Matthew Hilger's Poker and Life

95K at end of Day 1

2010-07-08T11:33:00.000-05:00

Follow link for summary of my Day 1 action.

start play again on Friday.

WSOP Time!

2010-07-06T11:15:00.000-05:00

I didn't play much during my last two weeks in Colombia. I did go the casino and played a tournament with 65 people. Great to see poker going strong in Medellin!

I start the Main Event on Wednesday. I'll be tweeting updates. For the few who live in another world, just go to my tweet account and follow me, add mobile, and you'll get my text updates straight to your phone.

Tough day at the office

2010-06-20T19:56:00.000-05:00

losing days happen, but it sucks when you really feel on top of your game. I was really pleased with how I played today. I felt like Hellmuth - dodging bullets only to bounce back again. I really was on top of my game...folding flushes, losing the minimum with big hands, inducing bluffs, making the right calls with medicre hands. But some really tough luck today in key pots. AK loses to AQ, Ak loses to A7, Kk loses to AA. i lost a few coin flips in pretty decent sized pots as well. I would have been top 50 at FTP with 1800 remaining if I had won AK vs AQ.

On well, that is the way it goes.

In other news, Go New Zealand! They tied Italy today 1-1.

yea - a win!

2010-06-18T01:30:00.002-05:00

I won the Bodog 10K, $3K for first place. Had another small cash tonight as well, so cashed in 2 of 8 tourneys. Up $2,300 for the night. I'm pretty much making a final table about every night I play.

Visit to Colombianitos

2010-06-16T10:19:00.001-05:00

Diana and I had a great visit to Colombianitos. Probably my favorite in terms of interaction with the kids. We went with Diana's sister and her fiance from Belgiam who is a very good soccer player. We arrived right when they were about to begin practice for the 10-12 year olds.

First,we met the two new children that Diana and I are sponsoring - Yubiseli and Julian. The child we sponsored before has now graduated and so we asked Colombianitos to be able to sponsor both a girl and boy in Medellin. By sponsoring a child for $25/month, they get all the uniforms and supplies they need to attend school. We brought each one of them a t-shirt and it was great to actually meet them in person.

After that, they started practicing and I asked the coach if Robert and I could play with the kids. They had 3 different scrimmages going on and Robert and I got to play in all three of them. The kids were soooooo excited. I felt like a celebrity as they surrounded both of us, asking lots of questions. All the children were smiling, laughing, and just showed a lot of curiousity in who we were. Afterwords, as we were walking to the offices, Diana was surrounded by all the girls asking lots of question. It was great fun and always a pleasure to see these children who have very little in terms of money and material things, but who still manage to love life like they do.

The sad part is that our of 350 children in the Goals for a Better Life program in Medellin, only 29 are sponsored. The other 320 children are responsible for getting the supplies and uniforms they need for school. The waiting list of children in need of sponsorship is quite long.

I big shout-out goes to the cover designer of Peak Performance Poker, Per Arne Dahl, aka Primitive in the ITH forums for donating his cover design fee to Colombianitos. I wish I had tracked all the money ITH'ers have donated to Colombianitos over the year, both through ITH and on their own as it is in the thousands of dollars. Just another example of what a great community ITH is.

So on to poker, I played last night, finishing 3rd in one tournament and bubbling another. I lost AK to A3 and JJ to A8 to go out in 3rd, otherwise had a great chance to win. Unfortunately, I lost $250 on the night as the tourney I cashed in was the small $50 turbo at Cake. I think I've final tabled Cake now in about 1 in 3 or 4 tournaments I've player there so far this month. Still waiting on my win though!

Back to the tables

2010-06-10T23:14:00.000-05:00

Cashed in 1 in 6. Finished 72nd in the Pokerstars nightly, which paid 72 people - woohoo! :). Got paid $330 so I ended up losing $400 for the night. I made some sick calls tonight - 2 of the 3 of them were right on. overall, pretty card dead for most of the night. So for the month, 5 sessions, up $2,100. I probably won't be playing until next Tuesday.

Had an interesting meeting this week with the owner of Colombiapoker.net. I'm going to be giving away some of our Spanish books in their live tourneys they run here in Medellin on Saturdays. I plan on playing it a week from this Saturday which should be fun.

Peak Performance Poker goes to print next week!

Another Final table, but...

2010-06-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

I lost $750 for the night. I played 6 tourneys tonight and a winner take all satellite for $500 entry into Bodog WSOP tourney. I finished 2nd..boo. I finished 7th in the Cake $100. I really like these Cake tourneys. The structure is great and I get to practice a lot of final tables. I feel like my game is getting stronger and I'm much more confortable now late in tourneys than I used to me.

Oh well, I'm going to win one of these.

For the month, I'm up $2,450 over 4 nights.

Sunday tourneys

2010-06-06T23:28:00.000-05:00

Another profitable day and another Top 3 at Cake. I played 9 tourneys today and cashes in 3, with a 3rd place finish at Cake $100 buyin. I also cashed in the Stars Million which is pretty exciting for me as I haven't done that in a long while. Overall profit for the day was $700.

As always, I'm a little disappointed in my 3rd place finish. I had two tough competitors. One with a similar style as myself, and another who was basically running over the two of us. We had 60 big blinds though and I kept telling myself to stay patient, but the guy kept 3-betting, raising big preflop, and betting pot - not the kind of poker I like! I like small pots! So it was tough and I ended up losing my patience on last hand.

I limped A5s on button 3-handed with 1500-3000 blinds. I had about 180K. He raised to 19K or so and I called. Flop was KT2s. He bet half pot, something he normally doesn't do so I thought he might be weak, but of course that was wrong. He was weak all those times he bet pot! I floated him. The turn was the 3c. So now I have all kinds of outs. But of course, now he bets pot. Again, I start thinking maybe he is pushing me off the hand, I have a ton of outs, so I push. He turns over KQ and tourney done.

I hate losing 60 big blinds like that. I kept telling myself to be patient with all those blinds, but didn't. I should have picked a better spot. Maybe the turn wasn't terrible, but that flop was not a good one to float. I'm going to have to think through some strategy for this type of player in the future.

Overall, played well today though and am up $3,200 since arriving in Colombia over 3 nights of poker, so can't complain.

2 more cashes

2010-06-02T23:43:00.000-05:00

Same lineup today except the Stars is a $330 on Wednesdays. I also played the $50 Stars at 9:30 so 7 tourneys tonight.

I finished 3rd in the Cake $100. Unlike last night, there weren´t a ton of suckouts and bad beats - just typical stuff mostly until the end. I made a pretty good call against chip leader when 3 were left who went allin with 2500-5000 blinds and I had 100K in chips (as well as my other opponent). He showed KQ which is pretty much what I put him on and maybe some small pairs. Unfortunately, the K fell on the river.

Cashed in the small Bodog tourney as well but busted in 18th as my trip Q's with A kicker lost to KK on a KQxQ board.

So once again, cashes in the little ones but I showed a $650 profit for the night so I'll take it.

Wrapped up a few things with Peak Performance Poker and sent it off to be typeset. We may get that book out in late July now.

I also sent Jeff back my comments on Parts I and II of APLO Volume II. Great stuff and a great complement to Volume I.

The kids are having a great time in Colombia and I've been quite productive with work, playing poker, and working out. I'm hoping to lose some more pounds while I'm here. Josh watched me play poker tonight and was quite interested and asking a lot of questions. Diana is still suffering from a hip injury but it's slowly getting better. I hope next week will be better for her as she needs some relaxation - our house is quite busy all day long!

Blog back to life

2010-06-02T10:35:00.000-05:00

I'm in Colombia visiting family this month and hope to play a lot of online poker, so I'm going to write brief daily updates of my results and maybe a few key hands. Will be a way for me to track my results and anyone else can follow if it interests them :)

At the same time, I'm also very busy working on upcoming publications. I'm in the process of preparing Peak Performance Poker by Travis Steffen for the printer. This book should be released in August.

Jeff Hwang has sent me the manuscript for APLO II: LAG Play. I'm in the process of reading it to give Jeff my feedback and hope to have that finished this month as well. Jeff also hopes to have the manuscript for APLO III: The Short-Handed Workbook complete by the end of the month. We are shooting for a September/October release of both volumes.

Finally, I received some initial files last night from Tony Guerrera for Tournament Endgame Strategy. So he is hard at work as well and we'll try getting that out in the Fall.

Winning Poker Tournaments Volume III is on hiatus during the WSOP. We have about 1/3 of the book done and hopefully we can finish it up in the Fall as well.

So on to poker. I'm only playing the main event this year due to my Colombia vacation so I'll be arriving in Vegas July 5th. In the meantime, I hope to brush up on my game as I haven't played at all in over a month and very little the last few months. So last night I played my normal "nightlies". These include:
Pokerstars $150
FTP $150 75K guaranteed
Bodog $50 10K guaranteed
Cake, $100, $150, and $50 turbo.

So six tourneys is about all I can handle. I'll likely play a few $100 rebuys this month as well when I'm feeling fresh to practice up against better competition. Sometimes I throw in the $50 at FTP and Stars at 9:30 EST depending on how I'm feeling.

Last night, I finished 6th in the Cake 1k turbo good for $300 and 2nd in the $150 Cake nightly good for $2,250. Typical of my results this year as I´ve ran really well in the small tourneys at Cake and Bodog, but haven't done well in the bigger tourneys at Stars and FTP. Split A-J vs A-9 in the Cake nightly, or otherwise would have had a 300K to 40K chiplead headsup. But I got a lot of lucky breaks, as well as getting some unlucky ones. Overall played quite well although I think my opponent outplayed me headsup - might need to play some headsup tourneys this month as well.

Stuff

2010-05-11T08:50:00.000-05:00

I've been busy on new books. Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time Volume II was released a couple of months ago. It has reached the #1 poker book spot at Amazon on several occasions and has consistently been in the top 3. In fact, one one day, Volumes I and II held the #1 and #2 spot.

In a couple of months we'll be releasing our next book, Peak Performance Poker by Travis Steffen. I've very excited about this book. It discusses the impact of fitness and nutrition on your stamina, energy level, cognitive processes, etc. The author also interviewed Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and others for some great quotes throughout the book. In a way, it is for the body like The Poker Mindset was for your mind.

I'm taking a summer vacation to Colombia this year so will only be playing in the main event at the WSOP. I plan on playing a lot online while in Colombia.

Big debate going on in the poker world about the use of sunglasses. Daniel Negreanu argues that some televised events should ban them. I agree. I think there are a few rules which should be implemented for TV tables:
1 - Any player to leave the table during a hand will have his hand folded. Otherwise, every player could stand up and hide somewhere so that their opponent can't get a read.
2 - Eliminate hoodies, sunglasses, etc. If everyone covers themselves up, the viewing is obviously not as interesting.

Be sure to join the Dimat Poker Books group at Facebook.

Won at Cake

2010-02-26T09:02:00.000-05:00

I won the 20K guarantee last night good for $4,700.

I feel really, really good about how I played. I made the money with one of the short stacks and was short-stacked at the final table for quite some time. Actually, I think I started chipping up with around 5 to 6 players remaining. Made good laydowns, timely bluffs, learned my opponents well (1 guy always min-raised with weakish hands so I 3-bet the heck out of him), and was patient.

One tough hand - I believe we were 4-handed and I was 2nd in chips. I raised the button with A-Q and SB - the chip leader - was overbet and put me all-in. I put him on a middle pair and likely would call in normal situation. But, there was a short-stack at the table so I risked going out 4th when 3rd was very likely, and I felt like I was in control at the table with a great structure. No need to gamble so I folded.

There was another hand where I had Ax, flopped an ace, and I put my opponent exactly on KK and was able to get good value on both flop and river (I checked behind the turn to gain a bet on the river) - I liked that hand.

Feels good to get back in the win column.

Winning Poker Tournaments Volume II is #1 poker book at Amazon

2010-02-23T07:45:00.002-05:00

Winning Poker Tournaments Volume II off to a good start.

The World Poker Travel Guide was also released in January.

I've been signing new book deals lately it seems like every month. I have signed a Brazilian company to the Portuguese rights of seven Dimat Books.

Upcoming releases:
Winning Poker Tournaments Volume III
Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha Volume II
Tournament Endgame Strategy
Untitled book on impact of fitness and diet on poker results
NL Tournament Strategy by Rizen - 2011
Meeting later today to discuss another potential project with an author

IP Poker Classic - Biloxi

2009-11-10T10:04:00.002-05:00

I've been busy working on books so I haven't been playing much lately. I did have a nice Wednesday night a couple of weeks ago with a 2nd and 4th place finishing netting me about 13K.

This past weekend I decided to go to Biloxi for a live tournament. As I've blogged before, there is nothing better than the excitement of a live tournament. The main event was a $3k event and had 43 entrants. It's not a big turnout, but it's Biloxi, :).

I had a tough starting table as I bought in late with the other "good" players who show up late. I think most of the satellite winners were at other tables. The tournament paid 4 players with $56K going to first. 14k starting stack, 50 minutes levels, we started at 25-50. Six players were knocked out before level 2 was over giving you an indication of the quality of play of some of the players. At the 100-200 level, I saw a guy with a 20K stack get all-in with AJ, after being check-raised on an AxxQ board. Having said that, there were also some very good players there. I would guess about 10 very good player, 10 more good player, 10 amatuerish players, and 10 players who had no business being there.

There were three key hands.
- Very early, limper, I limp 6-5 CO, button limps. 50-100. 4 players see the flop. K87. I bet 250, button raises to 700, I call. Turn is a 4x (putting two clubs on the board). Button bets 800, I CR to 2400, button calls. River is a Tc. I bet 4000, button calls with J-9.
- I fought my way back to a stack of about 13-14K. 200-400-25. UTG, loose player raises (he could have lots of hands here). Old-looking amatuer player who I was sitting with for about 15 minutes calls. I have JJ in Middle position. Taking the pot would increase my stack over 20%. I am way ahead of UTG range and I don't think the older guy is capable of slowplaying a big pair. I decide to raise, and to commite myself as I don't want UTG to 4-bet me and put me on a difficult decision. I raise to about 6 or 7 K. UTG folds and to my surprise, older guys goes all-in. In my mind, I had intentionally committed myself (to the UTG player), so I called. In hindsight, this was a mistake. I should have reevaluated the situation. It was obvious that my read on the older guy was wrong, and it only made sense with AA. I still had enough chips to make a comeback. I called. UTG player said he had a J. I hit a one-outer!
- Final table. 8 players left. As soon as we arrived at final table I started dominating play. I took my 30K stack up to 55-60K without showing a hand. 75K was the average stack. I 3-bet a few times and was raising more than my share preflop - I had a very loose image and the players were commenting about it.

I decided to switch gears and start playing tight. But I got dealt KK UTG so I raise again. I get two callers and take down the pot. A few hands later in hijack I get A-K. I raise to 5,500 and the big blind pushes all-in (he has about 80-90K. The BB was my biggest worry at the table. He was a very good player, loose, aggressive, with a lot of advanced plays in his arsenal. I insta-called and he shows T-7s and I'm out of the tournament when 7 flops.

Really a bummer as I was in control at the final table, would finally of had a healthy chip stack, and would have crippled my main opponent.

Nevertheless, was a fun trip and worthwhile. If I compare Biloxi and Tunica, it isn't even close...Biloxi is waaaay better. FYI - the Beau Rivage is like a mini-Bellagio. Seriously, it is a nice surprise.

Little blurbs on poker and life

2009-08-18T06:39:00.001-05:00

- My first-born started Kindergarten last week. Quite exciting seeing the little one go off on his own.
- We're very close to having Spanish translation of Dimat books ready. We should be offering those in the Fall.
- Diana and I are going on a cruise next week. Very excited for some time away from the kids and some true R&R!
- The cruise has PokerPro electronic tables on it. Can't wait to eat up the tourists at the tables! I believe they play $1-$2 NL.
- I'm finally getting back to productive mode. The month after the WSOP is always a little lazy for me.
- I have been playing more poker. I am going to try and play Wednesday and Sunday tournaments, with a little PLO cash games mixed in for a few hours each week. But in reality, I usually only end up playing about 50% of the time on Sundays as family things often come up.
- Go Dawgs!

Kids in need

2009-07-23T10:57:00.001-05:00

Some of you may or may not know, but I am board member of a non-profit organization called Colombianitos (little Colombians) based here in Atlanta, and due to the economic situation we have been facing we are struggling to keep these kids in school, off the streets and out of trouble. Currently, we are at risk of having to shut down one of our programs due to lack of funds.

Colombianitos recently won the first Unicef award of Beyond Sports, a true Global competition of how sport can be used for a social cause. The award was handed over by Lord Puttnam here his words: "On July 9th in London, Lord Puttnam, Ambassador for UNICEF UK, presented the first UNICEF Children’s Rights Award to "Goals for a Better Life" run by COLOMBIANITOS as part of the Beyond Sport Summit. The award recognizes the importance of sports as a tool for positive social change. Lord Puttnam proudly presented the award recognizing "Play is a right and sport is a fantastic tool for promoting and fulfilling children’s rights, as demonstrated by COLOMBIANITOS. We have seen sport lead to real change." Read more here: http://www.unicef.org, also here: http://www.beyondsport.org/the-summit/live/view.php?Id=16

If you would be so kind to adopt/sponsor a child, it would help us tremendously while changing a kid's life. You can click on https://www.colombianitos.org/en/sponsor_child.asp, it's only $25/mo to sponsor a kid!

Thanks! Matthew

PS. You can watch a short video on Colombianitos down below . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWBOgvdC7ZA

Main Event time!

2009-07-05T06:24:00.002-05:00

I leave today to play the main event of the WSOP. This is the time of year that I get really excited about poker. This is it - nothing beats the excitement of the main event. I always have a good bit of confidence going into this event. I've cashed 3 of 5 years, including a 33rd place finish. I know what it takes to cash in this event which gives me a big "experience" advantage. It also helps that I've been there, done that, so my concern is not on cashing but doing deep which helps me when other players become much more conservative and tentative. In the past, if I've survived Day 1, I cash. The first double up is always the most important.

However, the structure of the tourney is different this year. First, we are only playing 8 hours instead of 10. We also get 30,000 in chips to start rather than 20,000. About 5 in 6 players are surviving Day 1 this year compared to a little over half in previous years.

Over the first two days of the main event this year, the average stack at end of day is 37,000. So basically, this year more than any other, nothing is won on Day 1. I basically want to survive and would be perfectly content with a stack between 30 and 40K going into Day 2.

So I fly out today and arrive in Vegas around 2:30. I play tomorrow starting at noon Vegas time. I will be giving updates at www.twitter.com/mchilger.

i've cashed 3 times in this event - there are only two things missing - a final table and a win!

WSOP break

2009-06-25T16:47:00.003-05:00

Recently got back from the WSOP. I spent 13 days there and played 5 events, making one small cash (my 11th lifetime). I expect to cash about 1 in 7 tourneys or so, so my one cash is really all I can expect - unfortunately I need a deeper cash to make money so came home with a small loss. I won a smallish online tourney good for $4500 while I was there so that helped cover some of my losses.

More importantly, I feel like I am playing quite well and in total control of what I want to do. I did play poorly in one tournament and knew I shouldn't have even played, so live and learn. The next week when not feeling quite up to playing I made the good decision to just sit out that day.

I'm at home now enjoying time with the family. On Saturday we take a week vacation to the beach and then I fly back to Vegas for the main event. I'm really excited about THE BIG ONE this year. They are giving us 30K in chips rather than 20K so that gives players like myself who thrive in deep stacks a little advantage. Hopefully I can make a nice deep run this year and create some real excitement.

During all of this, Dimat released another book - Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha by Jeff Hwang. I'm very excited about this book and think it will come required reading by all PLO players. Available at Amazon or the ITH store.

Follow me at the WSOP via text messages

2009-06-05T14:00:00.000-05:00

The following is free and takes about 5-7 minutes to setup. You will receive text updates from me at the WSOP standard text message rates apply).

1. Register an account at www.twitter.com
2. Turn on your Mobile Phone via your Twitter account (Step 3 after you've registered)
3. You'll receive a text message verifying once your phone is setup.
4. Go to www.twitter.com/mchilger
5. Select Follow
6. After you've selected Follow, you will see Click Device updates. Click it and turn it to on.

You will now receive text messages from me via Twitter!

I'll be playing from June 9th to the 21st and then start the main event on July 6th.

Hoping for a good summer! Matthew

I'll be twittering updates at the WSOP

2009-05-31T19:55:00.001-05:00

http://twitter.com/mchilger

I play June 9th thru the 21st and then start the main event July 6th.

Getting Ready for the WSOP

2009-05-27T16:11:00.002-05:00

Haven't posted in a while. To be honest, I haven't played much the last couple of months so not a lot to talk about. However, I am trying to gear up for the WSOP and have been playing a little more online to get ready, and fortunately I've ran pretty good my last two sessions.

I played last Wednesday night and cashed in 3 of 7 tourneys. Unfortunately, just missed the final table in 2 of them so missed out on the big money. On Sunday, I cashed in 2 of 9 tournament, but more importantly, finished 2nd in the Bodog 100K guarantee good for 15K. Nice to get a little confidence boost right before Vegas.

My plans for Vegas this year are a little different than the past couple of years as I plan on scaling back on my schedule considerably. I'll be going out for two weeks to play preliminary events, coming home, and then going back out July 5th for the main event. I expect to play 8-9 events. I had originally planned on playing some limit events, but I might skip those now in favor of playing some deep stack events at the Venetian. I just haven't played much limit the last year so don't really feel on top of my game - it really just depends on how I'm feeling the day of those tournaments.

I reviewed the proofs today for Jeff Hwang's new book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha. It looks great and will start shipping June 12th.

Jeff Hwang cover contest for his next book

2009-03-12T12:03:00.002-05:00

As many of you know, we signed Jeff Hwang to publish his next two books with Dimat. The first, titles Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play should be coming out in the June/July time period. I've read through the draft and believe it will be required reading for all PLO players, and all Hold'em players looking to learn PLO (such as myself).

For those good at graphics, we are having a cover design contest for the book. See the details here:

http://www.internettexasholdem.com/poker-forum/advanced-pot-limit-omaha-cover-contest-vt62726.html

I'll be traveling to Tunica this weekend to play in a $2,500 tourney on Sunday so won't be playing online this Sunday.

My WSOP plans are tentatively to go to Vegas from June 9th to the 21st and play about 11 events or so. Then I'll fly home, visit with family, get some rest, before flying back out on the 5th for the main event.

Woot - I cashed in the Stars Million!

2009-03-02T11:16:00.003-05:00

I know, big deal...but my results have been terrible there. I've cashed 3 times since the beginning of 2008. Compare this to the FTP 750K tourney where I've had three top 20 finishes in that same time period plus another 5 or 6 other small cashes. I definitely prefer the FTP structure, but still, I've been really disappointed in my Stars results.

This cash was actually quite nerve-racking. They paid 1260 players, and there were 1261 players remaining, when the UTG big stack players raises to 9K. It is folded to me in the BB with TT. I haven't cashed in this tournament in several months and here I am thinking..beautiful, now I am going to bubble. I had a stack of 66K. The UTG has a wide range here trying to bully on the bubble so it was an easy push I think. He had AK and hit a K on the river. But we were now hand to hand, and the software was frozen, and then I found out that I actually finished 1251st so I got my cash, lol. So I finally cash, but on an unfortunate hand.

I finished 25th in the Cake tourney which was disappointing. I had a very weak table but went completely card dead.

On a better note, I'll be playing in the New Zealand Poker Championships in early April. This is a tournament I won back in 2002 so it will be fun to go back and see if I can get my title back.

Tourneys for a Month

2009-02-19T20:33:00.000-05:00

I recently spend six weeks in Colombia with my wife's family. We had an absolute blast. Joshua, who is 5, was speaking fluently by the end of the trip. Zachary, who is 3, has started saying some 3-4 word phrases in Spanish. They both understand Spanish completely. I also took them to swimming lessons every day for a month and Joshua was attempting all four strokes by the end of the month.

The great thing about Colombia, besides seeing my wonderful family, is that I get a ton of work done there and get to play a lot of poker. With so many people able to help out with the kids, I work a lot and play a lot of online poker at night. I played about 130 to 140 tournaments while I was there.

I am very happy with my results. All of these were fairly large tournaments, with the minimum number of entrants at about 180 all the way up to 10,000 entrants. The good news is that I won two tourneys and had two 2nd place finishes. If there is bad news, it is that my good places were in the lower buyin tourneys I played.

I finished first in the FTP 100K Holiday freeroll with 10,000 entrants (see my previous blog post). I finished 2nd to SBRounder in a tournament which won me 8K. I had a 2nd place finish in a $50 PokerStars deepstack tourney. I won a $50 tourney at Cake. I also went deep in several other tournaments so was really pleased with my overall results.

I also played a decent amount of PLO. I was editing Jeff Hwang's new book which we will be publishing this summer so spent some time at the tables. His book is fantastic. With practically zero PLO experience, his book made me feel comfortable immediately. I started at .25-50 limits and played up to $2-$4, with success at every limit. Unfortunately, I got a little bored one day and tried the $5-$10 tables only to lose everything I had won at PLO in one hour! lol. I lost several big pots for a total loss of $2,500. Of course, I only played one hour at that limit so I can't comment on my results, but i will say for the limited time that I played up to $2-$4 I felt very comfortable and saw my opponents make a lot of mistakes. I felt like with 1-2 months of experience I would be easily be a consistent winning player at PLO. His book is very easy to read and the concepts easy to understand, especially for an experienced Hold'em player. I'm pretty convinced that my cash game of choice going forward will be PLO.

As an aside, Jeff has finished the first draft of the manuscript which I have read in its entirety. he is wrapping up some edits and then we'll be sending to some experienced players to read for their feedback. It should come out in the summer, hopefully in the earlier part.

Future plans - Tunica tourney in mid-March, and the New Championships in early April (quite a trip!).

Won FTP Holiday, 10000 entrants

2009-01-05T10:28:00.002-05:00

I didn't play a lot of poker over the holidays but I am back in the saddle again. We are in Colombia visiting family and I get to play a lot of poker here since there is so much help with the kids.

Last week I won the FTP 100K Holiday freeroll. The tourney had 10,000 entrants, with 10K going to first. Definitely not my biggest payday, but beating 9,999 players is very cool!

I played again yesterday and played quite well. Even though I made a couple of mistakes, overall I am really pleased with how I am taking opportunities when I see them, while still being quite patient. In the Poker Stars $500 tourney, I was bombarded with quality starting hands yet I found myself losing half my stack. I stayed patient and eventually worked my way back only to bubble out very close to the money. It was frustrating, as I think I was playing quite well postflop to stay alive, and then misplayed a hand very close to the money. I am not sure it would have made a difference though, but a mistake is still a mistake.

I seem very focused and in control of what I want to do. There are fewer and fewer situations where I feel unsure of my preferred line of action.

Hopefully this is a good sign for a great 2009!

Montel Williams and some live poker

2008-10-28T09:03:00.002-05:00

I played in the World Poker Open this weekend in Tunica. Tunica and Biloxi aren't my favorite places in the world, but they are relatively convenient in terms of playing some live poker from Atlanta. You can fly to both, but I prefer the drive as I can just jump straight to my car after busting out.

The main event was a $5K buyin and they had 107 entrants. Clonie Gowen, Robert Williamson III, and Montel Williams were the known players in the field (Clonie is chip leader going into the final table).

I played with Montel on Day 1 as he amassed a big stack to become chip leader late on Day 1. He was hitting all kinds of hands. On one hand, with blinds of 150-300 and 25 ante, a player limped in middle position. I raise from the cutoff to 1700 with AK and Montel called on the button. I had been playing pretty tight. The limper folded.

The flop was AQ2. I bet 1600 and Montel raised to 4000. I called and the turn was one of the worst cards that could hit - a J. I checked and Montel put me all-in for another 7K or so. I lose against AQ, AJ, and 22. I win against AT or less. I learned later that Montel did call some raises quite loosely, but at that time I didn't know this. He had also put someone all-in earlier quite quickly in a similar fashion and showed a big hand. I folded. I built my stack back up to 17K after that hand (we started with 15K).

On another hand, a good player limped and I raised with KQs. The flop was Kxx, rainbow. I bet 2K into a 4K pot and he called. There were no likely straight or flush draws on the flop. The turn was a blank and we both checked. The river was a blank and he bet out 3K. Any 5 would give someone a straight. It looked like he was just begging for a call. I put him on a set as I don't think he calls me preflop with something like KJ. he might have had something like TT or 99 but I felt like he would have bet more on the river to try and get a hand like QQ to fold. So I folded that one also.

It was basically a struggle all day. I felt like I was playing good but kept hitting 2nd best hands which cost me chips. The field was down to 23 players after Day 1! Great tournament but I just couldn't get anything going.

My last hand came down to a draw where I had 87 on a flop of 754. It was a raised pot 5-handed where I got in cheap from the big blind. I check-raised all-in and found myself against JJ and didn't improve. i would have got up to 30K on that hand but to no avail.

That's the last of live poker for me this year. I've been busy the last few weekends so haven't played much online either but hope to get back into the Sunday tourneys in a couple of weeks.

Taking a Break

2008-09-24T10:11:00.002-05:00

I'm a little burnt out on poker right now so taking a break. Our weekends have gotten real busy between Joshua's soccer games and football (mainly the Dawgs). This pretty much takes up our Saturdays. I have been really excited the last couple of times I've played on Sundays and actually only played 4 tourneys, so it is probably just better to take a break a little while and enjoy my family on the weekends. I'll get back in the groove and get rejuvenated after a little break away.

I am quite busy with the publication business. I am finishing Internet Texas Hold'em 2nd edition this week and that book should be out in November. I've added some new chapters on multi-way pots as well as short-handed play. I actually think the two chapters on short-handed play are probably my best job at writing. I feel really good about them and received some great feedback from a few top players who reviewed the chapters. The book will end up being longer than the first book even though I have cut out some of the content about Internet-related topics. There are also updated Starting Hand charts as well as new Short-Handed Starting Hand Charts. Other than the new content, everything ought to read much better.

I should also be announcing next week a new author that will be writing two new books for Dimat, the publishing company I own and manage. This will be the fifth author that Dimat has published. I am really enjoying working with others on their books to help them make the best product possible. I believe that my publishing company is creating a nice niche for potential authors who are interested in very competitive royalty rates, good distribution, and an excellent product from book cover, paper, typesetting, and grammar and style. Winning Poker Tournaments is a great example of the type of product I hope we will consistently put out. The new author joining Dimat is an established author who will be a great addition to Dimat. I'll have more news on this next week.

I've also started reviewing some hands for Winning Poker Tournaments II which will come out in the Winter/Spring of 2009.

Catching Up

2008-09-03T09:56:00.002-05:00

The last month has been rather slow - still have the WSOP hangover but starting to get back into a routine. First some poker stuff. I've played a couple of Sundays. This past Sunday I finished 300 something in Sunday Millions. I was 2nd in chips with 1300 players left and then got very cold. My last hand I was slightly above average and simply donked off my chips with T-5. It was ugly.

I few weeks ago I finished 4th in the Cake 100K guarantee. I had a very good shot at winning the tournament. With 11 left, I lost AQ vs A3 which would have put me 2nd in chips. With 4 left I lost 4s 4c to Ad 3h on a board of Js 8s 5s. All the money went in on the flop so my opponent effectively had two outs. Still a nice payday - I love that Cake tourney.

Near the end of August I realized I was short on earning my poker Stars reload bonus so I played about 8-9 hours of short-handed at the 15-30 and 30-60 level. My game is rusty but I managed a nice 2K win for the week so was pleased with that.

I'm finishing up the 2nd edition of ITH, starting to review hands for Winning Poker Tournaments 2, and reviewing the draft of World Poker Travel Guide. So publication stuff is keeping me quite busy right now.

I was suppose to play in Biloxi this week but the hurricane ruined those plans. I'm now planning on going to Indiana in October for the WSOP circuit event.

Outside of poker- my son Joshua has his first soccer game this Saturday so we're really looking forward to that. Should be interesting as they've only had two practices.

Another Deep Run in the FTP 750K

2008-07-28T06:08:00.002-05:00

I had another deep run in the FTP 750K, but this time it was a very bittersweet ending. I was thinking just a few days ago that I haven't seemed to get big stacks early lately, and then boom, I was chipleader when we made the money in the FTP 750K and I was top 15 in chips or so in the 100RB.

I was simply super hot in the 750K. I just couldn't lose a pot. Once I got a big stack, my opponents continued to want to battle me as if they thought I was just pushing around my big stack, when in fact, I had some good hands most of the time. With about 800 players left, I went and made a post at ITH to let people know so they could rail me if they wanted. Of course once I did that I never had a higher chip count, lol. From that point, I had about 80-90K, I just sort of hung around 70-80K for a long time and then dipped to 50-60K. I got as low as 35K and then doubled up. But at that point I was well below average. Finally I was just so short-stacked I had to take some gambles. I don't think I gave away a lot of chips just because I was chip leader, it was just one of those cases where I couldn't get any hands and my opponents weren't shying away from me.

It was an interesting tourney in that I saw some of the worst play I have seen in quite some time during the early-middle stages. However, once there were 120 players or so I thought the play was quite good. It seemed much better than the play of the top 40 back in April when I won that tourney.

Despite the let down near the end, this was my 3rd top 100 this year in that particular tourney.

Over at Stars, I continue to run really bad there. I just always seem to take brutal beats over at Stars where at FTP I often run good. Not sure why that is but I hope it will turn around soon as I would really like to make some deep runs in the Sunday million. This week it was KK < QQ.

Overall, I feel like I have been running bad since May, which includes the WSOP. I am only cashing about once every Sunday in 9-11 tourneys. There ought to be some 2 and 3 cash days in there. I can't remember the last time I cashed 3 times which is quite frustrating. Yesterday, I had great opportunities in the 100RB at Stars as well as the 65K at FTP. At Stars, an opponent trapped me with QQ vs my TT by simply calling my late position raise. The flop was something like 876 and we got our money in on the flop.

On another note, I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about my publishing company and online sites. My first book came out five years ago! My site, ITH, started in the summer of 2003 and we are fast approaching 500,000 posts. With that in mind, I have been thinking about what things I have done really well from a business perspective, and what things haven't gone as well. With that in mind, I will plan on posting some type of Top 10 lists. For example, my 10 favorite accomplishments in terms of publishing. What are some of my favorite chapters that I have written? What are some of the best decisions I have made in terms of publishing (i.e. self-publishing)? What are my favorite things on the online side? It's important to reflect on your strengths to make sure that you don't stray from them and that kind of reflection will help me figure out where I want to go next. So right now just a teaser of some of the things I hope to write about over the next couple of months.

Back to the net

2008-07-14T07:40:00.002-05:00

Well, the WSOP is over. I had a disappointing year in terms of results, but I do feel like my game has improved and I feel quite confident in my play right now. So although I was going to take a little break, I couldn't resist some of the big tourneys this Sunday. Stars had over 14,000 entrants in their $200 tourney!

So first up, Stars $200. I get moved to a new table early on with the chip leader to my left. There is a limper and I limp with KJs. 100-200 blinds. Chip leader raises to $1K. The first limper calls. I can't know for sure, but I make the assumption that the chip leader (against 14,000 entrants), is a very loose player ready for action. I make the call figuring to get good action if I hit. Of course, sometimes I'll be against AA or AK, but I'm willing to gamble with a player who has a stack like he did. The flop is Jxx. We check to the chip leader who bets 2200 and I check-raise all-in for another 6-7K. He calls with TT and hits the T on the river. Right play, wrong result :).

In the $50, $50K guarantee, I lost set over set so not a whole lot I could do there. In the $200 Stars second chance, I lost to trips once again on a Q66 board. The middle raiser had 86 so played it a little tricky.

The FTP 750K guarantee tourney had some interesting hands. I've final tabled this tourney twice this year with one win so seem to do well in this one. I've also had a top 100 finish. I played the following hand against Keith Sexton, one of the FTP pros.

Seat 2: Keith Sexton (6,739)
Seat 5: ionlyplayAA (6,630)

60-120 Blinds. Sexton limps early. I limp 76 of diamonds in hijack. SB calls and BB checks.

Ad Td 8c. Checked around. With low end flush and low end straight draw, I'm content with taking the free card rather than start building a big pot.

Turn 9s. Sexton bets 480. I raise to 1,400. Secton calls time before eventually calling.

River 8h. Sexton bets 1,680. I fold.

I've never played Sexton before, but he seemed like a straight-forward player. He limps in early position. Many solid players will limp pairs, even AA. Most won't limp suited connectors in early position. Limping ATs is doubtful, but possible.

Sexton checks this flop, bets the turn, and then calls a significant raise. If he had Q-J, he would surely reraise the turn there given the heavy draw board. J7 isn't in his range, and 76 is highly doubtful. The only hand where he can call a raise on the turn is a set, possibly two pair, or a big draw - something like KJs. The board pairs and he bets half pot. He must put me on something big to raise the turn so I doubt he thinks I am going to fold the river. His bet just screamed strength. I folded as I don't see how he could have anything worst than a full house. There is a small bluffing range here, but I think it would be quite sophisticated for him to think he could get me to fold there so I didn't put the percentage very high.

Later, observer said to him well-played. He said thankyou. I said I folded straight. He said good fold. I believe him.

That hand ended up being quite valuable in terms of saving my chips. I had build a nice stack when I lost a 9200 pot with AK vs. AQ. This took me down to 1200 in chips or so. I would have been out of the tournament if I didn't save that river bet. I worked my way back up quickly close to a little below average stack. a late-middle player raised with a big stack. I felt like he was a little on the loose side and raising too frequently and decided to gamble with A-8 in SB. I reraised and he pushed allin- not enough that I could even consider folding. He shows KQ and I lose a 25K pot and go out in 630th position - they paid 585. Boo :).

At UB, I lose KJ allin from middle position vs Q2 where a big stack in big blind was getting 1.4 to 1 pot odds to call. Not terrific pot odds for him but his hand took down the pot. I cashed in 40th place or so.

I also cashed at Cake in 30th spot or so. I was 2nd in chips at one point but lost a couple of disappointing hands. QQ < 44 and AK < KT - both for decent size pots. My last hand was a tricky one. Everyone was playing quite tight. I raised A-8s from early position, next player called and every folded. Flop was JTx giving me the nut flush draw. I bet out and opponent put me all-in with AJ. I got my money in bad and lost the flush draw.

Finally, I got to turn the tables a little. In 100RB, I won a big 68K pot with A-9 vs QQ when I tried a resteal against a late position raiser. I was below average on the bubble - 47 players left, paying 45, when following hand came up. Button limped. I called in SB with 75 and big blind checked. Flop was J55. Button bets and I push allin. He calls with J-9 and board runs J559J. I bubble.

So two cashes and two more close cashes. Unfortunately, no deep runs and I lost $700 in 9 tournaments. Very disappointing results, but overall I was very pleased with my play, especially early on. I'm not quite sure about the A-8s hand where I busted at Cake, but otherwise very pleased with my play.

I won't be playing next week as taking a vacation to Boston with my wife - the one American city that I really want to see that I haven't yet seen.

After Hours - a crazy little comedy

2008-07-01T10:48:00.002-05:00

I just watched a film I had never heard of - After Hours, directed by Martin Scorcese. If you think you've had a bad day or think you are running bad at the WSOP :), give this little flick a watch to change your perspective. The movie is basically about this kind of nerdy guy who gets himself into one bad situation after another after he meets this girl he met in a coffee shop. The movie takes place in just one night. I had no idea what to expect while watching but found myself laughing out loud towards the end as the situations just kept getting more and more absurb and ludicrous. Think you've had a bad day - watch this movie.

The WSOP is wrapping down now. I have the Limit Shootout today and then play the main event on Friday.

WSOP trials and tribulations

2008-06-18T15:19:00.002-05:00

Playing poker tournaments is a tortuous profession. I feel like I am playing the best poker of my life, yet I have nothing to show for it except for eight straight losses. We poker players have to be masochists for enduring the frustrations day after day. The fact is, the average player cashes slightly less than 10% of the time. This means a pro does well to cash once every 7-8 tournaments. The fact that I have yet to cash in 8 tournaments is frustrating, but it is hardly outside the norm of what to expect. We're all obviously very competitive people, yet we lose time after time again.

Why do we do it? It is the pursuit of victory. Once you taste victory once, you want it again and again. When running bad, what drives you is the memory of victory. I've had some great memories at the WSOP and I want more of them, and of course I want that bracelet. I hope some day soon I will achieve what I am striving for and all of the agony will be worth it.

This past week had been especially excruciating. On Saturday, I was involved in a huge pot which would have put me near the chip leaders after 4 hours of play. I was a 4 to 1 favorite and lost. On Sunday, I had a chance to double up early but again lost as a 4 to 1 favorite. On Tuesday, I lost a coin flip to put me significantly above average. Yet I feel very good about my play. I'm making good reads and calls. My timing on steals and resteals seem to be spot on so far. The fact that I am playing well keeps me motivated. In fact, I think I am probably playing the best poker of my life so I really feel like something good is going to happen, and hopefully soon.

Can't wait for this weekend! On another note, I just got word from my printer that the new book has shipped. Shipments to customers should start going out early next week.

Bad decision

2008-06-05T08:42:00.002-05:00

I felt like I had been playing quite well in Series so far - right up to the last 30 minutes last night. I started out a little above average after dinner break. I had about 35 big blinds so lots of room to play.

The first key hand the cutoff opened for 1800. The blinds were 300-600 with 75 antes. I had 99 on the button. I felt like this player was capable of 4-betting weak. I felt like he thought I might make a move on him, and I knew he was capable of making a move back at me. Still, I thought hard about 3-betting there, but if I reraise and get called, anything I do on the flop would represent a huge part of my stack. I decide to call with my position, getting odds to hit a set while also still being able to play postflop and take the hand down.

The flop was T62. My opponent checked, I bet 2600, and my opponent raised to 6200. Wow, what to do now? I could push - but would only get called by better hands. I could call, but then what do I do on the turn? Or I could just take the wimpy route and fold. I folded, although I think there is still a good chance I had the best hand here. I think most of the time he bets out an overpair there, so there is a decent change he just put me to the test and it worked. But tough hand as I really don't know the opponent very well as I was new to the table.

The next key hand I raised from early position with 55. The big blind pushed all-in. I was getting 1.9 to 1 pot odds to call. I had seen her push A-Q earlier. 55 against a range of 88+, AK and AQ is about 2 to 1. So a close decision. The problem is that if I lose the hand my stack is crippled and gives me little room to play so I take the conservative route and fold to give myself some wiggle room.

But frustration creeps in...

A couple of hands later, I raise to 1600 with A-Qs UTG. A very loose middle position player calls and the next player reraises to 6200. Whoa! This player didn't seem like someone to try a squeeze play, plus I had raised UTG. Where were my bells and whistles going off! This was the 2nd best hand I had received all day and I was frustrated about the previous 15 minutes. I knew I was behind, but was I getting pot odds. If I call, I have another 5K in chips left. Let's count the pot - 1600 (blinds and antes) + 1600 +1600 +6200 plus another 5K if I push and my opponent calls. That's 16K and I have to 9600 which is 1.7 to 1 pot odds. For some reason, in the heat of the moment I thought it was closer to 2 to 1 - a mistake as I remember thinking my opponent would be adding another 10K to the pot when it was only actually 5K.

A-Q versus JJ+ and AK is 2.3 to 1. If you add 99+ then I'm 2 to 1. Still not good enough. I did actually think my opponent was figuring out whether he had pot odds to call with a pair, so I was thinking there was a better chance he had JJ or TT vs. some other hands - but maybe that was just wishful thinking.

I still would have had 10K left but got frustrated and put my chips in bad when I should have known better. It turns out that I was 2.4 to 1 dog with only 1.7 to 1 pot odds. Not a good situation and I was knocked out.

I am not sure I will be playing today. I am expecting the proofs back from the printer for the new Rizen, Pearljammer, Apestyles book and need to get them reviewed as soon as possible.

I will definitely be playing the Limit event on Friday.

$1500 NL Event Sunday June 1st

2008-06-01T18:04:00.002-05:00

I was knocked out in the 2nd hour. Two key hands:
50-100 blinds. Folded to SB who limps. I raise to 400 with A-Q and he calls. Flop is Jxx. He hesitates, reaches for chips, then checks. Weak!!! But I check with the intention of taking the pot on the turn. The turn is a 9. He bets 600, I raise to 1500, and he folds. Nice pick-up.

50-100 Early limper. Middle raises to 400. I have 2850 in chips in SB with AK. Awkward stack size for out of position with A-K. I elect to push and my opponent calls with A-Q. The spikes a Q and I'm out for the day.

Tomorrow I play the 1500 PL event.

Be sure to check out my WSOP podcast with updates during every break at www.InternetTexasHoldem.com

WSOP time!

2008-05-29T21:48:00.001-05:00

I leave for Vegas tomorrow. I won't be posting much during the series but I will be doing a Podcast during every break to keep people up-to-date on how I'm doing. You can find my podcast on the home page of my blog or at www.InternetTexasHoldem.com. Also at ITH, you can hear Rizen's and Pearljammer's blog during the series.

Winning Poker Tournaments by Rizen, Pearljammer, and Apestyles

2008-05-23T06:33:00.008-05:00

Winning Poker Tournaments - One Hand at a Time by Eric "Rizen" Lynch, Jon "Pearljammer" Turner, and Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet will start shipping in late June. This is the 4th book I have put out with Dimat Enterprises, a publishing company I founded. My first two books were solely written by me, the next one, The Poker Mindset, was a collaboration with Ian Taylor. Really though, that was his book and I just helped guide him from start to finish while writing it. This new book is a stepping stone for my publishing company as I am now starting to publish other poker authors. Of course, the plan is to maintain a certain brand and quality with all the books Dimat puts out and I am really proud of this book. There is no doubt in my mind that players are going to really love this book.

The book looks at over 170 hands in depth. It is a huge book. It will be 6 x 9 format with 400+ pages. But it is the quality which I believe everyone will be talking about. If all goes to plan, the book should start shipping June 23rd. You can preorder at Amazon or at ITH (the quickest): Preorder Book at ITH

This will probably be my last post for a while, however, I will be calling in to my podcast during the WSOP for frequent updates. You can find the podcast at my blog or at ITH.

Good Sunday

2008-05-19T05:56:00.002-05:00

Well, not really - but I feel really good about how I played. I actually think it is the best I've played in quite some time (forgetting my Cake Poker blunder where I only saw two suits on the flop, not three). I only played 6 tourneys yesterday compared to my usual 10.

In 4 of them, I played down close to the money. I came quite close to winning a seat to the WSOP, finishing 49th and 36 seats were awarded. i was pretty much short-stack to average stack the entire time in all four tournaments. I had a hard time getting things going, but when I did have cards, it seemed that my decision making and timing were spot on. I made some really nice calls as well as some nice folds - some of them plays I probably wouldn't have made six months ago. I think I am really starting to understand the advanced online player better, and thus, am able to make better reads and outplay them more frequently.

This is probably the last time I will play until the WSOP. Every year I feel more confident and better prepared than the last, but this year I think the difference is quite substantial. Working with Eric, Pearl, and Apestyles, while also playing a lot myself online has done wonders for my game.

Vegas time baby!

The Sunday tease

2008-05-05T05:21:00.003-05:00

After my big win last Sunday in the FTP750K, I was ready and excited to play again on Sunday. The day started with a bang. At one point, I was 2nd in chips in the FTP WSOP satellite with about 12K in chips, I would have been top 40 in the Sunday Millions with 3 times the avg stack of 28K except my aces lost against J3s, and I built a stack up to 12K in the FTP750K. In fact, I actually built nice stacks in practically every tournament I was in. I'm pretty sure that I at least doubled up in about 7 of the 10 tourneys I was in.

With such a great start in so many tournaments, it is baffling that I didn't cash in one. In fact, I didn't get close to cashing. To fall so hard I had to suffer some pretty bad beats. The J3s hand was probably the worse but there were plenty of other bad ones. If anyone wants a good site to play at, try Cake poker. My opponent called a big checkraise on the flop with a gut shot and 2 undercards on the board and the stacks were relatively short - just a horrendous call and unfortunately he was rewarded for his mistake by hitting a 3-outer.

My buddy Rizen knocked me out at Poker Stars. It was a race with my AQs vs his 99, but the gods wanted to punish me and let me flop a pair only to see Rizen hit his 9 on the river.

I did misplay some hands, particularly in the 100RB event where I misplayed aces. A horrific turn card came and I couldn't drop my hand when my gut told me I should. There were a couple of other tourneys where I got my money in bad.

It was all one big tease. Build up some really nice stacks only to see them all fall.

I won't be playing next Sunday as it is Mother's day so I hope to be back in the saddle in a couple of weeks.

I won the FTP 750K!

2008-04-28T16:23:00.001-05:00

Last Fall I made a conscientious effort to start playing more online - specifically on Sundays. I've probably been playing 2-3 times a month since last August. That may not sound like a lot to the regular online pros, but that is a lot more than I have played since 2003. For the regular readers of my blog, I've had lots of good deep runs, but would frequently finish just short of the "real" paydays. Now all that effort has finally resulted in a big win.

I won the FTP 750K good for $132K. There were a little over 3500 players in the event. I have done particularly well in this specific tournament. I've probably played in it 9-10 times this year and now have 3 top 100 finishes, 2 final tables, and one win. The other final table I finished 6th good for $26K. It is fun to finally have broken through and won one of these really big tournaments.

It is my biggest poker win to date. My 2nd was for 80K in the 2004 WSOP when I finished 33rd. My biggest online win before this was for 29K last year when I won one of the Poker Stars nightly tourneys.

I checked my online ROI a couple of months ago and it was about 75%. This win should make it skyrocket! I don't play nearly as often as the online pros do, but I am pretty happy with the success I have had in the limited number of tournaments I am playing.

I think there is no question that working with Rizen, Pearljammer, and Apestyles has been a tremendous help to my game. I feel like I have improved my game every year, but every year I never have played as much as I would like and I've always felt a little "rusty". But this last year has been different. I am playing at least once every couple of weeks, while at the same time I have been in constant dialogue with the 3 guys on the Hands book. The discussions I have had with them have definitely helped my game out,as well as perusing in detail what they have written for the book. It just takes a few little tricks here and there to have a dramatic impact on your results.

I'll post later this week a little more details about my win and some of the hands.

I'm ready for it to be Sunday again!

Cover Design Contest for Pearljammer, Rizen, and Apestyles book

2008-04-25T05:53:00.005-05:00

We are getting very close to completing the first volume of the hands book. If any of you are interested in trying to design a cover for the book, go to this link to the ITH poker forum to get details. I am awarding $300 or a $300 stake into his WSOP winnings to the winning design.

My daughter Isabel!

2008-04-23T13:45:00.003-05:00

Well, I know I haven't posted in a while. Isabel Teresa Hilger was born April 2nd, coming in at 7 lbs 20 inches. Both mother and daughter are doing great.

I've played once since the birth so haven't had much time for posting.

It has been fun seeing my 4 and 2 year old boys react to Isabel. They are very excited and truly love her, although Joshua keeps asking when Isable will be big enough to play with him

It is getting close to WSOP time and I'm starting to get excited. Thanks to my friend Rizen, who also has a blog, I've discovered podcasts. I'll be calling in updates every break during the WSOP so make sure you subscribe to my podcast before June to keep up with what I hope will be my breakthrough summer.

Latest update on Rizen, Pearljammer, Apestyles book is approximately a June 15th to 2oth release date.

My new Podcast

2008-04-22T06:13:00.002-05:00

My buddy Rizen has enlightened me to the ease and magic of gcast, which allows anyone to easily publish a podcast by making simple phone calls. I'll be using this podcast primarily to give updates this summer during the World Series of Poker, but may also call in from time to time on other things. You can find my podcast at my blog, or I will have it up at ITH right before the WSOP.

ITH Born

2008-04-03T22:31:00.002-05:00

Isabel Teresa Hilger was born April 2nd at 2:58 PM. She came into the world at 7 lbs and 20 inches. Both mother and daughter are doing great. I'm hoping the next few months goes just like the last 24 hours - Isabel has been fantastic. She barely cries, is on a good schedule, and feeding well. She has a full head of very black hair. I think she has her mother's nose. Most importantly (at least for Grandma and Mom), she has very long eyelashes.

Not running good

2008-03-30T21:02:00.002-05:00

I haven't done very well the last few Sundays. On Saturday, I had a couple of hours to blow and played a 5-table $50 sitngo. 45 players and I take it down. I got so lucky towards the end. I'm waiting to get lucky like that when the real bucks matter!

Today, I literally got knocked out at the same time in the two biggest tourneys of the day. I have pretty good emotional control but that's a hard swipe at the same time!

I did run very deep in the Cake WSOP satellite. Unfortunately, I finished 6th and they gave away 3 seats. I was awarded $720 for my efforts. I went out with KK vs A9s. I raised UTG 25% of my stack and the SB with a big stack pushed me allin. I'm a little surprised by his move as he had such a big stack and could just coast into 3rd place without taking big risks. Cake by far has the fishiest tourneys on the web. The players overall are just very bad.

I played 9 tourneys today and am mentally exhausted. I just don't see how some of these guys play over 20 in a day.

Still waiting for the baby :). I may not be playing for a while which could be a good thing given how crummy I have done lately.

Good vibes

2008-03-27T08:38:00.003-05:00

You know how you sometimes just wake up and feel great. This is one of those days.

I think the main reason is that we are now finally ready and prepared for our new arrival in the next couple of weeks - Isabel. Last night I picked up my mother-in-law from the airport and she is really the last piece of the puzzle in having the house organized and ready to go have our baby.

I have been working my ass off the last month with the main objective of getting work stuff done before Isabel's arrival. I don't think I announced this before, but Albert, my good friend and Operations Manager of my website, left the company at the end of February. I am now back to managing the day-to-operations. It is adding a lot more work to an already hectic schedule, but I must say that I am enjoying it. I was really worried as I have been separated from the day-to-day operations for quite some time now and wasn't sure if I would be motivated in getting back into the details.

But the fact is, I love this stuff. I love ITH, I love the website, I love the business side of things and I'm having fun even though it is a lot more work. We have been making a lot of small little modifications to the site and most of them are now complete.

I have also worked hard on getting the hands book draft finished so that the copyeditor can get busy. He is busy and most of my part is finished. Between those two things, I feel good about the business side of things and finally feel "relaxed". Now I can concentrate on our little baby's arrival and enjoy the moment. But I'm sure after those first couple of weeks, it will be full-steam ahead as I crank out the book cover, typesetting, and printing of the book as well as move ahead with some other ideas I have for the websites.

Speaking of websites, we just launched www.winewonks.com, a sister site to www.pokerwonks.com. You can see what my two favorites pasttimes are :). I love blogging and I am excited about both pokerwonks and winewonks and what they could do in the future. One thing we have planned is to expand beyond blogs and allow people to post articles, videos, and pictures.

So,
ith - ready
winewonks - ready
hands book - more or less ready
house organized - ready
reinforcements arrived - yes! (my mother-in-law)

It's time to have a baby!

ITH to be born soon!

2008-03-25T16:58:00.002-05:00

Just a coincidence, our daughter, Isabel Teresa Hilger, will be born soon. I say coincidence because her initials are ITH. My first book and website are commonly known as ITH and now the same will be for my first daughter.

I haven't played much poker lately. Last Sunday my wife wasn't feeling very good so I watched the boys. The week before, I did get to play on Sunday, but missed the earlier tourneys and started at 6 with the FTP 750K. I final tabled the 100RB at Stars, but fell short in 9th place. I was chip leader with 11 players left and then was knocked out within one orbit in a string of hands.

The first I was in the SB with A3 and it was folded to me. My opponent had an M of 6. My thinking was if I pushed, I would only be called by better hands. If I limped, I might induce worst hands to make a move. The problem with that thinking is that my hand isn't that much of a favorite over any hand. I didn't really want to be involved in a big hand vs KJ for example. My opponent's stack size was really awkward for my hand no matter what I did. He pushed with A8 and I called and lost.

A few hands later I raise from middle with 99. The BB, a very loose and aggressive player reraises me practically all-in. I call, we get it allin on the flop and my opponent hit a Q with AQ.

2 hands later, an opponent raises before me, I RR with AKs, and some guy pushes over me with 77. I was practically pot committed so I can only assume that he thought I was on tilt, but even then I am not sure I understand his play. He won the race and I was out. Very, very disappointing finish as I thought I had a great chance at winning that one.

With the baby due soon, I'm not sure how much poker I will be playing. I am working hard on my websites and books trying to get everything organized before the baby arrives. The hands book is still on schedule for a late May release, but it might run into June.

Cooler Day

2008-03-10T08:02:00.002-05:00

I had an incredibly frustrating day yesterday in the Sunday tournaments, striking out in all of them. It was one of those days where I just had a lot of really good 2nd best hands. QQ vs AA, set vs straight, trips vs straight, etc. It's frustrating to lose so many hands where I am behind, as you start to question yourself, but I think in most of them they were simply coolers hard to get away from them. And in all of them, I never sucked out on anyone. I really don't recall in 10 tournaments winning a significant hand where I was behind.

This week I'll be trying to wrap up the draft for the Hands book. One section is already in our copyeditors hands and hopefully I'll get him the rest by the end of the week. The goal is to have everything wrapped up by the end of the month as we are expecting a new baby around the beginning of April. Then in April and May I will wrap up All About Limit Hold'em, which is practically already finished, but the Hands book has taken priority for now. That will keep me busy until WSOP time. After the WSOP will we start wrapping up Hands, Volume II. Sometime in the Fall I hope to have a nice rest.

Home game and Omaha

2008-03-07T09:58:00.002-05:00

I have been very busy the last couple of weeks working on the Pearl/Ape/Rizen book, so I haven't been playing much. However, I did get a game together at my house last Saturday night with a bunch of buddies. I think there was 8 of us and we played $.50-$1 NL. None of these guys are serious poker players except for Albert so it's more just an excuse to get together and drink a lot. For the first time in a long time, I finally managed to win in a home game winning about $100. I drank way too much, but I think I played very good laying down a lot of 2nd best hands. My only mistake of the night was when an opponent overbet the river by 3x pot and I just knew he was weak but folded my 2nd pair. He showed a complete bluff. You have to trust your instincts!

This week was PL Omaha week in the ITH Forums. A bunch of us decided to give a "new" game a try. I have played very, very little Omaha so know little about the game. The outs and odds give me a headache. But I did manage to win big both nights. We played .25-50 with a $50 buyin. I won $60 the first night and about $200 the 2nd night! It is a fun game but would take a lot of effort on my part to develop my skills and I just don't have the time right now. Maybe someday I'll put some effort into learning that game really well.

I do plan on playing Sunday and am feeling a little better health-wise so I hope I can have some great results.

By the way, we are working hard on the Hands book to hopefully get it out in late May.

A horrendous but profitable Sunday

2008-02-25T07:33:00.001-05:00

I haven’t posted in the blog for a while. First, I’ve been sick. Second, I haven’t played a lot of poker. I almost didn’t play yesterday as I wasn’t feeling great, but decided to do so anyhow for better or worst.

I was sitted at Raymer’s table in the PS Million $500 tourney. One interesting hand early in the tourney. Raymer raises early, a middle player calls and I am next to act with KK. I am thinking about what to raise, if I should, how much to raise, and then boom – I folded my hand because of a timeout. I am so used to PS kicking in the timer that I forgot it doesn’t do that before the flop unless you have money invested in the pot. Ouch – not a good start.

I then made a boneheaded play in the UB $200 event and decided this wasn’t going to be my day. I decided to cut my losses and I unregistered all of the events I had planned to play and would just enjoy the night with my family until I doubled up in the $50 buyin tourney. It was approaching 6:00 and it looked like I would be in the $50 for a while so I went ahead and registered for the 750K at FTP. I got knocked out of the $50 and the PS tourney and was left with just the FTP.

With about 100 players left until the money, the most boneheaded thing happened at my table. One of the short stacks typed in PLAY SLOW. A conversation started up and 8 of the 10 players at the table allowed their time to tick down to the very last second on EVERY hand. It was torture. I normally don’t tell players how to play but I told everyone they were just doing themselves more harm than good. Fortunately, I did manage to increase my stack by 20% or so, but probably not nearly as much as I would have if my table had played like normal. They were all amatuers, but they did all cash – woohoo for them! The tourney paid about 660 players and all of them were knocked out except for 2 with 200 players remaining. It was absolute torture playing at that table. First place pays $160K and they were trying to win $250. Even after the bubble burst, one of the players played slow until he was knocked out with about 150 players remaining.

I basically played terrible in all 4 of my tourneys, but once we got close to the bubble I did kick in and start to concentrate. I consistently kept my stack at about half the average all the way from 600 players down to about 70 when I finally got knocked out. It was pretty boring poker though. My stack wasn’t large enough to reraise with folding equity and I didn’t have enough to make a normal raise before the flop without being pot-committed, so it was all-in every time I played a hand.

The good news is that I did end up posting a profit for the day even though I felt like I was completely off my game.

Congrats to Tall Paul from the ITH forums for finishing in the top 60 in the Sunday Millions and Pearljammer who finished 20th in the FTP 750K.

My "poopie" just burbed

2008-02-07T14:30:00.001-05:00

At the end of their lives a lot of people will have some regrets:
- I wish I would have traveled to X
- I wish I would have gotten married or...I wish I had never married :)
- I wish I would have tried harder at X
- I wish I could have found a job that I was passionate for
- I wish I would have spent more time with my spouse
- I wish I would have spent more time with my children

The list goes on and on, but there is one thing that people never, ever regret in their lives, and that is having children. People might regret how they got pregnant, or who they got pregnant with, or when they got pregnant, but no one ever regrets the child that results. In a world with so much uncertainty and conflict and lives where we often don’t know the correct path, there is one thing in this world where billions upon billions of people agree – there is nothing better in life than experiencing the love of a child. No one ever regrets having a child but I’m sure many regret later in their lives for not doing so.

Enough of the philosophy, here are some funny little things my son Josh (4 years old) has said to me lately:

Daddy, am I going to kiss girls when I grow up?

Daddy, you need to work more so you can buy me more toys.

A couple of weeks later…Daddy, you work too much.

What do you want to do when you grow up? I want to work on the computer and talk on the phone like Daddy.

Daddy, my “poopie” just burped.

Final Table PS $1K and Sharkapalooza II

2008-02-06T02:10:00.000-05:00

I finished 8th in the PS $1K. This was my first time playing this tournament. Wow, the last 30 players or so were some really, really great players. I basically ran really good this tourney. I can't count how many AA and KK hands I had. So although I finished really good, I basically didn't do anything to screw it up, but fell way short of the really big money.

8th paid $9k and 1st paid almost 80K so disappointing. I was in great shape with 15 players left when the following hand came. A player raised, I called, and a short stack went allin behind me. I call with KK. His AK hit an A on the turn and I was now 13th in chips instead of 3rd in chips. After that, I basically played shortstack the entire time and I don't believe I got one premium hand after that. It took a LONG time to get from 15 to 8 players left. I was hanging in there with an M between 5 and 10 for a long time but slowly got blinded down. I went out with 54 vs AQ, after being probably too patient.

I signed up early tonight and then went to unregister, but UB already had me sitted in their tourney so I had to play :). I'm 9K richer so glad I did!

I haven't posted in a while. I was in Williamsburg on Friday with the boys and the grandparents. On Saturday I went to Sharkapalooza II. Nsidestrate, from the ITH forums, made his 20,000th post (I only have 5,000 posts to give you an idea) and he decided to make the post at his annual shindig. I played 3 tourneys and busted as I usually do in home games. Nside is a class act and he always makes sure to have guests which aren't - thanks Nut, Taz, Torch, Bull, Dust, and all of the others for a great time. There were about 20 people from the Forum and it was a blast. Everytime I go to these things I'm amazed at how well everyone gets along and how well you actually know people from simply posting on the Forum. Everyone actually seemed quite normal, although I'm not sure about Tara and Michelle, simply for the fact that they must have very strange taste in men. Great fun!

Disastrous Sunday

2008-01-28T06:42:00.000-05:00

I was ready to go yesterday. Last week I final tabled the FTP 750K. On Wednesday, I had two cashes in 7 tourneys running fairly deep in both, and having lots of opportunities in the other tourneys I was in. I ate a healthy lunch. I even put on my ITH shirt to put me in poker mode! And then disaster struck.

I played 13 tourneys, not cashing in any of them. Being the math geek that I sometimes am, assuming I make the money 18% of the time, the odds that I don't cash in 13 tourneys is 4% or 1 in 25! I got to experience that agony yesterday. Not only didn't I cash, I really didn't come close. I was running good in the $100RB but finished about 20 spots from the money. That was the closest I got all day.

But I felt like I played well. I didn't tilt or start making any boneheaded plays. Of course in 13 tourneys, there are always some borderline hands where you aren't sure about your play and a few small mistakes here and there, but overall I felt like I was creating good opportunities for myself. Unfortunately I just wasn't getting many breaks.

One thing I thought yesterday is how play completely changes when you are against a tough field. This is why the railbirds sometimes say that XXX is a donkey. He called with that! He reraised with that! And in normal tourneys, maybe the play would be boneheaded. But against solid loose aggressive players, you often must take gambles where you might not otherwise.

For example, beginning to intermediate players try to steal the blinds a lot. Advanced players will often try to resteal, or simply put pressure on an opponent who has raised. Therefore, if you are the original raiser, you may do some things that you normal won't do. On occasion, you will go back over the top without a decent hand. You probably wouldn't do this against a "normal" player who probably is only reraising with premium hands, but against a really solid player who could easily be on a resteal, sometimes you must play back with less than stellar hands. Last night in the rebuy I made a standard raise with AQs. Another player reraised me. I started the hand with an M of 15. My opponent could have a premium hand, but there is also the possibility of a resteal in his range. For this reason, AQs goes up in value. It was a borderline play but I pushed allin and found myself against AK. I think the biggest mistake here was that I was in early position and most players are reluctant to resteal a player from EP so I should have given his reraise more respect, but I had also been relatively active so hard to tell.

I also learned a nice little lesson/tactic from another really good player. I made a standard raise to 300 and he called from the BB. The flop was Tc 4s 4c. He checks, I bet 330, he calls. The turn is the 2d. We both check. The river is the 6s. He checks, I bet 900, he puts me allin for another 1600.

I found his river play quite interesting. Most opponents would always bet out with a hand after I had checked the turn afraid that I wouldn't bet the river. But let's analyze the situation. On the turn, I either have nothing, or I am checking to control the size of the pot with a scary board. On the river, if he bets and I have nothing, I am going to fold. If I have something, I am likely to call something less that pot (which was $1200). But what if he checks? If I have a hand, I will likely bet for value. This isn't always true. If I have a hand like 88 I would probably check behind. But if I have a pair of tens beat, I am certainly going to bet. Once I bet and he raises, the pot has been built, and it becomes very difficult to fold, since my opponent played so deceptively - check, check...raise! I called with QQ and my opponent had 5-4. I don't like my call here, but the point of this hand is how my opponent got me to commit more chips to the pot than I wanted.

Of course, his strategy backfires when I check behind with a hand that I would call a bet with. But it is an interesting weapon to use on occasion and something I might experiment a little with in the right situations.

So a frustrating day, but I learned a little from my mistakes while still feeling satisfied with my overall play.

A Rare Weeknight Tourney Bonanza

2008-01-24T07:20:00.001-05:00

After final tabling the FTP 750K a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't wait to get back to the tables. Unfortunately, I didn't get to play this past Sunday as I had a party to host. My stepfather turned 70. We were planning on a surprise party Saturday night, but it snowed, and anyone who lives in Atlanta knows that the entire city shuts down at the first inkling of a little snow. So we moved the party to Sunday and watched some football as well.

In any case, I decided to play last night. I didn't realize how many decent tournaments there are during the week. I managed to play 7 tournaments, all starting between 8-9:30. I could have played 8 but was running good in so many of them I decided to just skip the $55K at FTP at 9:30.

There are two rebuy tourneys. One at Stars and a $100 6-max at FTP. I'll need to check to see if that is a daily or weekly tournament as a very good tourney. I had a great table in the Stars RB tourney. I have played a few of these rebuys. I really thought these would be tough with the small fields, but so many of the players will do anything to try and doubleup, especially early. There is a great equity for those who are patient. I play simple solid poker and have done quite well in most of them I have played. Unfortunately, I ran into some bad luck and then towards the end of the rebuy period found myself against a couple of players going allin every hand. Unfortunately my hand either didn't hold up, or they finally had a real hand and I lost quite a few rebuys. I ended up investing $900 in the tourney. I went deep and cashed for $800, lol. I believe I finished something like 23rd and first paid $32K so had a decent chance at another nice payday.

I also ran deep in the FTP 55K that started at 8:00, finishing 22nd in that one. It also had a nice first place prize so I had two tourneys with a decent shot at some big money. Aside from those, I had my chances in a few of the other ones also running pretty deep but falling short of cashing. I felt really good about my game but just couldn't get anything going towards the end.

Other than that, I've been playing a little short-handed limit. I made a sick call in one hand with J-high which generated a lot of discussion in the Forum if you want to browse it. The Forum has some great short-handed players and this thread discusses a lot of different concepts beyond just my call on the river.
http://www.internettexasholdem.com/phpbb2/sickest-call-ive-made-in-a-long-time-vt57021.html

I should be getting an early start on Sunday as we have our monthly League tourney at ITH, and we are honoring one of our long-term Moderators who recently left the boards. Should be fun and hoping for another deep run!

Final Tables the FTP 750K

2008-01-16T21:30:00.000-05:00

After coming quite close the last few months on Sunday, I finally broke through with a nice payday. That makes 2 10k+ paydays my last 10-12 Sundays. I finished 6th in the FTP 750K good for $26K.

Overall, I felt like I played quite well. Around the money, or early in the money, I do remember overbetting a hand with a QxxQ board. I had a flush draw and simply pushed allin on the turn which was a big overbet. I knew my opponent didn't have a Q and I was thinking about how much I should bet, but I didn't want to wait too long and just pushed. It was an inpatient move, but it worked out as my opponent called with 33 and I hit a pair on the river. I had a ton of outs but I should have played it differently. With 50 players to go, I had several opportunities to become the chip leader but kept falling on the wrong end of the cards. Once I lost AA to A7 in a big pot, all the money going in preflop. I lost another hand with QQ to the big blind when he flopped a flush on a K high board and I had the draw to the Q. I probably overplayed that hand also on the turn and got punished for it. Fortunately, I won several hands in a row quite quickly to get right back in it (one was a suckout with A6 vs AQ). After that, I settled down quite nicely and I think I played very well right up to the very end.

The hand that doomed me is still swirling around in my mind. I still haven't gone back to look at the exact chip counts in the hand history as I want to try and be as fresh and clear as possible when I reevaluate the hand. I think my first mistake was calling a raise from the big blind with 64s. I will often call raises with that hand, but I don't think this situation called for it. Sometimes I will call in the big blind with a relatively short stack, simply with the knowledge that I will gain the blinds, antes, and continuation bet should I hit my pair - and since I'm short-stacked I don't mind accepting defeat it that pair gets beat. I will also call when we both have very deep stacks hoping to hit a big hand. But that middling stack isn't the best hand for 64s and it cost me. The board was Kx4 and I check-raised all-in thinking he couldn't call without a K and I had outs if he did. He had K-Q and I lost the hand. It wasn't a horrendous play, but I think my stack size and advantage over the remaining opponents dictated that I didn't need to take that kind of risk.

But 26K is a nice consolation prize. Hopefully I can continue to run relatively deep in these tournaments and start turning them into bigger paydays.

A couple of non-poker tidbits. A mini-review of Atlantis. Great resort for kids! It's like Disney World on water. Unfortunately, there aren't that many family restaurants so that is a major drawback to me. Highly recommended though and we'll definitely be back.

Here's a silly little movie recommendation. If you're looking for an over-the-top shoot-em up, bad guy good guy movie, try Shoot-em Up with Clive Owen. Completely unrealistic and over-the-top, but a lot of fun.

Poker in the Bahamas

2008-01-07T09:01:00.000-05:00

I played the PCA in Paradise Island yesterday getting knocked out about 10 minutes before the end of the day. It was an interesting day even though I wasn’t involved in that many interesting hands.

I missed the first hand and then we proceeded to play about 20 hands where we didn’t see a flop. No one said one word while we were there. I immediately knew that it was going to be a long day. And then Greg Raymer showed up and say to my immediate right. The first pot went multiway and he started chatting it up with everyone. The entire mood became a lot different.
As many of you know, I played with Greg a lot during the 2004 WSOP when he won. We played together on two separate days and were involved in quite a few pots together. He intimidated me back then as he was quite aggressive, stared at you mercifully, and has a strong confidence at the table. I think he is really the only player that has intimidatd me. But I have a lot more experience now and know how to handle those types of players. And fortunately I was to his left which helps. Both of our games have changed quite a lot though since then.

I got the best of Greg this day but only for a few small pots. Only one was interesting. It was folded to his small blind several times. On one, he limped, I raised, and won the pot on the flop. In this case, he raised about 3x the big blind and I called with K-Js. I’m not sure, but I think the blinds were 300-600 with 50 antes. The flop was Kxx, rainbow. He bet about 2700 and I called. The turn was a Q and he checked. At this point, I felt like if I bet he would fold unless he had a queen. I elected to check hoping to gain some value on the river. The river was a blank and he bet a rather small amount. I considered raising but felt like I probably would only be called with a better hand so I just called. He turned over K-J. Ok, maybe not so interesting but I could have raised or bet every single street but elected not to. I’m pretty sure he thought I had some type of middle pair the way I played the hand.

I hit one set and one two pair all day. No straights or flushes. I don’t think I got my fair share of pairs or suited connectors. I got dealt once, AK, AA, QQ, and JJ - AK is definitely lower than average for a full day of poker. For the first 4-5 hours, my stacked varied between 17K and 22K I just didn’t hit very many hands so it was just about winning small pots to stay alive. I eventually got up to 38K at one point - again just by creating some opportunities. Then I lost two draws to knock me out.

The first was quite borderline. I think it was 400-800 blinds. Early raiser to 2200 and a middle player called who was someone I was targeting. He started the hand with about 20K in chips. I had 76 on the button and elected to call. This was a borderline decision, but with position, I thought there was decent chance I could take the pot on the flop if they showed weakness, and this is the kind of hand that can sometimes surprise people. But I recognized it can also get you in trouble.

The flop was T84, two spades. Early checked and middle player bet 4500. He had about 13K left. I could call hoping to hit but that only gives me one card. I wasn’t quite getting the odds on my draw, but I gave a 10% chance that my raise would cause him to fold, and a 10% chance that he was on a flush draw - where I would still have 10 outs. It was very borderline but I decided to gamble. He had a set and I didn’t hit.

So now I am down to about 17-18K in chips. 500-1000 blinds. Early raise to 2600, middle call, and I have K3s in big blind. 1600 to call with 7700 in the pot. If I hit a K and lose, I can accept that given the size of my stack. I call. T9x, two diamonds giving me the flush draw with an overcard. I check, early player bets 4500 and I go all-in. He calls with top set and I bust out.
It was a fun day. Nothing exciting but fun to get back in the saddle again. I just wish I had another tourney soon as I’m not sure when I’ll be playing again.

So time for some sun and fun. Rizen is a chip leader so go Rizen!

A weird and unfortunate way to miss a flight to the PCA

2008-01-05T22:24:00.000-05:00

I don't play as many poker tournaments as I would like but this is more of a personal choice then anything else. We've been busy having babies the last few years so poker tournaments just don't fit easy into the schedule. Sure I would love to play more tournaments, but being with the family beats that any day.

When I do play, I generally work family into the schedule. Practically all of the poker tournaments I have played the last few years have been planned around family - 3 Party Poker cruises, 2 trips to Aruba, 2 trips to Melbourne, Las Vegas the last couple of years, and now the Bahamas. Outside of that, I've played a couple of tourneys in AC by myself and one in Paris a few years ago as well as a few to Mississippi (car trips). Today we got to the beach and boys had a blast and I remembered how much I love these trips. It's a win-win for me - I either do well in the tourney or I get busted and get to spend time with my family on vacation.

I'm not sure what we'll do when the boys start school and can't just trot around the world with Daddy for a poker tournament.

In any case, this trip started out quite rough. We woke up at 5:30AM to get everyone ready for the airport. About a half mile outside of my neighborhood we saw police lights. They had blocked off the road and told us to go home and check out the news. It turns out that someone shot 2 police officers and was still inside his house 12 hours later! In any case, there is only one road out of my neighborhood and we were basically trapped. So we lost a day of vacation. Fortunately the policemen are alright and the killer ended up committing suicide in the house (at least that's the last I heard). It's hard to tell a little 4-year old that we have to wait another day to go to the beach!

I'll try to make daily updates on my progress. I start Sunday at noon.

2008 Preview

2008-01-03T07:06:00.000-05:00

I am really excited about the upcoming year. I can't remember having so many things to be excited about from both my personal and business lives. This is a small outline of what I expect the year to be like.

January - win the Poker Stars Caribbean adventure! Last year I started out the year in Australia with back-to-back final tables which was a great start to the year. This year I want the win! By the way, I turn 41 while in the Bahamas.

January is also the launch of our International Player of the Year race at one of our sites, www.InternetPokerRankings.com. By the way, congrats to Jon "Pearljammer" Turner for winning the 2007 race.

February - my wife's birthday. We can't party too much because she's be almost eight month's pregnant. This month I'll be working a lot of my books.

March - I think the 2nd edition of ITH, with the new title All About Limit Hold'em, will probably be released in late March. If not then, definitely in April

April - We're having a baby! Our first daughter so we're quite excited.

May - Release the first volume of hands by Pearljammer, Rizen, and Apestyles...and feed the baby. Change the babies diapers. Maybe I'll be able to get some late night short-handed poker in when the baby wakes me!

June - WSOP - win my first bracelet!

July - WSOP main event

August - family reunion in Hilton Head.

Fall - Release the 2nd volume of the hands book. I also expect that Rizen and I will be working hard on our NL Tournament Strategy book.

December - going to Colombia for Christmas. My family hopes to visit also which should be a lot of fun as they have never been to Colombia. We are planning to visit Diana's family in Medellin, take a day trip to Colombianitors - the charity that Diana and I work with, and then rent a country house with the family for some nice R&R and great Colombian culture.

Can't wait!

ITH "2" is finished!

2007-12-26T06:53:00.000-05:00

I have finally completed the 2nd edition of my first book, Internet Texas Hold'em. I have wanted to revise and update this book for a long, long time and have finally completed it. The book will have a new title as I have deemphasized the "internet" part of the book and adjusted some things here and there to make the book appropriate for both live and online limit games. I pretty much have the new title nailed down but will wait to announce it once I have it finalized.

I basically went through the entire book to make little changes here and there to make it read better. I also added/deleted/updated a few concepts where I saw appropriate. For example, there were a few concepts which are used so rarely I just deleted them. I also put more emphasis on certain concepts - for example playing in loose games/multi-way pots. I updated the Starting Hand chapter and guidelines to allow for more looser games. I also gave the "beginner" player more credit to learn faster to I added a few more hands here and there which I think people beginners can play profitably.

The most significant change however is the addition of three new chapters. There are two new chapters which cover short-handed play and one chapter on multi-way pots. I am very pleased with all three. It was a challenge covering short-handed topics in just two chapters, but I think the material will really help people who start to play short-handed. There are starting hand guidelines for short-handed play as well as my generaly approach to these games (which happens to be favorite form of limit hold'em).

So I've finished the manuscript. I am having it professionally copyedited for grammar and style, it will need to be typeset again, and then printed so we are looking at a late March/April release date.

I expect the Rizen/Ape/Pearljammer book to come out in May.

I played last Sunday my normal 9 tourneys and came away with nothing for the first time ever. I finished 38th in the RB event where they paid 36 losing A9 to KQ. I wasn't crazy about the guys call with KQ. I raised from middle position with an M of about 4.5 to 5. The player with a huge stack called me from the SB with his KQ. I think this is a decent call in a "normal" situation as many players would raise with all kinds of hands with a short stack. However, many players tighten up 2 away from the money so not sure if his call was the best there. But in any case he stopped my streak and cashing at least once on a Sunday.

I played very well for a few hours and then things started to go awry I think for two reasons. Around 7 to 730 I had 7 tables going. I have made a few mistakes playing this many tables before and I made another one this time as I didn't see a third player involved in a hand. I also seemed a little tired so I think I got off my game. It was a shame as I was chip leader in a PCA satellite for probably a couple of hours and then fell short having misplayed a hand.

I'll probably play this Sunday and then I'll be off to the Bahamas for the PokerStars tourney in early January.

Oh, I forgot about an amazing 100-200 limit game I played the other night. There was an absolutely horrendous player in the game. He raised UTG with 92 on one hand (6-handed). He called a flop raise with 6-3 on a board of K-J-2. The best hand was on this board though, AA727. He leads out flop and turn and I call. He bets the river, I raise, and he calls. He had 9-8! Unfortunately the 9-2 hand took a $4k pot from me, but I still managed a very nice win in just about an hour.

and Life...

2007-12-20T12:00:00.001-05:00

The title of this blog is Poker and Life. Although I am heavily involved in poker from many aspects - websites, books, and playing, I also enjoy a very healthy family life. This entry is mostly about life with a little bit of poker thrown in at the end.

We lived in New Zealand for a couple of years back when I wrote Internet Texas Hold'em. We also visiting there earlier this year for a couple of months. Our best friend's son, Sam, came to visit us this week for five days on his way back to New Zealand from England. Sam is 19. Diana's niece is also in town who is 15. So this week I was the tour guide for Atlanta.

Sam arrived on Sunday so no poker for me. We went to Midieval Times that evening for dinner. Midieval Times is located in 6 or 7 cities around the country. It's basically a dinner theater, but the show performed by live "knights" and horses doing horse tricks, jousting, and fighting. And then of course you eat dinner with your fingers. My two boys were totally enthralled so I was watching them watching the show half the time. Overall great fun, although on the expensive side. Kind of one of those things that is worthwhile to do once.

On Monday we visited the Acquarium, which features the largest fish tank in the world. It is only 2 years old and quite nice. We then saw The Alps at the Imax about a guy climbing the Eiger. I love movies and I love Imax. That evening we went to Lake Lanier which features Christmas lights. The boys just had a fantastic time once again. Sam is a great kid and Joshua really took a liking to him and they bonded quite well.

On Tuesday we went to Stone Mountain park. Great family fun for a very reasonable price. $18 for adults and $14 for 3 and up (Zachary was free). The park has a mini-town which they decorated with more than 2 million Christmas lights creating a great atmosphere. We saw a 25 minutes Christmas song and dance show, a 25 minute 4d movie of The Polar Express, a 12 minute laser show on the side of the mountain, and concluded the evening with a "snowfall" celebration and fireworks. That took us about 4 hours with dinner and walking around the shops. There were a couple of shows we missed as well as the train which goes around the mountain with Christmas decorations. Overall great value and I think we'll probably plan on going there every year as the boys just had an absolutely fantastic time.

On Wednesday we had dinner at the top of the Westin Peachtree hotel, which has a restaurant at the top which rotates in a circle giving great views of Atlanta.

All of this really put me in the Christmas spirit. Joshua really understands Christmas now and Santa Claus so I'm really looking forward to Christmas this year. All of my family is coming to visit so should be a great time.

On to poker....How about Scott Clements?! Is there a more accomplished tournament player over the last couple of years? He has won 2 WPT titles, 2 WSOP bracelets, and he just won the premier online event, The Poker Stars Sunday Million. He has basically reached the pinnacle of what I call the Big 3 - WSOP, WPT, and Online tourneys. I don't believe I have ever played with him and I don't know him - but congrats Scott on an amazing run.

I'd also like to congratulate Rizen for winning $50K+ in one of the UB special $500 events.

I did manage a couple of short-handed limit sessions which I haven't played in quite some time winning about $1200. One particular hand was fun. I raised from SB with 63s, the BB 3-bet, and I 4-bet as he had been quite aggressive from the BB against me. I couldn't wait for a premium hand to make a stand against him. He flopped 2 pair and I hit a flush on the turn so I won a huge pot. He typed in chat "keep 4-betting with 63s", so I replied "keep 3-betting with J high!".

I hope to play the big Sunday tournaments before the holidays.

Happy holidays everyone!

Two shoes

2007-12-12T11:52:00.000-05:00

I had quite an embarrassing moment the other night doing something that I've never done before in my life. I took Joshua and my wife's niece, Laura, to the park the other day (the weather here has been gorgeous lately). Joshua and I are swinging away and at the top of my swing, I get a great view of my shoes right in front of me. There was a problem - I was wearing two different shoes! I had a black tennis shoe on and a black casual shoe on.

Laura, who is fifteen, couldn't stop laughing. After thinking about it for a while, I'm surprised I've gone almost 41 years without ever having made this mistake. I have all of these shoes in the closet, I grab a couple, and I'm off. I can see where I might make this type of mistake. If anyone has done this also, please post a comment as it would make me feel a little better :).

Sunday's tourneys didn't go too well. I cashed 50th in the UB $215 and that was my only cash. I lost a big pot with A-K vs AJ with about 60 left which would have put me in the top 3 in chips. I made some really good calls on Sunday that I was quite proud of, and I think indicative that I am starting to understand the online player a little better. I did make some questionable plays in the FTP 750K guarantee. I was doing quite well in that event. I had 7 tables up and running and I find that I sometimes panic when 2 or 3 tables are going. I need to learn to use the time clock and take my time on big decisions. In any case, there was a raise, and I made a big overbet allin raise with A-K from middle position. The SB woke up with AA and busted me. I should have known better to commit such a large stack but I just started to panic a little and didn't think about my position and the players behind me. It seems like every Sunday I make one of these types of "online" mistakes due to multi-tabling.

Now that I am playing a lot more online MTT's, I can see where the variance is quite frustrating. In many of these tournaments, 50% of the prize pool is paid in the top 3-5 spots. Let's say you have a 50% ROI. You invest $100 in the tournament. You expect to cash $150 for each tournament played. This means you get $75 when you finish in the top 3 and $75 for all other cashes. You are losing money until you get that top 3 finish! So far this year in the bigger tourneys, I've won one PS nightly tournament and won a seat to the Bahamas. I've had lots of cashes, but most in that 11th to 50th range. Getting close just isn't good enough in tournament poker. I feel good about putting myself in a lot of situations to get that big win, but it's frustrating falling short so often. Hopefully if I keep working on my game, just a very slight improvement here and there will get me over the hump.

Official Announcement for Rizen, Apestyles, Pearljammer books

2007-12-05T09:46:00.000-05:00

I've hinted a little about three new books that I will be publishing next year and we finally released the "official" announcement this week.

From the press release:

"The first two books, yet untitled, are a two-volume set written by three of the top tournament players in the world, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jon “Pearljammer” Turner, and Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet. Collectively, they have over 200 wins, 1000 final tables, and have cashed for more than 6 million dollars the last few years playing in both live and online poker tournaments.

This series will analyze real hands played by the authors to demonstrate their thought processes and strategies they use to achieve their success. The books are set for a spring and fall release in 2008.

Eric “Rizen” Lynch has also teamed up with Matthew Hilger to write No-Limit Hold’em Tournament Strategy: Expert Strategies for Live and Online Play. The book is scheduled for a Fall 2008 release and will look at advanced concepts and strategies for succeeding in no-limit Hold’em tournaments."

We are currently working on the first volume of the hands book and so far the material is excellent. I'm learning a few tricks myself from these guys are am really enjoying working with all three of them. There will be at least 50 hands from each author that they walk through from start to finish. It will likely be a book that players of all levels will be able to learn from.

Eric and I call the NL strategy book, the "big" book. The hands books are going to be great, but I am also very excited to start working on the NL book which we will probably start writing in January. We have put together a tentative table of contents and I can't wait to see what Eric has to write about some of the topics. I highly recommend that you read some of Eric's articles found at Cardplayer and Bluff to get an idea of how good of a writer he is.

We will be collaborating similarly to how Ian Taylor and I worked on The Poker Mindset. Eric will be doing most of the writing and I will be helping him from start to finish with feedback, suggestions, etcetera. And of course I am the publisher also.

I really enjoyed working with Ian on The Poker Mindset and I hope to be publishing more authors in the future. I find it a lot more fun to work in collaboration with others rather than working on a project all by myself. I also think the end product turns out much better. Hopefully the next three books will set the bar very high.

Another Deep run

2007-12-03T10:56:00.000-05:00

I won’t go into much details. I thought I played the best I’ve played in quite a while, especially in the FTP Mulligan where I finished 13th. Yet another deep run without hitting the big payday. Lost one key hand with about 50 or 60 left (?). I made what I think was a great call with 77 and lost to A3 and A8 – with A3 having the bigger stack of the two opponents. If ace doesn’t hit the river I’m in top 5 in chip count but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Also cashed in the Sunday Million but for small amount. I’m playing most Sundays now in about 9 tourneys and it seems like I always have one nice deep run, hopefully I’ll hit soon.

On to better news…

It was my boys’ birthdays this week. They were both born on November 28th and are now 4 and 2. We had a Chuck y Cheese party today which was actually quite fun. The boys got this riding bike that connects to the TV to play games – the first toy I’ve seen Joshua get addicted to. He played for 4 hours until it was time to go to bed. I loved seeing it because I remember my addictions back from my childhood days. Great stuff and I’m glad they had a lot of fun.

My fantasy football seasons are about to end with me missing the playoffs in both Leagues. In the ITH League, I lost 2 games by less than 2 points, one by 2 yards – which pretty much did me in. In my main League, it was just a struggle all year long. There are ten teams. I had one draft pick who exceeded its draft “value” – Kellen Winslow. Bush was average. McNabb was average. Hines Ward was good but injured. Everyone else was a disappointment, especially Rudi Johnson, Lee Evans, and Baltimore. For only having one good thing happen all year (Winslow being hot and not getting injured), I actually had some momentum a couple of weeks ago and a shot to make the playoffs.

I tell you, if you think poker is frustrating from all of the bad beats, try fantasy football! – busted draft picks, injuries, lineup miscues, unlucky scheduling…it’s brutal and I have no idea why I keep doing it :).

I’ll be making a big book announcement very soon so stay tuned.

Show me the Money!

2007-11-28T08:49:00.000-05:00

Last night I watched Jerry Maguire for I don't know how many times. This is one of my favorite movies of all-time. Many probably don't include it on their top 10 list but I think it's a classic.

It is hard to classify this movie. It certainly has funny moments. It has once of the best romantic relationships ever to be shown on film, built by some of the best memorable movie lines ever. And there is a lot of drama. It's also a sport's movie. So it's a sport's dramatic romantic comedy?

Of course, you have the big-name movie star. In this case, Maguire is probably Tom Cruise's best performance. Not many actors can pull off a role requiring both comedy and vulnerability. I think this was the role of a lifetime for him and he far exceeded my expecations. He won a Golden Globe for best actor and was nominated for an Academy Award.

Then look at the supporting cast. This was Renee Zellweger's breakout role. Cuba Gooding jr won a best supporting actor award for his hilarious portrayal of the superstar football player with an attitude problem. The movie also featured one of the more memorable "cute" little kids who had some great scenes. After these supporting actors, there was even a really good supporting-supporting cast with Bonnie Hunt, Regina King, and Kelly Preston. Everyone simply nailed their roles which showed what a great job was done with the screenply and casting.

Think of one of your favorite movies and try to remember your favorite lines from that movie. Now think of Jerry Maguire. Several of the lines became embedded in our culture:
Show me the Money!
You complete me.
You had me at hello.
You are my ambassador of quan.

In a previous post, I said one of the things which really makes a movie great is one that inspires or teaches you a lesson about life. This movie is that kind of movie. It ends with the quote, 'I don't know everything and I've had my share of failures, but I love my wife and I love my life, and I wish that kind of success for you."

A Costly Bad Beat

2007-11-26T07:20:00.001-05:00

Last night I finished 12th in the $100 rebuy event at Poker Stars. $40K was paid out to first place and I was paid out $1900. I lost an unfortunate hand right towards the very end. Blinds were 3-6 with 300 antes. I raised to 18K from the cutoff. The SB RR to 65K. I Reraised another 65K or so and my opponent pushed allin for another 50K. I called and my opponent showed A-J. If my hand holds up, I am second in chips with 11 players remaining. My opponent spiked a J.

The following isn't to bitch about my opponent's play. I am very happy that he trapped himself and I got my chips in as a big favorite, so this isn't bemoaning a bad beat but I think it gives a good example for players to learn from.

My opponent made a big mistake in this hand. He thought that he was ahead of my range of hands with A-J. This was correct. Since I was in the cutoff, I would raise a wide variety of hands in that position and would fold to many reraises. The problem is that he picks up $35K or so when I fold, but is mostly a big dog when I put him allin. Because of the awkward chip stack sizes, he was close to being pot-committed with his hand after he makes that reraise. I need to go doublecheck this later, but I think we was basically committing an addition 115K to win 360K. He pretty much needs to call after building such a big pot. So he can't escape his reraise which means he is basically risking 180K when a big dog to win 35K. This isn't the best risk-reward ratio!

The lesson of this hand is that you shouldn't always play a hand simply because you think it is likely the best hand. You must look at the risk-reward ratio for the times you are ahead and the times you are behind - something my opponent failed to do.

So another deep run on Sunday that falls just short. MTT's is a tough business! I needed to make the final table to break-even for the day as I played nine big tourneys yesterday.

I really need to get my workspace upgraded so that I can play multiple tables without my laptop. I had problems with my wireless yesterday, and to make a long story short, timed out with a set on the river with a big pot in the 750K guarantee at FTP. It was a big pot and really pissed me off for about 30 minutes afterwards. Time to get an upgraded monitor!

Testimony in Congress about Online Gambling

2007-11-23T07:20:00.000-05:00

Many people have some misconceptions about the law "against" online gambling. The main misconception is that online gambling is illegal. This just isn't the case. The law passed last year in Congress prohibits financial institutions from permitting transactions to online gambling sites. The law doesn't make it illegal for a player to gamble online. Having said this, the law has made it more difficult to fund an online poker account and has communicated a perception that online gambling is illegal, so fewer players are signing up today than before. This hurts the industry and every player even if we continue to play online today.

Some recent events have been quite favorable for the movement to make online gambling legal. There currently are three bills in Congress that aim to make online poker legal and are in various stages of development. The World Trade Organization has ruled against the United States for hindering global trade. This could potential cost the US government billions in fines if we continue to go against the decisions of the WTO.

Congress recently held a public hearing to discuss online gambling. Annie Duke, a popular poker player, testified and gave some very good arguments. I encourage everyone interested in this topic to read hear testimony here:
http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/news/newsandarticles_article.php?DID=375

Whether or not you like gambling or not, this is an issue about personal freedoms. An adult ought to be able to do whatever it wants in its own house as long as they don't inflict harm on others. As Annie Duke mentioned, it is fine if you think gambling is immoral, but it isn't fine for people to dictate their morals on others. Millions of players enjoy poker, it is part of our American pasttime dating back years and years where Presidents have played the game. It is silly to prevent people to play the game over the new medium -the Internet - which is so much part of our lives in today's new technological world. But read Annie's testimony as I think it gives a very good overview of the issues.

I also encourage everyone to join the PPA - the Poker Player's Association - which is doing a good job of bringing this issue into the mainstream media.
http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/

Funny "I told you so" from Joshua

2007-11-21T00:18:00.000-05:00

Joshua will be 4 years old next week. Laura is Joshua's cousin from Colombia who is visiting us for the holidays.

Here is a conversation we had today...

Me: "Are you looking forward to Laura visiting?"

Josh: "Yes, I want her to come today."

Me: "Well, she's coming on Sunday."

Josh: "Why - today is Sunday."

Me: "No, today is Tuesday."

Josh: "Dad, look - do you see the Sun?

Me: "yes."

Josh: "See...today isn't Tuesday - it's Sunday. I told you so."

Won a Seat to Paradise!

2007-11-19T06:58:00.000-05:00

I had a good Sunday yesterday - finally. I've been making the money with a good frequency recently on Sundays but keeping finishing a hand or two away from the really big money. Yesterday I turned that around by winning a $12K package to Paradise Island this Sunday. I've been wanting to play that tournament the last few years and could never work it into my schedule so I am excited to be going. I've done several cruises and Aruba a couple of times but never PokerStars biggest event in the Bahamas. Should be a lot of fun and hopefully I'll turn my entry into some real big bucks.

The satellite was a $650 entry fee with about 350 entrants. They gave away 17 seats. Strategy in a satellite becomes very different when you start getting close to the seats. If you have a good stack, you might sometimes fold AA before the flop as there is no reason to keep playing. This makes the whole dynamics of the hands quite interesting as the short stacks who need chips often do not meet a lot of resistance since the bigger stacks don't want to risk chips trying to break them. From a strategical perspective, you are always asking, when do I need to take some chances and when shouldn't I? I hovered around 10th to 14th place for most of the time while we went from 35 to 17 players, so I basically didn't play many hands, but did have to play some here and there to make sure the blinds and antes didn't dwindle my chips down. I folded AQ once from early position which was really not a difficult decision. I got dealt AA in the big blind and normally you would love that, but it actually wasn't ideal because even AA can lose if I get involved in a big pot. For example, someone raises, I push allin, and he calls with KK - if he hits a K I am not one of the shorter stacks or possibly even out. You actually don't want to take chances in a satellite when you don't need to. It turns out that the small blind made a mini-raise and I knew he was weak so I just pushed all-in. I had another tricky situation with AKs in the small blind. I needed the blinds and antes to feel more comfortable with my stack, but at the same time wasn't crazy about risking a lot of chips since I was about 13th in chips at the time. I made a raise and fortunately wasn't faced with a tough decision as my opponent folded.

I played nine tournaments yesterday which seems to be my normal Sunday total. I cashed in one other event, although I must say I wasn't very focused on it as the satellite winded down to the final seats. A little disappointing that I didn't give that tournament the attention it deserved but at least I cashed.

So two cashes, but one nice one to make up for some of my recent Sunday losses. See you in Paradise!

Why I love movies

2007-11-15T07:08:00.000-05:00

I love movies. I think one of the main reasons why I love movies so much is that they give me a couple of hours to completely relax and escape everyday life. If I’m showering, going to sleep, driving a car – I’m always thinking about something…I need to fix this, or make an appointment, or figure out the title of my next book. Some of my best business ideas come at the weirdest times in my daily routine. But in a movie, I think about absolutely nothing. I am totally focused on the story and nothing else ever creeps into my mind. And it’s funny, as long as a movie isn’t just terrible, I will enjoy myself. I enjoy the two hours whether or not the movie has Oscar potential.

And of course, movies can be very entertaining. They can make you laugh or make you cry. They can give you an adrenaline boost. They can make you think while educating you. Sometimes they make you appreciate how lucky we really are. And the best ones inspire us. People sometimes laugh, but Rocky is one of my alltime favorite movies. It is one of the great underdog stories ever, but it inspires us whether we are a teacher, doctor, student, or poker player. Whenever I feel like I need to motivate myself for something, I start thinking of the Rocky theme in my head. Movies that encourage us, inspire us, and recognize the simple things in life makes our lives outside of the movies that much better and that it what the magic of movies is all about. Can’t wait to go see my next one!

Bad weekend of Poker

2007-11-12T07:03:00.000-05:00

I went to the IP Poker Classic this weekend. Friday was a $500 buyin and I finished about 20th out of 100 players. I played very well. I doubled up early but then had some unfortunate luck on 3 hands within a 15 minutes span. Was extremely short-stacked but then quadrupled up and then really abused the table with my short-stack. The play was pretty bad and I had a very loose image. Unfortunately I could never really get a big hand and eventually busted out raising J-9 allin on the button against AA in SB. I imagine the play would have really tightened up around the bubble so disappointing to not a chance to exploit it.

The main event was Saturday with a $2K buyin. 100 entrants. 5K in chips and a very good structure. Unfortunately I didn't win a single hand for 2 1/2 hours. The play was horrendous, but so bad that I had to hit a hand to get chips. For example, 50-100 blinds and 3-4 limpers and then someone raises to 700 or 800, he might get 2 callers! There was really no way to creatively pick up chips and very difficult to push a player off of a pair post-flop. So wait and hit a hand...but I just couldn't. I finally got my chips in with QQ but found myself against 3 opponents. Fortunately, 2 of them had A-K and my hand held up so I won my first pot. Lost 2-3 pots rather quickly after that and then picked up one small one. Then I went out- can't even remember the hand. So I basically drove 6 hours to win two hands- ugggh!

But I did go back to my room to watch UGA have a convincing win over Auburn. We're looking quite good and scoring lots of points so very encouraging.

I got back on Sunday in time for a birthday party my boys went to with all of our neighbors. It was a bowling event and quite fun.

We got home and Joshua was sleeping. It was 4:00 so I decided to play the Sunday tournaments. The worst decision of the day was deciding to play. First, I was a little tired and not really into it and it showed. I made a few silly mistakes and definitely did not play my best poker. Was a little too anxious to make things happen and was actually hoping to lose so I could just get it over with. I played 6 tournaments and busted in all of them.

Although I want to play more on Sundays, you should never play if you aren't really into it. But I felt like I couldn't miss it. So I made an excuse that I would play and just take Monday off to see my family after missing them for a few days. But I am playing thinking about my wife and boys upstairs so it just wasn't a very good decision.

But I have the day off! Diana and I plan on going to the movies and then I'll enjoy some time with the boys when they get home from school.

IP Poker Classic

2007-11-08T07:10:00.000-05:00

I am going to the IP Poker Classic this weekend and will try and post daily updates. The IP Poker Classic is in Biloxi which is the most convenient poker room for Atlanta. It is about a 6-hour drive so whenever I bust, I just go straight to the parking lot and I'm home six hours later.

Last December we went to Colombia for a month. In January, we left Colombia for Australia for the Aussie Millions. We then spent February and March in New Zealand where Diana and I lived between 2001 and 2003. We came home, enjoyed our house for a couple of months and went to Vegas for the WSOP for six weeks. We came home again for a couple of months and went to Colombia for three more weeks. To say the least, I am not anxious to jump on planes and leave home for poker tournaments right now. But Biloxi and Tunica are comparatively convenient for me as opposed to most other poker tournaments. So I go there whenever I can. Driving to tournaments is always better for me as I like the flexibility of being able to leave the casino whenever you want.

So I head to Biloxi this weekend. I may be going to New Orleans in early December (another drive). I suspect I'll be in Tunica in January for the WPT and WSOP events.

This weekend in Biloxi there is a $500 warmup on Friday and $2K main event on Saturday.

Another Deep Run Falls Short

2007-11-05T15:10:00.000-05:00

I wasn't planning on playing Sunday as my father was suppose to come into town, but he missed his flight so I decided to play. I started at 4:30 and played 7 tournaments. Each Sunday I've been playing about 7-9 tourneys.

The two big ones each Sunday are the FTP and PS $1 million guarantees. I haven't been playing both for very long, but I think I have cashed in one or the other just about every Sunday I have played. Yesterday I kept that going with a small cash in the FTP million.

I busted in the UB 200K guarantee before the money but I really like that tournament. The blinds are quite small to your stack and they go up quite slowly so there is lots of time to look for good opportunities and play patient poker.

I went deep in the PS 2nd chance giving me my 2nd cash of the day which I guess isn't too bad out of 7 tourneys. I had twice the average stack for quite some time but went pretty card dead once we made the money. But I was still alive and kicking as we started getting closer and closer to the final table. Unfortunately, I missed out on 2 coin flips in fairly large pots and crashed out in 21st place. AlwaysLook was at my table. He never said for sure, but I am pretty confident that this is Luke Chesnick(? - sorry if I butchered your last name Luke) who I beat headsup in 2002 for the NZ poker championships. I still remember when my AQ beat his 33 when 2 pair hit the board. Anyhow, a good deep run but another frustrating finish. It seems like just a matter of time before I'll get my 2nd major online tourney win.

Halloween Fun

2007-11-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

This halloween was a lot of fun as it was kind of the first where my oldest son understood what was going on. My two boys turn 4 and 2 this month. Joshua was Superman and Zachary was a Knight. With our neighbors, there were 3 supermans, a supergirl, and a superdog - how original lol. But Joshua started talking about being Superman at least a month ago. He was really into the whole thing.

One of our neighbors came up with a great idea. Call me lazy - but answering the door every 5-10 minutes to give out candy is a real drag. So our neighbor suggested that we setup a table out on the street and we basically just had a big block party on the street. All the kids just came up to the table and took candy from our bowls. We had about 15 of our kids running around playing while we drank and ate. My mother and stepfather also came over so it was a lot of fun.

Once the kids were ready to trick or treat we just walked around with them and then went back to the block party. It was a great idea and something I hope we do every year.

Joshua is usually a little timid at first with new people or new things, but this year he went right up to the door ready to ring the door bell. He told one neighbor "gracias" and it was just a blast watching him in action. Zachary says very few words right now but we got out thank you at every house which made us proud.

Work-wise, this hasn't been the most productive of weeks. I have been a little under-the-weather so not quite up to writing or editing. I have started getting feedback on my two new chapters that I will be adding to Internet Texas Hold'em that focuses on short-handed play. All the feedback has been quite positive and I'm excited with some of the suggestions which I think will make the chapters an even better read.

I guess this is as good a time as any to announce that the "2nd edition" of ITH will likely be retitled "Winning Strategies for Limit Hold'em". The new book will focus more on the strategies and concepts to make it applicable for both live and online play - so some, but not all, of the Internet stuff has been taken out. There is also a new chapter on Multi-way pots. Overall, it will read much better, has 3 new chapters, and will have about 50 new hand examples. I am aiming for a Spring release.

Another frustrating Sunday

2007-10-29T10:46:00.000-05:00

I have recently committed to playing the Sunday tournaments with a lot more frequency. I have been going relatively deep but just finishing short of the big paydays.

Yesterday was quite frustrating from several perspectives. I started out terribly in all of the tournaments and couldn't get anything going in even one of them. I lost several big pots to 2 and 3 outers which didn't help matters. In all, I played nine tournaments with total buyins of about $2300. In the evening, I found myself alive in only two - the FTP $1 million guarantee and the $55K guarantee.

In the FTP I was in very good shape once we made the money. I think I was something like 40th with 200 players remaining. I then got a little unlucky. An early player pushed allin, another player reraised all-in, and I woke up on the button with KK. Unfortunately, the 2nd player had AA and I didn't improve. That pot would have put me in the top 5, but now I was down to an average stack. I say unlucky in that there really wasn't anything I could do with kings there. In fact, I always say, the other guy could have had kings and I had the aces and the hand would have played out the same. I didn't play poorly, but was unlucky in that I was dealt the worst hand in a situation where I couldn't get away from it.

But I rebounded very nicely and really made some good moves to get my stack back over $100K which was above average at that point.

In my other tourney, I believe I made a bubble mistake with 58 players left and 54 spots being paid. I had $6K in chips, with $400-$800 blinds and $100 antes. I decided to push in middle position with A-6. Although my "M" was only 3, I could afford to post the blinds one more time to wait for for a better situation. With $4500 in chips, I would still have good folding equity with the BB being $800. In other words, I wasn't desperate quite yet. Add that to the fact that pushing allin with A-6 is a borderline play to begin with from middle position. I think this was pretty much borderline here, so given the bubble I could have waited a little longer to either get a better situation, or at least move up into the money. 2 cashes on the night would have been nice although I was obviously playing for the win.

Going back to the $1 million guarantee. I got blinded down to $80K in chips which was about average when the following hand came up. I got dealt A-K of diamonds in middle position and raised to $10K. The cutoff called and the flop was Q75, with two hearts. My first mistake as making a continuation bet here. The Q is actually one of the worst cards in this situation. The play was quite tight with few players seeing flops. Therefore, a realistic range of calling hands at this point in the tournament before the flop are hands like A-Q, K-Qs, and maybe any pair TT or below. It is doubful that players would call with A-J, or K-J, and they would like raise hands like JJ or better or AK. So the most likely scenario is that my opponent flopped a pair of queens, a set, or he has a middle pair. Even with a middle pair, he is likely to call a flop continuation bet. But I bet and he called. First mistake...

The turn was a blank and we both checked.

The river was a blank and I actually put him on a middle pair now. I figured if I bet 75% of my stack it would look very strong and a middle pair would fold. Well, he didn't and called with TT. I was now down to $15K having lost $65K in a pot that I never should have gotten involved in on the flop! There is nothing worse then misplaying a hand deep in a tournament.

So I crashed out in 100th place getting paid $750 for the tournament. So I cashed once and lost $1500 for the day. Quite frustrating given that I had two tournaments to try and go really deep and frustrating that I felt like I was playing very well, only to give it up all on one hand.

The good news is that I learned two things on that one hand and hopefully will not make the same mistake again in the future. There is nothing worse than misplaying a hand late in a tournament, but in some ways, it's better to go out that way while learning something to improve your game rather than suffering a bad beat and not learning anything.

We're all masochists!

2007-10-23T06:33:00.000-05:00

Tourney players are a weird breed. We go and play tourney after tourney after tourney, and most of the time it is just plain frustration. Maybe we don't get any good cards which can be quite frustrating. Or maybe we finally get good cards only to lose to a bad beat. Or sometimes, we finally get good cards only to not get any good action.

Last night was one of those tourneys where I felt like I was playing well and getting good cards, but I couldn't make a big move as I just wasn't getting any good action. Winning a poker tournament is a lot about good timing. For example, last night I flopped a straight and my opponent folded on the flop. Why couldn't he have an overpair, or two pair, or a set? Later I flopped a flush and my opponent bet-folded the flop of KT6. Why couldn't he have AK or a high club? I raise with KK and everyone folds. I raise with A-T and I get reraised. To win a tournament you have to have good timing or things just don't go your way.

In another tournament, I started out on fire in terms of quality hands. On the very first hand I flop a set of fives. I bet pot on the flop and on the turn, and my opponent hits a gut shot straight on the river. The very next hand I get dealt TT and the flop is 977. My opponent bets and I call. The turn is a blank and he pushes all-in! OK, I guess he had 99 or A7, lol. I folded. The very next hand I get dealt JJ. I can't remember the post-flop action on that one but I lost it too. There goes over 1/3 of my stack in 3 hands! We're all masochists!

My online pro for a couple of weeks experiment has now ended. We leave Colombia tomorrow to go back to Atlanta and a normal life again. I played 96 tournaments over the last couple of weeks, cashing in 17 of them. That is an 18% cash rate which sounds pretty good. Unfortunately, I didn't hit any big cashes so I actually lost money. To make money in tournaments you have to go real deep to get the big pay days. I had a bunch of finishes in the big fields where I finished 30th to 60th - just not quite deep enough for the big cash. In the smaller field tournaments (100-250 players), I made a few final tables, but no wins and they were in the smaller buyin tournaments.

Even though I lost money, I am happy with my results. I certainly didn't play perfectly, but in the bigger tournaments I felt like I had good concentration and was giving myself good chances to make some good money.

So back to Atlanta. I won't be playing tournaments daily while I'm in Atlanta but I do plan on trying the play a lot more on Sundays. Sundays is when all of the big tournaments are and they are just too lucrative and too fun to miss. These will also be a great way for me to continue to work on my game and improve my play so that I will be really ready for the WSOP next summer.

Lots of tournaments

2007-10-20T06:59:00.000-05:00

I'm continuing to play lots of online tournaments while in Medellin. This "experiment" started out really where I was getting several chances at a really big pay day. This past Sunday I went deep in 3 of the 7 tournaments I played. But since then it has been a littl frustrating. Monday through Wednesday, I was cashing quite a lot, but not getting very deep. Then Thursday, I was 0 for 15! Yuck! I must say I suffered some pretty bad beats but nevertheless frustrating. It was like my WSOP summer all in one day!

Yestereday I made two small cashes out of six tournaments. That was comforting to get back in the money. Unfortunately, my two cashes were in small buyin $25 tournaments rather than the $150-$200 buyin tourneys. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes. I'll take the day off today and then I hope to give Sunday another good run tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I continue to write a good bit. I almost have my short-handed chapter finished which will be added to the next edition of ITH. I hope to finish the 2nd edition by the end of the year and will be aiming for a Spring release date.

For those interested in fantasy football, I suffered one of the worst "bad beats" you can suffer this past week. Sunday night the games were over and it showed my buddy Tbone ahead by some miniscule margin. That game would drop me to 2-4 so I wasn't too happy about the loss. When I woke up, I was miraculously ahead! Sometimes they update stats so this wasn't too surprising to me. I enjoyed my win and gloated for three days. Then Thursday, I woke up and my record was changed to 2-4 and it showed me losing by .04 points! .04! It turns out, my opponent had only been rewarded 5.9 points for Marion Barber (59 yards), when in fact he had 61. 2 freakin yards and he wins! Of course, not only did I lose by the smallest margin possible, I had gloated for three days my win. Talk about a bad beat!

Colombianitos and Project Medellin

2007-10-18T08:27:00.000-05:00

As you know from a previous post, we recently had the inauguration of Project Medellin which was a big success. Diana and I visited the project again this week to get to know the team members there a little better. The team consists of a Coordinator, psychologist, social worker, and two soccer trainers.

80% of the people living in the immediate area of Colombianitos are displaced families as result of the guerilla conflicts going on in the countryside. For those who don't know, the guerillas control a substantial part of rural Colombia. As they move into new territories, families are forced out and many flee to the cities for opportunities. Our Colombianitos project is located high up on the mountainside that surrounds Medellin. Just 15-20 years ago this was just open land, but it is now filled with poor displaced families. Many of the families are headed by single mothers where the fathers have abandoned them.

The godd news is that Colombianitos is here to help and the project has started off with a big success. We had close to 200 children enroll in the first couple of weeks. The week following the inauguration, over 100 more children enrolled! Marcelo who is the coordinator for Medellin, started up our project in Cartegena. They now have 450 children but he said Medellin is way ahead of Cartagena in terms of where they were after a few weeks.

The team expressed many concerns in what they have seen so far in the children. The education level is very low and this is one of the main goals of the Colombianitos program. Colombianitos provides a lot of support in helping the children with whatever they need to do well in school. One requirement to participate in the Colombianitos soccer program is that first, you must attend school, and second, you must do well.

Colombianitos requires that each child presents the appropriate identification documents. Many of the children are lacking these which basically means they don't exist to the the Colombian government, and therefore are not entitled to the benefits that come with that. Obtaining the documents is a simple matter of the parents going to a government office to obtain them. Hopefully Colombianitos will be the incentive for these parents to get their children legally recognized by the government.

I talked with Marcelo in some detail about Cartegena to try and gage any comparisons or differences he sees between the Cartegena project and Medellin. It was really encouraging to hear the impact that Colombianitos has made on the community in Cartegena. When he arrived, he said drugs were openly consumed on the sidewalks and houses in plain view of all the children. Now, although the drug trade continues, consumption is no longer accepted within the community. He says you can see a definite distinction when walking from one sector into the sector where Colombianitos is located. It's encouraging to hear that Colombianitos is making a difference.

The psychologist and social worker are having an open meeting this weekend for the parents. This will be the beginning of establishing a dialogue with the parents. In the future, the idea is that the parents should feel free and open to come to them for support and help. At the same time, Colombianitos will be contacting them directly when they find particular problems with the children that need to be discussed with the parents.

One great idea that they are working on is a cooperative which they hope to establish to gain employment for the women to clean and cook. I think it's a great idea to use our contacts and credibility within Colombianitos to identify people willing to help out by providing jobs.

The soccer trainers already are very busy. They run classes from 8 or 9 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. The school program runs a morning and afternoon program so Colombianitos has children all day long to work around their schedules. There are only 2 instructors and up to 60 children in one class which is something we may need to look at and improve as we expect the program to continue to grow in numbers.

The Medellin team is currently in the diagnostic phase, identifying the main problems and concerns which need to be addressed with the children and community. Once they have a clear idea of the problems, they will then develop programs to address them. The soccer program is much more than just soccer. For example, let's say that determine that they need to develop values in the children to respect property (the surrounding area is very dirty with trash). They will teach this on the soccer field, rather than having them listen to a lecture. This could involve some type of exercise on the field, while stressing the importance of property. They might put cones on the field where each cone represents some type of value they are trying to teach. What is impressive with Colombianitos is that the entire team works very close together in achieving their aims. On our visit to Bogota last year, we were extremely impressed with the programs about family and social values that the soccer coaches had in place.

All in all very exciting. It will be very exciting to see the progress made when Diana and I make our next visit. There are some challenges. The current office is not adequate so we will need to address the budgeting needs for this. I can already see that the soccer coaches are stretched in terms of number of children so this will also need to be addressed. But there is a great team in place and great support from the community, so it really is quite exciting for the children there and for Colombianitos.

As a reminder, you can support Colombianitos by making a donation at www.Colombianitos.org.

We are also selling Christmas cards to support Colombianitos which you can buy in the store at ITH: http://www.internettexasholdem.com/catalog/product_info.php/products_id/127?osCsid=83016c88598f4b8d130165ced0695456

Sunday tourneys, close 3 times but no cigar

2007-10-14T23:15:00.000-05:00

Today was tourney day again on Sunday for all the big major online tournaments. I played seven tournaments today. I am sure this doesn't compare to what some of the young guns do, but I can only fit 4 tourneys comfortably on my laptop :).

First up was the UltimateBet $200K guarantee tournament paying $45K to first. I finished in the top 50 for a measly $900 payday - compared to first! The blinds were quite high towards the end so I just needed a good hand or two and I would have been right there in the mix.

Next up was a $650 satellite to the Caribbean adventure. 18 seats and I finished 47th - ug.

Finally, the Full Contact Poker $750K guarantee wit $140K to first. I finished in the top 90. Again, the blinds were quite high and I just couldn't get that rush to propel me up the leaderboard.

In between these three I got knocked out pretty early in the others I played. Overall, I was very pleased with my play. I don't recall any major mistakes and I only have a few hands where I'm not sure I did the right thing or not - I'll need to evaluate that later when I'm fresh.

It was a tough day in terms of being card dead towards the end of all three of those tourneys. It was a good day in that I got more than my fair share of luck with the crappy hands I was forced to play. I felt like I was very patient, but at the same time, I couldn't wait all day for the cards to come so I pushed when I thought the situation called for it. Eventually my luck caught up with me. On one hand, you might ask how could I go out with hands like K5s and KQ. On the other hand, I never would have made it as far as I did without pushing hands like that earlier - but eventually it will catch up with you.

For all my efforts, I made a $400 profit. Not fantastic, but at least I gave myself 3 chances for a big payday.

I got some great hand examples for the books I'm working on so that is a plus. I wish my night would have lasted longer but time for some sleep!

Online Tourney Marathon!

2007-10-13T06:28:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I had my first online tournament marathon. I basically played from 8 in the morning to a little after midnight. First I started with a few tourneys around 8 AM. I few more tourneys around noon. Then the afternoon tourneys at 3. Then the nightly starting at 8. I played to close to 20 tournaments in one day. I've got to tell you, no wonder these young Internet sensations are taking the live tournament world by storm. In one day, I got close to the same amount of experience I get in six weeks at the World Series of Poker. Of course you can't compare a $20 buyin tournament to a $1500 WSOP tourney, but in many ways you get the same amount of play since the hands are dealt so much quicker. In one day, I got experience of two final tables, one headsup match, several in the money drives, and several unfortunate bubble experiences. If you do this 5 days a week month in month out you can't help to really refine your game.

This leads me into a slightly different topic. My game has been sort of stagnant the last couple of years. Between having babies, writing books, working on my website, traveling around the world, I play a little poker and then don't do much for a few months, then play a little poker and then don't do much for a few months. It's really hard to improve your game without some consistency. I've been playing a lot more Internet tourneys lately and I am definitely learning some new tricks and insights. It is motivating and I hope to find more time to keep this up as I am excited about learning once again.

As far as my tourney marathon, I think it went similar to when you actually run a marathon. I felt great at the start and did quite well, I tatered off in the afternoon and made some silly mistakes, I almost lost it in the evening, but then got a 2nd wind and recuperated quite well.

I went deep in the first few tournaments of the morning finish 2nd in an $11 180-man sitngo. I've played like 5 of these 180 sitngos and now have 3 final tables so pretty good results in them so far. They are fun because they are quick and don't drag on for hours. My headsup opponent spiked a T on the turn with KT on a Kxx flop while I was holding KJ and he ousted me.

I also bubbled in a $100 buyin tournament on a disastrous hand. There were 20 people left and they paid 18. I had about an average stack. A guy from early position raises and I accidently miniraise from the big blind. This happens on occasion with my laptop which I am using in Colombia. So I price my opponent in and am sitting on 73offsuit out of position! Of course I make things worse for myself. The flop is T32. I'm pretty happy with this flop. I make a smallish bet and my opponent mini-raises. I put him on a middlish pocket pair and think I can get him off his hand if I push all-in. If he calls, I also might have some outs. He thought a long time and called with J-T. I think if he has something like 88 he would have folded, but at the same time, I really didn't think through the possibility of him holding a T. In any case, that hand pretty much pissed me off. I was playing so good and then a technical malfunction leads to me losing the tournament -not withstanding my aggressive post-flop play :) At the same time, I cashed in another tournament finishing in the 20 somethings while losing TT to KK.

The next wave of tournaments included a six-max event where I finished in 7th place out of 150 entrants. Six-max is a lot of fun and my style is well-suited for it as I am comfortable raising a lot of hands and playing post-flop. I can't remember the specifics on my exit and plan on going back later to look at the hand history.

In the afternoon, my play started to deteriorate a lot. I bubbled in a $50 and $70 tourney - playing poorly in both. I made a really bad play with A6 in the SB vs BB, calling his allin raise. It was a shame as Tall Paul and Toronexti were also deep with me so it would have been fun if we could have gone deeper together. Toronexti cashed and TP and I both fell short of the money. Shortly thereafter I bubbled in another tournament. I was tired and I knew it so really shouldn't have been playing, but I was kind of in the tourney mode.

That night I couldn't resist to play the nightlies. I play in 3 $50 tourneys and one $150 tourney and got off to poor starts in all four of them. I fought my way back in a couple of them only to lose to bad beats to put me on the rail. Finally I had one more shot and a big pay day as I made the money in the $50K guarantee. At one point I was third in chips and determined not to put myself in vicarious positions. Then the following hand came up. 500-1000 blinds. UTG folds, next player limps, next player raises to $3k, button calls, and I'm in the SB with AK. I have about $47K in chips and none of them have more than $20K. There is almost $10K in the pot already and none of my opponents can hurt me too bad. I'm not a big fan of risking my chips with AK with stacks of 20 big blinds or more, but with the caller, raiser, and caller, the pot was quite big. I couldn't really just call here so I raised to $14K basically pot-committing any callers. The limper raised allin immediately and I knew I was in trouble. I called the extra $10K and now I'm down to $27K. Ugh, but I'm not sure I would do anything different on the hand. Sometimes opponents make good plays and trap you and this is one of those situations.

The last hand, I had worked my way back up to $47K. A little later there was another limper with 600-1200 blinds. I called on the button with 87 of hearts, the small blind calls. The flop is 962, with two hearts giving me an open-ended straight and flush draw. This is a great flop for me but risky. I am willing to commit to the pot while at the same time I'd like to win it on the flop. The early player bets $4800 and is close to pot-committed. I call. The small blind raises to $18K. He has me outchipped. I have about $25K remaining and I pushed. He called with T4 of hearts. So now I have the straight draw and outs to the 8 or 7. My opponent won a $72K pot with T high (the avg stacks was about 20K). Once again, I don't think I can get away from that hand as I want to see a river with it. So my day finished with a smallish cash which was disappointing going from 3rd in chips to out in a relatively short time period. But I was happy that I fought through my sluggishness from the all-day marathon to focus and play pretty good that night.

Today I'll be taking a break. Tonight, Josh and Zach's cousin Laura is having her 15th birthday. In Latin America, a girl's 15th birthday is quite an affair! We are having 35+ people to the house and everyone will be decked out in their best dresses and suit and tie. Josh and Zach will also be getting dressed up so it should be a great night for pictures. I have to ball dance with the lady of honor in front of all those people so I have a little practice to do this afternoon!

Deja Vu!

2007-10-12T05:35:00.000-05:00

I've been playing a LOT of online tournaments recently. I've probably played more in the last couple of weeks than I have the whole year. I've come really close to a big score the last couple of days falling just short. I finished 30 something in a $55K guarantee at FT and 24th in a $100 buy-in at Poker Stars.

The Poker Stars tourney was an afternoon tournament which I have never played before. Right before the money, deja vu! - Taz from the ITH forums was at my table. For those who don't visit the ITH forums, Taz is one of the more popular and active posters we have at the Forum. He can also boast the biggest win of any ITHer as he took down the Poker Stars Million for a $150K payday a couple of months ago.

Taz and I had the displeasure of playing against each other at the WSOP main event on Day 1. I say displeasure, because I surely didn't want to take his chips and I know he didn't want to knock me out of the tournament. Of course, I am still going to play my game, but it was just a weird situation to be in. This was his first WSOP and so I know he wanted to do well. At the same time, I had a long summer at the WSOP and really wanted to do well also. It wouldn't be fun to get in the way of each other's dreams.

Fortunately, we were sitted at the opposite side of the table so you would think that we wouldn't have to go to battle very often - NOT! We got involved in several big hands together as I think we just both happened to get big cards at the same time. The sneaky guy slowplayed aces on me to start off the foray. I got very short-stacked with about 5K left in chips and the blinds were 300-600. I limped UTG with JJ, Taz raised, and we were off to the races as I went allin and he had AK. Fortunately for me I doubled up, and don't get me wrong, I was very happy - but I hated to do it against Taz. I took another pot from him with AK vs his AQ. Those two pots got me rolling and I ended up making the money in the tournament to end my summer on an upbeat. But that situation was quite strange as I had never played someone I knew where the stakes were so high.

So here we are yesterday at PokerStars and I find Taz at my table. We both went pretty deep making the money but both finished short of a big payday. This time it was a lot less stressful and we were able to avoid each other except for Taz stealing my blinds one time.

I had one hand where I questioned my play. I had 20K+ and raised UTG with TT. The next player called and the button called. The blinds were 300-600? and I raised to 1600. I'm not sure about that exactly but something like that. The early player had 10K left and the button 5k. The flop was KK. I decided to make a continuation bet with the intention of calling any raise. However, I wonder if check-raise allin would have been a better play. Checking would either get a pocket pair to bet or induce a bluff so that I could get their chips. The only advantage in betting here is to protect my pair so that they don't take a free card. It just seems like their range of hands would lean towards smaller pocket pairs. Given the size of the pot and the damage a bad free card would do, I probably made the correct play by betting out, but sometimes I will take the risky play to try and get additional chips. They folded so everything turned out fine.

We've decided to stay another week in Colombia so I'll probably get a lot more tourneys in before we leave as it is easier to play them here on vacation than when I'm home.

We're having a baby!

2007-10-11T06:54:00.000-05:00

I am proud to announce that Diana and I will be adding a new addition to our clan next April. We are having a baby girl and her name will be Isabel. Diana had a very tough first trimester but as in her previous pregnancies, she has started to feel much better beginning with her 2nd trimester. It's fun watching our 3-year old Joshua listen to mommies stomach as he is now old enough to understand that Isabel is "making noises".

Surely I can't follow-up an announcement like this with poker stuff :)

Arthur and the Invisibles

2007-10-10T07:11:00.000-05:00

I took my 3-year old son today to see Arthur and the Invisibles. I know, this is an old movie, but we are visiting family in Colombia and some of the movies are quite dates. As some of you know, I am pretty much of a movie freak. I love spending a couple of hours every week where I can stop thinking about life and enter another world. I pretty take Joshua to just about every animated feature that comes out.

I am not much of an animated fan. There are very few that I really enjoy. For some reason, I really enjoyed this one. I say that because the movie got hammered by critics. Many of the animated features that they like have bored me, but I thought this one was clever, had great effects, and had enough adult comedy to keep it entertaining. It is a very creative and out-of-this world story. I'm not sure what the critics didn't like but I thought it was very good and it kept me entertained - and it was in Spanish! My spanish is a little rusty but I was able to follow just about everything in the movie. In any case, a great fantasy film.

At some point I hope to post my top 100 films of all-time which is currently a work in progress. Being a movie critic is one of those careers which I think would be a lot of fun, so I'll probably use this blog from time to time to vicariously fill the role every now and then.

I'm playing a lot of online tournaments while I'm here in Colombia. I'm racking up some good hand examples for some book projects that I am working on. I played pretty crappy Monday night but was real pleased with my play last tonight even though I have nothing to show for it.

I am also putting the finishing touches on two new chapters for a revised ITH - short-handed play and multi-way pots. I haven't written for a long time and I must say that I am pretty pleased with what I have come up with. One could write an entire book on short-handed but I am pleased that with one chapter I think I pretty much convey the main philosophy of good short-handed players. The multi-way pot chapter focuses on three concepts. Some are already discussed in other sections of the book, but I think the focus will make sure that players grasp the concepts better.

The Inauguration of Colombianitos in Medellin

2007-10-08T07:58:00.001-05:00

Diana and I had a very rewarding weekend as Sunday was the inauguration of Project Medellin for Colombianitos. Colombianitos is a charity founded in Atlanta. It has several programs, but its featured program is "Goals for a Better Life" which supports education and family values through a soccer program. Children who want to participate in the soccer school must attend school, achieve good grades, and attend various classes provided by Colombianitos focused on family values and morals. The children are provided with food and drink while in class.

Diana and I discovered Colombianitos a couple of years ago. We had started donating money to various causes for children and ran across Colombianitos. It was a perfect fit for us as they focus on Colombian children and my wife is Colombian. The best part was that we could participate directly with the organization since the Board is based in Atlanta. We soon became members of the board and have been working with them for a couple of years.

As soon as we became Board Members we started encouraging them to open a project in Medellin, Diana's hometown. We were fortunate enough to find Luz Maria, who pretty much knows everyone of significance in the city. She quickly became enamored with the project. Late last year we found the perfect site for the project located in the outskirts of Medellin, high up the hills in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Medellin. There was a soccer field already in place next to the local school and local leaders were very optimistic and supportive of the project. Earlier this year, she contacted various local companies and along with Colombianitos President helped raise the remaining funds needed for the project.

The project opened up two weeks ago and already 250 children are enrolled. We expect the numbers to increase over the next couple of weeks as the inauguration was a big success in the community. The mayor of Medellin attended and several hundred children. There was music, dancing, rap, and games and everyone seemed to have a great time. It was encouraging to me to see a mother walk up to our coordinator with her child and ask how she could get enrolled.

The highlight for Diana and I was seeing this guy Freddy. We met Freddy last December when we visited the location. He is a popular guy in the community with an infectious smile and lots of energy and was wearing a hat from my alma mater, The University of Georgia. The hat was a little dated and we promised to bring him a new one on our next visit. It was amazing to see the appreciation in his face and smile when we brought him the new hat. He said it was like receiving 1 million in pesos (or $500) and told us that he wished we could see how open his heart was at the moment. He later introduced his mother to us. He also has a rap group and they had prepared an original song about Colombianitos which they performed for everyone. He is just one example of how appreciative the community was to have Colombianitos there.

So it was a great day for Diana and I. This community is extremely poor, but you can see hope in the children and support from the parents and leaders of the community. Hopefully with some opportunities some of these children will be able to rise above the daily problems they have to face every day. It will great for Diana and I to be able to visit the school and see their progress every time we come to Medellin to visit family.

There is a great documentary that I encourate everyone to see to learn about some of the hardships that people suffer in suburbs of Medellin. Medellin has one of the highest murder rates in the world due to gangs and drugs and teenage pregnancy is the norm rather than exception. Hopefully a little education can start to make a difference. You can rent it through Netflix and it is called La Sierra.
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/La_Sierra/70043425?trkid=190393

If you are interested in learning more about Colombianitos please visit, www.colombianitos.org. Donations are tax deductible in the states.

180-Man Sitngos

2007-10-05T06:48:00.000-05:00

Today I made my first foray into some of the multiple table sitngos. I've never played them before and actually had quite a good time. The first was a $50 45-man tourney. It was a turbo tourney so the blinds increased every 5 minutes! I finished 5th and won a little over $200.

At the same time, I played an $11 180-person tournament, again it was Turbo with 5-minute blind increases. You basically can't wait very long for a hand and at the end of the tournament it becomes a push-fest. Still, at these limits, many players don't understand correct short-stack strategy. I finished 3rd in this event, again winning a little over $200. At one point at the final table I was chip leader with an M of only 7! I think this tournament finished in less than 2 hours which is why I enjoyed it. Deep structures are great, but sometimes you just don't have the time to grind out a long tournament win.

I got lucky in both tournaments winning some hands where I was the dog, but I went out of both tournaments with the best of it.

Unfortunately, my fun came to an end when another tournament I had registered for 1 1/2 hours before, finally had enough players to get started. I had forgot about that tournament and wasn't really up to playing another one. It was a $20 tourney but with 15 minute levels I lasted about halfway through that one and I got knocked out. I raised with A4s and someone called me. He had plenty of chips left, I believe around $3K. The flop was 237. I checked, he bet $600 (less than the pot), and I moved all-in. I thought my checkraise was a very strong move but he called me with 55. I guess he thought I was bluffing! lol I think my play works at the higher levels but I guess for $11 people take a lot of chances.

In any case, a lot of fun.

My family and I are in Colombia on vacation for a couple of weeks and I hope to go to the casino for some tournaments and cash games. Last Christmas I was here and the tournaments were juicy! If I remember correctly, you start with 2 million in chips, lol (the exchange rate here is 2200 for one dollar so everything is in millions). I'll be sure to post once I've had a chance to play.

Disappointing WCOOP

2007-10-01T10:15:00.000-05:00

I played the WCOOP main event at Stars last night. This is the biggest online tournament of the year with a $2500 buyin and almost 3000 entrants. A cool $1.4 million goes to 1st.

Overall I felt like I played a pretty good game. I can't say that I was in the "zone" but for the most part I felt like I was making the right plays. The competition was very tough so you weren’t going to get a lot of easy chips. Against these types of players, you sometimes need to try unconventional moves to try and confuse your opponent.

With about 600-700 players, I didn’t need to confuse my opponents very much on this hand. I raise with AA, a player goes allin, followed by another player who moves allin. The big blind thinks for at least 30 seconds and I’m yelling CALL at my computer! Unfortunately he folded. I was against JJ and AK. The bad news is that a jack flopped. The good news is that I won the side pot. I broke even on the hand but could have found myself with a very nice stack that mroe than twice the average. As it was, I was slightly below average and had to continue fighting.

At this point we were getting close to the money with 500+ players remaining and they were paying 420 spots. I played a hand from my big blind against a large stack in the small blind who was playing very aggressive. Small blind vs. big blind situations are always quick tricky, especially against a loose player since it is so difficult to put your opponent on hand. On the other hand, you can't let him run over you either. I made a risky play with my hand which unfortunately didn't work out and I was out of the tournament. I don't want to give very many specifics on the hand here as the hand might end up in a new book I am working on that will be coming out next Spring.

Speaking of books, I have some exciting announcements coming soon regarding Dimat Enterprises, the publishing company I started which published my first three books. As you probably know, The Poker Mindset by Ian Taylor and myself came out in April and was our first foray into publishing other authors. Much more is on the way and there are some very exciting books in our pipeline. I hope to be making a more formal announcement soon.

I also want to welcome Alan Schoonmaker, author of The Psychology of Poker and Your Worst Poker Enemy to the ITH Forums. He is our monthly guest for the Ask an Expert forum. If you haven't visited this Forum I highly encourage you do to so. Some of our past guest have included Ed Miller, Matt Matros, and Collin Moshman. The Ask An Expert forum is a great opportunity for you to ask any questions you might have to some of the players and authors in the game.

http://www.internettexasholdem.com/phpbb2/ask-an-expert-vf27.html?sid=8cf32b1a8ecfec81fba354601476905d

Boston Legal rocks!

2007-09-26T04:31:00.001-05:00

Boston Legal is far and away my favorite television program. I'm a netflix guy so we mostly watch movies, but I go out of my way to watch Boston Legal each week. I like the show so much that I rented seasons 1 & 2 to view all of the episodes. Season 3 has just been released and Season 4 premiered last night.

Boston Legal is obviously a legal drama, but it is the characters and comedy which make this show different. The court room scenes are always insightful and on topic with current news and the writing is brilliant. But it is the in-office shenanigans that make the show great. Last night I was practically in tears when Denny Crane was complaining about the velocity of his peeing comparing it to a dripping faucet.

Boston Legal has two of the best characters on TV and probably two of the best characters ever in a legal drama. Alan Shore, played by James Spade, is a savvy lawyer who constantly fights the establishment and is willing to cut corners on behalf of his clients. The writers of the show do an amazing job as his closing arguments are always brilliant and insightful. He is a lonely man, without morals, who is constantly focused on sex, but at the same time he will give his life for his clients. I've never been a James Spader fan before this show, but his portrayal of Alan Shore is brilliant. He recently won Best Actor at the Emmy's.

William Shatner plays Denny Crane, an old sleezebag, kinky, has-been senior partner who likes to make people believe that he is losing his mind. There isn't much to admire in his character, but he is extremely loyal to his friend, Alan Shore, and as soon as you think he has lost it, he will surprise you with something brilliant or insightful. I can't tell you how many one-liners he has that are just hysterical. They're even making t-shirts now of some of his best quotes. Just like James Spader, I was never a William Shatner fan, but he is also brilliant with this character and won a Best Supporting Actor Emmy a couple of years ago.

These two characters are best friends on the show which ends with them on the balcony smoking cigars and discussing the day's events. On many levels they are sad characters, but you love them for the bond they share and for their clear thoughts on what's right and wrong.

The supporting cast is full of interesting characters and great actors. Be sure to check it out!

AA vs. KK

2007-09-23T19:20:00.000-05:00

There aren't many cases where you should fold KK before the flop. The one time you should consider it is when you have very deep stacks and there are lots of reraises going on. I had one of those scenarios today in the $1000 PS WCOOP event and made the wrong play. I raised to $125, a middle player reraised to about $450, another player called. I was out of position so I decide to pot it again and raised to $2K. We all have about $15K each. He raises another $4K! Enough is enough! I should fold. But I pysch myself out sometimes thinking about how some of the internet players play. There were at least 900 "qualifiers" for this event who won satellites and I assume they are weak. My problem is that my best scenario is either QQ or AK. Against AK, I am a favorite, but not a huge one. Against AA, the most likely hand, I'm a big dawg. I should have folded but I pushed and lost against AA.

One thing that frustrates me about online tournaments is that I am at home and have lots of things I would like to be doing. This caused me to gamble a lot early in a tournament hoping to either doubleup or bust. If I make it deep I then start to buckle down and try to play my best poker. The problem is that I often have the worst of it when I gamble early on. Maybe that's OK for a $200 tourney, but I should be playing my A game with a $1000 buyin.

A little frustrating and hopefully I will learn from this mistake.

Multible tables and a river bluff

2007-09-22T07:16:00.000-05:00

Last night I tried playing 4 tables of 30-60. I am still just amazed at these stories of people playing 8-12 tables at a time. Granted, I was playing 6-handed so the action was swift, but I still don't see how someone could play 8 tables. I guess NL full tables is a lot slower/different than 6-max. In any case, I won't be playing 4 6-max tables any more. I eeked out a small profit, but I seriously question whether I could do it long-term profitably. I found myself on too many occasions just hitting the bet button, not really knowing if I was first to act or whether I had raised before the flop. A very humbling experience to know that I just can't keep up with the young guns.

I played one fun hand. I raised in the cutoff with 33 and the BB calls. The flop was AT8, all clubs. I had the 3 of clubs. Check-bet-call. The turn was a T. Check-check. The river was an ace and my opponent bet. About the only hand a reasonable player could bet here is an ace, or possibly a T. He could easily be on a flush draw and be bluffing in this situation. This was a rather straightforward situation for a river bluff and my opponent folded. There is no better satisfaction in limit holdem when you can bluff your opponent off of the winning hand on the river.

Jena 6

2007-09-21T09:24:00.000-05:00

I hesitate to write about things without knowing all of the facts, but I am having a hard time understanding the Jena 6 controversy.

This is what I understand about the story. There is a school in Jena, Louisiana where the whites would hang out under a large tree. Last August, several blacks decided to go and hang out under the tree. The next day, some whites had put nooses in the tree. These whites were suspended (I believe there was an initial decision to expel them which was overturned).

In the following months, tensions were very high until December, when a white was beaten unconscious by six blacks. Although beaten severely, he was able to attend a school function that night. The six blacks were originally charged with 2nd degree attempted murder, but those charges have been reduced (I am not sure of the current charges). Whites were never prosecuted in the case.

This week, there was a major protest involving thousands of blacks to support the six blacks charge. The main message seems to be "equal justice".

I understand that our legal system has many flaws. I understand that it is racially biased. But I don't understand how you support six people who beat another person unconscious. What are they protesting? Do they want the accused blacks to be set free, even though no one disputes the beating? Do they want the whites to be charged? OK, I can understand this but I don't understand how you can "support" six people who beat another person unconscious.

Some black leaders are calling this the beginning of a movement to protect criminal rights. Maybe that movement is needed but I don't think these six black kids are the poster children for that movement. They beat a man unconscious which is against the law and they should pay for their punishment. If some white students beat another person, they should be punished also but I'm not sure I understand the cries for "equal justice" in this particular case.

Yes, the whites shouldn't be provoking others, but that doesn't give you the right to beat them unconscious.

Maybe I am missing some facts or just missing the point, but I think it will be hard for the blacks to gain support and sympathy for their cause when no one argues the guilt of the six defendants. With all of the problems in the legal system, it just seems like you could find much more compelling cases with defendants whose rights have clearly been violated. I just don't see it in this particular case.

For those looking for some poker, I played the $320 Poker Stars tourney Wednesday night. I think this is probably my favorite tournament of the week and I am going to make an effort to play it more frequently. There were over 700 entrants making for a nice payday. I flopped top two pair in the 2nd hour and my opponent turned two better pair and my evening was cut short.

For those who missed it, I was on ESPN last week for the WSOP main event. I was playing with Gus Hansen so we were on the feature table. Unfortunately, I just did not have very many interesting hands that day so my appearance on TV is mostly just watching the action. I flopped a boat against Gus on one hand and bluffed him on another hand, but unfortunately he folded both times on the flop costing me my chance at TV glory!

A straight flush!

2007-09-18T18:04:00.000-05:00

Today I decided to play the $200 WCOOP Limit Event at Stars. I love tournament poker, but limit tournaments are like pulling teeth. If sites are going to offer limit tournaments, I wish they would be short-handed. The same goes for the World Series of Poker. There are several short-handed NL events at the WSOP but no short-handed limit events. I would venture to say that short-handed limit is more popular nowadays online than full-ring games.

In any case, I decided to play since big limit events aren't very common. Early in the tournament I raise with 98s from middle position and get reraised. I flop a flush draw and turn the straight flush. To my delight, my opponent had AKs for the nut flush! The turn and river were capped and I was off and running. I won something like the first 8 of 28 hands and found myself in 3rd position of 2000 entrants. As hot as I was, it was surprising to see that two players were even hotter!

Of course the inevitable happened and I cooled down and got eliminated with about half of the field remaining.

On a somewhat related note, the Poker Stars Sunday tournament lasted for about 20 hours! I love a good structure as much as the next guy but playing from 4:30 PM to noon the next day is a little much. I would personally like to see faster structures in the beginning and then longer structures once the money is made. If you're going to have a crapshoot, have it early and then give the players who make the money a little room to play.

I hope to possibly play the $1K this Sunday if family committments allow.

Poker Wonks and the ITH convention

2007-09-17T08:47:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my blog. I've been wanting to do a blog for quite some time but was waiting for the official launch of our new poker blog site, http://www.pokerwonks.com/. It took much longer than expected to launch delaying my own poker blog but we are now ready to launch.

Poker Wonks is a place for poker bloggers to find a wider audience. Anyone who writes a poker blog is invited to join and we hope to have the best, most comprehensive listing of poker blogs on the net. And to join the fun, this is the first post of my own blog.

I just got back from our annual ITH convention. This is the third year of our convention and it was blast as always. This year we went to Atlantic City for a change of pace and had Members come from as far away as California, Norway, and Sweden. For those who don't know, ITH is the more common name for my poker strategy site, http://www.internettexasholdem.com/. ITH features a great forum to discuss poker with other players and the convention each year is a great way for us to associate faces with Member names.

In any case, the convention this year got off to a great start. We had a cocktail party on Thursday at 7:00. Unfortunately I arrived a little late as I had quite a hectic day of travel missing my original flight, having my car break down on the way to my second flight, sitting through a weather delay on the runway for over an hour, and then finally getting pulled over for speeding on the way from Philadelphia to AC. I've been pulled over about 10 times in my lifetime and this was the first where the cop symphasized with me and only gave me a warning!

The drinks were already flowing by the time I arrived. Some of the Members I met for the first time included Janeg, Wynton, Rocketplayer, Mxrider, Sami, and Wade. And of course we had a lot of the regulars from previous conventions.

Several of us decided to play the midnight madness tournament. $50 entry fee starts at 12:12, 12K stack, and 12 minutes blind levels. I played until 5:00 in the morning finishing 13th for a $92 payday! For $8 an hour I ruined all the rest that I was hoping to have to start off the convention! Nsidestrate also cashed so we both got off to good starts.

Friday morning we had our "seminar". This year featured a Q&A session with Ed Miller, author of 4 poker books. The session went really great. Ed is very personable and quite articulate and I think everyone joined the session. Ed did most of the talking but it really became more like a roundtable session as everyone joined in with their own ideas.

Bullajami won the first event Friday afternoon which was the limit event. That night Wade took down the NL event. Only having a few hours sleep, I decided to hit the sack so I would be rested for Saturday festivities; unfortunately, I missed the annual ITH drunk-fest game. Three stories quickly spread about the game the next day.

1/ Suitedpair led the drunkedness part of the game and the cocktail waitresses couldn't keep the drinks coming fast enough.
2/ Ed Miller lost his first rack of chips and then disappeared for a few minutes, only to return with 4 racks of white chips announcing, "Now I am properly bankrolled for this game!" [they were only playing $2-$4 which is indicative of the action in the game]
3/ Ed calls for the Qc on the turn, only to see it hit to the amazement of everyone - and then Ed folds the river!

I was thinking this game would go on Saturday night but evidently everyone was too exhausted for it a second night in a row.

On Saturday, Bugsbunny won the limit event. Ed cashed and donated his winnings to Colombianitos (http://www.colombianitos.org/), a charity that my wife and I support and serve on their board of directors. Thanks Ed!

Wynton won the main event with Janeg finishing runner-up. Congrats to both!

Saturday night I decided to play midnight madness again with a few others since the ITH drunk-fest game wasn't running. Unfortunately I busted out early losing KK to AA. Ammbo went on the win the thing in a 4-way deal where he netted $3400! Congrats!

Overall a great weekend and I think everyone had a great time. It amazes me how people from all walks of life can come together once a year and act as if we had known each other for years. I am really proud of the community we have built at ITH and the convention each year just shows what a great bunch of people we have who frequent the boards.

Thanks everyone for a great time and a big thanks for Tanya Peck for coordinating another great convention!