I spent the last few days in New Jersey and New York, visiting first a friend from high school who is now studying German literature at Princeton, then two friends from college who recently got engaged and are now living together in NYC, and finally having dinner at the home … Read full post
I’m in New York this weekend visiting my old friend and roommate Logan, and since two other players from the home game Logan ran for three years in Cambridge are also in NYC now, we were able to get a game going last night. We started out playing with $.50/$1 … Read full post
I’m currently reading Robert Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities,” a gift from a friend of mine who is a student of German literature. It’s a very insightful and well-written book with a lot of humorous passages, though it’s a bit long-winded at times. Anyway, I recently came across a few … Read full post
Sorry I don’t have the exact HH for this, but it was from early in a nightly $129 bounty tournament on Ultimate Bet. Effective stacks were about 3000, with blinds 15/30.
The UTG player opened with a pot-sized raise to 105. The action folded to me in the BB, and … Read full post
I mentioned some time ago that Nat Arem was working on a documentary about a group of college students who had made a small fortune playing online poker. Well, the movie is finished now, and I’d suggest having a look. It’s broken into five parts, so you don’t have to … Read full post
Nothing exciting to report. It was a $200 tournament with 6 players to a table. My starting table was pretty soft but I never got anything going, despite a run of big starting hands. In the first hour I had Aces twice and Kings once but got no action with … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker blogger and editor (their book is pretty good, and addresses some subjects not covered by a lot of the poker literature) has an interesting piece on the applicability of international law to online gaming in the US. He mentions that superstar attorney Alan Dershowitz, representing BetOnSports, … Read full post
During the early stages of my Sunday tournaments, I was also playing a few cash tables, and ended up getting into a very interesting heads up match. The other guy was a decent player, reasonably aggressive, and in it for the long haul. In many circumstances, I’d actually prefer to … Read full post
Harvard Law School’s Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society is hosting a conference this Saturday entitled “Innovative Thinking: The Educational Value of Poker” featuring Jim McManus, Mike Sexton, and Dr. Alan Schoonmaker.
The conference will be a convening of academics, teachers, students, and other interested parties to analyze and discuss the … Read full post
Today’s Boston Globe ran an article about the Harvard Law School seminar that I attended recently. I remembered meeting this reporter but thought she was from Harvard’s paper, the Crimson. I probably would have put more thought into how I portrayed myself, but I think I come off … Read full post
After more than a year of playing all of the big Sunday internet poker tournaments, I finally won one of the @#$% things. There were 815 entrants in Ultimate Bet’s weekly $215 tournament, but they guarantee a $200K prizepool, so there was an overlay of about 20%. After just over … Read full post
Adanthar wrote a great piece recently about the potential effect of the Absolute Poker scandal on the Poker Player Alliance’s efforts to legitimize online poker in the US. He cites the lack of a market response to the revelations of cheating as evidence that informal regulation by the community of … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Hi/Lo Ring game
Blinds: $3/$6
7 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $588
UTG+1: $1034.10
Hero: $531
CO: $276.10
Button: $405
SB: $193.50
BB: $770.30
Pre-flop: (7 players) Hero is MP1 with :ad :7s :4s :jd
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls $6 … Read full post
As some of you may know, the pending Massachusetts legislation that would legalize casino gambling also has the potential to make internet poker a crime. The Poker Players Alliance offers this quick and easy web application for generating a letter to Governor Deval Patrick and the appropriate representatives. I urge … Read full post
Ultimate Bet has recently introduced resizable tables for their poker client, meaning that you can now treat them like any other window on your computer and adjust their dimensions to fit as many as you like on your computer screen. This will likely have the effect of making the games … Read full post
Wednesday is the only weekday when I play tournaments anymore. I like the $300 weekly on Poker Stars with 20-minute blind levels, and because I’ve found that tournaments and cash games don’t mix well, I play some of the other big nightly tournaments to round it out. I can’t really … Read full post
October was a solid month for me. Unfortunately, I’m still not putting in enough hours. I’m only playing about 25 hours/week. Overall this year, I’ve only played about 2/3 as much as I was hoping to play. Combined with some sustained bad luck in tournaments, this means that I’m only … Read full post
My latest article for 2+2 Magazine, entitled Level-Headed Thinking, is now available. It’s about the various levels of thinking about a poker hand and how these influence river ranges.
This month, I’ve also got some bonus material just for my blog readers. Because I don’t learn from my … Read full post
For those who don’t know, LAGtard refers to a player who is loose and aggressive to a fault. He’s often a reasonably smart and tricky opponent who just gets too fancy and ends up making some fundamental mistakes such as playing too many pots out of position or calling too … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $1.50/$3 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $1,077.85
SB: $303.05
Pre-Flop: 2
T dealt to Hero (BB)
SB calls $1.50, Hero checks
Flop: ($6) T
4
6
(2 Players)
Hero checks, SB bets $3, Hero calls $3
Turn: ($12) 6… Read full post
This kind of thing happens in Stud/8 sometimes: the pot goes multiway, and the players leading for each half of the pot keep jamming small edges but everyone else is priced in to keep calling along. The guy showing the Q is nuts to 3-bet 3rd with a K calling … Read full post
Hand #12886186626
7 Card Stud *High-Low* ($5/$10), Ante $0.50
*3rd Street* – (0.80 SB)
JRod34: xx xx 5d___folds
foucault82: Jc Jd 3c
360CF: xx xx 8d___calls
KoolAidKills: xx xx 6h___folds
jcards911: xx xx 6s___calls
panther44: xx xx 4d___calls
MR WHOOOPS: xx xx Qd___folds
lajollan: xx xx Jh___folds
*4th Street* – … Read full post
Barry Greenstein has just launched a new website called Poker Road which looks pretty sweet. It features blogs by Barry himself, his son Joe Sebok, Kevin “BelowAbove” Saul, and others, plus regularly scheduled radio and TV shows, articles, and even a comic. The general tone seems to be fun and … Read full post
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 4 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
Hero (BB): $1,142
UTG: $1,241
BTN: $3,029.05
SB: $1,411
Pre-Flop: A Q dealt to Hero (BB)
UTG folds, BTN raises to $30, SB folds, Hero raises to $102, BTN calls $72
Flop: ($209) 2… Read full post
Here’s the hand that prompted this line of thinking:
Full Tilt Poker, $3/$6 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 6 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
SB: $704.60
BB: $791
UTG: $1,075.05
MP: $537.70
Hero (CO): $1,817.85
BTN: $731.65
Pre-Flop: T J dealt to Hero (CO)
2 folds, Hero raises to $21, … Read full post
Villain is a decent LAG but he does have trouble getting away from kinda strong hands when he should. I’ve got a pretty wild pre-flop image but have only shown down big hands when I play big pots. The guy in the middle is new to the table, don’t know … Read full post
This animated visualization of higher dimensions is one of the cooler things I’ve come across on the internet. To be fair, I don’t think it’s consistent with the most widely accepted theories among physicists, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.… Read full post
3-betting pre-flop has become very popular in the mid-stakes FTP cash games, in part because it’s tough to counteract with 100BB stacks. Recently, though (and I am part of this trend), people have started making smallish 4-bets leaving themselves room to fold to an all in. Particularly when you are … Read full post
This hand is from a while ago, but I just bought Poker Tracker Omaha and so have been looking through old hand histories:
Full Tilt Poker
Pot Limit Omaha Ring game
Blinds: $2/$4
6 players
Converter
Stack sizes:
UTG: $179
UTG+1: $56.70
CO: $208.50
Button: $1029.90
Hero: $620.30
BB: $572.50… Read full post
A site called “Point Spreads” is now claiming that the AP superuser cheating has been going on for much longer than previously suspected:
“Point-Spreads.com sources in Costa Rica are claiming the Absolute Poker Super-User account scam has been going on for three years and the actual amount that … Read full post
The first round of the first tournament of the Boston Debate League’s fourth season has just gotten underway. With about forty students competing, it is one of our largest events ever. Unfortunately, 90% of the debaters are from 50% of the schools in the League. While these schools are doing … Read full post
As most of you probably know by now, there have been very credible allegations of cheating on a site called Absolute Poker. Many of the most reliable players in the highest stakes games online are taking these accusations seriously, and Nat Arem in particular has done some amazing investigative work … Read full post
I can’t even think of a hand worth posting.
Stars Million: Flop set under set to lose most of my chips, then AQ
On Thursday, I won this little $100 PLHE tournament with 6-person tables that Poker Stars runs every afternoon. For some reason most NLHE players don’t play PLHE tournaments, so this always has small fields. There were 18 runners in this particular tournament, and 16 of them were awful. That’s par … Read full post
Heads up against a decent player. He’s not great by any means, but generally when I’m playing heads up I look for softer competition.
Full Tilt Poker, $5/$10 NL Hold’em Cash Game, 2 Players
LegoPoker Hand History Converter
BB: $1,000
Hero (SB): $1,517.50
Pre-Flop: A A dealt to Hero (SB)… Read full post
So I was playing at a random 5/10 table the other day and had been at the table for only a few dozen hands when this happened:
Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
SB ($1753.50)
BB ($2343.75)
UTG ($1015)
MP ($725.10)… Read full post
Last night I attended a panel discussion hosted by Harvard Law School’s newly formed Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society. I hadn’t realized this at the time, but the discussion was actually part of a class taught by Professor Charles Nesson, so seating was at a premium. I … Read full post
Word on the street is that TheVOid, winner of over $2 million in the WCOOP main event, has been disqualified for entering more than one account in the event in violation of Poker Stars’ Terms and Conditions. The prize money is being reallocated so that all the other winners are … Read full post
I played a longer heads up session recently against the same opponent I mentioned in my recent post entitled, “Pwned :-(“. I ended up dropping about three buyins to him, which from what I’ve heard is fairly trivial for an aggressive heads up game. I definitely started to get a … Read full post
An important part of any fixed limit game, where multiway pots are more common, is maximizing your equity by driving out other players. This is particularly true in split pot games, where you can dramatically increase your equity if you becomethe only player with a shot at one half of … Read full post
I was in the mood for some heads up poker yesterday, but when I started my own table, everyone who sat down kept buying in for less than half the maximum. This isn’t really a problem, because these guys tend to be terrible and usually just hand you $100 or … Read full post
Slovenian film critic Slavoj Zizek is pretty much the hippest academic out there today (taking over the title from Jean Baudrillard, of course). I first discovered him through college debate, where his work is among the most cited no matter the topic. Unfortunately, his books can be tough to read, … Read full post
Yesterday was a great day. My routine these days is usually to play for an hour or two most afternoons, and then if the games are good and I’m in a good mindset, I’ll keep playing for as long as I can. I put in about 8 hours yesterday, because … Read full post
When last we left him, our hero had gotten off to a great start in the $300 WCOOP Second Chance Stud/8 event, only to blow most of his chips on an ill-conceived bluff. When we pick up with him again, he is down to 2000 chips, and the stakes have … Read full post
Sorry for the long silence, I was out of town for a wedding and didn’t have much time to update. Quick funny story from the wedding: I caught the garter when the groom threw it, which apparently meant I had to put it onto the leg of the woman who … Read full post
Two days in, and I’ve recovered about 1/3 of what was lost in September. I have a bunch of stuff on a list to post, but I got wrapped up in a really good heads up match that kept me up later than I planned, so I don’t have time … Read full post
My latest poker article, How to Bluff a Calling Station, has just been published in the October 2007 issue of 2+2 Internet Magazine.
Neither of these was against a calling station, but I wanted to post these two bluffs from Sunday tournaments, and this seems an appropriate place … Read full post
Although it still ended in frustration, yesterday I was very happy, in general, with my play. I felt I was more focused than usual and making some good reads in situations where I often just give up. Here’s one tough call down from the $500 WCOOP 2nd Chance:
PokerStars No-Limit … Read full post
Yesterday concluded both the worst week and the worst month of my poker career. I’m not going to post dollar figures, but I lost about 15% of my bankroll and slashed my hourly rate for the year by nearly 1/3.
I initially put this graph together to garner pity, but … Read full post
I finished 38th out of more than 3700 in the weekly $215 on Full Tilt, which was good but not good enough. I was 11th with 77 to go, then I raised 33 on the button, called a shove from the BB, and lost the flip with QTo for half … Read full post
Out in 1189th. I was on a roller coaster the whole time, doubled up with set versus top pair that turned a flush draw, then lost half my stack when I raise AQ from middle position and BB calls. Flop was KhQh9d, we both check. Turn 7d, he checks, I … Read full post
Today is the third annual World Championship of Online Poker on Poker Stars. We’re just shy of 3000 runners, and the $7.5 million prize pool makes it the largest internet tournament history.
The first hour was a roller coaster for me. I lost 2/3 of my stack 20 minutes in … Read full post
I made a nice run in the FTP $322 6-max yesterday only to have my dreams crushed on the bubble. With 25 players left, I was in 5th place. Everyone at my table was shorter than I and had been playing pretty straight-forward except for Imperium, who was sitting directly … Read full post
As many of you know already, I final tabled the WCOOP Stud/8 Second Chance event. This isn’t really that impressive, since there were only 64 entrants, but I haven’t made a final table in a while and was really looking forward to this event. I’m going to post as many … Read full post
Very sorry for the current, hideous appearance of the blog. I’m not sure how it happened but I’m trying to fix it.… Read full post
From the $530 WCOOP:
7 Card Stud High-Low ($40/$80), Ante $8
50outs (Seat 1): $2,650
sunrise100 (Seat 2): $2,395
foucault82 (Seat 3): $3,426
BabyGrand (Seat 4): $3,605
lock (Seat 5): $1,333
Siren (Seat 6): $3,538
bjbwc (Seat 7): $3,972
Islandrob1 (Seat 8): $2,991
3rd Street – (1.60 SB)
50outs: xx … Read full post
From the $530 WCOOP event:
7 Card Stud High-Low ($20/$40), Ante $4
50outs (Seat 1): $2,782
sunrise100 (Seat 2): $2,611
foucault82 (Seat 3): $3,260
BabyGrand (Seat 4): $3,078
lock (Seat 5): $2,624
Siren (Seat 6): $2,884
bjbwc (Seat 7): $4,041
Islandrob1 (Seat 8): $2,630
3rd Street – (1.60 SB)
50outs: … Read full post
Also from the $200 6-max second chance. Here’s tool number one:
PokerStars No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t150 (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com
MP (t21030)
Hero (t11484)
Button (Tool 1) (t3693)
SB (Tool 2) (t4305)
BB (t3862)
UTG (t12388)
Preflop: Hero is CO with Tc, Kd. … Read full post
This is from the $200 6-max WCOOP second chance event. The Villain is a moron, he’s shown up with stuff like KJ after making calls like this out of his SB. I had a feeling he was going to bluff off with whatever, and I’m pretty sure I was right, … Read full post
That was quick. Today was the $320 6-max, not the $500 Stud/8, which is actually tomorrow. Mkind was the only named I recognized at the table. Hand 1 I flopped a set of 7’s on 678 flop, raised some dude’s c-bet, bet the turn, and he folded. Then I called … Read full post
I played the $320 PLO8 today and finished like 180 out of about 1200, good enough for a shallow cash, less than double my money. I was pretty happy with how i played, towards the end it was maybe a little questionable, but with just 10 BB I think you … Read full post
I just heard that Nat Arem is producing an online documentary about four college-aged internet poker players who call themselves Team Domeski. I couldn’t get Blogger to upload the video properly, but you can click here to see the trailer. For those who don’t know, Nat is the … Read full post
Turns out today’s WCOOP was regular 7-Stud, not Hi/Lo, so I sat it out. But tomorrow is PLO8, which is a game I enjoy a lot, so I’m probably going to play. In anticipation, I played a few tables of 1/2 and 2/4 PLO8 and NLO8, just to practice and … Read full post
I played yesterday’s $200 rebuy with disappointing results. It was a sweet structure, with blinds starting at 10/20 and 3000 chips available for $200. Unfortunately, towards the end of the rebuy period, I took a bad beat that left me with like 3800, so I had barely more than one … Read full post
I need to learn to fold flushes. The games are less aggressive, so people are showing up with stronger hands when all the money goes in. Two examples:
Full Tilt Poker – No Limit Hold’em Cash Game – $5/$10 Blinds – 9 Players – (LegoPoker Hand History Converter)… Read full post
Like most people, I get a ton of junk mail. My girlfriend managed to get her name on a ton of catalogue mailing lists, so I get like two of those on an average day, and she doesn’t even live here now! Plus, we are both fairly recent college graduates, … Read full post