How to Properly Exploit a Super User Account

There has been tons of news about the cheating scandal at Absolute Poker. I have never played on that site. I am not sure if I have all the facts straight, but it appears an insider with AP had access to a "super-user" account, that could see all the hole cards at the table live. The super-user would then communicate to somebody in the game what hole cards he was against, and he would make some ridiculous calls and other obviously strange plays based on knowing his opponents exact cards. I guess they were able to pull this off for years, probably with the help of some internal stonewalling of any investigation, as it was an insider doing it. To me that is a pretty big hole in a systems security to have a super user account with that type of power. I am not sure why they would need to see the cards live, when everything that happens (including hole cards) is stored forever in the database. I see no reason to be able to see live cards, and I now wonder how many other sites are loose with their security like this.

All of this is beside the point of this post. These guys fucked up. They did it all wrong. This is how I would have done it (For the record I would have not done the following). Lets assume that the deck shuffle works as follows for a poker site. A random number generator determines the order of the deck. The cards are dealt off and the flop, turn, and river cards are sitting on top of the deck. I am assuming that the deck is not re-shuffled after the hole cards are dealt, and that no burn cards are required (this is not an important point). My point is that a super-user can see what the board will be preflop. That's is the info that you want. That's the info you exploit without getting caught.

So you don't allow yourself to view the other peoples hole cards, but you do take a peak at the eventual board preflop. If you see that you will end up with two-pair or better, you play on, otherwise you fold. Ok, you are not going to fold AA-QQ preflop, but you can play them weak if you know they are going to go nowhere, or just jam them preflop. So you know going in that you will river the straight with your 3 gap suited hole cards. So you make what looks like some bad calls preflop and on the flop, make what looks like a bluff attempt on the turn, and suckout a 4-outer on the river. Happens all day, everyday online. Nobody would suspect anything, but that you were a horrible player. The beauty is that it will not always work. You will get coolers still. You will flop a flush and lose to a higher flush. Your rivered straight will make the other guy a higher one. You will lose some big pots along the way, and people will say "look at this donk drawing to a 4 outer, and when he hits he still loses, lol". Nobody would suspect a thing if you played it this way. You may be considered the biggest luckbox around, but it would be "luckbox" and not "cheater". Is it a crime to draw to 2 outers?

So the moral here is, if you have access to a "Super User" account with the intention of scamming millions of dollars from the unsuspecting public, don't do the obvious. Don't look at the hole cards! Look at the board to be, and play like a freakin donk and you will never be caught.

Bobby Bracelet Too Much for Week 8 BFFB Field

Bobby Bracelet bested a field of 30 and took down Week 8 of the Blogger Fantasy Football Battle. Results are shown below. For those of you not familiar with Bobby, he is one of my all-time favorite bloggers who has been on the run from the man for a while now. It looks like he has finally found a home for his older stuff at the link above. You really need to check it out, but be careful. Many of his posts can lead to uncontrollable laughter that can get you in trouble at work (happened to me!). Here is a random post selected from 2006 to check out. Sundays with Dr. Pauly results are shown at the bottom.

BFFB Leader Board through Week 8 ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
jek187 383.36
love_elf 330.00
Blinders 322.52
Miami Don 286.64
jmathewson_III 266.91
HermWarfare 256.25
bayne_s 251.04
ebk03001 224.28
bonds 221.40
lifesagrind 200.60
Chico's Bail Bonds 180.58
Big Pirate 172.12
Bobby Bracelet 169.61
Zeem 168.21
Madden 158.49
scurvydog 155.03
ChipperSports 147.81
mclarich 132.43
DonkeyPuncher 122.08
Joe Speaker 121.80
Smokkee 117.77
Mcguyver 108.28
Otis 107.58
LTLover 105.64
Schuabs 102.47
Alpo_Splatr 92.14
Dr. Pauly 83.90
Chewbot 68.43
23skidoo 67.39
DrizzDJ 65.98
StB 61.95
Metaltoad 61.26
Digger 60.32
Family Guy 59.48
Bad Ass Mofo 52.24
funnyshoes 50.07
Canable 48.56
wwonka 42.65
PokahDave 39.65
Instant Tragedy 37.62
RotoScoop.com 34.34
Flick 31.50

BG 31.15
Lounge9 30.71
TripJax 29.92
shnikies 29.43
Trama 0.00
FallStaff 0.00
Red Ryder 0.00
FFGoat 0.00
Mookie 0.00
Al Can't Hang 0.00
SirFWALGMan 0.00

Qualified for Tournament of Champions
lifesagrind , Jek187 , love_elf , Mcguyver , jmathewson_III , Zeem , ChipperSports, Bobby Bracelet

Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)
$126

Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 Jek187 186.9, 2 Madden 185.3, 3 Digger 184.8 (All Week 2)

Week 8 BFFB Results

Sundays with Dr. Pauly Week 3 Results.

Pauly continues to make things tough on the competition. Somhow with just 40 additional points to spend he is nearly doubling his weekly score vs. the BFFB. This could be a small TOC in this one. Bobby Bracelet has bested Pauly two straight weeks now, and will get his seat next week if he can do it again. The others shown below in bold have a 1 week streak going

Season Standings are shown below for Sundays with Dr. Pauly.
ebk03001 470.8
RTrizzle 457.5
bayne_s 454.4
Dr. Pauly436.2
Bobby Bracelet 431.6
HermWarfare 420
Party Matt 411.4
Expensive Wino 408.7
Jek187 397.3
bonds 392.3
Zeem 386.6
change100 375.9
Mattazuma 375.5
Chewbot 375.2
Big Pirate 372.3
Pokerpeaker 353.5
Garthmeister J. 334.1
Betty Underground 332.8
BigHeeb91 328.9
jakehead 327.7
KenB525 323.4
DonkeyPuncher 322.9
Chico's Bail Bonds 319.1
Joe Speaker 315.6
Proehl 314.2
belly2bar 311.1
DrizzDJ 306.5
Alpo_Splatr 274.4
Mark 272.1
mush237 266
Lounge9 222.6
scurvydog 220.3
PokahDave 203.4
Mookie 188.2
Victory 177.2
Digger 173.5
Al Can't Hang 164.4
Bill Belicheat 155
Miami Don 151
$mokkee 140.2
RJ 121.6
Jack D 121.1
fantasy 116.9
Bad Ass Mofo 114.8
DontDoItPls 107.2
VinNay 106.9
Lord Bodak 104.5
23skidoo 103.5
Family Guy 102.4
GCox25 99.1
johnnieb 98
Otis 90.7
Draft Master Mike 84

BBT2 Week One In The Books

I did not get my TOC seat in Week 1 as planned. I had a couple decent shots finishing 17th in the MATH, going out on a coinflip (My TT vs. AK) for a pretty big pot with 30 left in the Mook, and getting to the final table last night in Riverchaser's with a pretty big stack. It would not be my night as I would finish in 7th going from 3rd in chips to the rail in the span of 2 hands. I finished 14th overall for week 1 of the BBT2. Guess I may need to write my way in, lol.

I would see even better cards for Riverchaser's then I did in the previous nights Mook. What is interesting about how I play MTTs is that it is very formulaic early, but my image can still be all over the map. When I am catching the right kinds of cards in the right positions at the right frequencies, I can come off as pretty aggressive even early in MTTs. That was the case last night, as I was much more active early than any of the other three events this week. It did not do me a ton of good chip wise, as I would get to the first break still with about 3k in chips. I would continue to catch cards and during the second hour, and now I would start getting paid off and build up a stack. I was in the top ten for most of the second hour.

I always get accused of folding to the money and or points, but if you have watched my play late this week, it is pretty clear that has not been my strategy. I went out jamming a medium suited connector from the cutoff and was somehow called by the BBs QTo in the MATH. I took a massive coinflip on the points bubble in the Mook, and last night got into a massive battle of the blinds with Wawfuls holding A9o. Winning that hand with about 16 left would get me to third in chips. I would get to second about 15 minutes later. I was in great shape at the FT with about 25k in chips, but the blinds were 1200/2400, 300 ante. My M is only about 5 even though I am third in chips. Lucko was very active, preflop raising 40-50% of his hands it appeared. I picked up AQs UTG and raised to 6k. I was called by the BB. Flop came low and it checked to me. With the pot having about 15k in it, and as tight as I had been playing lately, I felt I had to C-bet here. I bet just more than 1/2 the pot to leave myself the chance to fold, and got check-raised all-in. I had to fold there, and that left me with just 10k in chips and an M of 2 in the BB. Things really need to go your way late at the FT and that was not a good example. I guess I can Jam preflop or not make the C-bet, but I think the way I played it is defensible. The next hand was just one of those situations where the math demands that you Jam ATC. I have 10k to start and post a 2400 BB. Lucko makes his usual preflop raise, and it folds to me. If I jam, I will need to put in about 33% of what the total pot will be if called (2100 in dead antes + 1200 dead SB + 4800 Dead BB + Call = 8,100 dead). Lucko's range is just slightly better than ATC. I have 64o, and at best I am 40/60, but against Lucko's range I am probably at least 37/63. I am priced in to Jam ATC here with no fold equity. There is no fold equity, as lucko is priced in to call with whatever he raised with. I guess I can just call there, and check/fold the flop if I miss, but that would leave me with just 5k and no real shot at winning. Sure enough lucko has pretty much ATC and I am live. I river the 6, but it gives Lucko a straight. Better luck next week I guess.

"I Gave Him About 3 Grand While You Were Talking About His Blog"

I played the Mook last night for my third straight BBT2 event. There is a little bit of BBT inflation going on here. 112 for the Mook? All three events have had all time record entries this week. That's not going to make it easy to get that TOC seat. Riverchasers is going to be 125+ I would guess. I will be playing tonight, and hopefully all of next week. I am already getting static so I am going to need to grab a seat soon if I plan on getting one. I feel I have been playing my MTT formula well and it is working. I need to catch a break here and there, and that has not happened yet. My biggest mistake so far was the hand with Kat where she caught a set of Queens in the Big Game. It was a tough situation, and I doubt too many others could fold there, but I probably should have.

So in last nights Mook, I got my best run of cards by far, but was not able to do a ton with them and ended up 30/112. I got Aces and flopped a set early, but could not get paid. I caught QQ in back to back hands doubling up with the first one, and then giving back 2k to AK on the second. I also pulled off some pretty good slow plays if I do say so myself. Both times milking the hand for everything I could get. The quote in the title is from ricki424 who would take third. BuddyDank was doing "guess the donk" and reading my first blog post. Nobody was close to guessing it was me (Not sure if that's good or bad). While this was happening, I pick up AKs in the BB and ricki424 made another standard raise from late. I decided to smooth call and hope to win a big pot post flop if I hit. The flop came A high with two of my suit for a perfect slow play opportunity. I check/called his c-bet, and a small card paired the turn. Turn went check/check. On the river, I led out real small, and got reraised. I jammed for just a bit more, and got called by 88. There was also a paint card on the board. The slowplay was safe there because I had the nut draw to go with my TPTK, and I don't need to worry too much about ricki424 catching up. For my other key slowplaw, I was at about 3200 in chips to start, and raised 3x to 1200 after a couple of limpers with AA. One of limpers call from out of position. Flop comes A5x with two to a suit. I check behind on the flop, as I want the Ace to appear to scare me. I am pretty sure the other guy does not have the case Ace. The Turn brings another five to give me the boat, and no threat of a flush hurting me. I smooth call a bet on the turn. The river is a blank (no flush), and it checks to me. There is 5200 in the pot, and I have 1025 behind. I bet a ridiculously low 700 into the pot. About as valuey as it gets, but also a little post oakie as well. I get the called on the river by Q high. This gave me some chips to work with.

It would get down to about 30 players, and I was under 3k at this point. I jammed A9o from the cutoff and stole the blinds. The very next hand I get TT and the cutoff makes a 3x raise, and I jam. I would lose the coinflip and an 10k+ pot when a bunch of Aces and Kings would hit the board. Not much I can do there, but would have been in good shape with that one.

Listening to BuddyDank read my first post, it was amazing how much the blog has evolved overtime. It used to be all about documenting challenges, and my bankroll progress as I moved up the stakes, while throwing in some strategy and hand analysis. I used to play so much more poker back then then I do now, that I doubt I could do another challenge right now. I probably should find a way though, because challenges always improved my game like clock work. More of you guys should try them and really put yourself under the microscope if you want to get better fast. I miss challenges the most. The UIGEA really changed things for me with respect to the blog. It gave me this huge distraction and time sink in FantasySportLive.com, as well as changed my whole approach to the game. I used to play entirely to maximize profit, but now I just play for fun. I only play MTTs right now, and mainly just the blogger ones when I can. I doubt I have played 1000 hands of NL cash in all of 2007. This kills the normal supply of material I would have for the blog, but I am trying to make the best of it. The BBT and BBT2 definitely give me motivation to play more, but also create issues at home. In the back of my mind I am planning on a direct buy-in to the WSOP ME next year. I don't waste my time with Satellites, so I would buy-in direct if I thought I would be +EV in the MTT. The ME structure is so perfectly aligned to my game, that I really believe I would be +EV. Of course, I would need to prepare by playing tons more MTTs next year to get ready.

BBT2 - Strike 1

The Big Game was first up on the big 3 for me to qualify this week. Strike one, and now I look to tonight at the MATH. I was card dead early winning about 2 pots in the first 50 hands. I then woke up a bit and got to the 3600-3800 range for a while. I would get into a tough spot in a Battle of the blinds situation when I had to let my A9 go due to kicker issues post flop facing too much pressure. And then this hand with Kat, which looks like a straight forward coinflip, but is actually a bit interesting. Lets take a look.

FullTiltPoker Game #3928192131: Blogger Big Game (29406550)
Table 6 - 80/160 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:51:14 ET - 2007/10/21
Seat 1: rpinner (8,310)
Seat 3: BuddyDank (2,615)
Seat 4: katitude (2,695)
Seat 5: a104l9 (4,115)
Seat 7: SnailTrax (2,950)
Seat 8: Blinders (3,085)
Seat 9: Fishiswa (4,160)
a104l9 posts the small blind of 80
SnailTrax posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***Dealt to Blinders [Ac Ks]

I am under the gun, and with a well below average stack, I need to try to make something from this hand. Easy standard raise.

Blinders raises to 480
Fishiswa folds
rpinner folds
BuddyDank folds
katitude raises to 800
a104l9 folds
SnailTrax folds

It will be heads-up. The minimum raise is a bit interesting. I can fold, call, or push. I think a case can be made for all three here. I thought about folding first, but it is just too late in the tourney to be that concerned that I am up against exactly AA or KK the one time I pick up a good starting hand. I put kat on a pretty good hand here though. AA-TT, AK, AQ. Something like that. a smaller pair would have called or pushed vs min raise there. So I thought about just pushing into that range, but figured I am getting called most of the time. So I play it pretty safe and take the nice odds of just calling the 320 more, and waiting to see if I hit the flop before committing.

Blinders calls 320

*** FLOP *** [Jh Ad Qd]

At first that looks like a great flop. I hit my Ace, but then you need to think about the range you are against. The whole range I put her on is ahead of me except exactly TT and KK or AK for a push. I doubt she pushes TT there, but possibly KK and AK I guess. This is a situation at the cash tables that is very foldable because of the stack depths, but more difficult in an MTT. You put the player on TT-QQ, and you have AA. The flop comes QJT, and you just know your already beat when the other guy fires. I check it to kat to get some info.

Blinders checks
katitude bets 1,895, and is all in

Well I guess she caught something. If she did, I got 4 outs max. I checked to leave myself the chance to fold here. I call instead.

Blinders calls 1,895

katitude shows [Qs Qc]
Blinders shows [Ac Ks]
*** TURN *** [Jh Ad Qd] [Kc]
*** RIVER *** [Jh Ad Qd Kc] [3h]
katitude shows three of a kind, Queens
Blinders shows two pair, Aces and Kings
katitude wins the pot (5,630) with three of a kind, Queens

You guys play it different pre or post flop? I think I did ok up until calling at the end.

Chipper Takes Down Week 7 of the BFFB

ChipperSports took down week 7 of the Blogger Fantasy Football Battle on Fantasy Sports Live. He got with-in breathing room of one of the top 3 weekly scores, but fell just a bit short. Hopefully the seat he just got in the Season Ending TOC will make up for it. I also must mention Miami Don who continues to impress, winning his 4th blogger battle contest in 5 tries. I guess its best to avoid the one he is in each week, unless you like playing for second place. In Sundays with Dr. Pauly, Pauly put up the second best score of the week. Nobody who beat his score last week did again this week, so the TOC is currently empty. Bayne_s has the early overall lead through 2 weeks with Pauly a close second.

BFFB Leaderboard through Week 7 ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
jek187 346.65
Blinders 322.52
love_elf 288.37
Miami Don 286.64
jmathewson_III 238.47
HermWarfare 221.42
bonds 221.40
lifesagrind 200.60
Chico's Bail Bonds 180.58
bayne_s 173.24
ebk03001 169.21
scurvydog 155.03
ChipperSports 147.81
Big Pirate 138.91
mclarich 132.43
Zeem 118.96
Smokkee 117.77
Madden 113.53
Mcguyver 108.28
Otis 107.58
Schuabs 102.47
DonkeyPuncher 91.53
Joe Speaker 90.01
Dr. Pauly 83.90
Chewbot 68.43
23skidoo 67.39
DrizzDJ 65.98
StB 61.95
Metaltoad 61.26
Digger 60.32
Family Guy 59.48
Bobby Bracelet 59.48
Alpo_Splatr 53.20
Bad Ass Mofo 52.24
funnyshoes 50.07
Canable 48.56
wwonka 42.65
LTLover 42.06
PokahDave 39.65
Instant Tragedy 37.62
RotoScoop.com 34.34
Flick 31.50
BG 31.15

Lounge9 30.71
TripJax 29.92
Trama 0.00
FallStaff 0.00
Red Ryder 0.00
FFGoat 0.00
Mookie 0.00
Al Can't Hang 0.00
SirFWALGMan 0.00

Qualified for Tournament of Champions

lifesagrind , Jek187 , love_elf , Mcguyver , jmathewson_III , Zeem , ChipperSports

Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)

$126

Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)

1 Jek187 186.9, 2 Madden 185.3, 3 Digger 184.8 (All Week 2)

Sundays with Dr. Pauly Leaderboard through 2 weeks
bayne_s 326.1
Dr. Pauly 308.7
ebk03001 305.3
RTrizzle 303.3
Bobby Bracelet 296.5
Expensive Wino 295
Zeem 280.9
Party Matt 280.2
jek187 274.5
HermWarfare 273.3
Big Pirate 272.2
change100 266.4
bonds 261
Pokerpeaker 249.2
Mattazuma 244.3
Chewbot 238.4
DonkeyPuncher 232.8
jakehead 232.6
Chico's Bail Bonds 229.8
mush237 228
belly2bar 224.6
KenB525 221.4
scurvydog 220.3
Proehl 220.2
Garthmeister J. 218.2
Mark 215.1
BigHeeb91 210.3
Betty Underground 209.9
Joe Speaker 209.4
DrizzDJ 198.7
Mookie 188.2
Victory 177.2
Al Can't Hang 164.4
Miami Don 151
Smokkee 140.2
Alpo_Splatr 136.1
Lounge9 136
RJ 121.6
Jack D 121.1
fantasy 116.9
VinNay 106.9
Lord Bodak 104.5
PokahDave 103.7
23skidoo 103.5
Family Guy 102.4
johnnieb 98
Otis 90.7
Digger 76

Think You Are Good at Fantasy Football?

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

That's some pretty simple stuff. If you think you are good at something, you prove it where it counts. For poker this means that you need to player higher level cash games or higher buy-in MTTs then somebody else, if you want to "prove" you are a better player than them (and be successful of course). You put your money where your mouth is. Before FantasySportsLive.com came around, there were high-stakes fantasy sports leagues. The problem was that they just did not pay back enough of the prize pool. You could put your money where your mouth is, but you would have been stupid to do it. If the rake went up as you moved up in stakes vs. down in poker, there would be a point where you would stop putting your money where your mouth is, because it would start to become a losing proposition. This is not the case, so you can easily locate the best poker players as the ones who have success at the highest levels.

At Fantasy Sports Live, you can put your money where your mouth is today. Zeem did it last week. He opened an account and entered (2) $10 10-player contests and won them both. That is a 100-1 shot if skill did not apply. Skill clearly applies. He profited from his sports knowledge by putting his money where his mouth was. Miami Don is another great example. He has won 3 out of 4 10-player weekly blogger battle contests he has entered. He put his money where his mouth was, and is now enjoying the profits. I am not trying to say that everyone wins on the site. I am saying that if you truly believe you are good at fantasy football, why not prove it on the only site that you can do so profitably. Do you have what it takes?

Several other sites have popped up during the football season exploiting the UIGEA like we are. They all have simply repackaged fantasy football into a weekly, unbeatable contest where the number of entries is not capped, and you have no idea what the house take is. They are all coming at it from the old school fantasy sports perspective. FSL did not come from that perspective. We are all about giving players a chance to actually profit from their sports knowledge. Its very nice to be the only one who thinks this way. We may hold on to this niche for quite a while.

BBT2 Qualifying Strategy

I put about 5 minutes of thought into this, but here it is. In BBT1, I did not dare play in all or close to all of the events. Trying to do that would have led certainly to divorce. Last time we were playing for a Wii or something like that, and with the point system the way it was, I could slide right to the freeroll without too much effort. This time an 18k prize package is on the line in a 20ish player TOC. So whats my plan? Get my seat ASAP and then drop out. It's my only hope of getting the Aussie trip and keeping my marriage intact. Seems like a valid strategy. Event #1 is the big game which will most likely have the smallest field of all events. Event #2 is the MATH which should be smaller than the Mook or Riverchasers each week. I figure the field sizes will grow throughout, so week 1 is your best shot. I have won riverchasers before, and gone deep at the FT a few times as well, so that is probably my other shot.

So my strategy breaks down like this.

1) Win the big game, Math or River Chasers in week 1
2) Sit back and wait for the TOC
3) If (1) does not happen, I guess its back to the drawing boards.

Feel free to throw some chips my way next week to help in my efforts.

Zeem Wins Week 6 of the BFFB, and Bayne_s Takes Early Lead in Weekends with Dr. Pauly

It was a wild and busy weekend on Fantasy Sports Live. When the dust would settle on Week 6, BFFB newcomer Zeem would get a seat in the TOC on his first try by besting 35 competitors. Miami Don would take down his third BFFB contest in four trys. Blinders would contribute more to the TOC prize pool, and there would be a shake-up on top of the standings. The BFFB leaderboard and additional info are shown below.

We also had the first week of "Sundays with Dr. Pauly". 46 would enter this one, and Bayne_S would put up a huge 191.8 to take the early lead in the 10 week series. Dr. Pauly would put up a solid 163.4 and just six entries would score higher. Those entries can gain an entry into the season ending TOC if the can beat Pauly's score twice more in a row. Hopefully Pauly will start putting up his normal type scores that are usually pretty easy to beat, so the rest of us will have a chance to parlay into the TOC.

On The Leader Board ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 jek187 315.94
2 Blinders 294.48
3 love_elf 288.37
4 Miami Don 217.96
5 lifesagrind 200.60
6 bonds 189.61
7 HermWarfare 185.55
8 bayne_s 173.24
9 scurvydog 155.03
10 jmathewson_III 154.36
11 Chico's Bail Bonds 140.93
12 ebk03001 127.15
13 Zeem 118.96
14 Smokkee 117.77
15 Madden 113.53
16 Big Pirate 109.17
17 Mcguyver 108.28
18 Schuabs 102.47
19 DonkeyPuncher 91.53
20 Joe Speaker 90.01
21 mclarich 87.47
22 Dr. Pauly 83.90
23 Otis 73.24
24 23skidoo 67.39
25 StB 61.95
26 Metaltoad 61.26
27 Digger 60.32
28 Family Guy 59.48
29 Bad Ass Mofo 52.24
30 funnyshoes 50.07
31 wwonka 42.65
32 LTLover 42.06
33 PokahDave 39.65
34 Chewbot 39.58
35 RotoScoop.com 34.34
36 DrizzDJ 32.99
37 Flick 31.50
38 BG 31.15 19
39 Lounge9 30.71
40 TripJax 29.92
41 ChipperSports 28.85

Honorable Mention (no BFFB points yet)
Bobby Bracelet
Trama
FallStaff
Mookie
SirFWALGMan
Red Ryder
FFGoat
Instant Tragedy
Al Can't Hang

Qualified for Tournament of Champions
lifesagrind
Jek187
love_elf
Mcguyver
jmathewson_III
Zeem

Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)
$126

Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 Jek187 186.9 (Week 2)
2 Madden 185.3 (Week 2)
3 Digger 184.8 (Week 2)

Week 6 BFFB Results

Sundays with Dr. Pauly Results

Get In The Game Squared - SWDP

In case you live under a rock somewhere and have not heard we have a new Fantasy Football Series on Fantasy Sports Live. "Sundays with Dr. Pauly" officially starts this Sunday, and will be a 10 week challenge. Like the BFFB there will be bonus prizes added. Unlike the BFFB, we will be accumulating raw fantasy scores to determine the champion, and the entry to the end of season freeroll will be based on beating Dr. Pauly's score for three consecutive weeks. Pauly is also throwing in some of his own valuable prizes, including a personal phone call from "Daddy" for 4th place overall. You now have twice the reasons to sign-up and compete at Fantasy Sports Live, and remember to use a bonus code when opening your account for some extra free cash as well. Get in the Game - Squared.

Blinders Re-Engineers the World

I thought I would try something a bit different here today. You see I have these great ideas for improving the world that need to get out. I think this could become a regular segment here, though none of this stuff will be poker related. These ideas for improving the world will be groundbreaking, but don't expect any of them to actually be implemented. Politics will always get in the way of a good idea.

Blinders Fixes the Calendar

Have you ever noticed how fucked up the calendar is? We have 28-day months, 31-day months, 30-day months, leap years, double leap years... All of this is ugly and really unnecessary. Here is my proposal. Make all months exactly 28 days long, and have 13 months/year. Each month would start on a Saturday and end on a Friday. Fiscal and calendar years would now be in sinc, and everyone gets a free extra month. This takes care of 364 of the 365 days. The extra day would be "New Years Day", and would be a public holiday that is not on the calendar. Its like a free party day at the end of the year for everyone. For leap years you get an extra "new years day" for a 2-day long party.

Why is this better. It is much simpler and easy to remember. Fiscal quarters would always end on a Friday so now working the last weekend of the quarter to hit your numbers would not be possible. Eliminating the need for "Fiscal" calendars removes a layer of complexity and will be a cost saver for business. Everyone gets one extra "free" month out of this, and a free party day every year. If you get paid by the month, you will get a nice raise immediately. Most importantly you will never need to remember how many days each month has, which is not very easy.

For the 13th month, I would add it to summer so that summer would be 4 months long. "Smarch" is my top choice, as it would lie somewhere in between March and September, and was referenced on the Simpsons as well.

So do I have your votes? You get an extra free month each year, plus a free party day. The extra month will make summer 33% longer. All months become the same and always start and finish on the same day, so it is easy to remember. Can you beleive no one has thought of this before?

Hoy Hot Hand Redux #2 - Post Flop Actions

I am going to start the post flop analysis from "little dicks" perspective. There were a bunch of comments on how he may have misplayed this hand. I think that we can put that idea to rest if you view the hand purely from his perspective. First off, he raised $360 preflop which was smooth called by Hoy. The $360 amount is very important here. What he has done with that raise amount is take away the set mining "rule of 10" from Hoy. Hoy would need to call $360, but can't possibly make more the 3k on the hand. He is getting 8.3 for 1 implied odds which are not nearly enough to set mine with. Because of this, little dick can eliminate all small to medium pairs from Hoy's range. If Hoy calls that raise with a small to medium pair, little dick can go to the felt post flop every time he hits and it is a +EV move. Little dick can also eliminate AA and KK from Hoy's range, as you would expect a re-re-raise with AA or KK. So when little dick makes this raise amount preflop and Hoy just calls, he is very safe going to the felt post flop if he hits an Ace or King on the flop.

Flop drops AT4, and little dick knows he is good here based on Hoy's range. So what hands makes sense for Hoy to raise 3x from the cutoff, and just call the re-raise. AK, AQ, AJs, KQs, JJ and TT come to mind. From that range, he only needs to worry about the very specific TT hand. In Super System, Doyle says that he prefers AK to AA as a starting hand in holdem. The idea is that AK needs to hit something on the flop, and when it does there is only two cards left that could have made a set. AK is a safer hand when it makes TPTK then AA when it is an overpair in Doyle's opinion. In this case only TT and 44 could make a set, and 44 is eliminated from Hoy's range. Now when little dick decided to put over 1/6th of his stack in preflop, he is not thinking about releasing the hand when an A or K flops. If he wants a chance to release his hand post flop, he needs to only call Hoy's raise. When he reraises AK, he is committed to going to war post flop if he hits.

Hoy checks to little dick. He absolutely must c-bet this. He could overbet push to kill a normal draw, but he is heads-up and with Hoy's range he knows that he is ahead here. Also, most of the hands in Hoy's range would not lead to a draw. So he makes a value c-bet hoping Hoy has a hand like AQ, AJ and will call. Hoy instead pushes all-in. At this point little dick already has close to 1/2 of his stack in the pot. He insta-called, but if you think about Hoy's range now you can limit it to AK, AQ, AJ, TT, or a draw. AK or TT are pretty longshot hands. He knows he is either dominating Hoy, or Hoy is on a draw at this point, and it is a very easy call. Little dick is getting 4 for 1 on the call so any and all draws that Hoy may have are not good enough to get him to fold. Easy call here IMO. The fact that Hoy hit is draw is completely irrelevant to this analysis.

Now from Hoys perspective. He smooth calls preflop. He flops a monster draw. It looks to be a coinflip at this point as a straight or flush should be good. Since little dick reraised and Hoy only called, he can expect a c-bet from little dick if he checks. If he does not get the expected c-bet, Hoy gets a free card towards his draw, and can reevaluate on the turn. Checking to the preflop re-raiser in this situation is how Hoy will gain the most value here. So he makes the right move, little dick c-bets as expected, Hoy jams as planned, and little dick insta-calls. Both were easily priced in here to make these moves. Both played the hand as well as possible post flop.

In MTTs you must push any edge you find. The blinds are increasing, and you will only find so many profitable situations. I love this play (jamming a draw) early in an MTT as well. You will either get yourself eliminated, or get a nice stack to go deep with. Getting eliminated early helps your hourly win rate, and if you read this blog you know that to me that is the most important measure. Floating along with a below par stack for a few hours, and then getting eliminated semi-deep and out of the money is a disaster to your hourly win rate. You absolutely must make a move like this when you find a very +EV situation post flop, like both players found on this hand.

Now Hoy thought there was a decent chance that he gets TPTK to fold to the jam. I don't really get that. If little dick was c-betting with air he can fold, but there is no way he folds TPTK in this situation. As I said above, he already has close to 1/2 his stack in the pot, and has a great read on Hoy's range. He is dead to TT but that's about it. He's not folding there, I am not folding there, and I am sorry, but Hoy does not fold there either if he is in little dicks shoes. It's a 100% call situation period.

In conclusion, the only mistake I see for the entire hand is Hoy calling the preflop re-raise. Other than that Hoy played it right, and little dick did as well. If I was little dick, I guess I am a little upset with the preflop call, but it basically gave little dick a huge +EV situation post flop. No reason to rail the guy who hit his draw for four hours, but some people just don't get it. If I was him, I look back at the hand and know that I played it correctly. That is all that matters here. Decisions matter, and results don't matter in poker. More people need to understand this, but emotions always get in the way.

Edit:

I went back and ran the post flop numbers, and I have to admit I made a couple of mistakes. First off, I had the stack sizes off. Hoy had $4,310 and not the $3,000 that I had assumed. Secondly, it is not really close to a coin-flip. The problem with just counting your outs, is that you are not considering the other guys redraws to beat you when you hit, or the parts of his range that are stealing your outs. Both of these factors make the check/fold post flop line for Hoy more favorable. Not quite all the way to make it the best play, but much more of a borderline decision. You can't really put the guy on exactly AdKh, but that is pretty much worst case where you lose two of your outs, and he also gets a redraw to a higher flush. For that exact hand, check/fold is the best post flop line. Below is a chart that shows the EV of the check/jam line Hoy used for my $3000 starting stack assumption, as well as the $4310 actual starting stacks. It also looks at the situation against the exact hand Hoy was against, AQs, the range I suggested for "ol little dick", and a worst case AA. If you assume no folding equity for the jam at all, at the actual stack sizes, the check/fold line is correct. If you go to $3000 starting stacks, you can still check/jam with positive expectation even if you get no folding equity. Most important, I think is to look at the AK or big pair range that I suggested. JJ-KK will most likely c-bet that flop after Hoy checks, and Hoy does get some folding equity on those hands with the Ace on the board. I would say he has at least 30% folding equity for 3k stacks, and at least 50% folding equity for the substantially deeper $4,310 stacks against JJ-KK. When you factor this in, the check/jam line is clearly best even for the deeper stacks. But, like I said at the top of the edit, it has been pushed towards a much more borderline decision than my original post would have lead you to believe. My bad Hoy.

Hoy Hot Hand Redux #2 - Preflop Actions

When I did my first HHHR several months ago, I thought it would be a regular feature here. Not sure what happened, but I can't resist analyzing the hand from last weeks 1k. There were just so many comments, and the hand in question has such depth, that I thought I would do my thing and beat it to death. I will look at the hand in question from both players perspectives, and see if and where any mistakes or questionable moves were made. I think there is a lot to learn about early MTT play, that probably has not been exposed yet as a result of this very specific hand. Concepts like what it takes to get a solid read on somebody, how MTT play changes as you get deeper in the tournament, how preflop actions can determine post flop actions, and the classic play of jamming draws in MTTs. All this stuff will come to the surface I hope as a result of the analysis.

Hoy describes the hand this way.

To recap, we were about 45, 50 minutes in to the Monday 1k buyin mtt, with blinds at 30-60, and I opened from the cutoff with Q♥J♥ with a 3x raise to 180 chips. Ol' Littledick repopped my raise 3x to 540 chips from my left on the button. The blinds folded, and the action came back to me, where I called the reraise for another 360 chips into what became an 1170 chip pot.The flop came down A♥T♠4♥. Action was to me on the flop, and I checked with my big draw, with the intention of check-raising any bet from him allin since I put my opponent on a big Ace from his preflop reraise. My opponent bet 820 into the 1170-chip pot, at which point I went for the all-in checkraise for my last 2400 chips. Littledick insta called, flipping up AK, and I hit my flush on the turn to nearly eliminate him from the tournament and get me started off to a nice stack in the 1k.

So Hoy has about 3k to start the hand which is slightly less than Ol' Little dick has, so Hoy's stack size is the pot limiter here. Also, I believe from his earlier posts that he actually turned a Kd for the straight, but that is not very important. So lets start with the preflop raise of 3x from the cutoff at this point in an MTT. I feel this is a solid play. You do not want an image of being overly tight, and raising QJs in general from the cut off looks to be a +EV move, while at the same time loosening up your image a bit. Now I am talking about image here, but this is too early in an MTT to be overly concerned with your own image, or others for that matter. The blinds are just too small to be attempting to make an image play, or get in a huge pot based on an image "read". These are the things that you do in the late or middle stages of MTTs when the pot sizes matter relative to your stack. With the blinds totalling just $90, Hoy's M is 33 here. No reason to be making any big moves. Also, the some of the loosest players play very tight early in MTTs to build an image to exploit later on. If you get too married to their image early, you will be the one they will exploit. Because of this, I tend not to care about mine or other images this early in an MTT. Hoy claimed to have a solid read on this guy, which was probably his first mistake.

So the button reraises Hoy to 540 total. Hoy needs to call 360 which is not a ton of chips, but substantial relative to his stack. Hoy felt this guy could be on a re-steal here, and was wrong. That would not have been my read. I would not have built an image up of this guy yet. With the lack of a read, I usually will think about what kinds of hands I would make that type of a play with as a first order approximation. So what hands do I reraise the cutoff up to 540 at this point in an MTT? AA, KK, QQ for value. JJ and TT for information. I call with AK, AQ, KQ, AJs, and all pocket pairs. I am not restealing at this point in the tournament for 1/6th of my stack, and this guy was not either. Reading this as a resteal, or a "big ace" is a mistake. This guy added AK into his range for the reraise. I think this is a decent/borderline choice. I would rather manage the pot size with a hand like AK at this point. I have position, and a Blind might come if I just call. Playing this for a three way pot of about 600 seems like a reasonable move to me, but I will not question adding AK to your reraise range here. So lets give little dick a range of AA-JJ and AK. I added JJ because this guy added AK which is a little looser than me. So the reraise at this point in the MTT tells me he has AK or a big pair. Hoy is way behind all the big pairs but JJ, and slightly behind AK. Running this through poker stove shows Hoy has 29% equity. Hoy needs to call 360 for an 1170 pot for a price of 31%.

Seems a little borderline, but the problem is that the hand is not over preflop. If it was, you could make that call and it would only be slightly wrong (29% vs 31%). But, there is a ton more money that can go in post flop. The 29% equity comes mostly from the AK and JJ match-ups. QJs will only rarely beat AA, KK or QQ. When you only call the raise, you get no further information to narrow the range. Repoping him with QJs would just be stupid so that's not an option. So you can't get the info you need to know that your QJs will be good if you catch a Q or J high flop. You very likely will be against a hand that you will not be able to beat, and will get yourself in trouble post flop because of it. You will need to catch 2 pair or better (worse than a 40-1 shot), or flop a huge draw that you are not priced in for even when counting the implied odds. Poker pros love to talk about being priced in for a preflop call, but it works best for all-in situations where you know what your total price will be. Hoy could not know his "total" price in this instance.

Hoy is smooth calling from out of position here. You pretty much only want to do that when you feel you are ahead, and Hoy admitted that he knew he was behind. There are pretty much no hands that rearaise him there that are not ahead of QJs. Just calling forces Hoy to act first postflop. Hoy did not narrow little dicks range, but little dick has already narrowed Hoy's range, and will be able to further narrow Hoy's range post flop by using his positional advantage. Getting into this big of a pot preflop, heads-up, out of position, and not controlling the betting or information are all not good things. Hoy needs to release this hand to that reraise from that position.

Now from little dicks perspective. It folds to the cutoff who makes a standard preflop raise. Now that actually could be a steal. He could have just called, and waited for the flop to build a pot, but he rerasies from postion to isolate Hoy with a hand that is highly likely to be ahead. You can't really knock that play. He might take it down preflop (actually should have), can take it down with a C-bet unimproved if Hoy checks the flop, or can hit an A or K and use his position advantage to extract maximum value post flop.

I am going to stop here, and will do the post flop actions next. I will be much more kind to Hoy post flop, because you can't really fault his play at all post flop. In fact it is a great example of the correct way to play a huge draw like that. I will also argue that little dick in the context of the hand, also played it correctly post flop. Stay tuned.

jmathewson III Takes Down Week 5 of the BFFB

We had a record 35 entries this week in the Blogger Fantasy Football Battle. jmathewson_III would be best, earning the $45 prize from his contest and entry in the Tournament of Champions. scurvydog, Blinders, and Chico's Bail Bonds would win thier individual contests. I will be forfieting all of my winnings in this thing into the Tournament of Champions prize pool. This amounts to $99 through 5 weeks of a 17 week season. I would assume that the there will be much more than the $150 minimum added promised. 27 people have cashed so far in the BFFB, and I just took over the Cash lead with $99. Below is the updated leaderboard and additional info.

On The Leader Board ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 love_elf 254.03
2 Blinders 241.28
3 jek187 231.83
4 Miami Don 173.00
5 lifesagrind 168.81
6 scurvydog 155.03
7 jmathewson_III 154.36
8 bonds 147.55
9 bayne_s 143.50
10 HermWarfare 116.87
11 Chico's Bail Bonds 112.89
12 Big Pirate 109.17
13 Mcguyver 108.28
14 mclarich 87.47
15 Dr. Pauly 83.90
16 Smokkee 81.90
17 ebk03001 78.59
18 Madden 73.88
19 Otis 73.24
20 23skidoo 67.39
21 Schuabs 64.85
22 DonkeyPuncher 62.68
23 StB 61.95
24 Metaltoad 61.26
25 Digger 60.32
26 Joe Speaker 59.30
27 Bad Ass Mofo 52.24
28 funnyshoes 50.07
29 wwonka 42.65
30 LTLover 42.06
31 PokahDave 39.65
32 Chewbot 39.58
33 RotoScoop.com 34.34
34 Flick 31.50
35 BG 31.15 19
36 Lounge9 30.71
37 TripJax 29.92
38 ChipperSports 28.85

Honorable Mention (no BFFB points yet)
DrizzDJ
Bobby Bracelet
Trama
FallStaff
Mookie
SirFWALGMan
Red Ryder
FFGoat

Qualified for Tournament of Champions
lifesagrind
Jek187
love_elf
Mcguyver
jmathewson_III

Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)
$99

Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 Jek187 186.9 (Week 2)
2 Madden 185.3 (Week 2)
3 Digger 184.8 (Week 2)

Week 5 BFFB Results

Mcguyver Takes Down Week 4 of the BFFB. Miami Don & Pig Pirate Also Win

Mcguyver fashioned a picking apparatus out of a toothpick, rubber band, and a discarded newspaper to find the winning team in a tough week overall. His picks would be best out of 29 runners. Miami Don and Pig Pirate would also take down $45 each by winning their contests. Love elf continues to put up big numbers.

On The Leader Board ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 love_elf 254.03
2 jek187 202.09
3 Blinders 196.32
4 bayne_s 143.50
5 Miami Don 141.21
6 lifesagrind 135.82
7 Big Pirate 109.17
8 Mcguyver 108.28
9 bonds 94.35
10 Dr. Pauly 83.90
11 Smokkee 81.90
12 HermWarfare 79.25
13 Madden 73.88
14 Otis 73.24
15 scurvydog 70.92
16 23skidoo 67.39
17 DonkeyPuncher 62.68
18 StB 61.95
19 Metaltoad 61.26
20 Digger 60.32
21 Bad Ass Mofo 52.24
22 funnyshoes 50.07
23 Chico's Bail Bonds 44.21
24 wwonka 42.65
25 Chewbot 39.58
26 jmathewson_III 35.4
27 Flick 31.50
28 Joe Speaker 31.26
29 BG 31.15 19
30 ebk03001 30.03
31 TripJax 29.92
32 Schuabs 28.98
33 mclarich 27.99

Honorable Mention (no BFFB points yet)
DrizzDJ
ChipperSports
Bobby Bracelet
Trama
FallStaff
Red Ryder
FFGoat

Qualified for Tournament of Champions
lifesagrind
Jek187
love_elf
Mcguyver

Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)
$63

Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 Jek187 186.9 (Week 2)
2 Madden 185.3 (Week 2)
3 Digger 184.8 (Week 2)

Week 4 BFFB Results

BFFB Cash Leaders
1 Miami Don $90
2 Love Elf $81
2 Lifesagrind $81
4 Bayne_s $72
4 Big Pirate $72
4 jek187 $72
7 Blinders $63
7 Madden $63
9 TaoPauly $45
9 Smokkee $45
9 Hermwarfare $45
9 Bobby Bracelet $45