Bodog 5k & Chat Tilt

I have been playing in the bodog 5k for a few weeks now on Tuesdays. It starts 3 minutes before the bodonkey starts and is $10+1. I have never seen it not have an overlay with about 420-460 players typical. Anyone else runnin this one with the bodonkey? I still have not cashed in my 3 or so attempts, but I had a pretty interesting run this week. You start with 1500 in chips, but other than that it is the same structure as the bodonkey.

About 15 minutes in I pick up AKo and open raise 3x to 60. I get reraised by the SB to 200, and decide to smooth call at this early point in the tourney. Flop drops K high rainbow, and I just call the SBs bet. Turn is a blank, and SB checks and I check behind. River is Q and SB pushes all-in for his last 825, and I call. SB has AQ and I scope a 2800 pot. Thank you Queeen.

Not much happened until I was down to about 1600 in chips about 1 1/2 hours in. Blinds now 150/300 with an ante. UTG limps and I pick up 66 and decide to jam based on my short stack size. Folds to UTG who thinks and calls with 66 as well. Flop comes down 777 then K7 complete the board for a chop. At this point I initiate the following chat (I am Whatsthenuts)

WhatsTheNuts: donk
xxxxthisgame: you can go all in with 66 but i cant call without being a donk?
WhatsTheNuts: it takes a better hand to call with
WhatsTheNuts: and yours was not better, donk
xxxxthisgame: i thought you had two over cards
xxxxthisgame: it would have been a race and you only have 1600 chips
WhatsTheNuts: u were way wrong, donk
xxxxthisgame: well it wouldnt have cost me my tourney if I ended up wrong
WhatsTheNuts: tru, but please look me up again
xxxxthisgame: ok

I am basically trying to tilt this guy and call extra attention to my last play of jamming 66. xxxx was actually a decent player and untiltable, but others notice this stuff as well.

The above hand only gets me to about 1900 in chips. I drift down to 1200 and pick up QTo in the BB. It folds to the button who jams. Folds to me. Blinds are 150/300 still with an ante, and I am already in for 300. So I end up calling 900 for a 2800 pot. Button has AK. I spike a Q on the turn and get to 2800. The guy I beat starts ridiculing my play. This was great, because it was a semi-questionable play, that I would not be making now that my stack was larger. Might as well draw tons of attention to it. So I start defending my play, and questioning his jam with AK knowing I might call with ATC. So he looks me up on poker DB (whatsthenuts) and finds that I have not won dick on bodog. I told him that the poker DB only tells you who does not have a life, and is no indication of a players profitability.

I pick up AJs early. and open raise taking the blinds.

Next hand, I pick up AA, and there is a min raise to 800. Poker DB boy just calls. Since I have 2800, I just jam, and it folds to poker DB boy who calls with K9 sooted. I double through to 7000. Now we are down to about 60/430 players with top 45 getting paid.

A big stack has been abusing the table for about 10 minutes by jamming preflop once or twice every orbit. I pick up 99 and he open jams with me covered. I have enough chips to easily get to the final 4 tables or so, but 45th pays like 15 bucks. I figured this was a flip with me on the plus side, or possibly better to much better. 15k in chips would put me in good shape to take it down after having only seen AA and AK and not much else in over two hours. I call and the abuser has QJo. I survive the flop, but a Q on the turn sends me home.

Still no cash in the bodog 5k, but I am getting closer and this time with not much to work with. This was a very typical MTT for me. Get some chips early to relax and be able to play patient. In the bodonkey you already get to start with a double up. When the cards are not there, you just hold out as long as you can, hoping they will come. If they don't you try to get it in as good as possible and hope for a few double ups late. When the double ups hit you are right back in position with the best possible table image for late MTT play. Just missed on the last one this time.

Stealing Elections

Anyone remember the "Hanging Chads" from Florida? Remember how the Democrats claimed that Bush "Stole the Election" from Gore. Keep in mind that he won on the first count of the ballots. He won the recounts that happened at the time. Bush also won in many independent studies that were completed afterwards that counted the ballots using numerous different criteria. The fact is Bush won the election, and the Democrats by litigating the results in Florida were the ones trying to "Steal the Election". But the Media was on their side, and to this day the general public impression was that the 2000 election was stolen by the Republicans. For arguments sake lets just say that stealing an election is an attempt to undue the rightful will of the people who voted in the election.

Hillary Clinton is attempting to steal the election.

The media is completely silent to this fact, but it is a fact. She has no chance at all of having the delegate lead when the voting is completed. She can only win by making backroom deals at the convention, that go completely against what the voting public wants. Her win in Pennsylvania does not improve her chances at all. She picked up between 10-15 delegates, and is still behind by 150 or so with just a few states left. I used the delegate calculator at Slate.com, and assuming that Hillary wins all of the remaining states by a 14% margin she is still almost 100 delegates behind. Why does the media not point this fact out. All that I hear is that Obama has something to prove now in Indiana and other future primaries. He has nothing to prove. He has already locked up the nomination, unless it gets stolen away from him. Good luck with that one Hillary.

Bodog Pro Knockout Pot Odds

Looks like we will be having a Bodog pro in the Bodonkey tonight. As usual there will be a $100 bounty on the pro's head. Now considering that the buy-in for the bodonkey is $10+1, it creates an interesting situation. Basically, if you get into a hand with a bodog pro, and have them covered, it is +EV to jam all of your chips in as soon as possible no matter what you are holding. There are very few hands that have less than 10% equity in the pot, and 10% equity is all you need for a jam to be +EV. So you just jam into the pro every time you have them covered (and alone in the hand), and try to collect the $100 bounty. Solidly +EV.

But wait a second, because there is more depth than just that. There is the T600 added to the prize pool. With around 40 runners or so the Bodonkey is already positive EV to the tune of about $15. You would be giving up some of that EV by going for the hyper aggressive pro knockout. Also there is the WSOP ME seat given away to one of the top 18 players in the series. That adds some EV to the equation as well. For somebody like me, who has a seat locked down, it may be time to donk my stack off to a pro. Come on down tonight and see what happens. I just hope I draw a table with one of those poor bastards!

Deepstacks Limit Holdem Maniac

I played in the RiverChasers Deepstacks Limit Holdem event last week. Deepstack limit holdem in an interesting animal. The stacks are so deep, and the limits are so low early, you can play pretty wild without getting into too much trouble. So I decided to play like an absolute and complete maniac early and really shittify my image for later when the blinds matter. Now a bunch of you will say that I am wasting my time, as bloggers in general don't give a rats ass about your table image. Not true, and I have a great hand example below to show what I am talking about. Before lets set the stage a bit. The blinds are 30/60 and I am just running over the table. Raising and rerasising like mad, and stealing blinds like it was my job. In the below sequence of 8 hands, I win five of them without a single showdown. That's pretty tough to do in limit holdem.


Dealer: Blinders wins the pot (150)
Dealer: Hand #6075803847
AlCantHang: for real? i'm blocking off all the
rooms at the hotel across the street
Dealer: BamBamCan wins the pot (650)
Dealer: Hand #6075813290
BamBamCan: we'll see what happens
Dealer: Blinders wins the pot (825)
Dealer: Hand #6075825940
Dealer: GCox25 wins the pot (125)
Tournament Director: The limits are now 60/120
Dealer: Hand #6075832702
Dealer: Blinders wins the pot (150)
Dealer: Hand #6075837042
Dealer: Julkeus wins the pot (120)
Dealer: Hand #6075841922
Dealer: Neilc999 has been disconnected
Dealer: Neilc999 has reconnected
Dealer: pvanharibo has 15 seconds left to act
Dealer: Blinders wins the pot (150)
Dealer: Hand #6075848513
Dealer: Blinders wins the pot (420)


BamBamCam was on my left, and I was open raising his blinds everytime I got a chance. This hand would be no different, except the blinds are a bit more significant at 50/100, and this time he had enough.

Full Tilt Poker Game #6076088881: Riverchasers Online Tour (35814932), Table 7 - 100/200 - Limit Hold'em - 21:51:56 ET - 2008/04/17
Seat 1: Blinders (2,560)
Seat 2: BamBamCan (4,220)
Seat 3: Neilc999 (2,110)
Seat 4: Mike_Maloney (2,715)
Seat 5: Astin (2,365)
Seat 6: Julkeus (3,980)
Seat 7: GCox25 (2,800)
Seat 8: pvanharibo (3,625)
Seat 9: AlCantHang (2,625)
Blinders posts the small blind of 50
BamBamCan posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #9
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Blinders [8h Jh]
Neilc999 folds
Mike_Maloney folds
Astin folds
Julkeus folds
GCox25 folds
pvanharibo folds
AlCantHang folds
Blinders raises to 200 (In a battle of the blinds J8s is GOLD)
Dealt to BamBamCam [8d 2s]

BamBamCan calls 100 (82o is a great hand to defend you blind with!)
*** FLOP *** [6s 5s Js]
Blinders bets 100 (Top Pair Baby! I know he is playing back slim. Keep applying pressure)
BamBamCan calls 100 (I missed the flop entirely, but have the draw to the worst possible four flush)
*** TURN *** [6s 5s Js] [Ks]
Blinders bets 200 (I hate that board, might as well represent a flush)
BamBamCan calls 200 (I got the assiest end of the flush, lets smooth call, and hope blinders does not have the flush)
*** RIVER *** [6s 5s Js Ks] [3s]
Blinders checks (Well this hand went south fast. Better limit my losses)
BamBamCan bets 200 (I hate to bet on the river when I can only be called by a hand that beats me, but I am off my game so lets do it anyway just to make sure)
Blinders calls 200 (the pot is decent size, and this is limit. I am going to look this guy up. If I am wrong at least I can see what hand he was playing here)
*** SHOW DOWN ***
BamBamCan shows [8d 2s] a flush, King high
Blinders shows [8h Jh] a flush, King high
Blinders ties for the pot (700) with a flush, King high BOOM!
BamBamCan ties for the pot (700) with a flush, King high

See how donking it up with the levels real small, can encourage people to play back at you slim when the blinds matter? Not sure what BAMBAM was doing here, but it feels like he is way off his game. Very strange hand though. I can't remember ever calling someone down on a flush board where I did not have a flush card, and the other guy did have a flush card, yet we still split. Just when you think you have seen them all, and hand like this plays out.

BOOM!

Is there a better feeling in poker than dropping down a BOOM after a big hand? I think not. I am not a big time boomer, but the few times that I have dropped one down it felt absolutely great. I have been dropping a few more lately due to all the recent controversy, just because I think it is funny as well now which provides added benefit. You guys all need to take a chill pill. Dropping down a BOOM is just to make the boomer feel good, and is not intended to make the other guy feel bad. If it does that's your problem not the boomer's.

In fact, I think that any one-word type response specifically related to a hand should be allowed if not welcomed.

FAWK
SHIET
DAMN
N1
LUCSAC
DONK
BOOM
BAM
BLAMO
WOOT

All welcome in my book. I would even let slide a little bit of pushing it like the compound words below.

Sendit
shipit
yeahme
ulucsac
udonky
isuc

WTF is wrong with a small amount of emotion at the table revealed through a single word. Nothing is the answer. No don't get me wrong, I am not talking about long drawn out hateful conversations in chat. Those should be off limit in blogaments. Though not so much in a public game. I am definitely one to abuse the chat in public games if I think I can get an edge by tilting somebody. My favorite thing to do is pick on a weakie when I donk into a big pot, by claiming that I won the hand with pure skillz and the other guy was a donk for even trying to beat me. That can put certain people off their games and that means more profit for me! But, I don't do that in bloggaments. I would much rather beat you guys fair and square.

So the next time you get freaked out by a BOOM, remember that it is you who are freaking out. The other person did not do it to make you feel bad, they just needed to feel better, and a BOOM always does the trick.

NL Holdem Bet Sizing - You Want a Call

It is becoming clear to me that one of the reasons I have success in the blonkaments is because of how I tend to size my bets. I wrote about this a long time ago, but I will touch on it again here.

When you are ahead in NL Holdem, the proper bet size is an amount where you would want the call.

Simply put, when you have the best of it, you want to bet big enough that a caller who is behind is making a mistake. I prefer it to be a pretty big mistake, but it must be a mistake. The call needs to be -EV for the caller, and the more -EV the better. This means that you are considering what your opponent might have, and you price them out of catching up in a big way. When you do this, you take down a bunch of uncontested pots and when called you will be in a +EV situation. It is hard to get sucked out on a long shot when you are taking the pots down early. When you don't take it down early you want the suckout to be a big long shot.

For a tight aggressive player like me it works great. I don't play much preflop, but when I am in a hand postflop, I play it aggressive. This can come off like a bunch of post flop bluffing to a casual observer, and there is some of that going on. The problem is, if they put me on a bluff and call to float, or call to catch they are making a huge mistake most of the time. If it is a bluff, and I get caught, I will minimize the pot size. If it is not a bluff, I will be getting it in way ahead and win a massive pot. I am out there post flop firing away pretty big, and there are players who just can't take it and will play back at me. They are making a mistake that I want them to make.

The disadvantage to playing this way, is that you might chase away someone who would have paid you off on a smaller bet size. I really do not see this as a problem. You can't go broke by winning a pot. When you make someone fold, you win the pot right there. If you let them draw, they have a shot of winning the pot. Taking down a bunch of uncontested pots more than makes up for the few times you push away someone willing to pay a bit more. The risk/reward is just not there. Winning a pot right away adds to your stack immediately, while playing it down to the river, can lose you a big pot. Its hard to calculate the EV for this situation, but I am pretty sure that you can't go broke by winning most of the pots you are in post flop.

Hoy at times takes a completely different approach. He likes to wait until later in the hand to get the chips in. He figures that if he plays the hand to the river, before committing a bunch of chips, he can get it in while he is ahead, and avoid suckouts. The problem here is that if you were ahead on the flop, why not move substantial chips in there. Not betting enough until you are absolutely sure you are ahead does not work that well. If your opponent is on a draw you need them to pay you now before they hit. If they miss by the river they will not pay you. If they hit by the river, you may be paying them. Make big bets the whole way, and let them make the mistake of calling. Don't fear the suckout, just make it a mistake for your opponent to try for one. The bigger the mistake the better!

Sometimes your opponent will make bad calls preflop, on the flop, and on the turn, and then hit on the river. Those are the breaks, but as long as they are making bad calls you will be profitable. Make your opponent make bad calls most of the time and you will be fine.

So what bet size should you use? Put yourself in your opponent shoes, and bet enough that you would not call. Then hope that they do call. Simple but profitable stuff. When they make the call of your bet, don't be upset. It is what you wanted them to do.

Bodonkey Win, Seat Just About Locked Down

I will need to see where I am when the leaderboard is updated, but my win tonight in the bodonkey should put me in the top 5 overall. From there I should be able to coast to a seat in the big bodonkey dance without much effort. I put a little bit of pressure on myself, as last week I was so busy with opening week of baseball season that I spaced out and forgot to play the bodonkey. A couple off weeks before that, and I had managed to slip down a bit in the rankings.

Tonight was quite a ride though pretty typical. It feels extra good because my poker playing is limited to the two Tuesday night bloggaments. Its pretty hard to get a win if that's all your playing so I will take it.

I sat out the first ten minutes of the bodonkey, and found AA when I finally sat down. I won a small pot, and would work my way up to about 3600 early. A comfortable chip count for the first hour with very few eliminations, but still a ton of work to do. I would hang in the 3000-3600 range for quite a while playing pretty tight. Eventually I picked up QQ on the button, and made a steally looking raise. The BB jammed all-in for a massive overbet, and I called. BB had 83o and was making a crazy move with air ( I will not mention names). I had to sweat out a flush flop where I hit top set, but was exposed to a four flush on the turn. No matter as I would Quad up by the river. This gave me some chips to work with. I would find myself in last place with 20 left. Catch another double-up. Do some stalling. Sweat out the points bubble (13th Place). Once the points bubble burst, I was very low and near last, but got right to work. I doubled through three times on some strong starting hands and took a pretty big chip lead with seven left at the final table (see stack counts below).

I would take my time and coast into a threeway battle with emptyman and buddydank. I would lose my lead briefly here, but would rally back and bust Empty on the hand below.

So I would end up Heads-Up with buddy for the title with close to a 3x chip lead. We played a few hands, and I picked up a dream JJ and raised preflop. Buddy called, and the flop came down Kxx. I think buddy led out small for about 3k and I called. When the turn was low giving me second pair, I led out a smallish 6k. Buddy reraised to 18k. I thought this was a steal/bluff as I had played the hand pretty weak, and did not think he could figure me this strong. I decided to just Jam and hope he did not have the K. He called and had K8, and now buddy had a huge chip lead. I would rally right back through some aggressive heads-up play, and some very timely cards. I would get back in the lead, and eventually bust buddy to end a very entertaining Heads-Up match.

Bamboozle Photo Contest

The above photo was taken yesterday with my iPhone. The first poker blogger who can say what these two girls are famous for (what they are called) in the comments will get a $10 FullTilt transfer from me. They are semi-famous with a Vegas connection and I did recognize them, but that was only because I happened by chance to see them last weekend. I will add the photo below for those needing additional clues.

Edit: This one is pretty tough, so I will provide a few more clues. One is in the title of the post. These photos were taken at "Bamboozle Left" on Sunday. I was able to see these two in the same outfits 8 days earlier at "Extreme Thing". The extra clue in the lower picture is the matching wristband on the blond. Good luck, you need to be pretty hip to know this one.

Edit #2: The last and final clues are the two images below. If you don't have it yet, try asking a teenage girl.

1,056 Fantasy Contest Wins

One of our users on FantasySportsLive.com recently won his 1,000th cash prize on our site. Click here for the leaderboard. Why does this matter? This user who has only been playing on the site for about 4 months may have more fantasy contest cash wins than anyone else on earth. Before sites like ours started offering compressed season fantasy sports, everything was season long. So to get to 1000 wins assuming that you were good at fantasy sports and could win 60% of your contests, and assuming that you have been playing fantasy sports for 20 years, you would need to enter 83 season long fantasy contests per year. Now I know that there are some hardcore fantasy players out there, but 83 contests a year for 20 years is possibly more than anyone has ever done. Kaiseroll13 has made it to "long-term" in just four months, where it would have taken at least 20 years to get there before. My point in all this is we are really flipping fantasy sports around and making it possible to get to the long-term very fast and actually profit from fantasy sports. This was not possible before FSL launched.

So is 1000 fantasy contest wins really "Long-Term"? For poker long-term is usually represented by 10s of thousands of hands. It takes months and months of playing poker a bunch to get there. Even a year of playing a ridiculous amount of poker may not get you to long-term, as many winning players have had year long losing streaks. So can you really get to long-term in just a couple thousand fantasy contests? I think you can, because there is a key difference here. With fantasy sports you can basically chose your cards and play your best possible "hand" every time. Not true in poker. You will not even play a bunch of your hands because they are too poor to continue with. Poker is more situational. You need to get into 1000s of similar situations to see if your strategy is a winning one. This basically means that a bunch of your trials in poker are not really trials because the starting cards and situations are so important. Not true in fantasy sports. Each and every contest that you enter is a valid trail. You get to pick your cards and play your best possible hand, as does your opponent. So with fantasy sports there is much less noise in the data, and you can get to long-term much faster. 300-500 fantasy wins is probably close enough to long-term to determine if you are a profitable fantasy sports player. You can get to long-term faster on a site like ours than playing poker. You can also get there 100s of times faster than by playing season long fantasy sports. If you want to prove you are the best at fantasy sports and get the associated bragging rights that come along, you need to get to the long-term and you will never get there in season long fantasy sports. If you got what it takes, prove it daily!

Fantasy Baseball 08 Launches!

We launched our second season of Fantasy Baseball on Monday. It has been huge so far and will only get bigger as the season progresses. We have made so many improvements to our contest structures since last fantasy baseball season, that what we have now is pretty incredible. If you are into Fantasy Baseball you need to get in the game at FantasySportsLive.com and earn some cash. Like last year we will be running daily "Joe Speaker Specials" where you get a tiny bankroll to build a competitive team with. Its great for the tightwads out there like Joe. If you like to spend big and drive a hummer jump into one of our "No-Cap" contests where you can spend like the Yankees with hopefully more success than they have.

Spread Limit Holdem

I loves me some spread limit holdem. Probably because the few times I have played it live, (not sure if it is offered online) I have pretty much crushed it. The tourists who play spread limit just do not have a clue which makes things pretty easy. I was just off on a short vacation, and I got to play 2-6 spread limit Holdem at Buffalo Bills (stateline). For those who have not played, in this game you can raise between $2 and $6 on any street. It gives you some leverage preflop and on the flop, that you can't get with limit. Most of the competition is used to limit so they don't understand the concept of bet sizing. Basically, you have a bit of freedom preflop in your raise amount, but post flop on you are raising the maximum of $6 every time unless you are retarded. You can find your mark easy by finding the guy who bets $3 into a $25 pot on the turn when they could have gone $6 and had at least a chance to take the pot down. The thing is that you get tons of crazy low bets on the flop and turn that will always price you into your draws, and the table will tend to think that you are a maniac if you always raise the maximum (which is almost always correct). Its great for me because I get a maniac image that I can exploit even though I am just making proper sized bets. I was working the maniac image pretty good at Buffalo Bills.

I sit down with no reads, and pick up QQ on the very first hand. 4 limpers before me and I pop it right up to $8 total. Five see the flop. Now I am pretty much hating things here as QQ just is not worth much in a five way raised pot at spread limit. But presto flop comes down Q high and I got the nutz. There is an open for $4, and a raise to $10, and a caller before I pop it to $16. We cap it three way to the turn. There was a flush draw on the board. Turn completes the flush and initial flop better bets $6, second guy folds, and I just call. I am not sure if this was correct. Can I really put this guy on the flush draw when he is willing to cap the flop with me? It was a three way cap, and I am really thinking this guy has a fat flush draw. He is also leading right back into me on the made flush knowing that I can't fold. So I called to see what the river would bring. Obviously if I boat up, I am going to war, and I have position. I also do not have a flush card, so a four flush would be pretty bad. Well the four flush hit on the river, and once again I got led into for $6. I call figuring that I must be beat, and find out I am against pocket 6s for another flopped set, and no flush more importantly. I scoop a pretty big pot, but was a bit upset that I could not get more in a set over set situation. Did I screw this one up. Anyone cap the turn there?