Almost Summer Camp!

Obviously I am referring to the WSOP...I leave next Friday, June 7 for a bit over a week and then return the end of June for 8-10 days.  So a total of 15-20 days in the lovely Rio.

As I had not been playing many (any really) tournaments I decided to play a bunch of tournaments at DE Park and Parx to get back in the MTT mode.  Tournaments are, of course, massively different animals than the cash games I normally play.  Generally the play is worse early, the stacks get shorter midway through the end and the variance is absurdly high.  Getting back in the groove of playing tournaments seemed to make sense as I could play these low buy in events and focus before some of the mid buy in events I'll be playing in Vegas.

The first few events I bricked off at DE Park including Event 1 ($560 NLHE), a bounty NLHE and a HORSE event where I got to about 15th while 9 paid.  Parx was a debacle as I bricked their deep stack $560 twice and lost a $3k PLO pot AAJ9ds to the old KK22.




Finally, I went back up last Wednesday to play their $200 6 max and possibly the afternoon PLO.  Well on my second buy-in of the 6-max I was cruising along playing hyper aggro: 3 betting a ton, a couple of cold 4 bets, floating and stealing, squeezing, etc.  I grinded myself up to one of the bigger stacks in the event when I made a call that I am not sure about.  There are 15 left and 13 cash.  Blinds 2-4k..MP player opens to 9k, I have KQo and consider another 3b.  But I am on the BTN and just feel that at some point someone will play back at me with Ax and I obviously have to fold to a 4b.  So I wimp out and flat.  There also was a fishy big stack in the BB so that contributed to the flat.  BB obliged by calling.  Flop comes KT4ccc and BB leads straight out for 18k into ~30k pot.  MP folds and I call (we start the hand with 140k and BB covers by a decent amount).  Turn is an offsuit 7.  Now BB open ships..WTF?  I have Qc so unless he has Axcc I am live here.  My sense was that he would do this with Acx for bare nut flush draw, most K and obviously anything better than 1 pair including a flopped baby flush.  I decided to call pretty quickly as I felt that if I won this hand I would have a great shot at winning the tournament.  He had J7cc and I missed river for a 300k pot.  Not sure I like the call in hind sight as I was running the table pretty easily and picking up chips without any issue.

I then quickly hopped in the PLO at the 200/400 level and before too long had a nice sized stack.  Once we were close to the bubble (9 cashed) I picked up about 40k in chips just being aggro and picking on a few players who were clearly looking to cash.  We combined at 10 and quickly were in the money and down to 4 or 5 handed.  At this point I had an aggro on my left and a really loose baddish player on my left.  So i was stuck playing rather tight.  Anyhow, nothing super interesting happened and when we were 3 handed they offered me a straight up chop event though I only had 225k in chips versus their 575k and 450k..."uh sure, I'll take that".  I normally don't love chopping but sometimes the deal is just too good.  Here is the linky (although we all got $2500 and this says slightly different payouts):

http://www.bluff.com/tournaments/event/2013-delaware-park-poker-classic-event-23-pot-limit-omaha-10k-gtd-2753-30638.html

So now in the last year I have 3 2nd place finishes in PLO based events but have yet to cross the finish line.  So off we go to Vegas with a bit more confidence.  Let's hope this is the summer of run-good.

Pretty nice little summer schedule

The title is obviously a paraphrase of Frank the Tank...

So I have finalized my WSOP/Venetian schedule.  As I had attempted to do last year, I am going to again focus on mid-buy in events ranging from $500-$1,500, with even a few smaller ones thrown in for fun events.  I am actually keeping more of my own action this year (probably keeping 70% or so for myself) as I feel more comfortable with the swings given my cash game results over the last 6-8 months and the fact that I've been less retarded about the cash winnings and actually been maintaining a dedicated poker account.  But if anyone I know wants a 1-2% sweat let me know.  Here is the detail on the events (click to enlarge):

I'm also going to play the DE Park Series Event #1 tomorrow ($550 with 250k guarantee) and two events next week at the Parx Big Stax II.  Both are $550 buy ins, one of which is a 6-max so that should be a lot of fun.

As you can see I am actually taking two trips out west; one at the beginning of the Series and one towards the end.  Probably not playing the Main again this year as we are about to buy a new house and plunking down $10k on a singular event seems like not a great idea.  We are also scheduled for a family vacation starting July 8.  So unless I ship heaps of cash beforehand, the Main will have to wait another year.

Anyway, follow me on Twitter @bwoodspoker for updates and pithy comments!  Hopefully this will be a big summer for me and all my peeps playing!!

Hollywood Perryville and River Play

So Hollywood Perryville opened a few weeks ago to great fanfare here in MD.  I really anticipated not going there much if at all.  It is a small room with currently only 8 tables; most of which are small stakes games (ie 1/2 NLHE).  I figured even if their was a 2/5 game that would be the largest game in the room and if the lineup sucked I just would rather drive the extra half-hour to Charles Town to play with the fishies out there.

Well I have to give them credit, they are trying. They have petitioned and (I believe) have been granted permission for 4 or 5 more tables in the next few weeks.  They also have started to try and attract larger games with a 5/10 game every Tuesday and Thursday night and a 5/5 PLO offering every Monday evening.  These have met with decent games on those nights and consequently I have been there 3 times in the last 2 weeks.  The coup-de-grace is that it only takes me 45 mins door to door for me and driving home at 2 or 3 in the morning that extra 30 minutes is enormous. 

I have spent my time more or less equally between the 2/5 and 5/10 NLHE games.  Both are really good with the 5/10 obviously being a bit more aggro.  Even still there are only 3 or 4 tough players that I have experienced at 5/10 in my 3 sessions.  The 2/5 play is probably worse than Charles Town but there aren't as many tables and there tend to be more shortstackers in my experience.  All that said the regs at 2/5 in Perryville are laughably bad, generally weak passive and not hard to beat if you have half a brain and can fold or bet/fold on occasion. 


People often ask me what are some of the things I should be looking for to assess my opponents.  One thing I have really started to take note of that can help a player develop his game is how he plays the turn and the river.  I am talking specifically about reasonably decent stacked (100BB+) cash games.  Tournament play is often simply a math equation largely dictated by stack sizes, etc.  I constantly look for how well a player plays the turn and, in particular, the river to determine how good he is.  A player that can squeeze the extra few BB on the river will see a huge difference in his winrate.  Preflop I don't really care.  Anyone can raise any two cards in any position if the situation is right.  Flop play is pretty standard as well; we c-bet a lot if we are the pre-flop raiser, we call sometimes in position if a timid player bets the flop but will give up certain turn cards.  But if you are a good player you will understand how to play turns and rivers to maximize wins and/or minimize losses. 

Here is a hand 2 baddish 5/10 regs played the other night that if I dropped in to see them play I would have known they were both terrible.  A weak passive old nit raised over a limper to 55 from late position, BTN called, BB called and limper called (pot ~225).  Flop comes T77.  Old nit c-bets 150, all fold to limper who then decides to check raise to 400...stacks are probably 1500+ to start the hand.  Old nit calls and pot is suddenly a bit over 1k.  Turn is a 4 and it goes check-check.  River is a 7..and now limper checks.  Old nit then checks it back...wtf just happened here?  How in the world can old nit ever not value bet this river? 

He obviously has a pair greater than 10 and the other dude either has AT or like 99, 88, JJ.  As expected the limper shows 88 and states he c/r to "see where he was at"...and of course the old nit has KK but didn't want to bet because he thought limper had A7 and was trapping....loooooooool.  Nice hand sirs.

Watch how your opponents play turns and rivers and you will learn a ton about how good, bad, weak, spewy, aggressive, etc. they are.

Play a Hand w/ Me (PAHWM) 2/5 Charles Town

Not as deep this hand but still nearly 300BB deep.  Here's the link to 2p2 post and details are below (click to enlarge)

Weird Turn spot-PAHWM

I think Villain's range here is still pretty wide.  I don't think he is good enough to raise KQ, KJ, QJ of spades in this spot.  I think he has a lot of Aces in his range with the occasional 2 pairs A5, A7, 57, T7, etc.  Given the preflop limp and flop call I don't give much  weight to AT.  i guess he could have 55 or 77 but think AA and TT are pretty unlikely as well. 

If we are calling or raising turn what is plan for river?

Super Deep 2/5 Hand from Charles Town...What to do on river?

I love deep stacked poker due to all of the subtelties and creativity it allows.  I posted this hand on 2p2...any opinions on wtf to do on river?

Big f-ing Pot

Click on the link to get the original post and responses or you can just read the hand in the screenshot above.  Hand actually took place in December...not sure why I typed week or two ago.

WSOP...weeee

The 2013 WSOP Schedule was posted this week.  In spite of various hoopla surrounding it's release, the schedule more or less looks the same as every other year.  There have been some mild changes: continuing move from $10k World Championships to $5k, more re-entries, more 6-max NLHE to name a few, but generally its the same shit with different dates.  I am planning on two separate trips out.  The first week-10 days will likely cover this period:

My plan is to play the $1,500 PLO and PLO8 (Events 22 and 31) with other possibilities being Event #15-HORSE and NLHE Events 18 and 21.  For other tournaments I think I will stick to Venetian, Caesar's, etc.  Wait to see when they come out.

My plan at the moment is to focus more on cash games this year I think.  My expectation is to play mostly 5/5 and 5/10 PLO  with perhaps some 5/5 and 5/10 Big O sprinkled in.  We shall see as the time gets closer but that is the plan.

My second trip will probably wrap around the Main Event in some way and might include the "Little One for One Drop" which is a low buy-in offering similar to last year's $1M event.

The Main is a question mark as I may have someone willing to take a good bit of my action.  Reality is it will depend in large part on my results in trip #1.

Quick Catch Up

Haven't posted in over a month.  The last few weeks have been pretty active for me.  I was at Delaware Park twice for the Winter Series, at Borgata twice for the Borgata Winter Open, did a quick weekend ski trip with the family; all while living and dying with the Ravens through the Super Bowl run.  Oh and we put a contract down on a new house that will have ample space for me to have a 2 table poker room with big screen TVs, etc.  Should be pretty cool assuming we can sell our current house.

The Ravens run was really sweet...I literally busted the DE Park Main Event ($1k) as the ball was sailing through the uprights in that second overtime vs. Denver.  I remember pretty vividly the run in 2000 but this run was sweeter as I enjoyed it with my wife and kids.  They all got really into it this year after years of near misses and shoulda wons it just was a lot of fun.  I even took the kids out of school on Tuesday to go the parade and party at the stadium.  Place was fucking nuts.

Poker wise January was decidedly meh...started off pretty well but I bricked all the high buy in tournaments at Borgata and the DE Park Main.  Thankfully the cash games at Borgata were pretty off the hook and I was able to finish January with a slightly positive win for the month (less than $2k).  I also finished runner up in a $150 buy in (lol) PLO/NLHE split event at DE Park.  I went up sort of on a last minute whim at about 2:30 one Monday afternoon (started at 4) mostly because I was bored and figured I would bust quickly but hopefully a 2-5 or 5-5 PLO game would break out.  8.5 hours later I was heads-up with a competent player and didn't really play that well heads-up ultimately getting A5s all in pre vs. his A9 after 80 or 90 mins of heads-up play. 

Linky: http://www.bluff.com/tournaments/event/2013-delaware-park-winter-poker-classic-event-8-nl-holdem-pot-limit-omaha-10000-guaranteed-2533-27213.html

One interesting hand from HU went like this:

Hero starts hand with 900k

Villain 700k

Blinds 10/20k w/ no antes

I raise A8 to 40k villain calls (Pot 80k). If I had to guess he is calling 75-80% of his range and 3b 15-20% of his range

Flop 752

Villain checks I bet 45k he calls (pot 170k)

I think his range is still pretty wide here and includes flopped pair maybe with a or possibly a bare high like Qx or even a straight draw.

Turn 8 

Villain checks. I feel like he will make a play at this pot a lot if I induce so I bet 65k. Villain tanks then c/r to 175k leaving about 440k behind. If I call there will be 520k in the pot.

I end up calling to keep whatever bluff range he has in the hand.

River 7

I puke call a 180k river bet and get shown T7 with the T

So that sucked but whatever, I thought through the hand pretty well and just got 5 outed for what would have been a huge chip lead.  Obviously if I see his exact hand I probably try and get it in on the turn.

Borgata meanwhile was an absolute shit show.  Huge fields, chips flying...was a good scene.  I busted all the tournaments I played.  Only noteworthy ones were the PLO when I lost a massive pot with AKQ9 vs 3367 on a QQ3 flop and the Main Event where I busted the last hand of day 1 with AA vs 77 on a JT7 flop in a 3 bet pot.  I actually hated the flop and could have folded to his flop raise rather easily but just didn't do it.  Cash games at Borgata were insane.  I was up over $5k playing mostly 2/5 PLO and 2/5 NLHE.  This in spite of the fact that I played 6 $2k+ pots in the first 2 days of my trip and won exactly 1 of them.  But once I dug out of that hole I ran pretty pure and booked a nice profit for the series.  

February will entail a lot less poker and more tax returns though I may try and sneak out to Charles Town for some PLO action in the next few weeks.