Just wanted to take this chance to greet everyone a Merry Christmas! May your lives be enriched by this great game that we all love.
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Friday, December 22, 2006
The Big Christmas Tourney that wasn't
I don’t know if you guys have heard about this already. But I thought it was a good poker story to share since it could happen to anyone of us. I was somewhat involved so I know some of the facts personally. It just goes to show that all these offshore online poker sites need additional regulation. And that our online bankroll may not be as safe as we thought it was.
Last December 16, Pokerroom (http://www.pokerroom.com/) held its Big Christmas Tourney I. It was a $20+2 buy in tourney and they advertised a nice HDTV worth $2000 as an extra prize for 1st place. I wasn’t really planning to join this tourney as it coincided with the Grand Tournament which I qualified for (see previous blog below).
But during the actual day, since I was already up, I was just browsing the tournament info page and checking how many participants joined. Here is what I personally saw, there were about 250 participants, 10 minutes left to join and in the prize pool section below, it said $19,000 Guaranteed.
I did a quick calculation, 250x 20 is only about 5,000 dollars and they are guaranteeing $19,000. Wow, great value for money I thought. So I decided to register.
I busted out pretty early when I re-raised all in with my AQ when I flopped Top Pair against this guy who I thought was bluffing but who actually got 2 pairs. Anyway, that was that, and I just shrugged it off and proceeded to continue playing the Grand Tourney.
Checked back later and saw that it was over and 1st place paid if I’m not mistaken $3,800 plus the HDTV worth $2000. Not a bad payout for a 20 dollar buy in.
Here’s the kicker. Pokerroom claims that they made a mistake. It wasn’t supposed to be a $19,000 Guaranteed Tourney. They claimed there was a technical glitch which caused the error.
So you know what they did after a day I think. They took back the overlay winnings from the account of all the winners. YEP. Just arbitrarily took it out of the player’s account. Imagine being the 1st place guy and going to bed with a happy smile knowing you have $3,800 in your poker account and waking up the next day and discovering you only have $400 which is what he should have won without the guaranteed amount
WOW. This is the 1st time I heard of any poker site doing this. The last time I heard something similar was when Pokerstars confiscated all the money of Zeejustin, a famous online player. But that was different, Zeejustin was caught cheating. Played in same tourneys using 2 different names.
These guys won fairly. It wasn’t their fault that the poker site made a mistake. Anyway, there was a big stink over at the forums. I think 2nd place guy or 3rd place guy already went on a shopping spree using their credit card knowing they have that amount in their pokerroom account.
Geez. 11finger and the other guys in the pinoy league was telling me how bad the customer service in pokerroom was. But never really had anything to complain about since I made most of my winnings here. But this one takes the cake.
Anyways, after all the complaints, here is what Pokerroom did. They credited back $10+1 tickets to all the participants of the Christmas tourney and credited $100 to the accounts of all the ones who made it to the final table. Heheh …. Sort of like a “consuelo de bobo”…… but ironically, this was like essentially admitting that they fucked up.
So I’ve now got a $10+1 ticket sitting in my account. I’m ok with it since I busted out anyway. But others are not happy. They want the full buy in back, because they claimed they wouldn’t have joined if they knew it wasn’t going to be a 19,000 guaranteed. They certainly have a valid point.
But I feel for the guys who made it ITM. I don’t think they are accepting this small “bribe” and will continue to fight this which they should. One of the winners said that this was his first big win and that he already told all his friends and relatives … and now this.
I’m not sure what happened lately … But I’ll keep this thread updated to see what the final action of Pokerroom was.
My personal opinion : PAY THEM what they won, you morons. Swallow the loss and fire the stupid programmer. The bad publicity alone from this is gonna kill your site which is already suffering when you banned the US players. I am a small time player but I have already decided to withdraw my bankroll from pokerroom because of this. How can you now trust these guys with this incident ? Scary shit.
Last December 16, Pokerroom (http://www.pokerroom.com/) held its Big Christmas Tourney I. It was a $20+2 buy in tourney and they advertised a nice HDTV worth $2000 as an extra prize for 1st place. I wasn’t really planning to join this tourney as it coincided with the Grand Tournament which I qualified for (see previous blog below).
But during the actual day, since I was already up, I was just browsing the tournament info page and checking how many participants joined. Here is what I personally saw, there were about 250 participants, 10 minutes left to join and in the prize pool section below, it said $19,000 Guaranteed.
I did a quick calculation, 250x 20 is only about 5,000 dollars and they are guaranteeing $19,000. Wow, great value for money I thought. So I decided to register.
I busted out pretty early when I re-raised all in with my AQ when I flopped Top Pair against this guy who I thought was bluffing but who actually got 2 pairs. Anyway, that was that, and I just shrugged it off and proceeded to continue playing the Grand Tourney.
Checked back later and saw that it was over and 1st place paid if I’m not mistaken $3,800 plus the HDTV worth $2000. Not a bad payout for a 20 dollar buy in.
Here’s the kicker. Pokerroom claims that they made a mistake. It wasn’t supposed to be a $19,000 Guaranteed Tourney. They claimed there was a technical glitch which caused the error.
So you know what they did after a day I think. They took back the overlay winnings from the account of all the winners. YEP. Just arbitrarily took it out of the player’s account. Imagine being the 1st place guy and going to bed with a happy smile knowing you have $3,800 in your poker account and waking up the next day and discovering you only have $400 which is what he should have won without the guaranteed amount
WOW. This is the 1st time I heard of any poker site doing this. The last time I heard something similar was when Pokerstars confiscated all the money of Zeejustin, a famous online player. But that was different, Zeejustin was caught cheating. Played in same tourneys using 2 different names.
These guys won fairly. It wasn’t their fault that the poker site made a mistake. Anyway, there was a big stink over at the forums. I think 2nd place guy or 3rd place guy already went on a shopping spree using their credit card knowing they have that amount in their pokerroom account.
Geez. 11finger and the other guys in the pinoy league was telling me how bad the customer service in pokerroom was. But never really had anything to complain about since I made most of my winnings here. But this one takes the cake.
Anyways, after all the complaints, here is what Pokerroom did. They credited back $10+1 tickets to all the participants of the Christmas tourney and credited $100 to the accounts of all the ones who made it to the final table. Heheh …. Sort of like a “consuelo de bobo”…… but ironically, this was like essentially admitting that they fucked up.
So I’ve now got a $10+1 ticket sitting in my account. I’m ok with it since I busted out anyway. But others are not happy. They want the full buy in back, because they claimed they wouldn’t have joined if they knew it wasn’t going to be a 19,000 guaranteed. They certainly have a valid point.
But I feel for the guys who made it ITM. I don’t think they are accepting this small “bribe” and will continue to fight this which they should. One of the winners said that this was his first big win and that he already told all his friends and relatives … and now this.
I’m not sure what happened lately … But I’ll keep this thread updated to see what the final action of Pokerroom was.
My personal opinion : PAY THEM what they won, you morons. Swallow the loss and fire the stupid programmer. The bad publicity alone from this is gonna kill your site which is already suffering when you banned the US players. I am a small time player but I have already decided to withdraw my bankroll from pokerroom because of this. How can you now trust these guys with this incident ? Scary shit.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Poker and Family
When I first started playing poker, I saw it more as a fun hobby. Something you could do with friends or relatives on a weekend ....a form of release of stress from the monotony of everyday work ......something that fires up the competitive spirit ..... you know .. keep the ol' juices running.
But as you grind along and start winning small amounts, then you start thinking..... it looks like a good way of earning extra money ..... so you start playing more .......... and more
What started as a weekend thing ..... something you did on a saturday or sunday ....... now became a daily ritual. After work, you turn on the trusty old PC ..... log in to your favorite poker site and you start playing ............. Before you know it, 2 to 3 hours have passed and its time to go to bed since you have to go to work early the next day ......
Now, the thing is ...... this time after work ....... the 2 to 3 hours free time before bedtime was previously reserved for your family ........ it was the time you watched a DVD film with your wife ... or played with your children ......
So my dilemma is .... how are you supposed to balance poker and the family ? I am not deluding myself into thinking that I will eventually be good enough to play poker as my solitary way of earning a living ........ it will remain to be something that i do on the side.
But poker as with any skill game, is something that you need to do continuously for you to get better. I have long ago rid myself of the notion that somebody can have an innate ability which would allow him to excel in this game. Of course, mathematical and analytical ability helps ..... but so does playing thousands of hands in the online felt. From my limited view, nothing beats experience in this game. You simply get better as you play ..... you learn to read online tells, you learn to avoid trouble hands, you can compute pot odds faster.... and so on .
Now, I am lucky enough to have a pretty good job which allows me to provide for my family's needs comfortably ..... but I also cannot deny that poker .... or online poker .......allows me to earn a few bucks extra every month ........ which is then used to provide even greater comfort to your family ....
so its the classic head scratcher ........ i would not like to wake up one day and discover that i barely know my daughters .....or that my wife using my poker winnings has gotten herself a gigolo ;) ...... but then again, especially with the recent good luck i've been having ...... it looks like a financial opportunity that i cannot affored to let past ......
But as you grind along and start winning small amounts, then you start thinking..... it looks like a good way of earning extra money ..... so you start playing more .......... and more
What started as a weekend thing ..... something you did on a saturday or sunday ....... now became a daily ritual. After work, you turn on the trusty old PC ..... log in to your favorite poker site and you start playing ............. Before you know it, 2 to 3 hours have passed and its time to go to bed since you have to go to work early the next day ......
Now, the thing is ...... this time after work ....... the 2 to 3 hours free time before bedtime was previously reserved for your family ........ it was the time you watched a DVD film with your wife ... or played with your children ......
So my dilemma is .... how are you supposed to balance poker and the family ? I am not deluding myself into thinking that I will eventually be good enough to play poker as my solitary way of earning a living ........ it will remain to be something that i do on the side.
But poker as with any skill game, is something that you need to do continuously for you to get better. I have long ago rid myself of the notion that somebody can have an innate ability which would allow him to excel in this game. Of course, mathematical and analytical ability helps ..... but so does playing thousands of hands in the online felt. From my limited view, nothing beats experience in this game. You simply get better as you play ..... you learn to read online tells, you learn to avoid trouble hands, you can compute pot odds faster.... and so on .
Now, I am lucky enough to have a pretty good job which allows me to provide for my family's needs comfortably ..... but I also cannot deny that poker .... or online poker .......allows me to earn a few bucks extra every month ........ which is then used to provide even greater comfort to your family ....
so its the classic head scratcher ........ i would not like to wake up one day and discover that i barely know my daughters .....or that my wife using my poker winnings has gotten herself a gigolo ;) ...... but then again, especially with the recent good luck i've been having ...... it looks like a financial opportunity that i cannot affored to let past ......
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Grand Tournament VIII at Pokerroom
This past few weeks, I managed to qualify for the $1000 + 40 Grand Tournament which was held Dec 16 - 17 in pokerroom. Now before you start thinking that I am a big roller and can afford the huge buy-in. I am glad to inform everyone that I did this thru the satellite route.
My whole investment .................. heheh ... only $ 8.80. Pokerroom has this nice 5 stage system for their big tournaments wherein they allow you to join for as low as $1.10. Stay with me here as this gets a bit complicated. So basically what I did was I joined eight $1.10 satellite 10 person SNGs. Out of these 8 SNGs, i was lucky enough to win 3. So that gave me three Stage 2 $7+ $1 SNG tickets. Out of these 3, I again managed to win 2. So now I have two Stage 3 $30+3 SNG tickets. Out of these two SNG tickets, I won one. Now I have a single Stage 4 $120 + 10 SNG ticket.
Well, waddya know, I won this last SNG and I got the granddaddy ticket. The $1000 + 40 which allowed me to play in the Grand Tournament + an additional $30 which effectively cancelled out my $8.80 investment turning this into the ultimate freeroll for me.
234 players qualified/paid the buy-in for a whopping $234,000 prize pool. Top 30 got paid. For the mathematically inclined, this converts to a peso value of 11,700,000 .00 Now you know why I totally ignored the 2nd PPT tournament which had 3,000,000 in the prize pool. Well, besides the fact that they were scamming off the players. But that's a topic for another day.
It was one of the best tournaments in terms of structure. 30 minute blinds with a 10,000 starting stack with blinds starting at 25-25. A real skill rewarding structure if I ever saw one. The players played through 12 blind levels or until 20% of the players were left. Everybody then got a well deserved break and the last 20% plays the next day for the moolah.
Woke up at an ungodly 3 AM in the morning for the start of the tournament. (I wonder when the times will become more friendly to Asian players.... wala naman ng US players ah) .
Played tight the 1st few levels. Stack was damaged a bit when I played Top Pair Top Kicker against a well disguised set. Got lucky in the middle part when I called a raise by a player with AJ against my 4-4. Flop comes J-10-4 all hearts. Bet hard on the flop, got called by villain who got the TPTK. Turn is another J. Which gave villain a set but gave me the full house and negated the flush possibility. All in on the river and I doubled up.
There were other hands that were won and lost, but that was the critical hand of the tournament for me. Gave me some confidence and allowed me some leeway. Ended up with an above average stack after 12 blind levels. 234 players were now down to 50. The 1st day ended at 10AM. 7 hours playing time and I gratefully survived and went to bed exhausted.
Woke up again at 3 AM the next day. 50 players left. Time to separate the donkeys from the players. Tight playing all througout. Blind steals and resteals were prevalent especially near the bubble. We had a guy on our table who had 11,000 something with 32 players left. Blinds were already at 2,000 - 4,000. Everybody was telling him to hang on. But for some weird reason, he goes all in with his J-10 suited. Somebody called with an AQ and that was it. Bubble boy and everybody heaves a sigh of relief. YAY. ITM baby.
Finally busted out when I raised with an 8-8. Got reraised all in by the big stack player. Thought about it for a while. Decided to call because he kept doing the reraise all in shtick to the mid stack players and he couldn't be that lucky, could he ?.
Figures, big stack had 9-9 which had me dominated. No luck on the flop, turn and river. And that was it for me.
Pretty good tournament. My first big ITM in a major MTT.
So what does this mean for my bankroll. Well ... .... very little to be honest ...... ...... I was so excited when I qualified for the grand tournament, that I promised my wife that I'd give her majority of the winnings for the family savings if I made the money. Never really thought I'd get this far. I guess it was also some sort of reverse psychology on my part to avoid thinking about the possible scenarios......
Oh well, at least, this means a lot of good loving from the wifey this holiday season. ;)
My whole investment .................. heheh ... only $ 8.80. Pokerroom has this nice 5 stage system for their big tournaments wherein they allow you to join for as low as $1.10. Stay with me here as this gets a bit complicated. So basically what I did was I joined eight $1.10 satellite 10 person SNGs. Out of these 8 SNGs, i was lucky enough to win 3. So that gave me three Stage 2 $7+ $1 SNG tickets. Out of these 3, I again managed to win 2. So now I have two Stage 3 $30+3 SNG tickets. Out of these two SNG tickets, I won one. Now I have a single Stage 4 $120 + 10 SNG ticket.
Well, waddya know, I won this last SNG and I got the granddaddy ticket. The $1000 + 40 which allowed me to play in the Grand Tournament + an additional $30 which effectively cancelled out my $8.80 investment turning this into the ultimate freeroll for me.
234 players qualified/paid the buy-in for a whopping $234,000 prize pool. Top 30 got paid. For the mathematically inclined, this converts to a peso value of 11,700,000 .00 Now you know why I totally ignored the 2nd PPT tournament which had 3,000,000 in the prize pool. Well, besides the fact that they were scamming off the players. But that's a topic for another day.
It was one of the best tournaments in terms of structure. 30 minute blinds with a 10,000 starting stack with blinds starting at 25-25. A real skill rewarding structure if I ever saw one. The players played through 12 blind levels or until 20% of the players were left. Everybody then got a well deserved break and the last 20% plays the next day for the moolah.
Woke up at an ungodly 3 AM in the morning for the start of the tournament. (I wonder when the times will become more friendly to Asian players.... wala naman ng US players ah) .
Played tight the 1st few levels. Stack was damaged a bit when I played Top Pair Top Kicker against a well disguised set. Got lucky in the middle part when I called a raise by a player with AJ against my 4-4. Flop comes J-10-4 all hearts. Bet hard on the flop, got called by villain who got the TPTK. Turn is another J. Which gave villain a set but gave me the full house and negated the flush possibility. All in on the river and I doubled up.
There were other hands that were won and lost, but that was the critical hand of the tournament for me. Gave me some confidence and allowed me some leeway. Ended up with an above average stack after 12 blind levels. 234 players were now down to 50. The 1st day ended at 10AM. 7 hours playing time and I gratefully survived and went to bed exhausted.
Woke up again at 3 AM the next day. 50 players left. Time to separate the donkeys from the players. Tight playing all througout. Blind steals and resteals were prevalent especially near the bubble. We had a guy on our table who had 11,000 something with 32 players left. Blinds were already at 2,000 - 4,000. Everybody was telling him to hang on. But for some weird reason, he goes all in with his J-10 suited. Somebody called with an AQ and that was it. Bubble boy and everybody heaves a sigh of relief. YAY. ITM baby.
Finally busted out when I raised with an 8-8. Got reraised all in by the big stack player. Thought about it for a while. Decided to call because he kept doing the reraise all in shtick to the mid stack players and he couldn't be that lucky, could he ?.
Figures, big stack had 9-9 which had me dominated. No luck on the flop, turn and river. And that was it for me.
Pretty good tournament. My first big ITM in a major MTT.
So what does this mean for my bankroll. Well ... .... very little to be honest ...... ...... I was so excited when I qualified for the grand tournament, that I promised my wife that I'd give her majority of the winnings for the family savings if I made the money. Never really thought I'd get this far. I guess it was also some sort of reverse psychology on my part to avoid thinking about the possible scenarios......
Oh well, at least, this means a lot of good loving from the wifey this holiday season. ;)
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Dipping into the Waters
OK. My first post. Let's see if I can keep this blog interesting and fun. Obviously, I'm gonna talk about the game of poker in general. My own experiences, tribulations and bad beats. Hopefully, as I grow in skill, I'll be able to post stuff that other people can learn from.
A short intro. I only started playing poker early 2006. Influenced by all the World Poker Tour TV shows in our cable channel, I thought that I'd give it a try. Downloaded a pirated copy of Poker Superstars for the PC and learned some of the game mechanics from there.
Then the first PPT Tournament came up. I told my wife that I wanted to try qualifying for the main event by joining a satellite. Heck, if I could regularly beat Gus Hansen and Phil Ivey in my PC. Then what chance do these other donks have. She looked at me funny and thought I was crazy.
To make a long story short, I managed to join an Elbow Room Satellite. My first poker event playing with real life people ..... 11 person SNG ..... 3,000 buy in ........ quite steep but I was paying for the experience....
And to make the story even shorter ......... I won. Don't ask me how. Call it beginner's luck. Didn't know what the heck I was doing, played clueless poker but just got lucky with nice hands ......... other guys were looking at me funny ......... but in the end, I was the last man standing and I got a certificate for the main event. Ecstatic wouldn't even describe my feelings then. My wife couldn't believe it and told me to sell my certificate, don't push your luck .. yada..yada. HAH! I thought to myself, what an easy game, you donkeys might as well give me my 1 million now and save everybody all the trouble.
Of course, during the main event, I busted out pretty early. Overplayed an AJ suited against an AK. Certainly pricked my bubble of invincibility. Heheh. But this is officially where I got the poker bug.
Fast Forward to now.
Well, it's now nearing the end of 2006. I am mostly an online SNG player now. I have a few months poker experience under my belt and I've won and lost my share of the pots . To give a rough assessment of my status, in the 4 months that I've been playing online regularly, I did manage to stay positive and my tiny bankroll, well let's just say it has grown a bit. So I guess that's not so bad.
And this is where this poker blog starts.
A short intro. I only started playing poker early 2006. Influenced by all the World Poker Tour TV shows in our cable channel, I thought that I'd give it a try. Downloaded a pirated copy of Poker Superstars for the PC and learned some of the game mechanics from there.
Then the first PPT Tournament came up. I told my wife that I wanted to try qualifying for the main event by joining a satellite. Heck, if I could regularly beat Gus Hansen and Phil Ivey in my PC. Then what chance do these other donks have. She looked at me funny and thought I was crazy.
To make a long story short, I managed to join an Elbow Room Satellite. My first poker event playing with real life people ..... 11 person SNG ..... 3,000 buy in ........ quite steep but I was paying for the experience....
And to make the story even shorter ......... I won. Don't ask me how. Call it beginner's luck. Didn't know what the heck I was doing, played clueless poker but just got lucky with nice hands ......... other guys were looking at me funny ......... but in the end, I was the last man standing and I got a certificate for the main event. Ecstatic wouldn't even describe my feelings then. My wife couldn't believe it and told me to sell my certificate, don't push your luck .. yada..yada. HAH! I thought to myself, what an easy game, you donkeys might as well give me my 1 million now and save everybody all the trouble.
Of course, during the main event, I busted out pretty early. Overplayed an AJ suited against an AK. Certainly pricked my bubble of invincibility. Heheh. But this is officially where I got the poker bug.
Fast Forward to now.
Well, it's now nearing the end of 2006. I am mostly an online SNG player now. I have a few months poker experience under my belt and I've won and lost my share of the pots . To give a rough assessment of my status, in the 4 months that I've been playing online regularly, I did manage to stay positive and my tiny bankroll, well let's just say it has grown a bit. So I guess that's not so bad.
And this is where this poker blog starts.
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