eff you

Blanked that Sunday. Ah well. Here is an awesome new song from Cee-Lo:

a last hurrah, of sorts

Tomorrow is probably the last day in a while that I will play a long, dedicated MTT session. Next week, I start law school at the University of Arizona. Although I was able to skate by in undergrad while still spending a fair amount of time playing, I doubt that’ll be the case here, especially given the importance of first year grades. I’ll still find time to play on occasion; there are multiple WCOOPs I’ll try to find time to play (especially the turbos), and I will still try to put together a $12/180 heavy session here and there. But this seems like it’ll be the last time in a while that I wake up at 9:45 and play every tourney I can until 6 or 7 at night.

I still am going to try to keep this blog going. On one hand, that seems strange, given that I will be playing considerably less. But I hate talking about playing, anyway. I hate recapping. It might be a little freeing. That might mean a little less poker talk, but I don’t really care. Might mean more NBA Live ’08 talk, which is always a good thing.

I do hate recapping things I did personally, but I do want to mention the Micro Mayhem competition on P5s. I’ve been playing Micro Mayhem (a competition that, as the same suggests, focuses on micro tourneys) in some form since 2006. Bdubs and I thought it’d be a good way to encourage us to mass multitable, and, with beck_AA, we had our three man team.

In summary, beck_AA is a stud. He won two tourneys with huge fields (a $4.40 and a $1.10) that catapulted us to victory. He had way more points than every other person in the competition, and he grinded ridiculously hard to do it. Brent and I certainly contributed, but beck_AA was the guy. He’s a true grinder and pretty much the man.

Tomorrow is the day. Two $1M prize pool tourneys that I’ll be playing on FTP (definitely staying away from the $150R) in addition to the regular schedule. Part of me hopes that telling the sites “this is it!” is going to mean I get to win all my showdowns. We’ll see how things go.
Good luck to everyone, especially to jalman and threeven, who are playing in the Arizona State Championship tomorrow.

Cheers,

David

fourth of july

I finished the month of June doing pretty badly. I don’t think I’ve been playing that well in some spots, and I haven’t ran well, either. I managed to cap off the month with a win in the super turbo $30k on FTP (one of my favorite tourneys), so all is not lost.

I wanted to write something clever that may be only tangentially poker related, but I can’t think of anything that clever, so that’ll be for next time.

Off to go swimming and watch some “3rd of July, suburban community that wants to do it on a Saturday even though it’s the middle of the summer and kids don’t have school” fireworks.

Happy Fourth!

disappointing

Not a good day. Got pretty crushed. Got 6th in a WSOP seat freeroll (with 1477 people) that gave out 5 seats. Made one final table at this point ($27 turbo KO) for just under $200. Also, MakeMeMaster, who is going up against me in this competition, won the early $11R today.

The plan, at this point, is to finish everything up that I’m already in (always a chance I mount a late comeback), watch the Breaking Bad season finale, go to bed, then wake-up tomorrow and grind, the main goal being to make up ground in that competition (so focusing on $55 freeze-outs, $11Rs, and everything below). MakeMeMaster is very good both at poker and grinding (he already won a $2 tourney in this competition), so I’m going to have to counter with a strong effort. Hopefully I’ll get the run-wells again.

anatomy of a slowroll

Slowrolling has long been an integral part of the poker community. For many years, it was seen as objectionable. However, in the last few years, it has seen greater social acceptance in the poker community due to Ganktober (a month where slowrolling is encouraged) and acceptance among many top online poker players. In order to slowroll effectively, however, certain criteria need to be met. I hope to enlighten you to these criteria and help you achieve an effective slowroll using the B.E.C.K. system for slowrolling.

Build-up

Build-up is a crucial part of the very best slowrolls. Though not 100% necessary, build-up makes any slowroll better. This build-up usually involves some sort of history with the slowrollee, but it can also simply be how deep the tournament is. A slowroll at a final table is far superior to a slowroll at 10/20. That said, any slowroll is better than no slowroll.

For the example we will use, the build-up consists of two parts. First, this occurred at the final table of the $18,500 $55+1r+1a on Full Tilt. Second, while no direct exchange of words has occurred between myself and the opposing player, he has been three-betting me fairly often (and I’ve had to fold each time). In addition, I rooted for him to win a pot when he got 63 all-in preflop against AK early at the final table simply because I assume someone who gets 63 all-in in that spot is horrible. He’s probably not horrible as he has had some success, but he certainly has some leaks (as we’ll see shortly.)

Expectation

By expectation, I mean that the slowrollee expects that, when you flip over your cards, you will have a hand far worse than you actually do have. If someone knows they are being slowrolled, the slowroll is nowhere near as effective. This makes it especially difficult to slowroll veterans like The Lab Rat, who slowroll often and expect to be slowrolled. To counter-balance this, you have to balance your slowroll range (sacrificing some of our next key) to make them believe they actually do have the best hand. For the novice, I suggest waiting to get some experience before going after an experienced slowroller.

In this example, I had raised and folded multiple times prior to this hand. Further, I raised preflop and was called out of position by the villain in an earlier hand. I c-bet the flop, checked the turn, and folded to a river bet. Undoubtedly he believes that, when I am time banking, I am considering whether to make a stand with a hand like A5 or 88.

Seat 4: rubbarose (312,252)
Seat 5: murp1956 (317,236)
Seat 7: dpottz (119,512)
rubbarose antes 600
murp1956 antes 600
dpottz antes 600
dpottz posts the small blind of 2,500
rubbarose posts the big blind of 5,000
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dpottz [Jh Jd]
murp1956 folds
dpottz raises to 12,499
rubbarose calls 7,499
*** FLOP *** [Jc 4s 5h]
dpottz bets 13,500
rubbarose raises to 299,153, and is all in
dpottz has 15 seconds left to act
dpottz has requested TIME

Certainty

Certainty requires that, in order to slowroll, you be almost positive that you are going to win. There is nothing more disappointing than attempting to slowroll only to see your top set lose to a backdoor straight. The better your chances at winning when the chips go into the middle, the better your slowroll is. As discussed previously, against experienced slowrollers, you might have to slowroll a hand that isn’t so certain to win (QQ preflop, for example) in order to balance your slowroll range and surprise your opponent even more when you show up with the abso-nuts.

Here, I got in with top set against top pair. However, the turn brought a very, very, very scary card, creating a four-card straight for my opponent. Thankfully, he blanked the river.

dpottz calls 92,913, and is all in
rubbarose shows [Js 6s]
dpottz shows [Jh Jd]
Uncalled bet of 192,740 returned to rubbarose
*** TURN *** [Jc 4s 5h] [7c]
*** RIVER *** [Jc 4s 5h 7c] [4d]
rubbarose: slowroll?
rubbarose shows two pair, Jacks and Fours
dpottz shows a full house, Jacks full of Fours
dpottz wins the pot (239,624) with a full house, Jacks full of Fours

Kaput

I spent a lot of time trying to find a word that started with K that could best describe the next step. Kaput is close enough. Essentially, your opponents chances of winning, ideally, will be kaput. They will be so flustered by the slowroll that they will punt away their stack. The longer your opponent hangs around in the chat after the slowroll, the better.

In this case, rubbarose was done. Even though they still had a workable stack, they punted it away a few hands later:

Seat 4: rubbarose (202,040)
Seat 5: murp1956 (307,336)
Seat 7: dpottz (239,624)
rubbarose antes 600
murp1956 antes 600
dpottz antes 600
rubbarose posts the small blind of 2,500
murp1956 posts the big blind of 5,000
The button is in seat #7
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dpottz [Ac 7h]
dpottz: is the word you’re looking for
rubbarose: seriously
dpottz raises to 12,499
rubbarose raises to 201,440, and is all in
murp1956 raises to 306,736, and is all in
dpottz folds
murp1956 shows [Ad Qc]
rubbarose shows [Ah 8s]
Pokerlusky (Observer): wat a douche
Uncalled bet of 105,296 returned to murp1956
rubbarose: i think I love you
*** FLOP *** [9s 2d 7c]
onebadbeat_1 (Observer): bye A8
*** TURN *** [9s 2d 7c] [9h]
*** RIVER *** [9s 2d 7c 9h] [9d]
murp1956 shows three of a kind, Nines
rubbarose shows three of a kind, Nines
murp1956 wins the pot (417,179) with three of a kind, Nines

Certainly not the worst jam in the world, but I have no doubt they’d do likewise with worse hands. If it didn’t happen on this hand, it would happen against him a few hands later.

Not only did he bust, though, but he stuck around until the end of the tourney (I lost HU). He continually told me how I wasn’t classy. Meanwhile, his friends threatened me. I don’t mind people claiming they’ll pray for bad things to happen to me (happens all the time), but asking for my full name and saying they’ll “take (me) out on Lake Mead and do what we do” seemed to be crossing the line. In any case, it all speaks to the effectiveness of this particular slowroll. He even went so far as to make a Pocketfives thread about it. That’s a winner.

So follow the B.E.C.K. system and you’ll be slowrolling with the best in no time. Best of luck!

i wanted a watch

I’ve been grinding pretty hard this last week. I’ve been busy till about 4 every day this week, but from there I’ve been playing everything I can. I usually 15-25 table MTTs, stopping with the Turbo Hundo on FTP. I had a few bad days, but I ran pretty well yesterday (winning a WSOP seat and getting 2nd in the $117 superturbo for $5k) which more than made up the difference.

I played the MSOP limit hold ‘em and made the final table. The winner of each MSOP event gets a “special edition watch.” I have no idea if that watch is any different than one I could buy in the points store, but I want one. I like the idea of getting a prize. As threeven put it, it’s something to show your mom. Online winnings, so often, aren’t tangible. Numbers in an account, really. I don’t think most people even get checks anymore. I like the idea of getting your picture taken with your winning hand, getting a trophy, or even just getting some silly watch FTP will give you. It’s the pageantry.

Anyways, I got 5th. So fuck that.

Best of luck everyone,

David

the suns and more grinds

I’m in Phoenix for the week, but I’ve still managed to play a decent amount. I really prefer to play on my desktop (and the huge monitor that goes with it) rather than on my laptop, but I can still managed to play a few tables. Last night was especially good to me, as I ended up finishing 2nd in the $117 super turbo KO on FTP for ~$7k. Combined with some solid finishes in the last week or so (including 7th in the $109R turbo on FTP on Sunday), I’m still obviously running well. I hope it keeps up.

I managed to go to Game 4 of the Suns/Lakers series while I was in town, and it was without a doubt the best basketball game I’ve ever been to.

First, Suns fans have a reputation for being a lot like Lakers fans: they show up late, leave early to beat the traffic rush, etc. I went to Game 1 of the Suns/Blazers series and this was obvious. With a minute left and the Suns within 6, the lower level looked like this:

This game was a completely different story. They handed out those Thunderstix to everyone who came in (the inflatable sticks that you bang together), which makes the game way more fun. Second, the crowd as a whole seemed to care a lot more. The fact that it’s the Western Conference Finals and it’s against the Lakers is what caused this, but I wasn’t sure that Suns fans would be able to get up for a big game like this. Clearly we can. Finally, when we were leaving, the place was still going nuts. I managed to snag a little as we were walking out:

Granted, this is only the second Suns playoff game I’ve ever been to, but that atmosphere was intense. Also, I’m glad I got just enough for you to hear the guy next to me singing, “Kobe takes it up the ass, doo dah, doo dah.”

Here’s hoping the Suns win Game 5 at Staples.
Cheers

sunday sunday sunday

I actually had my work schedule a little messed up and was able to play on Sunday. I struck out at the SCOOPs, cashed the miniFTOPS main event, FT’d the Bodog $100k (got 7th though), 2nd in the $75/$20k on FTP, and played a hand well on Cake. I’m hoping that I’m not just running really well; I’m making some final tables and winning some tourneys, but a decent amount of that is a product of my volume, and my ROI is nothing out of this world over the last month. Then again, part of that is probably the result of playing a few SCOOP and FTOPS events with higher-than-usual buy-ins. We’ll see how the rest of the month plays out.

Monday was a dark day. For one, I realized I’m much more out of shape than I thought. I played basketball with some friends and, when we tried running 4-on-4 full court, I got crushed. We ended up switching to half court, where I ended up doing a lot better, but my performance in the full court needs addressing. I guess I thought, “Well, I ride my bike to school everyday, that’s exercise,” but really that’s like two miles biking a day, which is nothing. So one of my primary goals this summer is going to be to get into shape and eat healthier. Pretty sure I’ve made that exact goal many, many times before, but I’m really not doing much this summer so I should certainly have the opportunity.

Good luck everyone,

David

graduation and deep runs

I graduated from college today. I’m not done with my schooling career (I’m going to law school in the fall), but it feels good to attach some meaning or accomplishment to the time I’ve spent in school thus far.

Pokerwise, I managed to play the late night stuff tonight. I really like the Saturday night schedule because of the Pacific Rim Special, a super weird $215 that is designed to be a “major” for people in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, etc. It confuses people because the name suggests that only people from that region can play, but that’s not the case. This is my fourth (I think) week playing it, and I final tabled it for the first time. When we were four handed, this hand came up: http://www.pokerhand.org/?5439612

Which is preposterous. I ended up getting third, which was a little disappointing if for no other reason than it’s exactly the type of tourney I like winning (a little weird, small field, late night, etc.) I also took down the $22R on FTP.  So basically today was a sick day: graduated, got third in a cool tourney, and won a tourney.
This summer, I plan on grinding a lot as I doubt I’ll have much time to play come August when I start school again. I’ll probably end up making some goals to keep up with on this blog.

Good luck to everyone playing tomorrow. I’ll miss the heart of the day working, but I might try to play the late night stuff again. That’s my bread and butter.

Cheers,

David

nba live ninety fi i ive

I’m continuing to run well. I won same $109/$15k turbo again last night after sucking out on APerfectGent three or four times three-handed and heads up (Q5 > AJ, A9 > JJ, A6 > QQ). It was fairly ridiculous. A few other runs elsewhere yesterday, but nothing substantial. Random Cake tourneys, mostly. I like Cake, but I always seem to time out more on every site when I’m playing there. I tried a weird set-up yesterday where I stacked tables by site to try to fix that, and it worked pretty well.

Outside of poker, I’ve started playing this video game a little bit more:

I play as the Suns and did a fantasy draft where, after a few trades, I nabbed Steve Nash, Leandro Barbosa, Kevin Durant, Jorge Garbajosa, and Brendan Wright. I pretty much ride my starters all the time, with Mike Conley, Jason Williams, and the late Eddie Griffin available if anyone fouls out. There are a number of things that make this game absolutely ridiculous:

1. You get assists when you definitely shouldn’t. For example, Jorge Garbajosa is leading the fast break. He passes the ball to Mike Conley under the basket, and Conely blows the lay-up. Garbajosa gets the rebound and dunks it in. For whatever reason, the game credits Garbajosa with not only the rebound and the points, but also with the assist. So somehow he got an assist from himself.

2. My best players are almost certainly Brendan Wright and Jorge Garbajosa. I don’t have an explanation for it. When I used to play NBA Live way back in the day (in the days of NBA Live ’95 for the computer), I used to try to score all my points with my created player. I’d also set it for 12 minute quarters, which is ridiculous given the pace almost everyone plays in video games. But nowadays I spread the ball around, and it just so happens that Brendan Wright gets a ton of easy baskets.

3. The random players who get love. The easiest example is that the cover athlete is Gilbert Arenas. It gets much worse, though. If you play the team with Jamaal Magloire, you get a speech from Steve Kerr (one of the announcers) about the need to stop Jamaal Magloire in the post. Jamaal Magloire ended up averaging under 2 points a game in 2008. I don’t think anyone needed to worry about his presence in the post.

In short, I need to find more productive ways to spend my time. I’m going to try to get a regular schedule going once graduation/finals are completely over so I don’t end up spending a ton of time playing a nearly three year old basketball video game against the CPU.

By the way, if you’ve never played NBA Live ’95, you missed out:

Good luck,

David