DTD Grand Prix II

This weekend I played in the Dusk Till Dawn Grand Prix II event held at the DTD club in Nottingham. A three-day tournament, it started on Friday and I decided to play Day 1b on Saturday alongside 405 other players (thus making 810 entrants in total and a first prize of 20k Euro).

In terms of my performance I didn't play badly, at least compared to my often common mistake of letting the pot get too big in live tournaments. Part of the reason for this may have been the paucity of decent starting hands I received. Throughout the event, the highlight was AK, a hand I have lost so much money with online in recent weeks, it was only ever going to cost me chips, and 88 twice, but no bona fide monster hands. When the pots were small to start with I rivered a flush once, and turned a full house another, but these were the hands that were never going to make or break me, unfortunately.

As the tourney progressed and the blinds grew, I started to feel the pressure and had to take a back seat and hope that when I did get a decent spot, they would hold up. This happened to some extent but instead of getting me back in it, I just bumped along the bottom. Ended up with two split pots and a couple of blind steals but that was about it. When I did get it all in with a similar sized stack, I had A4s and he had A5s - I hit the 4 on the turn but he caught the 5 on the river. After another steal to bring me up to 5k in chips (the blinds were 600/1200 by now), I picked up 67s under-the-gun so shoved and had three callers, who checked down every street. This was good to see as I had paired the 7 on the turn. Unfortunately, the board also contained four hearts and one of the guys had a Qh to send me home in 119th (out of the 405 on the day) and after seven hours of poker.

Oddly for a live tournament, I stayed at the same table for the duration, and due to watching quite a lot of individuals play could separate the good players from the average ones. Two in particular - Zafar Aslam and Mark Newman caught the eye (the latter, who was the guy with the Qh who knocked me out, is still in the tournament as I type and down to the final 4).

Also special mention to Tom Piccirilli (aka Tom Pich, aka FezioJnr on GNF), a fellow forumer who eventually finished a very impressive 12th in the event and took home over 800 Euro).

After sleeping much of the day away on Sunday, I played a few rush tournies online, including one with over 1600 entrants, in which I eventually ended up coming 20th. This major feat was rewarded by a seemingly paltry prize of $56. I know online tournies are top-heavy and I should be happy with winning 5x my buy-in, but still....

Rush On Demand Tournaments - A love and hate thing

Recently, a number of people who frequent the GNF Forum have been posting up some really good results on Full Tilts 'Rush Poker On Demand' tournaments. This led me to spend a great deal of time over the xmas break grinding this format of game to see what the fuss is about. I thought I would share some of my initial thoughts here.

For those that don't know, Rush Poker is the innovative format of poker whereby instead of being allocated to a table, you form part of a large 'pool' of players who are allocated a table on a hand-by-hand basis. Therefore if you are done with your hand you 'quick fold' and are instantly reassigned a table and receive a new hand. This creates fast and furious action all the way to the final table, which reverts to normal structure. This has been around some time now, however the latest advancement is the concept on Full Tilt of 'On Demand' tournaments, which are essentially Sit-and-Go tournies, that start when a predetermined number of people register but crucially allow a period of late registration (like regular MTTs). This creates larger player pools and thus larger prize pools. The vast majority of these tournaments running at the moment are $4 or $11 buy-in (with the occasional $24 one), and whilst they start with 45 players, they usually end up with 150-250, and generally complete in around 2hrs.

From playing them over the holiday period, I have found them frustrating and fun in equal measure, and whilst I have doubts over their validity for skill improvement of players, I can see how they can be profitable (especially if you run good!). But it is a bit of a love/hate thing, so thats how I will break it down...

Things I love about Rush On-Demand

1. Availability. The On Demand format has seemingly constant stream of tournaments. I have yet to find a time where I couldn't jump into one. That, naturally is both a good and bad thing. Good from a time management perspective, but bad from a bankroll perspective if you are running particularly badly or are tilted.

2. The speed of the tournament. The format and structure means you can get deep (or get knocked out) fairly quickly. You tend to know if you are going on a deep run before the first hour is out. Contrast with normal tourneys where you can play for 3 or 4 hours and leave with nothing. The game slows down when the FT is reached of course, and can often take as long as the preceding 'rush' element. Not that you mind at that stage however, as you are in the money.

3. Lack of chatbox action. Refreshing lack of shit-talking in the chatbox as there is no time as the table changes, and besides as soon as people have folded their avatar is still displaying but they are away on another table in their next hand. This does make a welcome change from all the rubbish usually spouted during a tournament!

4. You are harder to pick up on. No history (until near the FT), makes stealing and aggresion much more profitable and less likely to be picked up on, and whilst I believe online tools for stat gathering/display do exist for rush tournaments, I find it hard to see that most will be able to make any sensible use of this before the final table due to the pace of the game.

5. Lots of mistakes. Less time for decisions forces people into big mistakes against concealed hands and the sheer number of available games makes people 'gamble' a lot more. This is very much evident during the first 50% of the tournament but evens out later. Whilst this is a good thing, it can also be frustrating as the amount of suck-outs and rivered winners seems far higher than in a regular tournament.

6. Quick chip accumulation. If you can build a big stack quickly, accumulating chips seems rather easier than in a regular tournament. Partly I think because, with people being more selective about hands to play, they will be quicker to shy away from a confrontation with an aggro big stack than in a regular tourney where they may not get another opportunity for some time. The counter argument also exists - if you play too tight, or get decimated by a lost pot, then you will face almost constant aggression and you will be forced to gamble sooner than you may like.

Things I hate about Rush On-Demand

1. Tilt! It is far too easy to tilt with this format. There is precious little time to re-group thoughts and composure, especially after losing a pot to a bad beat or making an erroneous big call. For this reason, the format can be a big money-spewer....in many ways the opposite to a 'double or nothing' tournament format (although you would have to be lobotomised in order to be able to withstand the boredom of grinding that format, in my opinion).

2. Big Blind Shenanigans. I have had situations where I have ended up on the Big Blind multiple hands in a row. This has only seemed to happen when I have been relatively shortstacked, and when the blinds are higher this can be immensely frustrating. In a regular tournament you can strategise in terms of picking your moments to push, but this is impossible here. Conversely, the times I have done well I seem have to have been in mid/late position a lot when I receive the good hands. I'm guessing it is supposed to balance out ultimately, but it never feels like that at the time.

3. High Variance. Variance is VERY high, partly due to the turbo structure, partly because you don't build up any knowledge of your table, partly due to fish shoving all in at any chance they get in earlier levels and partly because of the mechanism (lots more hands and people can be more selective) resulting in big hands such as AA,KK,QQ clashing more often. This does make the format feel like a video game sometimes.

4. Not 'real' enough. The feeling that no matter how much you play it, or how well you are doing, that you simply are not playing 'proper' poker. The real skill edge in poker is post-flop, and through much of these tournaments, you are not exposed to these in the same way you are with deepstack poker. It can certainly help you get better in some aspects of the game, but after playing this structure for a number of days, I was yearning for a long-haul deepstack game to slowly chip up in.

5. Addictive. This format is extremely addictive. Far more so that regular poker, where the time investment can often decide when a session ends. This is bad enough when you don't have a problem - but some people do.

So, to summarise - Rush Poker On-Demand tournies are a great deal of fun, and can be very useful if you are on a limited time schedule, however the variance can be brutal and it is often too tempting to play larger games than your bankroll allows for. This is one of my big leaks in general. I am absolutely sure that if you deploy good bankroll management, then this format can be profitable long-term, however from a personal perspective, I'd prefer to keep this game as a sideline to MTTs/STTs to help blow off a bit of steam. Your mileage may vary.

Kudos to Full Tilt for introducing something that is genuinely innovative into the poker landscape though.

Precipice Averted

As most will know by now, the proposed US legislative move to 'legalise poker' in the States, which would have had serious knock-on effects to the whole poker landscape (covered in my last blog entry in December), didn't get passed. Which I personally think is great news for poker in general. Of course, the concern is still there in the sense that any future legislation may use a similar approach, and I think people - especially the PPA - should be alert to the wider picture next time and at the very least push for a more palatable deal. I'd also like to see a more global focus on the poker world, especially from organisations that purport to represent the interest of players. But thats probably a pipe dream...

The Edge of the Precipice

There has been a lot of talk recently state-side about the recent amendment to US spending laws, and more specifically the proposal of the ‘tagged on’ inclusion of a bill relating to the legalisation and regulation of online poker within the United States. The bill has been put forward by Nevada Senator Harry Reid, clearly with an eye on providing a crafty leg-up for the giant casino companies within his constituency, and an eye on revenue generation for the government at large. The PPA (Poker Players Alliance) - a non-profit organisation set-up to represent and get a good deal for poker players have seemingly backed this surprise bill amendment. The bill is being passed through what is called a 'lame duck' session of Congress, due to end on Dec 17th.

Right now, it is touch and go whether it gets included or not, however I wanted to analyse this in a bit more detail. Partly because the bill MAY get in now, and if it doesn't, then it may form the basis of future amendments.

Wait! Don’t go anywhere! I won’t bore you with reams of US legislative legalese. For a start there is plenty of coverage of this subject online already, and secondly I won’t pretend to understand the detail behind US government legislature. The reason I am writing about this, and why I have a bee in my bonnet on the subject is that this seemingly innocuous bill could potentially affect all of us here in the UK, as well as everywhere else in the world.

From my limited understanding, the key points in the bill are :

• From January, there would be a 15 months blackout on all online poker within the US
• After this blackout period (designed to allow new sites to be developed), regulated sites would be allowed to trade. The difference being, they would be owned by brick and mortar casinos rather than the dedicated poker sites that currently exist. Any casinos looking to go down this path would have to have been established for five years, which rules out any of the large sites buying a casino property to get around the law.
• The new sites would (initially at least) serve only US players, and states could elect to ‘opt out’ if they chose - both from the new US-based sites or from online poker altogether.

But what does all this mean to UK micro/mid-stakes players? Well the first thing that springs to mind would be smaller prize pools due to the vastly reduced player base. No longer will there be that chance of sitting down with $10 and turning it into life-changing money within a few hours. Satellites are the next thing that spring to mind - the smaller player pool would mean fewer satellite seats, less chance of mixing it with the best in the world and for the number of players who are up for the challenge - there will be less chance of going 'pro'.

On a wider scale, a complete blackout for US players would be devastating for many players who earn their money from grinding online. The oft-stated benefit of having a new pool of recreational fish when the blackout lifts - eager to play on a legal, regulated site - seems to be pie in the sky to me. After all, I can’t imagine there are many players who want to play online now but refuse to on the basis that the main sites are in the Isle of Man or the Caribbean and are not regulated by their state government.

Once the ban lifts, many could still find their state opts-out leaving them completely high and dry for the foreseeable future. Large international marquee events such as the WSOP rely heavily on people satt-ing into seats. The lack of online satellites for US players coupled with the reduced number of representatives from outside the US will likely lead to significantly smaller fields at the WSOP, especially the main event.

Having many small-stake players taking an extended hiatus from the game may reduce the overall desire for people to be immersed in the game, reducing exposure on TV as poker becomes 'recreational' again. As for other staples of the game, such as online training sites, massive forums and publishers like 2+2 working to a comparatively tiny customer base will change the landscape further.

Everything will depend upon a second ‘boom’ two years down the line, and there is no guarantee of that. Indeed, there is a significant chance that the US political landscape may change during this time, delaying the blackout further.

Which brings me to the annoyingly single-issue driven PPA. They have backed the current plan, despite the huge impact this will have on US players (like many US organisations, the concept of anyone outside the US being important seems to be overlooked). This is an organisation that has no ‘world view’ at all. A true alliance of poker players would be campaigning for the inclusion of everyone...they would have representation campaigning in France and Italy (two countries who have opted out of an international field already) as well as Washington DC.

Even if the PPA remained US-focused, they should be challenging any law-change that would be to the detriment of the players they represent, which this bill clearly is. Yes, the US Government want revenue money from poker; Yes, it should be easier for US players to withdraw money; Yes, there should be a degree of regulation to prevent sites ripping anyone off (although the current ‘big two’ sites do a fine job at self regulation anyway). I don’t think anyone disputes any of this, but in order to achieve these goals, it seems the PPA have jumped at the first opportunity without really taking the long term impact on the global game into consideration.

It seems a shame that - at first glance at least - the one organisation purporting to represent a large section of players, looks about to sell their members out.

Poker is unique, in being a truly global game where a beginner can find himself playing a world champion regardless of where they live in the world. The regional legislation in France and Italy were big enough setbacks to the game, but taking the US out of the online poker world would be relatively speaking, catastrophic.

As I said at the top - I’m no expert on US law, and within this article I have limited my knowledge to the various items of news information and forum/podcast discussions I have followed. I may be wide-of-the-mark, but from everything I have heard, it seems we are potentially heading for a car-crash and the vast majority of players won’t see it coming.

Our big hope at the moment is that the bill doesn't get included, however if it doesn't get in this session, it seems to only be a matter of time. And I don't think many will be viewing the PPA as the knight in shining armour coming to the players rescue after events over the last few weeks.

And should the worst happen and it does go before the law-makers, I have heard that the chance of this bill making law is a coin-flip, and as a poker player that doesn't make me feel much better because we all know how those usually end up...

The school night problem

With a new job under my belt and a huge workload in the final weeks of my old job, my poker playing habits have to be adjusted somewhat. In some ways I worked for an ideal company for a poker player as starting times were pretty flexible and this meant that if I went deep in a tournament resulting in a late night, this was (usually) okay. The new job is an earlier start, thus essentially curtailing my tournament play on school nights.

Working out what I could play going forward on weekdays proved difficult...

During the first few days of the new job, I tried playing various format games which were quick-in-time, but higher-in-variance than I would normally like. This didn't end well, with coin-flip after coin-flip going against me. It's one thing talking about getting your money in 'good', but even a situation where you will win 70% of the time isn't much consolation when you fall into the 30% failure bracket time and time again. I lost count of the number of times I would raise on the button with KA of spades, get called by the big blind and see a flop like KK7 with two clubs, bet out and get called, turn would come a 2 of diamonds, I'd fire another barrel and get re-raised all-in, only for my opponent to turn over two clubs, drawing to a club on the river for the flush - which seemed to *always* turn up. I don't want to turn this into a bad-beat story because I know that ALL poker players have been here time and time again. My main point is that if you play faster format games with higher variance, you are entrusting way too much to luck for my liking.

I'm also guilty of starting games I am in no position to finish. Just because there is a juicy overlay on a tournament starting at 10pm doesn't mean you have to play it! I've started these things and been really focused, only to start anxiously looking at my watch at midnight when I realise that I am still 300 places off a min-cash, and probably several more hours off any substantial win. This noticeably affects decision making, and I've lost count of the times I've called an all-in and said to myself 'What the hell - I need to go to bed anyway'. No way to spend (lose) money.

My best results by a country mile have happened in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday morning. The reason for this is simple - I have no distractions, time to be patient and no pressing reason to be up at the crack of dawn the next day. I can play a patient game, where I limit risk and try to exploit opportunities. So, for this reason, if I play an MTT of any significance, it will be weekends only from now on. During the week I may play STTs (perhaps Steps) where I can focus for the hour or so they take, or perhaps some smaller-field MTTs.

I just feel that playing when you are not completely focused is not just negative EV, but frankly stupid - unless you are playing for entertainment value alone (which I'm not!).

So - for the foreseeable future at least, I plan on playing sensible - max of two tables in order to focus, kill the browser window, ensure I have enough spare time to complete what I register to play and if I go out on a bad beat then hey.

Call me boring.....

WSOP 2010 Vegas Trip Report

As mentioned previously, I qualified for the WSOP Main Event via the FTP Steps system. This is a system whereby you pay a low buy-in STT sit-and-go and the top x placed players win a ticket to the next 'step' in the chain for a higher buy-in. On completion of seven steps, you win the main prize - which in my case was worth $12k. Due to the rules between Harrahs who run the WSOP and online pokersites, they can't buy you directly in which means you can take the cash value instead (minus 5% for processing). It made far more sense to go and play in the cheaper ($1k) event rather than the ME ($10k) and bank the remainder for another holiday. The trip report below is adapted slightly from the version I posted on the GNF Forum when I returned. Apologies for the length! Not all my posts will be this long :)

Note : Apologies for the quality of the photos. Not sure what happened there! A larger photo should open when you click them.

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Had a ridiculously stressful journey to Vegas largely due to nightmare traffic on the M25, which by my calculations meant that I would 100% miss my plane. given that it took over an hour to move a mile or so and the traffic reports were saying the problem stretched for five junctions! Ended up nipping off on the M1, and then taking the north circular/M4 up to Heathrow which was a bit of a gamble but paid off as I at least kept moving. Reached the plane with literally seconds to spare and whilst I was thankful to be on my way, I couldn't collect the money from the Travelex kiosk (I had bought online and arranged for airport pickup).

11 hours later I arrived and checked into the hotel. Planet Hollywood was okay, I liked the location and I could make it from sidewalk to my room on the 24th floor within approx 3 mins which is good by Vegas standards! Most Vegas casino hotels are much of a muchness inside, and whilst PH is in the 'mid range' hotel bracket, some aspects of it seemed a little worn - although the room itself was very comfortable and had 'Back to the Future' memorabilia all over the place (each room is themed). It also had a very impressive bathroom which was about the size of my office back home!

Following a brief freshen up, I took off to scope out the Rio convention centre where the WSOP is held.

Needless to say the venue is huge, with the Pavillion room the size of an aircraft hanger with hundreds of poker tables filling the floor. The neighbouring Amazon room feels tiny in comparison (although its still large) but has much more of a WSOP 'vibe' about it, as this is the room with the feature tables, and the wall-of-fame posters hanging of previous champs. Essentially, this is the room you will identify with if you ever watch the TV shows and it was fun walking around it late at night, even if it was half empty at this time! Despite the size of the place, it was pretty easy and intuitive to walk around, with various rooms housing things like the Poker Kitchen cafe, registration cage, payout room (like I'd need that!), the Bad Beat Bar (which was a bit disappointing really as there wasn't much in it) and sundry sponsored site areas.

The next day I spent a good slice of time speaking to Travelex about a full refund (which they gave, thankfully), and my Bank about transferring money around. And then after hitting my daily ATM limit, and having a cashier tell me that my card was declined, another slice of time talking to my banks fraud department to convince them that it really was me trying to withdraw $2k in Las Vegas. Who would have thought getting hold of money would be so difficult in a place like Vegas!

Unfortunately, due to the difficulty in getting the currency, I was too late to buy in for the Day 1A schedule for Event 47 ($1k buy in), so instead entered the 1pm $200 deepstack event. Aside from the poker, which was fairly uneventful (not to mention I was still dazed from the travel), it was nice to start off the event playing in the Amazon room rather than the Pavilion, as it had that aura the larger room doesn't quite match. Bust-out hand was annoying, in that my Jc9c shove on a fairly dry board (but with two clubs) was called by QQ that eventually held up. Annoying in that it was a multi-way pot which the chap with the queens had limped into, hence my feeling my shove was good. Ah well.

One notable thing about this deepstack tourney was that I sat next to a really nice Canadian girl who is apparently going out with a british pro (Nicky Evans) and was at a rented house with a bunch of brits, including James Dempsey and the chap who won the Irish open. She even knew about the Neil Blatchley saga (a topical sports-betting scandal involving a british poker player), which made for an interesting chat during the more dull parts of the game.

The $200 deepstack events run daily and have a starting stack of 15k with half hour levels. They are completed within a day - so if you go deep, you are talking about 5am-6am finish BUT have a decent field of anywhere between 500-700 players depending on other events, which can net a decent score for the winner ($25k-ish). Having said that, one bloke was saying that on one night it was chopped 18 ways to save time, although don't know how true that was!

Now hungry for action I went to the opposite end of the spectrum and played a SNG for $125 buy in. The winner technically receives two $500 lammers plus a little cash, but in reality they nearly always get chopped heads-up. My grinding of SNGs earlier this year which helped me so much in the Steps system to get me here also played dividends, as despite it being really shortstacked (1000 chips, 15 min levels), most people seemed to ignore proper single table strategy and just start gambling from the first hand. This means you can pretty much fold the first couple of levels and end up being 4 or 5 handed without too much trouble. Then pick out the people trying to conserve their stacks and start shoving on them. With a little fortune from the cards on the occasions you are called, it seemed fairly straightforward to get into a position of shooting for the final two, and hence some money. Chopped the game when HU and felt quite good about the first day.

Second full day was bracelet day in the $1k buy-in. I had registered the night before so made my way to the table at noon. All excited and pumped up from the previous days SNG, I was willing to bring my A-game….which soon went out of the window when I remained absolutely card-dead for the first three hours. Three levels, and the best hand I had was J10 which wasn't enough to call the shove from the player on my right. I moved tables once, and there was a woman I didn't recognise on it, although she was clearly a pro as the pokernews guys were buzzing around her. She bust out shortly afterwards and I started thinking that at least if I am going to blind-out, I'd like to do it with a named pro at the table rather than a bunch of randoms. This was all the more evident as I had Joe Seebok at a table to my right and at the table behind me, about four feet from my chair, was Chris Moneymaker and (I believe) Jen Tilly. Not going to happen though, and eventually shoved pre-flop with AJs which was called by 77 who spiked a set. Bracelet over.

Back to the SNGs, I went on a bit of a winning streak. Chopping another for $500 and then playing a $175 game where we chopped three-ways for another $500. Frustratingly, in another $175 game I also got HU but the guy refused to chop, even with me offering a 2 to 1 chop as he had a larger stack. I then shoved with AK which he called with a trash hand (something like J-9) and he hit the 9 on the flop. I wonder if he would have changed his mind if an Ace or a King had hit, and I'd been chip-lead? So far, out of all the SNGs I'd played I had only not cashed legitimately in one of them, which wasn't too bad.

So now, with three $500 lammers (buy-in chips) in hand, it was just too tempting not to enter the next days $1500 bracelet event. My reasoning was that I am in Vegas, at the WSOP, and I am effectively freerolling. If I didn't enter it, I'd always have that 'what if' thing going, although it was certainly a heart-over-head decision which it turns out I regretted somewhat later, as that money would have made it a very cheap trip overall whereas I ended up about $3k down for all events instead. Still, you live and learn and would probably do the same thing again all things being equal…

The following days bracelet event annoyingly went similar to the first. Largely card-dead, although not quite as bad as the first event - and yo-yo'ed a bit in chips but due to a chased flush draw found myself at break with about half my meagre chip stack remaining. Wanting to get my chips in due to the imminent increase in the blinds after the second break I went to a flop by raising with A9 and getting one caller. Hit an ace on the flop and came over the top of his subsequent raise for all my chips. He tanked for a while then called with 55. My excitement lasted a few second until the turn brought his third 5 and I hit the rail. Again.

Edit: The above was a bad miscalculation on my half, as I should have checked the imminent level increase would only introduce antes and not increase the blinds. If I had studied the levels properly I should have picked a better spot to shove.

Once again, I headed over to the SNG tables although this time had not so much success, although partly I think I was tilted from my bracelet exit. To illustrate this, given my earlier success had come from a measured early-level strategy, there was one game where I busted first after getting all my chips in behind. Played about three, and finished third in one but the only notable thing was a guy who bust me in two of the games was clearly some TV celebrity in the US, as various people came up to talk to him about it, but I don't have a clue what show and wasn't in the mood to ask. Eventually reason set in and decided that I was just burning money playing in my current state of mind, so quit the game - and the Rio for the day.

The next two days I only played the $200 deepstack at 1pm. But decided to play a more aggressive strategy to some moderate success which made me feel a bit better. The problem with the bracelet events for a recreational player like myself is that regardless of how you know you should approach the tournaments, the singular nature of the event and the size of the buy-in does make you 'scared' money, especially in the early rounds. I was able to loosen up a bit in the deepstack and allowed me to get a bit of confidence back. Still didn't last that long, but went out on a bit of a bad-beat and wasn't too upset.

Later that day I met up with Judi Edwards, from the GNF Forum (also qualified for a preliminary event online) who had arrived sans-suitcase after a fairly stressful journey. I showed her round the WSOP venue and we celeb spotted for a while as well as grabbing some food. Then back to the strip, where I wandered up from the Palazzo (her hotel) to Planet Hollywood (mine) which is a fair distance, although seems much easier if you walk through casinos like Harrahs and Flamingo rather than use the sidewalk, I found.

The next day was to be my final day at the Rio, and I decided to play one more deepstack before leaving. Judi elected to play the low-stakes cash games at 'Bills Gamblin' Hall' on the strip whilst still recovering from jet lag. I took the same, loosey-goosey approach to the game and was doing fairly well - building my chip-stack up to 35k after the first few levels. At one point, I called an all-in with a made-flush, but a low one - cracking Villains set. Whilst in the hand I tanked for ages before making the call, as I was trying to work out if he could have the Ace which would potentially see me drawing dead. Whilst I was tanking Judi appeared and came over to see me win the hand, although my game face must mean I just look miserable as she said I 'looked depressed'. I obviously haven't mastered the Phil Ivey 'focused look' yet!

Unfortunately, the problem with widening your range (re-raised one guy preflop with 86s etc), especially when it isn't your natural game, is that you can get caught out doing some stupid moves, and a chased draw saw me back to 20k and then calling a button shove from a short-stack (who, importantly, had shoved multiple times previously when short so had a wide range) with K9, only to lose to his A10 when an ace hit on the river. This saw me down at around 12k and in familiar push-fold territory. Eventually, a big stack in early position raised 3x the blinds, a guy in mid position with similar stack to me called and everyone else folded to me in the BB. I looked down at pocket 4s, and decided to squeeze-shove as I felt the big stack would probably fold to another 7k bet and the other shorty couldn't have a monster otherwise he would have shoved instead of flat calling. Sure enough, big stack folded but the shorty tanked for a long time, muttering pot odds under his breath and trying to work out what he was being offered. At one point someone offered to lend him a calculator, and another said 'Its obvious this kid don't work for NASA'…..eventually he called with 99, which held up and to be honest, should have been either a pre-flop shove or an insta-call, so I don't know why he was mucking about, but that was that. The tournament was notable for two other 'firsts' for me…..the first time I've ever folded AA post-flop in a live game (to a very straight board and massive action) and the first time I've seen someone given a one-round penalty for picking up someones mucked cards to have a look!

Back to the hotel for an evening wandering around the strip and having a few drinks on my last night - alas without Judi who was catching up on sleep and getting herself ready for her bracelet event the next day. A final day of shopping (if you ever go to Vegas, get the ACE bus up to the Las Vegas Outlet Centre just south of Mandalay Bay - ridiculous bargains in just about every shop).

Other items of note, regarding the WSOP :

- You become de-sensitised to seeing famous players after a couple of days. I think I ticked just about every player I could think of from my mental checklist, although didn't see Ivey until the last deepstack day, when he was playing in the 25k event about eight tables away from mine.

- Heard a moderately heated exchange between Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow and Devilfish regarding a hand that must have been played a couple of weeks previously between them. Not exactly a blow-up, but a glimpse nonetheless!

- Watching top players playing poker is pretty boring on the whole. Once you are over the fascination aspect, it really isn't a spectator sport! The only two memorable hands I watched was Durrrr all-in for his tournament life only to double up, and Chris Ferguson busting out. But thats about it!

- I came back loaded with free magazines and the DUCY Sklansky book, which is on sale there. Read about a half of it on the plane home, and whilst there is a lot of interesting, thought provoking stuff in there, Sklansky himself comes across a little self-centred and arrogant in places. Still a good book, but could maybe do with some revisions in the next edition.

- I bought a signed Humberto Brenes card-protector (all to do with his save the sharks fund). Good cause but never been a big Brenes fan and his protector certainly didn't help bring any luck :)

- Was cool to see a recording of the 'PokerRoad' podcast in the Rio corridor. This was the day after Gavin Smith won his bracelet, so he was clearly recovering after celebrating!

- Was stood next to Jeff Madsen and his mates railing one table where Roland de Wolfe was playing. They were taking it in turns to take the piss out of De Wolfe, trying to put on mock cockney accents. It started off quite funny, but soon looked like it was pissing Roland off when they didn't shut up. Still, at least he was at the Rio this year rather than being attacked in strip clubs

- The standard of play in the bracelet events (and the deepstack) was not as aggro or difficult as I anticipated. I'd actually say I am put under more continual pressure in the regular tournaments at DTD. I wouldn't say the standard was terrible, its just that in fields that big you will get a bit of everything. Great players, average recreational players and poor players. I certainly felt in both events that if I had picked up one or two playable hands, I could have extracted value and kicked on. Unfortunately it didn't happen.

- Poker in Vegas is very addictive. One of my regrets is playing so much that I neglected to do much else, including spending any time in the sun, at other casinos (wanted to play at Binions for example, or the Venetian deepstack seried). Even on the last day when I went shopping, I very nearly popped over to the Rio for one last sit-and-go!

- I know its stereotyping of the worst kind, but it really did seem to be the case that the chinese players were very loose and happy to gamble big, and the big brash black guys with the gold chains and tracksuits were aggresive and macho, but didn't seem to know how to play proper tournament poker!

- A lot of people seemed to be wearing 'Beats by Dre' headphones, including Phil Ivey. In my shopping trip I picked up a set for the plane flight home from the Apple store (I can't get on with ear-bud headphones and the plane ones are rubbish), and have to say that whilst they are expensive (£150ish for the Solo HD pair), they seem to have outstanding sound quality and are well made and incredibly light. Whether I'd have the balls to wear them in a regular game at DTD remains to be seen though…..

- The new 'City Centre' complex housing the Aria casino and hotel is one awesome building.

Overall despite my little regrets in playing too much at the Rio and entering the second bracelet event rather than banking the money, I had a great week all in all. Nice to meet up with a fellow forum member over there, and I would certainly recommend the WSOP experience (even if just preliminary events) to anyone for future. There really isn't anything quite like it.

Just fingers crossed I can qualify for the WSOP 2011!!!

Taking up the game - My playing history so far

The following post was originally made on the 2+2 poker forum in response to the question of how people started playing poker. I have updated it a little to bring it up to date.

My motivations for starting are perhaps a little different to most...

My exposure to online poker was fleeting for several years. I pretty much thought online poker was akin to Yahoo Chess or Tangleword. Whenever I did have a look at it, people just seemed to be going all-in and hoping for the best. Even watching poker on TV that seemed to be the case, so I just wasn't that interested.

Back in 2008 though, my boss (at the time) said that a bunch of people from the office have a regular poker home game and asked if i would be interested. I said perhaps, but thought that, prior to accepting, I should have another go online, not really to build up skills as much as understand the mechanisms of the game so I didn't look dumb if I played with my colleagues.

So, I downloaded Pokerstars and deposited £50 just to understand it all. Cash games at the time scared the bejesus out of me as I had visions of losing my bankroll within seconds, so I concentrated on the micro-stake SNGs and ordered a book online which concentrated on this type of game, by Colin Moshman. After skim-reading the book and playing a few sessions, I started to find myself doing okay and min-cashing fairly frequently. It was at this time two pivotal events happened which switched my interest up to max...

One was - I was made redundant from my company. Whilst I was obviously going to spend quite a bit of time looking for work, I figured I should invest some serious time in becoming half-decent at the games, mainly to keep my mind stimulated rather than vegging in front of the TV and well, you never know, I could win some money...

Second was - a phone call with my father. Now my dad was a n extremely good snooker, english billiards and 8-ball player when he lived in Belgium as well as a maths grad in his younger days. He became deeply interested in card-counting in Blackjack a few years ago and read pretty much every book on the subject before giving up on the idea after a bad session at a european casino where he believed the distractions in big games made it difficult to be profitable. Anyway, I chatted to him about poker and we became embroiled in a skill vs luck debate. He felt it was like 10% skill 90% luck and was essentially saying that it was a mugs game. I argued that since looking into it, luck does play a huge part but the skill percentage becomes greater the further up the ladder you get. This debate raged for a number of days to the point where I really wanted to prove to him that with some studious learning, you can be a winning player or alternatively, would reach the same conclusion. He never doubted that there was a skill element, just that I felt it was greater than he did.

[Note : I'm still working this out, and will post more about this in time I'm sure!]

So I ramped up my play online - again mainly SNGs. I tried to play fairly tight and downloaded pretty much every available poker TV show from the last few years to watch. I bought the Harrington books, Daniel Negreanu's power poker book, Sklanskys book, Caro's book and a bunch of other non-instructional books (Big/Bigger Deal, Biggest game in town etc) and grinded away. During those first couple of months I min-cashed quite a few large-field tourneys, won a 27-man SNG and finished second in a couple more and scored my biggest cash in finishing 3rd in a 180-man SNG to win $450. Then I went on a mad losing run which, partly because I was now playing well above my bankroll ($20 min buy in games) meant I went bust a few weeks later.

Not to be discouraged I re-loaded my account (something I became quite used to) and moved down some levels. This worked for a while until I realised that my game wasn't aggresive enough in the middle stages of tourneys. Spending some time to adjust, I went on another massive downswing. I had become waaay too loose aggresive and it took some time to be able to naturally tighten up again. Anyway, the pattern continued - reload the account, make some small cashes then hit a losing run.

The key thing for me was to be able to learn the game, and quite honestly I don't mind being a losing player if I am trying new things out as it will ultimately make me more rounded. If I just played the same game all the time and never scored any results then I would just give up.

I grew to love and hate the game in equal measure, mainly depending on results. After only winning a few hundred in 2008, I went on to have a less than stellar 2009...whatever cash I made was outweighed by the tournament bust-outs and I hated looking at ROI numbers during this time. But I still felt my game was improving, in the sense that I felt like I was making far fewer mistakes than before and during this time I became more philosophical about the dreaded 'bad beats'. Ultimately, if you make the right decision and get unlucky, then you still played well regardless of the result. A year before I would write this down to the poker gods hating me, but I started to realise that if you keep making the good decisions, the results will follow eventually.

During 2009 I also tried grinding cash games, but lacked the discipline to continue this. I appreciated that starting at micro-stakes and playing cash would be my most profitable route and would reflect skill levels far more (especially when moving up the levels), but I couldn't stay away from the adrenaline rush of big field tournaments. After all, why play for hours only to make a small profit when you can take a chance on a tournament and possibly make a big return. It is very much a numbers game at the end of the day and I actually preferred the high-variance loss-leading nature of tournament poker. I will go back to cash games as a specific challenge but I can't see me becoming a 'cash game player' anytime soon.

I was also firmly ensconced in a new job, which made it hard to commit as much time as I would like, which certainly reduces the allure of 'grinding' anything for long.

So after a disappointing 2009, I started 2010 with a new approach. I was going to go back to the single table tournaments (STTs) and grind these on Pokerstars. This was moderately profitable and felt comfortable after a while that I was +EV in the low stake games although rather like the cash game period (see above), I found the lure of multi-table tournaments (MTTs) too much to continue seriously beyond a few months.

But then I had a couple of half-decent wins on Full Tilt Poker, and took down my largest field MTT to date. It was around this time that I also started playing the FTP 'Steps' system, working on the basis that my STT experience would stand me in good stead. Over a period of a couple of weeks I had the best result of my poker playing days so far - turning an $8 stake at Step 2 into a $12,000 WSOP main event package. After some deliberation, I chose to cash the package and instead go to Vegas to play some preliminary events at lower buy-ins, leaving me enough for a nice holiday later in the year.

On returning from Vegas, I had a few more good results from MTTs, totalling around another $1.5k, and I started to feel more confident in the later stages of the big field events - again, something that surely comes from experience.

So that brings it up to date. I'm still reading every poker book I can get my hands on, and I still consider myself a learning newbie player although now I feel things are starting to come together and hopefully I can take the knowledge and confidence into more good results in the future.

I'm staying realistic though. If poker can pay for a holiday each year then I'll be happy and I will always have something to learn from players who are better than me. But at least my overall ROI is looking much more healthy now!

But I've still not concluded the skill vs luck debate with my father....