Jun 27, 2009 – 16:06PM
Event got sold out while I was in line. Flew back in late last night and didn't get any cash until this morning until the bank opened and when I got in line they announced it was sold out. I'm glad the event got lots of participants but obviously if I knew it was going to sell out I would have flown in a day later to spend more time with my family. As it is I'll probably play online today and head back up around 1pm to see if they're selling late registration seats and if not regist for tomorrow. Good luck to everyone who is in it.
-Rizen
Jun 17, 2009 – 17:06PM
I've really been looking forward to all the PLO events so far this year, and so far it's been a big disappointment for me in the $1500 and $2500 not making it very far in either. the $1500 was kind of a crapshoot and I just got coolered, and the $2500 I got it in with the nuts but the other guy was drawing very live so while i think his call with no fold equity was somewhat marginal considering he didn't have the nut flush draw it certainly wasn't a terrible one and can't fault him for it.
The $1500 yesterday I just never really got going. I've felt like I played really well this trip but yesterday wasn't super happy with my play. I played a couple of hands a little weak early on as i was feeling out my table which cost me some chips and then made a couple of bad reads. Once when I flopped quads in a three way pot and thought the original raiser had an over pair a lot based on how tight he was and that he raised pre-flop in a pretty strong position, but it turned out the original limper tank/folded and the raiser instantly folded so I probably lost some action by not just calling. Then later I ran a bluff on a guy who had just taken down a few decent sized pots thinking I could move him off a hand and lost a little over half my chips. At that point I felt like the rest of the tournament was pretty elementary as I had 2500 chips at 75/150 so just finding a good spot to re-raise all in was important. I ended up getting it in with KQ vs ATo with a lot of dead money in the pot and not getting there.
Hopefully today's event will go well. I really feel like I have the biggest relative edge in PLO, even though NLHE is my best game. The opposition is relatively weak in most of the PLO events, although it should be significantly stronger in a $5k. Although so far this series every time I've been at a tough table I've done really well and every time I've been at a weak table I've done quite poorly. I think this is just a reflection of small sample size and variance, but maybe I'm better off against a tougher field!
-Rizen
Jun 15, 2009 – 17:06PM
Still feel like I'm playing super well despite the results. Yesterday in the $2500 PLO I got all my money in in level 3 with the nuts on the turn in a 3 way pot for nearly 20k. I had one opponent drawing dead, but the other had top set and a flush draw for 15 of the remaining 36 cards being outs, and I didn't hold. It's like the fourth time I've gotten my money in good for a monster pot in the early stages of a tournament so far though. With my style of play it's usually unusual I'm playing huge pots that early, but kind of hard to avoid it with the nuts! if i win any of the four and have a huge stack that early I have very little doubt in my mind I can make a pretty deep run. My timing has been really good too with both bluffs and value bets, and I just finally feel really in tune. I think not playing many live events this year made it take a few events for me to get in my comfort zone again and in a groove, but since the $5k I've felt REALLY good about my play.
i'll be updating via twitter and PXF texts again today. Good luck to everyone not at my table!
-Rizen
Jun 14, 2009 – 18:06PM
I played REALLY well in the $1500 NLHE yesterday. Honestly between the $5k at the end of my last trip and the $1500 yesterday I feel like I'm playing some of my best tournament poker so far of the series. My table was pretty good yesterday with from what I could tell, 1 really good player at my table and 1 pretty good player, who were unfortunately both to my left, and the rest of the table was fairly average to soft. I had a really solid read on most of my opponents, and even a couple of sick tells I may talk about later but in case I play with those guys again during the series would rather not talk about now.
At any rate, I splashed around a little early and got down to about 3800 chips, then I had 77 UTG at 50/100 and made it 250, the player to my left made it 550. It folded back around to me and based on my read on him and his previous play I was 99% sure he had AA. So I called. Flop was Kc-Qc-7x and I checked to him. to my surprise he pushed all in (about 2500 chips) and obviously I called. He tabled the AA and I held. Took me up to about 7k. Played a decent sized pot with KQo vs two players on a JT7 board but when the T paired on the turn and both players were still betting it pretty hard I folded after sticking about 1500 chips in the pot pre-flop and on the flop.
A little later a player raised UTG and I re-raised with KK. he pushed all in for about 2k total, obviously I called and he had AK and I held. So I was running pretty well. shortly into the third level someone limped in MP. It was a chronic limper who was pretty loose. He never really folded to isolation raises and tended to call a lot pre-flop. It was 75/150. I had JTo in the CO so I made it 650 really just trying to get heads up with the guy. To my surprise the small blind (an okay player, but kinda loose pre-flop) cold calls, the original limper calls. I hit the jackpot flop of Q-9-8 rainbow. To my surprise the small blind leads for 700. Based on some things I had seen before I was relatively certain he was strong here. The limper called, and I went ahead and made a small raise to 2400 because I didn't think I was going to lose both of them since I though the SB was strong, and the SB and i were deep enough if I just called and the turn was a J or a T I would have a much harder time getting all my chips in the middle. The SB did call and the original limper folded. the turn was a 5 that brought a possible back door flush draw on the board. The SB just open shoved and I obviously called. He tables 99 and in my mind I'm just thinking 'deuce, deuce, deuce' but the river was the Q and he filled up and I was out.
it was a 17k or so pot though, and at that table with 17k chips in level 3 I REALLY like my chances of a deep run in that tournament. If i can keep getting myself in those spots and playing well I'm going to get deep in a few tournaments before this is all said and done with some nice stacks. I was really happy with my play yesterday and look forward to carrying that level of play out throughout the entire trip. if I do i think this is going to be a very profitable trip.
Side note, congratulation and good luck to my friend Scott Clements, who is an O/8 beast!! He's chip leader in the PLO/8 $5k going into the final table today I believe. Take it down Scott!!!
-Rizen
Jun 12, 2009 – 18:06PM
Been enjoying the time at home. Took the family to see 'Land of the Lost' Wednesday. I really only thought it was okay, but the kids got a kick out of it with all the dinosaurs and stuff. They're huge Transformers fans so I'll use them as an excuse to see the new Transformers moving on my next trip back. I head out to Las Vegas again tonight in time for the $1500 tomorrow. Glad to have gone home and gotten well rested though, and ready to go back out and hit the grind. On to the questions.
Q: What would your approach be if you had to train a complete n00b to make $25/hr net profit playing internet poker? Would he have a better chance 3-4 tabling cash games? MTTS ? Or SNGS? How much of a roll would you need? Which site would you want her/him to start on ?
A: Interesting question. First I guess I want to say that I'm not sure just anyone can make $25/hr net profit playing internet poker. It used to be somewhat easy to do if you had some discipline and ability, but it's much tougher now. I would definitely say that SnGs are not an easy way to do this and wouldn't really recommend that path. It's possible with rakeback and the ability to play like 12-16 tables to do for sure, but it's not easy. MTTs at this point I feel are where a vast majority of the fish hang out, but there are huge amounts of variance in them which make it tough.
This is kind of a non-answer, but I think it would really depend on the person's personality makeup. I don't really think any of the 3 methods you listed are easier than the other. MTTs have the most fish I think at this point but it's really tough to make consistent money at it. If the person were a very disciplined math oriented type person I would probably try and teach them how to play lots of SnG tables at once. If they tended to be more creative and were better at post flop play/hand reading I'd go with cash. As far as what site I would obviously recommend everyone play on Lock Poker.
Q: Hey Rizen, I loved the book top five poker book of all time. I am an aggressive maniacal small ball player. I'll raise w 57 suited and so forth. I confuse, intimidate, and players never know what i have. When they decide to play back at me i've got the goods. I accumulate chips in tourneys fast and it is not uncommon for me to get a quick chip lead. I'm having trouble in tourneys in the period right before the bubble. E.G. Tourney pays 18 out of 177 45 players left. usually at this point I'm about 35 bb deep. I'm usually chip stack here and the average stack usually has about 22 bb. This is where I'm imploding or runing into huge hands. At this point in the tourney I'm not trapping or playing middle pairs. But is there a time to tighten up my play even further to aa kk only. except versus desperate short stacks. People perceive me as a maniac at this point even though I'm playing solid.
A: I tried to clean up the question a little bit for readability. I hate to give the usual poker answer 'it depends' but it really does. If you have a maniacal image then you have to plan on getting played back at a lot when players start to get desperate. You can't completely tighten up your range because that's bad too, but you need to adjust to the way players play with ~20 BBs. That usually means opening less pots from middle/late position as you will get re-shipped on a lot. I will often defend my blind a bit more and 3 bet a little more. Maybe steal from early position some too. Basically you want to start accumulating chips in ways that won't allow the ~20 BB stacks to use their stack as a weapon and ship over you all the time. And if they are doing that, well you're going to have to raise/call lighter to make up for it.
Q: Live 1/2(sometimes 2/5). Lately I have been clueless what to do in spots like this.I call somewhere in late position with like 98 suited and the board comes...962(rainbow)....and a very tight conservative player bets about pot into a few people? which can be like 40$ Most people only have stacks of like 200$...
Or I call with like 97 suited and the flop comes....j63 .... I have a flush draw. I call a small bet on the flop after 2 people call so the total pot is maybe 65$ The flush hits with like a 10 .And a tight conservative player puts in bet of like 40$ 2/3pot.
A: Well there isn't really enough information on the first one. Since you say a $40 bet on the flop with 4-5 people in the pot, I'm going to assume we're dealing with 2/5 since that doesn't make much sense for 1/2. If the stacks are $200 deep at 2/5 then you have to ask yourself why you're playing those hands in the first place? I'm not saying you shouldn't be playing them, but if everyone is playing 40 BBs then your implied odds are going down. You can't really peel with just a pair with a bad kicker in a 4-5 way flop when a conservative player bets out so I probably do fold here. If you are finding these to be trouble spots though and you are either folding the best hand too much or calling and stacking off worse too often then you should stop playing these hands pre-flop in this game.
On the second one though, if you are playing 97s pre and you turn a flush and then fold, well that's probably a mistake. Obviously there are a lot of game dynamics and things that go in as well, but if it's the same type of game (40 BBs deep) and you're playing 97s and not getting your money in when you hit the flush, you shouldn't be playing the hand pre-flop. I would never ever play this hand at a table where I wasn't comfortable getting all my money in 95% of the time if I hit my flush. If I'm looking for excuses to fold when I hit my hand then something is wrong.
-Rizen
