Man, I just played Suck My Ace on stars for a couple thousand hands. The match was really crazy, and he's definitely a tough player. However, I caught him going bananas in some spots and these hands are just TOO COOL.

Here I got extra frisky, and got owned, figured he is bluffing himself some % on the river but I can't call etc.

***** Hand History for Game 47504549593 ***** (Poker Stars)
$5000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 31, 12:10:04 ET 2010
Table Doris II (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: Suck My Ace ( $9514.25 USD )
Seat 2: Sauce123 ( $14032.25 USD )
Sauce123 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
Suck My Ace posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce123 [ Ah 8h ]
Sauce123 calls [$25.00 USD]
Suck My Ace raises [$150.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$150.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 6c, Tc, Kh ]
Suck My Ace checks
Sauce123 bets [$300.00 USD]
Suck My Ace calls [$300.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 3h ]
Suck My Ace bets [$700.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$700.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 9c ]
Suck My Ace bets [$1900.00 USD]
Sauce123 raises [$12832.25 USD]
Suck My Ace calls [$6414.25 USD]
Sauce123 wins $4518.00 USD
Sauce123 shows [Ah, 8h ]
Suck My Ace shows [9h, Td ]
Suck My Ace wins $19028.00 USD from main pot


A big ol' call

***** Hand History for Game 47502629967 ***** (Poker Stars)
$5000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, July 30, 10:57:40 ET 2010
Table Auriga IV (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Sauce123 ( $24397.00 USD )
Seat 2: Suck My Ace ( $9124.00 USD )
Sauce123 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
Suck My Ace posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce123 [ 8h 7s ]
Sauce123 raises [$125.00 USD]
Suck My Ace raises [$450.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$350.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 8d, Ks, Ac ]
Suck My Ace bets [$700.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$700.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6d ]
Suck My Ace bets [$1800.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$1800.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 2d ]
Suck My Ace bets [$6124.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$6124.00 USD]
Suck My Ace shows [5c, Tc ]
Sauce123 shows [8h, 7s ]
Sauce123 wins $18247.50 USD from main pot

An Even Bigger Call

***** Hand History for Game 47505763559 ***** (Poker Stars)
$5000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 31, 01:03:34 ET 2010
Table Doris II (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: Suck My Ace ( $15942.00 USD )
Seat 2: Sauce123 ( $8217.50 USD )
Sauce123 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
Suck My Ace posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce123 [ Kc 9d ]
Sauce123 raises [$125.00 USD]
Suck My Ace raises [$550.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$450.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 3d, 7c, 8s ]
Suck My Ace checks
Sauce123 checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Jh ]
Suck My Ace checks
Sauce123 bets [$873.00 USD]
Suck My Ace raises [$2000.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$1127.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 3s ]
Suck My Ace bets [$13342.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$5617.50 USD]
Suck My Ace wins $7724.50 USD
Suck My Ace shows [6c, 9c ]
Sauce123 shows [Kc, 9d ]
Sauce123 wins $16434.50 USD from main pot

Leveling Run Amok

***** Hand History for Game 47505896695 ***** (Poker Stars)
$5000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 31, 01:09:33 ET 2010
Table Doris II (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: Suck My Ace ( $6501.50 USD )
Seat 2: Sauce123 ( $17657.00 USD )
Sauce123 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
Suck My Ace posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce123 [ 6s 4s ]
Sauce123 calls [$25.00 USD]
Suck My Ace raises [$200.00 USD]
Sauce123 raises [$691.00 USD]
Suck My Ace raises [$1150.00 USD]
Sauce123 calls [$659.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, 9s, 5c ]
Suck My Ace checks
Sauce123 checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ 5s ]
Suck My Ace checks
Sauce123 checks
** Dealing River ** [ 4c ]
Suck My Ace checks
Sauce123 bets [$16257.00 USD]
Suck My Ace calls [$5101.50 USD]
Sauce123 wins $11155.50 USD
Sauce123 shows [6s, 4s ]
Suck My Ace shows [Kc, Qc ]
Sauce123 wins $13002.50 USD from main pot


Just really crazy so many wild hands happened in the same session, there are 4-5 other hands almost as insane, but marginally less so.

Gl All

Ben

I'm back grinding, but thankfully I'm at home. Right now that's a little town called Canmore, about 15 minutes outside of Banff in Alberta. It's just a sweet place to be in the summer, with 360 degree views of the rockies from the valley floor and tons of hiking/canoe/whitewater/anythingyoucouldpossiblythinkoftodooutside. There are also some sweet restaurants in town, the best being a bistro called Crazy Weed. I only bring this up as a public service announcement to all you young aspiring food nerds/poker players. Try pork belly next time you see it on any trustworthy menu. It's like bacon's decadent cousin. The dish I had it in was a pork belly salad with watermelon and some kind of sweet Asian inspired vinagrette. mmmmmm. Ditto for sweetbreads, you won't be sorry.

Poker is going reasonably badly lately. I played an ungodly amount of hands in July and won cheeseburger money. I think I ran pretty badly and played pretty well, but then I always think that, though when playing as many hands as I did you aren't going to be playing your A+, well rested, ready-for-anything game. I tried 16 tbling 5/10 one session as well and as usual I got just destroyed, despite game selecting. A tip of the cap to all you multitablers, I just can't do it. I actually had a week straight where I lost every session, which is pretty demoralizing, and during that stretch I only played in very good games. People continually underestimate variance, which isn't surprising given our brains are made to hunt and gather. I'm in a skeptical state of mind with regard to my winrate, my own estimation of my winrate, my BR management, my game selection etc just because I read Fooled By Randomness for the second time. If you haven't read it, I'd check it out as it's a fun read and pretty informative read about qualitative ways to understand randomness. If you aren't scared yet, take a gander at IggyMcfly's thread in BBV where he runs 85bi below EV in PLO in .... 13k hands. Then about 40 other regs chime in and say that the same thing happened to them only it was 120 bi in 40k hands or some other such bonechilling number.

The most fun thing I did during this stretch was do an experiment of 3betting every hand I decided to play from the BB in both NLHE and PLO. There were some strong empirical and theoretical reasons for my trying this, and I might try it again at the slightest provocation. I also love the idea of finding strategies which seem so crazy that people will be wating in line to play me. This strategy led to some unbelievable aggressive dynamics in 3bet pots. This is one of those pots:

***** Hand History for Game 22418760136 ***** (Full Tilt)
$5000.00 USD PL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, July 18, 04:13:12 ET 2010
Table Sands (heads up deep) (Real Money)
Seat 2 is the button
Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $16073.50 USD )
Seat 2: URnotINdanger2 ( $50101.00 USD )
URnotINdanger2 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
Sauce1234 posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ Qs Kc ]
URnotINdanger2 raises [$125.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$338.00 USD]
URnotINdanger2 calls [$238.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 9s, As, 4c ]
Sauce1234 bets [$400.00 USD]
URnotINdanger2 raises [$1150.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$1940.00 USD]
URnotINdanger2 calls [$1190.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8c ]
Sauce1234 bets [$2135.00 USD]
URnotINdanger2 calls [$2135.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 8d ]
Sauce1234 checks
URnotINdanger2 bets [$7200.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$7200.00 USD]
URnotINdanger2 shows [7s, Th ]
Sauce1234 shows [Qs, Kc ]
Sauce1234 wins $24125.50 USD from main pot

This was another cool one, against a crazy Swede

***** Hand History for Game 22570312726 ***** (Full Tilt)
$2000.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Saturday, July 24, 11:47:11 ET 2010
Table Vilberti (heads up deep) (Real Money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $9918.00 USD )
Seat 2: Denoking ( $3113.00 USD )
Sauce1234 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
Denoking posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ 8h Ah ]
Sauce1234 raises [$50.00 USD]
Denoking raises [$195.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$155.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 2s, Qd, Js ]
Denoking checks
Sauce1234 checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ 8s ]
Denoking bets [$360.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$360.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 7d ]
Denoking bets [$2538.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$2538.00 USD]
Denoking shows [3c, 5c ]
Sauce1234 shows [8h, Ah ]
Sauce1234 wins $6225.50 USD from main pot

As far as goals go, I'm still working a ton on my game, though I can't say it has shown much in my results recently. I'm still waiting for that magical rush where I can do no wrong and am able to run up my BR enough to lose it again playing nosebleeds. I'm at this strange BR level right now where I feel sorta bad donating to people like URnot and chewy and Ashman as it might make me move down after even a few bad sessions in a row. I just can't wrap my head around how many buy ins I need to be playing tough regulars hu, deep, on multiple tables. It's gotta be like 100+. I'll try to learn my lesson, but realistically, I won't.

GL All

Ben

Every year when the WSOP rolls around I get bracelet lust. This happens to every poker player, I'm pretty sure. In my case the lust progresses like this, jealousy, fantasy, and finally reality. Step 1: all day every day I toil away in obscurity, bleerily studying in HEM numbers and grinding literally millions of hands against the toughest players in the world while people like Phil Helmuth flounce around preening for the camera and rake in multimillion dollar endorsement contracts. They then become household names internationally recognized as geniuses or at least savants and I have to explain at the family Christmas party to each relative in succession why I don't envy and adore and aspire to follow in the enormous footsteps of the TV pros. Step 2: I then imagine winning the ME, giving, sarcastic, funny interviews instead of the standard, boring ones, getting staked by megapokersite.com for multimillion dollar catered freerolls in tropical countries and having wealthy businessman contact me through their lawyers for high stakes hu matches at their ranches. If I am feeling especially generous with myself I bust Phil Ivey at this point as well.

Then the reality sets in. I can't sleep in Vegas, there's just too much energy, it's too hot and sterile and weird. I could go on, but I won't. So this time I just stayed up 50 hours straight playing, grinding the 2500 WSOP during the day and 10/20 hu at night. Eventually I was able to sleep on a friend's couch and upon waking up I did basically the same thing again for the 6 endless days I was there. I made day 2 of the 2500 6max busting AIPF eventually. I won my first match in the 10k hu and lost my second to Phil Gordon of all people who made a possibly great call on me with KT on a A99ss7s blank river when I bet/bet/overbet. So a tip of the cap to you Phil Gordon. Things went a little better online, but I lost about 35k staking so I think I ended up about even there. I wasn't playing particularly well though in my zombified state, that's for sure. By day 4 of Vegas I realized that a bracelet for me is just not worth the grind. Sitting in a chair in the Rio for 12 hours a day every day playing one out of five hands is just not my strength as a poker player, and I don't really want it to be. It had been 2 years since I was last in Vegas and hopefully now that I have immortalized my feelings for the place on the internetz I'll remember to never go back.

In happier news, I am on an absurd rush online. I am still grinding up my 1k roll I deposited in September, and now I am finally getting back into high stakes after quite a few tribulations. As of January I had ran up my roll to 100k, and by mid March I was up to about 250k. Then I had a -100k session against Chewy. So I played 10/20 until May and ran it up to 250k. Then I had a -100k session against Pandora's Bux and moved down again. Then in June (I went on a monthlong roadtrip with my gf as well so had a break there) until now I went on a more or less sustained rush and am up to 350k or so, playing mostly 10/20 with a few sessions of 25/50. I think it's correct to aggressively manage a bankroll, especially when I am sure I have a positive winrate, it just sucks to be constantly moving up and down in some ways from an emotional standpoint. So hopefully I don't jinx it !

Here are a few interesting hands, I've been playing a lot of wild sessions with tough regulars like Ashton, DerekJC, Chemiztry and Urnotindanger which produced some 1000+ BB stacks and correspondingly ridiculous hands.

This is just a big fucking pot.

Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $34854.00 USD )
Seat 2: DerekJC9954 ( $21801.00 USD )
Sauce1234 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
DerekJC9954 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ Jh 3h ]
Sauce1234 raises [$70.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 raises [$220.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$640.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$480.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 5h, Ah, Kc ]
DerekJC9954 checks
Sauce1234 bets [$625.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$625.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4s ]
DerekJC9954 checks
Sauce1234 bets [$2150.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$2150.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 7h ]
DerekJC9954 checks
Sauce1234 bets [$6150.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 raises [$18306.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$12156.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 shows [4h, 6h ]
Sauce1234 shows [Jh, 3h ]
Sauce1234 wins $43601.50 USD from main pot

Some people don't have a bluffing range in some spots, specially really infrequent ones. I try to have one everywhere, for better or most likely for worse. Since Derek is a value monkey I expect him to almost always bet any middling kings on the end as well as all flushes and some bluffs. Which means I am going to sometimes check a boat with these stacks but maybe it doesn't matter because he just jams a flush over a bet thinking 'lol he has a king'. Or more likely he jams any med-large flushes over a bet, and calls a bet with the rest of his range, I donno.

Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $21844.50 USD )
Seat 2: DerekJC9954 ( $5334.50 USD )
DerekJC9954 posts small blind [$10.00 USD].
Sauce1234 posts big blind [$20.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ 6h 9s ]
DerekJC9954 raises [$50.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$40.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7c, 5c, Kd ]
Sauce1234 checks
DerekJC9954 bets [$80.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$260.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$180.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ah ]
Sauce1234 bets [$500.00 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$500.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Kc ]
Sauce1234 checks
DerekJC9954 bets [$1200.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$21024.50 USD]
DerekJC9954 calls [$3314.50 USD]
Sauce1234 wins $16510.00 USD
Sauce1234 shows [6h, 9s ]
DerekJC9954 shows [3c, Ac ]
DerekJC9954 wins $10668.50 USD from main pot

This is just cool because I knew this was going to happen from the turn onward and I was thinking 'man I get to make a 9 high snap call, this is so cool !'.

Seat 1: Sauce1234 ( $17909.25 USD )
Seat 2: theASHMAN103 ( $13650.50 USD )
theASHMAN103 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
Sauce1234 posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ 3c 9c ]
theASHMAN103 raises [$125.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$100.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Ac, 6s, Js ]
Sauce1234 checks
theASHMAN103 checks
** Dealing Turn ** [ Kh ]
Sauce1234 checks
theASHMAN103 checks
** Dealing River ** [ Th ]
Sauce1234 checks
theASHMAN103 bets [$225.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$225.00 USD]
theASHMAN103 shows [5h, 3h ]
Sauce1234 shows [3c, 9c ]
Sauce1234 wins $749.50 USD from main pot

GL everyone.

Ben

So ... I haven't updated this blog since October 2009, which means I have quite a bit of updating to do.

A bit of background: for around a year from the second half of 08' through the first half of 09' I couldn't win a goddamn hand of poker. There were a few reasons for this, but that's another story.. I sheepishly remember times where I would be chatting on the phone with a friend, fcking around on google maps and playing 500/1k nlhe at the same time. During this run I ended up dropping a ton of money playing big games and running very poorly in them and being underrolled. Staking also went absurdly badly... So I dropped down a bit to play 25/50, but things still didn't seem to be going right and I wasn't sure I was even a good player in the first place and my whole winnings might have been due to extremely good luck. And if that was the case, I'd really feel like a schmuck pissing my illgotten winnings away slowly in games I couldn't beat. Hell, during that year I couldn't find a game on the internet I could beat. Also, I was starting school in the fall. I really wanted to immerse myself in school so I considered cashing out my roll to force myself to focus. One of the odd things about high stakes poker is it's extremely hard to be bored- if I have nothing to do, I just gamble. And making friends and doing school work involves a lot of shooting the shit time. Time which is fun but often a byproduct of being bored and finding random bullshit to collaborate on. Retreating to my poker-cave would not be option if I had no poker to play. So I cashed out every cent.

Unfortunately I didn't find academics as inspiring as I had hoped, and despite my best intentions I didn't see philosophy possibly being as interesting as poker, now or ever. Which- as a sidenote- is sort of depressing- that possibly finding answers to fundamental questions in life bores me but seeing money bounce back and fourth between degens does not. So in late September I found a friend owed me 1k online and I decided to get back at it. Well, truth be told, I never really left, I just love playing poker. In the first few months of the school year I ran up my 1k in play money on ftp to well over 1m. Which is somewhere between really cool and embarrassing, I'm not sure which. After having played play money and *gasp* enjoying it, I decided it might not be a bad thing to take this 1k in real money and do the same thing, starting from the bottom. Sorta like a down and out boxer who has to see if hes still got it. Maybe some sort of penance for my excessive degeneracy during those dark days of 08 and 09. There was a nice symmetry about the whole idea I couldn't get away from.

I'm not going to painstakingly go through every wrinkle, trial and tribulation at the tables since that time, but I did a few interesting things. I started at .25/.50 cent nlhe (20 bi) and moved up around when I had 30-40 bi or so. So I didn't completely luckbox a quick start out of it. I played a bunch of hu sngs as well, which I have definitely gotten better at, but am still not an expert at, as well as a ton of omaha which it appears from my database I suck a lot at. Though I feel like it can't be that hard. Then, in Feb 2010 I decided to try and 16 table 5/10 nlhe so I wouldn't have to wait for hu action. I did a lot of fun stuff with my database in order to design a strong strategy, mostly by trying to solve ranges for whole populations of players (this makes a certain amount of sense at 5/10 because there are so many regulars who appear on all your tables). The idea was that I would play a ton of hands, racking up 100k+ samples at a given limit and then look at my data and see how best to play situations on average against the whole population of the limit. For example, I would go in HEM, search for a given situation: for example, it is folded to me on the button. Then I would filter out all the hands I knew it was almost certainly possible to open OTB for a raise and look at how I fared with the bottom of my range- for example hands like 98o or worse, Q5dd, things like that. If I was making money with the bottom of a given range I would widen it slightly, if I was losing I would narrow it, and so in this way I hoped to find ranges which were optimal against the whole population of the limit in order to make my decisions easier over many, many tables. In turns out this doesn't work well at all and I broke even for 50k hands or so, despite putting in a ton of time with HEM and doing an incredible amount of number crunching. Moral of the story really is that if you are massively multitabling you either have to be an unbelievable quick thinker and be able to process all your information perfectly in split seconds or you have to play against idiots and be a huge nit. Or I suppose you could try to play GTO, which I did try to incorporate some ideas from in my play as well, but the whole exercise was a huge headache.

After that, around the beginning of March, I began to play hu NLHE again since my results have been pretty consistently great in that since forever and it's fun as hell. I kept getting frustrated though because I wanted to filet the bumhunters who were cluttering the lobby trollishly grabbing Abigail V or whatever and playing drunken russians once every 3 weeks. In a characteristically bold move I combed through my aim buddy list and got a stake from a fellow HSNLer who took half my action so I could move up and find someone with the stones to play poker. The only condition was that I couldn't play Ike or Isildur which seemed a fine compromise to me. So I moved up to 25/50 and played everyone for as long as I could, mostly UrNotindanger2, Jungleman, Tcorbin, Raptor, Inorej, BrightGreenPoop, Molswi, Hal0zination, ZeeJustin, Zugwat, Chewy, AEjones and won a bunch, which was really cool. I decided to end the stake after amassing around 50 bi for 25/50 with the plan to reevaluate if I dropped down to 100k. It only took me I think a week and a half to do exactly that, mostly courtesy of Leggo Poker's very own LuckyChewy who clipped my fledgling wings in this exciting pot:

Seat 1: luckychewy ( $32764.50 USD )
Seat 2: Sauce1234 ( $29070.25 USD )
Sauce1234 posts small blind [$25.00 USD].
luckychewy posts big blind [$50.00 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Sauce1234 [ Jd Qd ]
Sauce1234 raises [$125.00 USD]
luckychewy raises [$400.00 USD]
Sauce1234 raises [$1085.00 USD]
luckychewy raises [$2661.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$1876.00 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ Qc, 2c, 3c ]
luckychewy bets [$3625.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$3625.00 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 6d ]
luckychewy bets [$6750.00 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$6750.00 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ Th ]
luckychewy bets [$19278.50 USD]
Sauce1234 calls [$15584.25 USD]
luckychewy wins $3694.25 USD
luckychewy shows [Kd, Kc ]
luckychewy wins $58140.00 USD from main pot
Sauce1234 doesn't show [Jd, Qd ]

Now, to the untrained observer, this might look like a lot of money to get in with one pair. There is certainly something to that, top pair, afterall, will get flopped around a fifth of the time depending on what cards we play preflop and 1200 BBs is a lot of BBs to be shoveling in there. I had an...

So I've been dabbling a bit poker-wise the past few weeks, just a tiny bit.

Coolest hand(s) I've played in awhile came up earlier.

I'm playing a regular on FTP (cause he has the shiny bronze triangle) who is trying to start 6max PLO tables with me hu on 2 tables at once. He started one table 110 BBs deep and the other 50, but has chipped up on the other one to 140 BB or so. It's 3/6 PLO w/antes and I cover on both. So far he has played pretty well if straightforwardly with no hugely interesting hands coming up, it has been maybe 40 hands total. He has been 3betting more than usual, though this likely to be partially because of the initial shorter stacks.

On one table he 3bets I call w/ 88Jxss or something. Flop comes 995r he checks quickly, I check (he has not checked in a 3bet pot thus far, but all the spots have been like 1-2 PSB behind previously on boards where checking didn't make a lot of sense so I don't really know too much about what this chekc means). Turn comes down a 9, he thinks briefly and bets 78 into 128 or something. I call.

At this point simultaneously on the second table he 3bets and I call with Q2hh63dd. Flop comes 776r.

On the first table the river comes down some blankish card and he bets 210 or so after thinking briefly.

On the second table he bets 72 into 128 or so pretty quickly.

Normally on the first table I would fold, but this time I decided to call.

Why ?

The end of October brought me back to Turning Stone for their Fall tournament series which
started with $100 affairs and culminated in a 1k around a week later. I planned on staying for
the week and grinding hard, I believe I took 5k cash with me for the purpose of playing the 1k main event and 5/10nl cash. On Friday morning me and 120 or so others registered for the 1k. And from
that point on I was just totally dialed in. Really feeling it. One of those times where focus
is effortless and there's that slow stream of adrenaline pushing you to make decisions with
terrible clarity. I doubled through in the first hour perhaps 300bb deep by opening 22 utg
getting 3bet by a BB greybeard to like 14x flopping 2 4 9r and getting it in within 30 seconds
after the flop action started. The field was just populated with these kind of oblivious
droolers. Day one was maybe 14 hours and I got good table draws with a big stack and remained
near the chip lead all day. I was opening and 3betting from everywhere amassing a pile of ante
chips in front of me. At one point I had nearly all the antes at my table and I'd have to
distribute them to all of the nits at the table before each deal where I would just take them
again, slowly converting them from green to red to yellow to blue. It was a very tactile way to
print money. At the end of the day there were perhaps 30 people left and 22 I think were to
make the money. I was the chip leader, a bit abashed but unable to not grin, 19, and almost
universally hated/envied.

Digression: Turning Stone is actually in some ways a very interesting place to play poker in that it serves as a reasonably accurate barometer for the poker world. It's extremely isolated and 18+ and doesn't serve alcohol, so it attracts a clientele in the poker room most of whom drove a few hours to be there and are almost certainly there for the sole purpose of sustained poker playing. In 2007 it was thrumming with activity and filling 40 tables every Friday to Sunday running up to a 10/20 uncapped buy in weekly with 25/50 making an appearance during tournament weekends and special bursts of activity. Today, it's desolate even on weekends filling perhaps 15 tables tops up to 5/5nl and the staff have a grey weary look about them knowing that their future as a room will be decided in the economic climate of the next couple of years. But to bear out my opening statement Turning Stone is the perfect place to gauge the changing demographics in poker we are all so familiar with. The erumpent poker demographic in 07' was the upper middle class internet college kid, hello
readers. The blue collar locals, sallow faced retirees, rich sunburned golf dabblers, bellowing
mafiosoesque new yorkers and tight lipped ethnic conventioneers were all in a state of awe at
the amounts of money and competitive verve we were throwing around. I get the feeling that they
thought we were winning by some bizarre emotional alchemy which is partially the case; not
needing the money + youthful exuberance freed us up to 3bet J4hh at the slightest provocation
etc etc. This was a slap in the face of the multigenerationally passed down "tight is right",
but we kept multiplying so on the one hand our non-mathematically inclined seniors
fully expected we were all about five minutes from slinking home to mom broke but on the other were deeply anxious that they were going to be robbed blind by smooth-faced philosophy majors with no respect or social tact.

The next morning we made a new seat draw and I drew great again with some rich guys mistress
with spectacular tits to my left, a couple of young kids more scared than I was, some black-clad
new york types and some 40+ lower middle classers on up to retirees. I started out stealing in
the same vein as the day before, but within a half hour the tournament halted. There were
roughly 25 of us left with 18 getting paid (recall: 130 entrants= over 10% ITM) and the top
three broke down 'round 42k, 26k, 15k or something but certainly nothing even close to what
is deemed by tournament poker standards as top heavy, without doing a ton of number crunching I
think it might have even been a bit lower on top but I don't have a precise memory for non-
essential non emotionally compelling details like that.

The tournament director stopped play and directed all eyes to a 50ish year old, but looked older because of years of Substances type guy who addressed the assembled saying that "we all" had decided that the remaining 25 "deserved" to be paid at least the initial 1k back and that the requisite 7kish would be subtracted from the top 3 spots in a 3.5k, 2.5k, 1k type of ratio, and that this would be fair to everyone who "made it this far". He continued by saying that the only obstacle remaining in "our" path was that the proletarian decision to alter the tournament structure had to be made unanimously and if anyone not vigorously nodding assent could just raise their hands right now. As emotional momentum/chip leader at this point I'm left blinking stunned that this idea has gained traction and that we are being subjected to this idiocy but since I was at the socially awkward nexus of the terrified seniors' discomfort, what with my age, stack, and ludicrously aggressive playing style
I felt more secure letting one of the other big stacks act in preserving their clear best
interest by dissenting.

Five beats and no one does. Ten. Fifteen. Crackling eye contact between all 25 players,
tournament director passive. I become increasingly nervous, start making pleading eye contact
with other young players possessing big stacks, trying to raise some popular
support. I'm met with downcast eyes. Twenty-five seconds have elapsed in silence and the
Speaker begins to clear his throat and engage the tournament director I assume to ratify said
plan into Law. I stand up, almost visibly shaking and begin a short little speech "C'mon guys
(short glances at other big stacks, longer looks on clearly-mathematically-savvy young players)
this is ridiculous. I'm not going to abstain in a general consent type situation where voting
is just clearly and unequivocally in my best interest given my stack. This is a poker game,
guys (meaning we all set out here under a clearly defined set of rules with the express intent
to take each others chips). I vote no." I likely stuttered and mumbled a less coherent speech
in the moment though, repeat, 19 and nervous.

This caused universal uproar and even after my statement no other big stack jumps to
defend my argument though some have squirmy rodent-like facial expressions. Jowls quivering, blood pressures rising and multiple fists actually raised into the air mob style, the entire old nit
shortstack contingent erupts in righteous anger at me. I appeal wide-eyed at the tournament
director to step in as like a school principal type of authority figure and quiet the bullies,
but instead he exaggeratedly stares at his watch, back at me, and calls a 10 minute break...

Quick general update: As of tomorrow I start school at Reed college in Portland Oregon. I've cashed out all my poker moneys, don't plan on coaching or playing for at least my first semester. It's almost cliche now eh? So don't pm for coaching, sry guys. I plan on completing this series of poker stories up to my present quit-date in the next couple of months. Also, I've deliberately left out how poker effected my personal life, I'm not sure if that's interesting, I don't really wanna start with that too much as these things could float on around the internet forever. I'm also pretty sure reading this could help your poker game in its present form.

So referring back to the end of my last entry I've rocketed up the ranks of pokerstars to 10/20nl, it's September 2008 and I have a 150k bankroll. I'm feeling gooooood.

................................................................................ .................................................................

Pokerstars in 2008 only went up to 25/50. Different from today there was quite a bit of NL action at each limit and there was a different caste of regulars populating the 5/10nl tables and the 10/20nl tables with not a ton of movement back and forth, at least relative to today. HU was also a blip on the collective radar screen reserved for grudge matches between the elite players at the highest stakes, a sport for rich connoisseurs, like polo or foxhunting. 10/20nl would typically have 3-8 tables running at once usually with the exact same lineup of 4-5 regulars at each 6max table plus a rotating collection of fish, semi-fish and shotakers. There were two regulars who were almost universally feared at this time and seemed to play 24 hours a day, or at least were on the same sleep schedule as I was: JMC and Punketty. Both were party refugees and Punketty at least was the legendary Samo, who had tightened up from his highwater mark of like 41/29 to a respectable 34/23 or something by this time. JMC played around 26/21. Keep in mind this was in the days when there were wildly divergent NLHE preflop strategies just like there are in PLO now, but most of the people considered TAG were playing 18%-21% vpip. So this was my first experience playing people who both seemed to play more hands than me, and play them better than I did. Those this took me 4 months and 100k in losses to fully appreciate.

I sank into a routine where I would skip most of my classes at Umass and play poker with JMC and Samo all day. I would fiendishly replay hands and stare at my pokertracker most of the day and constantly tweak my gameplan in order to get ahead of these two. The first thing I noticed about JMC was that he never ever folded to flop bets in position. Just wouldn't even consider it. So I ended up check/folding marginal on the turn or check/calling and check/calling the turn/river, but was still betting far too many of my strong hands out on the turn making my check/call range exploitable even by his weak float-y range as he could value bet me twice with say TP no kicker on 2 streets and I wouldn't fold in an effort to bluffcatch. Similarly he was able to flat turn and fold river often as I'm betting once with various draws/strong hands but then not following through enough on the river against his weak range with my misses. Bonus question: what is my proper adjustment here? Or series of proper adjustments?

Samo totally melted my skull because he played every single pot with me. If I opened the button to 3x with around 50% of my hands, he would defend the BB (or SB even) with 60% of his range and then 3bet maybe 8%. He would open preflop from everywhere constantly and call an open with anything suited and even remotely connected regardless of the opener. I noted all of these things and in my head I had been drilled via 2p2 that he had to be doing something horribly wrong. Yet as much as I tried to make him fold too much or call too much he just seemed to make straights and flushes and induce me to payoff in spots I had not even envisioned. I vividly remember two hands where after the river I replayed the action in my head over and over shuddering like a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder, blinking irregularly.
I open UTG to 3x with AK and 160 BB stacks, aggro regular on the button makes it 11x, samo flat calls in the BB. I think and make it say 28x, btn reg folds, samo calls after a slight pause. Flop comes down something innocuous and paired say 884r. Samo leads out for maybe 42bb into a 70bb pot I have 130BB behind or so. I'm dumbstruck and replay the hand in my head, decide he would be far more circumspect with a hand like TT or JJ or QQ, would jam AA or KK in preflop and so must have the other AK or maybe an AQs type of hand. I jam, he snaps, shows down AA. Blink.
Folds around to Samo in the SB, who opens for 3x with 110 BB stacks. I have ATs and make it 10x as he doesn't fold to 3bets even oop and tends to 4bet strong so I can 3bet/fold my hand (good job me). he calls flop comes down QT4r. He checks I check with what I suppose is the intention of inducing something and getting to showdown, which is fine. Turn is a 2h bringing a runner FD. he checks I bet 2/3 pot he calls. I remember at this point being so sure I had the best hand, and the betting lead that all I was considering was how big I could get paid off on the river. River 8h or something similar. I bet pretty large trying to represent (what am I bluffing with?) AK or air I suppose Samo ships it in I snap thinking he must be bluffing since why would he check/call a draw once I had checked the flop? He has 65hh. Blink.

This began one of those strange moments in my poker career where I actually improved as a poker player but began to play worse and worse. People thinking on three levels effectively had prodded me into the consciousness that these levels existed and could be used against me. But in this new realm of possibility I would constantly see phantoms, monsters under the bed and completely lost sight of what was readily apparent to my opponents. I was a giant calling station, so they would find ways to make me call. Some of my countermeasures against Samo and JMC began to bear fruit but all this did was slow my decline which was also fueled by my first serious downswing, I think I lost 50k or so going into October without realizing why.

So I dont watch tv much, but im living with friends who do, and im of course totally bewildered by half of it.

so today im watching cash-cab, and this group of four tourist retiree types get in the cab. i am of course initially pre disposed to hate on them as they are all loud, overweight and not new york city model hot like 60% of the ppl on the show, and are wearing mumu type garments and fannypacks, but i digress.

premise of the show is that you get in a regular yellow nyc cab and declare your destination at which point the car erupts in psychadelic lights and you are on a game show. the deadline is when you arrive at your stop the questions end, or if you get 3 wrong you get booted onto the sidewalk, they ascend in difficulty and go up to maybe 150$ a pop from 25$ at the beginning,

the retirees are actually quite strong players and bink I believe 13/15 questions, ending in a 950$ win as they reach their destination, at this point you can go for video bonus question for double or nothing which is on average marginally harder than your previous questions. this smug fcking lady stares down the camera with her southern drawl and goes "Oh, well, we aren't gambin' types" and they run wiht the money. as this is a poker blog i will not discuss the EV of their decision, but what i found so infuriating was that they justified their retarded decision not with any kind of logic but just immediately as a moral certainty, these ppl must have elected george bush....

so i begin to tilt visibly to my friend who is watching it and explain the precious ev they are giving up, however, not satisfied to stop at the end of my traditional rant; i had to swing for the fences. my friend attempted to justify their decision like this "if the happiness ev they lose by gambling is greater than the happiness ev of doubling through, and the money isn't particularly large or small, then their quit is fine". though, i must add, my friend was a girl, so it was phrased a lil differently.

I say no! not taking such a logically imperative gamble just displays a profound ignorance about the way probability operates in everyday life. Or, to put it more succinctly "Lady, do you realize you're driving in a FCKING CAR RIGHT NOW". every time you get in a car, you deliberately risk your entire life in exchange for some value, whether it's getting to work quickly, seeing a friend, etc. whenever you smoke a cigarette you lose whatever it is, 10 min on average of your life i forget, what im getting at is just the fact that risk taking (read:gambling) is inextricably bound up with living, by blinding yourself to the relatively large risks you are assuming daily you are living a dream. gambling should be defined as what this lady and people like her have been doing their whole lives:: making unreasoned decisions without considering the myriad possible outcomes, both material and emotional of the things they take for granted.

im gonna need another non- 1am blog to flesh this one out, but i wag my finger at you, cash cab lady, don't judge me! grrrrr

I've had a ton of interest in the past, but in general have decided against coaching as my schedule was fluctuating so much and I felt I couldn't give the best value to students. for the first time in over a year however I plan on being in one place for the next 6 months, and plan on keeping a regular schedule as well as playing more hands than I have the past few months. Being more focused on poker I think I will be able to take on 1-4 students, perhaps more, in varying capacities.

First of all, I want to get one thing straight: while I do enjoy teaching poker, poker is first and foremost my job, so the goal here is to make any hour I spend coaching more +ev than time spent playing my main games (25/50 to 200/400 nl, sprinkled with PLO and HA)(note to me: say NO to 500/1k). I'm also adding to the fact that any time spent coaching people playing slightly lower than I play now will eventually make games tougher for me down the road. Spose' I sound like a bit of a Machiavellian fckhead, but there it is. In the past when I was making videos or coaching for well less than my hourly rate I constantly had this feeling of regret which caused me not to put 100% into the time I spent. So realize that while these rates might seem outlandish I have to balance my time so that coaching is a good poker-business decision. It's going to be up to you to see if my coaching is worth your money.

I also want you as the student to have a ton of options. Here they are:

1. Sweat via Mikogo/Teamviewer: $175/hr if you don't currently play in my 25/50 games, $1000/hr if you do. No skyping or direct interaction. If you can get a group together of enough people to supplement my hourly I will play as low as 2/4nl, though I'm guessing this would apply mostly to 5/10, 10/20nl regulars.

1b) Take notes, ask questions, note specific hand histories and send me an email after one of these sweat sessions with those questions. I will respond with descriptive answers of my reads and logical reasoning, but without in depth pokerstove theory discussion. I haven't thought of accurate pricing for this yet as I want to shy away from a $/hand type of thing as that would induce you to ask only a few specific questions and not for instance things like "why did u fold 97dd in the BB to X's CO raise?", I also want to shy away from a $/time spent by me because that would induce me to overbill you or work slowly and just leads to dishonesty. Any ideas?

1c) Sweat w/ discussion via Skype. 450/hr. I will try to answer your questions as fully and honestly as possible during the session, but reserve the right to say "I have to think!" at any time as I'll be playing 4+ tables usually. I also, will have the right to end the session at any time, but you won't be billed for the nearest hour to the time I stop it , for instance if we do a 40 min session and I decided I'm not able to continue talking you won't be charged a penny unless it's some ridic angle shoot where someone is blasting Britney Spears through their headset or something. Also, we will take a 15 min break at the end of the hour to talk through anything we might have had to gloss over. I donno, I've always wanted to do this, would be like watching a poker video, but instead you are able to control the discussion as the observer. You can also split this with multiple people with the base price being 425/hr+ $225 for each extra person.

2. HH analysis via email. Same problems as 1b regarding pricing. Don't really want to do $/HH just because that would again induce me to work quickly through your hand histories:: this needs to be different from regular forum posting and requires a lot of thought. I'm sort of shying away from this option right now, just because of the prevalence of forums etc but wanted it listed.

3. Private Sweating. The typical "poker-coaching" arrangement. I sweat you in your games while we talk on Skype and discuss hands post-session. Since my playing hourly is completely cut-out from this it all comes out of your pocket. $1600/hr. Includes sporadic AIM questions and email questions. Can also focus on theory.

That's it for now, I'm going to think on this a bit more and see what else I can think of. Probably the most advantageous thing for most is going to be some kind of sweating me. The only other option not covered here is some kind of arrangement where I take a percentage of your winnings over the long terms in exchange for coaching, probably 5hrs/week+ at the start and downhill from there. this is just plagued by trust issues, so if I don't already know you well, probably not. Have heard so many horror stories.

I'm a good poker player, that doesn't necessarily make me a great poker coach. If your looking at value per dollar spent, for SURE your best bet is to watch all of the video coaching sites, 50$ for the amount of videos on Leggo is just such a steal if you put in the time to study them thoughtfully. Nothing I can do will guarantee you getting to the next level, but I probably think about poker a bit differently than anyone who you have talked to before. I've been happy with all the poker coaching I have ever received in totally different capacities, from Krantz and Tommy Angelo.

Again, people have asked about coaching, I have the time now, just wanted to write this down at least in rough form so that your questions are answered. If you think of anything else, float it by me.

-Ben

Day One- wasn't that bad


Two days ago, call it a Tuesday I arrived in LA. All hotels were booked so I've sequestered myself at the Ramada 8 mins down the street.

Next morning (Wednesday) I hustled on down to the Commerce to register for the 10k hu no limit event. I first haggled with a few people at the front desk in order to receive the 100k wire I made here, there was one moment of nervousness where the two tellers were conferring in the back utterly confused as to whether it had arrived or not. It did though, sweet. Cashed out 40k for walking around money and went to register a full 3 hours before the event with great success. Finding myself bored with 3 hours to kill pre-event I wandered downstairs, happening upon a 20/40nl game, with 200 BB ante and a 300 2-7 bounty. Naturally I sat. Things zipped along smoothly with me opening a pot here and there, winning a few continuation bets, but mostly just sitting on a tight/solid image. The table was just awful for a live game, the lineup was the Bermans, Keith, Kevin and a couple of other live pros playing tight. Not one mark.

7 handed, the weakest player at the table opened UTG+1 to 200, Brad Berman called, Keith called, and Lyle called from the small blind. I picked up QQ in the BB with a 20k stack or so and after some quick internal debate made it 1500, the PFR folded, Keith called and Lyle called from the SB. Pot 5k or so on the flop of 8s 4x 3s. I again had a bit of a tough decision as betting commits me to the hand, but I thought they might think I would bet AK here as well as some of my SC type hands and sometimes people are more apt to put you on a bluff the first time you show aggression (specially if you're a scruffy young kid). I bet 2500, which coincidentally was the number of white ($100) chips in front of me, mostly because I hate talking when I'm in a big pot OOP with money behind, declaring 3400 or so while tossing in a flag I'm not really sure what kind of intonation to go for to project weakness to two strong live players. Keith thought for 4 beats or so and called, Lyle folded. The turn came an offsuit ace which presents a couple problems. Pot is around 11.5k with 16k behind so my only real option if I decide to bet is to bet/fold. This is of course completely fine if I expect my opponent to never re-bluff, never spazz with worse pairs, and to never ship an 8-out draw. I'm not sure if that's the case, also I had seen Keith make some floaty/bluffy plays in the past, and I was sure he was capable of turning pairs into bluffs. So I checked. He thought for a bit longer and bet $3600 (leaving me 11.6k I remember behind). As a continuation of my previous reads this meant one of two things: he had a draw/bluff- hands like 55 or 65, or he had a set. Sets are difficult to get, so I called, taking an appropriate length of time to do my live-poker dance and make a variety of weak looking gestures, hopefully subtly. River came an offsuit 2, improving hands like 65, 55, I checked and he pushed for 11.6. I decided at this point to put him on JTs, QJs type of hands or perhaps 66, 77, 99, TT, JJ as he shoved very quickly. Getting 2.5 to 1 I called, though it's very close, I also discounted hands like AQ AK and A4 A3 which were a part of his range on the turn, so let's not think this river card was TOO terrible. He had 888.

Then I headed upstairs for the 10k hu. They had the most idiotic table assignment system imaginable. There were 110 entrants, and maybe 20 first round byes. Instead of simply creating a bracket and letting us look at it, they had 110 degens lined up like highschool graduation to listen as they announced each match individually in monotone. Zzzzzzzzz. Also, in a miraculous coincidence 19/20 (or 1 less than the total, I forget the exact number) of first round byes were given to various live pros of differing significance. Sure seemed like a hundo in the right place could net you +10k equity, though this is of course completely unsubstantiated and is a conspiracy theory. I was lucky enough to not even be assigned a table, such is my stature in the live poker community. After finding my opponent we convinced the tournament staff to give us one.

My opponent was Jason Griffin, who I believe is a live-pro playing 10/20 and 20/40 at the commerce. Not surprisingly he folded quite a bit too much preflop and called too much postflop, but otherwise played reasonably solidly. The match went back and forth and we eventually got all the way to the 500/1k blind level with 20k starting stacks, which actually remained 20k stacks. He limped in for 1k, and I made it 3k instead of jamming with KQo. He called and the flop came 732r. I knew he was getting it in with any pair or draw, and occasionally bluffing and so thought bet/folding or calling would leave me in a terrible spot. I checked and he checked behind pretty quickly. The turn came an offsuit queen. I thought for a bit and checked as I thought he would put me on ace high at best as the match up to this point had been playing very straightforward and I had been aggressive, caught jamming over his limp with Q6o for 10bbs, etc. He bet 4k pretty quickly and I called med-quick. River was some blankish card, an 8 maybe and I checked. He jammed quickly again, I of course snap and won against T6hh, boo-yah!

My next opponent was The Grinder, along with his entourage of maybe 10 friends who hung out on the rail talking sht. I booked a 5k sidebet with one of them pre-match to spice things up a little. The first hand I misplayed kind of badly, Michael 3bet my open with 98dd to 1500 with 20k stacks. I decided to call and float some flops. KT7 one diamond, he bet I floated. Turn was something random, a ten I believe and he bet some tiny amount I think 3k into 7k or so. I called again. River was a blank and checked. I probably should have checked here as I need him to fold hands like AJ AQ 22-66, 7x, which I'm not sure he will. I bet 3600 as I had no showdown value and he tank-called with 97o. NH Grinder I guess. He won a bunch more pots grinding me down to 8k or so when I won a flip 55 vs AJ aipf. I stole a few more pots and got my stack up to 21k, opened KJs otb at 200/400 and Grinder made it 2k (over my 800). I called. Flop came J74ss I believe, grinder made a med-sized bet, but a big bet for him as he had been min bettng and just generally making tiny probing type bets all match, mostly with weaker hands. I called. Turn was an offsuit queen and he bet med again. This was actually kind of a tough spot as I thought he was likely semibluffing this card a ton, but not necessarily betting weaker jacks or hands like 88-TT but what can I do but call? River was a king and he bet 4500 or so. I jammed and he thought for easily 10 minutes, drawing a crowd of maybe 20 people to the rail. I decided to do the stoic stare at the table thing as he seemed pretty intent on eliciting tells all match. He did all the live pro tricks, clanking chips to see if my eyes darted, fake moving in or betting in different spots, stacking and unstacking. Finally he called with Kx.

My third match was against Vivek, Psyduck of 2p2 fame. I expected him to be a bit overaggro in certain spots, and perhaps to play overly ABC. I'm not sure if I was right. This was my third tough match of the day, starting at 11pm...