and other sponsors over the players in its decision to delay the final table of the WSOP main event. At the risk of boring everyone to death on this issue, I’m going to share some recent, competing thoughts from … Read full post
My latest article, Off the Deep End, is now appearing in the May issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine. It’s designed to help tournament specialists adapt to playing deeper stacks such as those prevalent in the WSOP main event. Here’s an excerpt:
… Read full postWith deeper stacks, blind defense is less
I’ve been reading some good comments here, on other blogs, and in the 2+2 thread about the final table delay that I mentioned yesterday. I want to clear up a few things, clarify my own opinion a bit, and share some of the better discussions I’ve seen elsewhere.
First, … Read full post
The main event of the World Series of Poker starts on July 3, with the second-to-last day scheduled for July 15. Thanks to a recent decision by Harrah’s and the WSOP, the final table will be played on… November 11th!
Granted, anyone who makes the final table should be excited … Read full post
I’m taking tomorrow off, so I guess I just played my last hand for April. I put in about 20K hands over 50 hours this month. That’s about half of my monthly goal, but this was a particularly busy month for the Boston Debate League (just under 100 hours): I … Read full post
If you’re looking to get started in poker, whether live or online, no limit hold ’em tournaments are a great diving off point. They are exciting, easier to learn than many other forms of poker, and less demanding of skill. For just a few dollars, you can potentially play for … Read full post
I had a decent run in the monthly $500 on Stars today, though it ultimately ended in tragedy. As you’ll see, I had some lucky cooler situations early on, but there was usually at least an element of my opponent making a questionable slowplay and the money going in after … Read full post
This week I watched the second-to-last Sopranos, which I’d never seen, and re-watched the final episode. I recall going to considerable length to see the finale and being thoroughly disappointed, not just by the final seconds, but by the entire thing. Basically the whole season 6 (the part after the … Read full post
There’s not much similarity to these hands aside from the fact that they both involve playing KT in the Stars $300. This one might seem like kind of a crazy fold:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t250 (9 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
UTG+1 (t6077)
MP1 … Read full post
Cardplayer recently posted a very interesting and informative interview with Phil Galfond, who posts as JMan on the 2+2 Forums and plays as OMGClayAiken in the biggest NLHE games. There were a few points I found particularly noteworthy:
1. Phil was a student of the great Tommy Angelo, and … Read full post
I don’t know how he did it, but Bryan Clark (AKA Dynasty, the editor of 2+2 Magazine) managed to defuse Mason Malmuth’s temper. In both our public and private communications, he gave no ground whatsoever and continued to insist that I deliberately misrepresented the Harrington on Cash series in … Read full post
It’s funny but not really surprising that even many good players succumb to a certain fishiness. Virtually anyone’s natural inclination is against folding. You’re guaranteed to lose- how much fun is that? The first big step that any player has to take to go from losing to winning is acquiring … Read full post
Mason Malmuth, the owner of Two Plus Two Publishing, was none too happy with the reviews of the Harrington on Cash Series that I posted on the 2+2 Forums. His responses were split roughly 50/50 between substantive rebuttals of particular critiques I made and personal attacks regarding my motivations. … Read full post
According to PokerNews, the WPT has settled its dispute with several prominent players (Duke, Bloch, Ferguson, Lederer, and Gordon) regarding the terms of the release that players must sign to play in World Poker Tour events.:
“In their original lawsuit, the players claimed that the terms of the WPTE player … Read full post
For some reason, FTP has a $54321 guaranteed tournament today where everyone started with 4321 chips. I played this hand about three hours in. I got an unlucky flop, but I thought this was kind of an interesting play:
Full Tilt Poker, NL Hold’em Tournament, 200/400 Blinds, 50 Ante, 9 … Read full post
This is a pretty consistent problem for me:
Poker Stars
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
6 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $302.70
UTG+1: $361.75
CO: $338
Foucault: $400
SB: $76
BB: $304
Pre-flop: (6 players) Foucault is Button with 
2 folds, CO raises to $12… Read full post
Apparently this is fake, pretty funny though.
… is that they reward monkey bullshit. And that’s the good and the bad thing about them. A skilled player has a smaller edge because the monkeys are rarely making that big of a mistake if they stick their whole stack in with anything pre-flop or with any kind of … Read full post
Been meaning to post this, it’s Bill’s response to my review of his e-book, How to Beat NLHE 6-Max Cash Games:
… Read full postThanks for reviewing the book.
I won’t comment on everything — you have some valid points although I do feel a beginner can use this book. It’s
The well-known 2+2’er and high-stakes no-limit player FoxwoodsFiend announced yesterday that he is quitting poker:
… Read full postThe truth is I want to do something important with my life, and I don’t think poker’s that important or meaningful. Given that I eventually need to quit, now’s as good a time as
Paul Smith AKA UCLABruinz, shown here with his daughter (yes his head really is that huge), just took down a $2000 Bellagio prelim event for $203,495.
I’ve known Paul for a while through the 2+2 forums, but I first met him in real life at the 2006 WSOP… Read full post
Last weekend, I accompanied several of my debaters to an urban debate league national championship in Chicago. As the director of the Boston Debate League, I rarely have the time (or inclination) to judge debates myself. However, I did judge a few rounds while in Chicago. In particular, I had … Read full post
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