Archive for July, 2008

Kansas City Lowball, or KCL, is the name used for 2-7 Single Draw. Note, ’single draw’ – it’s the same game as the 2-7 Triple Draw i’ve described in previous posts, but with just the one draw. And the clincher, it’s played no-limit. This makes it surely an absolute blitzkrieg of a game. Bearded Mike introduced us to it in Vegas recently, but we never actually got the chance to play it. It is going to be introduced to the Hog Roast mix-game, “SHOK’D” – Stud, Hold-em, Omaha, KCL, Deuce-to-Seven, played in this order – PL Hold’em, limit TDL, PLO, limit Stud, NL KCL. It’s also being introduced to Pokerstars in the WCOOP – check out the tournament on September 16th. One i am definitely going to play is the $200+$25 WCOOP TDL event on September 6th – looking forward to the chance to play tournament TDL after my WSOP experience.

So, my return to UK poker began with the £200 freeze-out in the Summer Breeze festival at the rendezvous in Brighton last nite, and it was a real mixed-bag. Having been reading Gus Hansen’s “Every Hand Revealed” for the past couple of days i felt crazily inspired to limp a lot early and play a wide range of hands, which is somewhat contrary to my usual playing style. Unfortunately, i landed on a weird wild limpfest of a table, where 5 limpers would get raised and then all call, and found myself in predictable trouble when i’d hit something marginal and then wonder how i had so many chips on the middle with such crap cards. I’m no mug, but i’m no Gus Hansen either, as the first 2 levels highlighted to devastating effect. Starting with 5k, i moved to 8k early with a decent call of a large bet on the river, (which i dont do enough), but i was down to 4k by the break due to my out-of-character strategy.

After the break i went back to a more solid strategy of picking spots and being aggressive in them, and leaving the crap cards to everyone else to play. Check out this hand tho – i’ve blinded down to 3.5k with blinds at 200-400 and i haven’t seen a ‘proper’ hand at all, and i get a good, but not premium hand in the big blind. There’s a raise and a call in front of me, and i decide, which i am prone to do when short-stacked, to gamble in a spot where there are already a lot of chips in the middle. I shove-in, and with no fold equity in the hand i get both callers. I miss a king-high flop, and also brick both turn and river. All of these are checked by my opponents all the way, with such weakness that they may well have missed as well. I stand up and flip over my A-J (yes, i know…), the initial raiser then shows his A-J, and the last player turns over – you guessed it – A-J. It’s a 3-way split.

Soon after i more than double-up with Q’s in the blinds when the button shoves his last chips in with J-7, and i have 8k when the blinds reach 400-800. Then i’m moved to a more ’solid’ table, and proceed to blind my way down a couple of thousand when i find 7’s around mid-position. There’s around 40 players left, (from 120), and i think about what to do. I could limp – but thats not gonna win me the blinds and i’m def going to have a make a difficult flop decision, so i make 2100 to go, leaving me with about 4.5k. It folds to the big blind, who thinks for a while before raising me 3.5k more. I kinda shrugged and decided that 4.5k wasn’t going to get me anywhere in a hurry and shoved, and he called and showed Q’s, which held up and knocked me out.

Several points in retrospect: I had a nagging feeling he had a hand like Q’s or J’s but i didnt go with that feeling and instead looked for a reason to call, hoping for a race against A-K. His re-raise rather than just shoving in was such an invitation to me to put my remaining chips in that i shouldn’t have fallen for it. he only had another 2k back himself, and he wouldn’t have invited me to the flop if he’d had A-K, he’d just have shoved and i may well have folded. Also, 4.5k is actually alright to continue with, i just have to pick up another spot to double-up in, which is something i don’t do that badly – at least then i can get my money in when i’m sure i’m at least racing if not well ahead, rather than hoping for a race but suspecting i’m smashed!

So all-in all, a weird first table, a weird style i adopted, an improvement later on, a very weird 3-way hand and a very poor and tired piece of decision making on my final hand. I seem to have fallen into a trap of only analysing hands properly after they’ve happened, rather than when i am in the middle of them. I really must concentrate my efforts on thinking more clearly during the hand as i know i can, rather than merely looking to justify what it is i want to happen, which is what i do when i’m not properly focussed on the game. ‘Focus’ – that’s the keyword for next time. And ‘position’, i didn’t do enough of that later either. And ‘aggression’, and lots of other words. Actually ‘play well next time’ would probably sum it up nicely )

I posted this story about the University of Alberta developing a poker AI recently and it seems that they’ve played this system, called Polaris, against human poker pro’s and beaten them. Actually, it’s machines 1 humans 1 because this is the second time Polaris has played human pro’s and the first time it was convincingly beaten. The main difference with version 2 of the AI is that it learns from experience, and so the pro’s were unable to consistently exploit perceived weaknesses in it’s playing style, as they had againt the earlier version. There have been discussions over whether a computer could beat a human at poker for years following the IBM Deep Blue chess program victory over Gary Kasparov in 1997 but many people thought it would be far more difficult with poker given the lack of information available in poker on which to base decisions. Chess is a game of complete information, but with poker so much has to be interpreted. In fact, poker is a game where there is a truly massive amount of information floating around, the problem is that it is very difficult to analyse all that information in order to come up with the optimal strategy. it would seem that the team from Alberta have managed to create a program that does that extremely well, and it will be very interesting to see whether the pro’s can rise to the challenge in the seemingly inevitable rematches.

With 280 players starting day 2 of the Caesars Palace Mega-Stack Main Event, Ads eventually busted out in 190th place, of 1300 who started the tournament.  This is a great effort, but frustratingly short of the money.  I dont have details of how the day went in terms of the significant hands played yet, but i’ll post when i do.  Although disapointing, it shows again that the group have the ability to make it thru these huge fields and a significant cash seems only to be a matter of time…

The last thing i did in Vegas before coming home was to go 50-50 on entering Ads into the Caesars Palace Mega-Stack Main Event, for $500 each. Ads, aka Adamp21 on Ladbrokes, is a good poker player who has won decent-sized events, such as the Ladbrokes Nordic Series of Poker in Denmark last year. His brother Ade has also won a festival event, and i continue to learn much from both of them. Anyway, Caesars were anticipating 1400 for their headline event, giving a 1st prize of somewhere around $300k, so its a massive tournament. This morning i received a text message from Ads that he has successfully negotiated day 1 of the 3 day event, with a stack of 75k, (the average being around 95k, so he’s a bit down on that but still well in contentipon). 170 people survived day 1, and day 2 is Wednesday. I think there may be 2 day 1’s, for the massive field, so there may be 350 on day 2, if you see what i mean. The main thing is that Ads is still very involved and in with as good a chance as any with a crack at the big cash – i hope the structure means that it doesnt become fast & loose on day 2.

My poker odyssey continues sooner than expected – i have arrived back at the beginning of the Summer Breeze poker festival at The Rendezvous Casino at Brighton Marina. I’m going to play in the £200 NLH freezeout on Friday evening – the rest of the week will be too manic in terms of catching up with work to get down there. I also have to sort the back out before i go, so hopefully nothing will go wrong there. It will be interesting to see if i can put into practice anything i gained from Vegas, and how the differences in play between the Brighton and Vegas players will affect my game – i’ve not played Vegas and Brighton tournaments so close together before. The maximum field for The Rendezvous is 120, which will seem tiny next to the 500+ fields at Caesars and the Venetian, and the 3000 at the WSOP )

Yes, it’s time to go home.  Another outstanding time in Vegas, and already looking forward to next time.  Now sitting at McCarran airport i’m thinking of the highlights of the trip – wiothout doubt meeting Bearded Mike and thru him Jason Lee, and stuff which resulted from that, including the 2-7 at Venetian, the Ultimate Bet party, hanging woth Annette15 etc, plus the two WSOP events i played and the Caesars Mega-Stack i went so deep in, all great memories.

Sadly the poker hasnt been anywhere near as successful this time – just one of those things, sometimes the cards just dont run your way regardless of the decisions you make.  If you cant stand a run of bad luck, you’re playing the wrong game.  I’d like to think i’ve learned a bit and come back stronger than i left – there’s nothing like 2 weeks of intensive playing to strengthen your game and show you your weaknesses, and next year i intend to play more WSOP events, and i really want to go deep and cash.

Well, this blog will continue as i come back to the Brighton & London poker scene.  The WSOPE isnt far away and there are runours of some affordable events being added to the list, so i might well give one of those a crack.  Whatever happens, it’ll be a fun ride )

Right, so i didnt get my last crack at the Caesars Mega-Stack due to being unable to walk properly and being in a lot of pain.  Given that i’ve been thru having an injection into my eye, when i say a lot of pain, i mean it.  I ended up at a medical centre where they revealed a lot of bruising to the back, and gave me 2 injections – one, an anti-inflammatory muscle-relaxant and the other a super-strong pain reliever, and then gave me a back support to wear.  So much for a relaxing massage!  Bearded Mike suggested “i smell a lawsuit, this is the land of opportunity” )  Anyway, thankfully its all worked and i was back out tonight.

Last day tomorrow, and Jason plays his day 1 of the WSOP Main Event, so we’ll be over there railing him and hoping he does well.  Ads is going to play the Caesars Mega-Stack Main Event next week, a $1000 buy-in event that will get a field in excess of 1200, so the payout will be substantial.  Also going to check out the darts tomorrow at Mandalay Bay – the Desert Classic is on there, so it should be fun.

The poker this year hasn’t just been frustrating for me, Ads & Ade have also had to deal with some atrociously bad running.  Today, they both had aces cracked in sick fashion within 5 minutes of each other at the same cash table.  Ade lost with aces full of sevens when his opponent revealed flopped quads…  Then, tonight, Ads busted in the Venetian tournament on a table he described as ‘hilarious’.  My pain is more physical today – my back has completely seized up – I thought i’d be healthy for a change yesterday afternoon so i went to the spa here, chilled out and had a massage.  I think my body has reacted in shock and awe at the pummelling it took, (it was one of those ‘deep tissue’ massages – don’t do it kids), and it could also have something to do with hour after godforsaken hour hunched over the poker table.  Can hardly move.  I’m hoping it sorts itself out over night so i’m ok for 2moro’s last-ditch attempt to get deep in the Caesar’s Mega-Stack for a second time.  Oh well, i think alchohol may help.

Thinking back to the Betfair party, it made me realise just how sick the UB party was.  Betfair was a load of people in a plush room at The Wynn with free drinks, while UB was in a penthouse suite at The Palms, with a massive music system, podium dancers, a pool, free drinks, free food in 3 rooms including a sushi chef.  No comparison.  If they put some 2-7 on there, they’ll get some business from me )

The last few days of poker have been quite frustrating, as i seem to find myself in a lot of difficult spots after nightmare flops, and once again today i found myself folding a lot of big hands to re-raises and re-re-raises, including aces. I managed to resist the temptation to tilt and stay solid, waiting for an opportunity. After about 4 hours of play i still had around the starting stack of 7k when i found Ah-10h in the cut-off. With blinds at 300-600, there were 2 limpers and neither looked that strong so i made a pot-sized raise of 2200. Only 1 guy called, (with roughly the same stack as me), and i had position. On a jack-high flop with 2 hearts, the caller checks. I now reckon a bet will either take it here & now, or i’ll have a good few outs with possible overs and the nut-flush draw. I dont have enough chips to make any other bet than all-in, so i shove. The guy calls me with pocket 5’s, the turn and river are both bricks and i’m crippled. I quadruple up when i push blind and hit trip Q’s, but i’m out soon after.

Last year i was finding it quite straight-forward to go very deep in these tournaments, cashing several times and not finding myself in much trouble. On this trip, other than on a couple of occasions, i’m finding myself being out-flopped, out-turned or out-rivered quite consistently, and i’ve lost count of the times i’ve folded premium pairs. No doubt sometimes i’ve been bluffed and possibky you could argue that i’ve laid down some hands when i should have called, but i’m pretty sure that in the vast majority of cases the lay down has been correct, if deeply annoying.

One more shot at a the Caesars Mega-Stack…

Busted early in the Venetian tournament – only have myself to blame for this one tho, i totally blew a hand i had in the bag for a big pot. So, i have Q’s in the big blind and there is a raise to 300 from under the gun. Then there are 2 callers, so I make it 1500 to go and only the third caller comes in. The flop is K-rag-rag and I check to see if he’s gonna bet the K, in which case i can decide whether to throw it away or not. After all, he’s called a big pre-flop bet, and i’ve been re-raised off hands a lot recently. Anyway, he checks as well, and the turn is a third Q – bingo. Now i check again, and he checks. The river is a 10, i bet, he moves all-in, i call and he shows A-J for the straight, beating my trip Q’s and sending me out. So, why do i do this to myself? Check twice while i’m ahead and fire out once i’ve allowed the guy to catch his straight. If i bet out on the turn, when i should, i take the pot there and then. Ok, so he got lucky to hit his runner-runner straight, and perhaps shouldnt even have been in the pot at all with A-J, but the truth is that i let him get there and got what i deserved. Moron.

Anyway, that meant i could move on to the Betfair WSOP party at The Wynn with Jason. There, he introduced me to Annette Obrestad, aka Annette15, who made history when she won the Main Event at the World Series of Poker Europe last year aged just 19, and is therefore too young to play out here so she’s here doinmg publicity and backing some other players. The Betfair party was a more sedate affair than the Ultimate Bet one last night, so we took a limo over to the Rio, where Annette signed Jason & me into the Champions Lounge. This is a plush area outside the main arena with a Wii, a PS3 and a nice pool table. Having not played for several years i thought i’d be pretty rusty, but i was actually alright and managed to split 4 games with a very good Filipino player at $50 a game, breaking even. Jason had to split to help his buddies shift into the Palms hotel, so I hung out there with Annette, chatted a bit and played a couple of games of pool. My one & only trick shot actually came off first time, for which i was truly grateful. It felt slightly ironic, here I was, at the home of World Series of Poker, with a world champion poker player, playing pool – the game i gave up to play poker )

It’s a bit blurry, (i’d had a few), but this is Annette15 shooting pool with me in the Champions Lounge at the Rio during the WSOP, just before it closed for the night

This was the first time i’d met her, and given that she is pretty wealthy, a star in the poker world, and very young, i was very pleasantly taken by how humble and level-headed she is. She has to constantly put up with people asking to hang out with her, get her phone number etc, and basically she’s just a very cool person who isnt into the whole ’star’ thing. It’ll be interesting to see what happens when she can enter the WSOP in Vegas for the first time, but thats 2 years away. I decided not to discuss my beautifully played hand from the Venetian… )