Holiday Greetings!

Just wanted to take this chance to greet everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. May you encounter more sets, straights, flushes and boats in the coming year.

For a bit of poker news, started playing some MTTs again and results are mixed. Busted out early in the holiday freeroll and one other tourney but finished 5th in a 2.5K GTD. So that's quite encouraging. Looking forward to the next ones.

When tilting is good...

I was playing an $11 Turbo SNG the other night. Everything was going well, we were down to 4 and I had the 2nd largest stack. I just finished 2nd in the other SNG that I was playing so I was confident and playing solid. I was gonna call it a night after this table planning to end on a good note.

That is until I flopped a set against the large stack who then proceeded to call 3/4 pot bets on the flop and turn. He was a conservative player and he pushes all-in after the river card when I checked after a 3rd heart showed.

If I had folded, I would have lost some chips but would still have enough left to be comfortably ahead of the short stack. The thing is I knew he made the flush. But I couldn't let go of the set and he eventually shows the King high flush to bust me out in 4th.

Serves me right. I had already analyzed the hand/moves and knew his probable holding but still couldn't let go. Normally, I take SNG losses quite well knowing its part of the deal. But the way I busted out on this one puts me on massive tilt.

So I immediately register for a $22 Turbo. I normally don't play at these stakes. But I was fuming about the loss and I wanted to make back the profit ASAP. Well, if the poker gods were going to teach me a lesson about bankroll management, this looks to be the best time to do it. We were down to 5 and I had the shortest stack when suddenly I go on a massive heater. I get AQ twice in a row for some nice pots. Then when we were down to 4, short stack goes all in with AQ. Lo and behold, I get AK for the automatic call. Dominated hand and I bust him out for the ITM.

Now I'm confident and solid 3 handed play with some nice bluffs thrown in gives me 1st place. So I not only make up the loss, I get a significant profit to end the day. Wahahah. I know, its a dumb and dumber moment and I wouldn't recommend what I did to serious poker players everywhere.

But to answer the question. When is tilting good ? When you're lucky. =)

Challenge Accepted

Whenever I post an update on what's been happening with my poker playing, I usually just put down some generalities on how I did and don't really list the actual numbers. Why do I do this ?

To be honest, I don't really know. I guess it's part of my upbringing wherein I was always reminded by my mom that some monetary things are meant to be private. Because no matter how we put it, online poker is still gambling. And as I noted in a previous post, my dad before he passed away suffered from some serious gambling issues. So there is some hesitancy on my part to talk about gambling wins or losses. It's also part strategy as you don't really want to give your opponents any idea on how strong or weak you may be.

Suddenly during my last post, somebody (a disgruntled reader, office colleague with a grudge or fellow online player?) accuses me of exaggerating my results. Although I do not need to make any kind of reply to these kinds of posts. I am somewhat insulted by this accusation as I've always tried to maintain a low key & honest approach to my playing & blog-posting. So just to shut him up. I am posting below my results in 4 major sites as per sharkscope. Although this is not complete (MTT results are not all included), this should give you a fairly good idea of my stats. Let the other readers decide if I have exaggerated my stats or results in any of my previous posts.

So now I'm giving back the floor to you. If you're as good as you claim to be and not just an anonymous coward. Then feel free to make a comment. Better yet, show me your own stats.

I may not play that many games nor do I play in the higher stakes. But I think my game can stand on its own.

Going Up

Just to give an update. I recently moved up to playing $11 turbos in various sites and so far so good. My average ROI on the 11s has been in the 20+ % range. This is higher than my normal ROI in the $6.50s so that's kind of strange. But I've played a small number of games so far so its most probably a temporary upswing. I did finish reading Harrington on Holdem vol 1 and that could have had a positive effect on my game.

Also qualified for the $20K Holiday Freeroll over at Pokerroom and the $50K Month-end freeroll at Poker.com. So those are some tourneys to look forward to near the end of the year.

I am quite realistic with my chances in these kinds of promotional tourneys as players will usually number more than a thousand with huge variance due to the number of fishes. But then again, its next to free so nothing to lose but your time and you get the chance to win significant money if you get deep. The only thing I hate is the waking up part as they would usually start early morning.

Well, that's about everything that's happening in the poker front. I did notice one thing though, how come pokerstars doesn't have 11+1 Turbo SNGs? It's weird. From the $6.50s, it immediately goes up to the 16s. Although its better value for money in term of rake, its a bit too rich for my blood right now. Full Tilt on the other hands skips to the $22 after the $11s. So if I'm after gradual increases in my SNG games, I'm going to have to go back and forth between the 2 sites. =)

Rubbing the Tummy

My six year old daughter will sometimes watch me play online poker. She gets a kick out of seeing me scream at the screen when a bad beat happens. She thinks its just a computer game and cannot understand what the big deal is all about. The agony of being ahead and being drawn against by donkeys is not something you can explain to a six year old kid. So I just told her that if I win, then I get some free money.

One day, she came up with an idea. She asked me to rub her tummy for good luck. I don't know where she got this crazy idea. Maybe from a TV show somewhere. So now everytime she's there and I'm facing an all in call, I rub her tummy for luck. After the cards are dealt, I raise my hand and give her a big smile.

Does it actually work ?

Heheh .... if variance and bad luck can be beaten by rubbing a six year old girl's tummy. Then I can probably copyright the idea and get rich overnight.

But it makes her giggle and laugh and feel proud about herself ..... and it prevents me from using swear words in front of her .... and that in my book is what rubbing the tummy is all about.

Cleared my Bonus

Finally cleared my initial deposit bonus over at Pokerstars last night. This was after playing approximately 170 games of $6.50 turbos. My average ROI during this period was around 14% and this was good enough to enable me to triple up my small Pokerstars bankroll.

This bonus clearing was done over a span of I think 2 months playing on and off. Good thing pokerstars had a pretty generous clearing time as I was out of town a couple of times and was not able to play as much as I wanted.

At least that's done. I know my poker blog has been non-existent lately and I am sad to say that this situation will not change anytime soon as my work and some family activities will keep me extremely busy until January.

Only thing I can say is I will start playing MTTs again as I stopped this while trying to clear the bonus. I'll try to post regular poker updates soon. Thanks for standing by.

Eulogy

I was again out of town this past week, but not for any seminar, meeting or business activity.

My father in law passed away last November 2 and I accompanied my wife to their province for the wake and the funeral. It was a somber experience, made more so by the fact that my father in law was one of the most generous and nicest man I knew.

He was 64 years old and one could say that it was already his second chance at life having suffered a stroke 15 years ago. This left him in a coma but he eventually recovered to the amazement of his doctors.

The kind of person you are and the kind of life you lived is reflected during your death. Hundreds of people crowded into the small chapel every night to pay their last respects. The funeral march to the cemetery was longer than anything I've seen in Manila. Everyone from the mayor to the children of the workers were there. In some ways, I think he touched all of their lives by his kindheartedness.

This post is my salute to the kind of man he was. May you rest in peace.

Late Start to the Month

The month of October has been pretty hectic so far, hence the lack of updates. Just came back from a 5 day trip wherein I attended the autumn edition of the Hongkong Electronics Fair.

If you haven't been to one of these things, then they're quite the experience. Thousands and thousands of people of different nationalities (and smell) scurrying about and looking at the next electronic wonder. The place is huge and crisscrossed with booths from one end to the next. Take a look at some of these pics which i downloaded from their website (forgot my camera) just to give you a fair idea of the scale. Of course, the canton fair is even bigger, but that's another story.

With this many people, you'd think it'd be utter chaos. But surprisingly it is quite organized and very well managed. Of course, if you're dumb enough not to register online and just show up there, then you'll be spending a fair chunk of your time standing in line. Registering online gives you a barcode which they scan and out pops your ID and in you go in less than 5 minutes.

Of course, having a fair of this magnitude running concurrrently with a china sourcing fair jacks up hotel prices tremendously. I had to stay in a 3 star hotel away from the main commercial areas and it was still around US$160+ per night which is highway robbery. At least the exchange rate was in our favor for once due to the strong showing of the peso.

Out on the poker front, pretty thin news. Haven't had time to play any MTTs. So had to satisfy my poker craving with the once in a while SNG over at Pokerstars where I'm chasing a small bonus. Results have been fairly good and have managed to eke out a decent positive ROI. This was after a horrendous start. I don't know what it is, but everytime I play somewhere new, it always takes me time to get the groove of things. As I've suggested before, I really believe that each site has its own unique card flop texture and play needs some adjustment from site to site to maximize profit potential. I've had the same experience with Pokerroom, FullTilt, Poker.com and now pokerstars. So I'm fairly convinced.

Of course, it could all be in my mind or it could be just plain variance as I can't really explain the mechanics of it. All I know is I had to tone down the aggressiveness which worked in Full Tilt to start winning consistently in Pokerstars. So take it with a grain of salt.

Gambling is in my genes

I read an interesting article somewhere in the NET a couple of days ago. It claims that the reason why a lot of good poker players are broke is not because of their poker playing. It is primarily because they engage in a lot of gambling on the side in neg EV games like sports betting, blackjack and other games where the house has an advantage.

It is a paradox of some sorts if you think about it. One of the primary skills of a good poker player is his ability to think logically and to compute odds so that he is able to get his money in when he's got the best of it. So why would a logical person like this engage in a game where he knows ahead of time that he is behind?

Heck if I know. Some scientific theories propose that there is actually a gene somewhere in our DNA that triggers compulsions related to gambling. A lot of mumbo jumbo about D2 receptors etc. But what does it all mean? Well, basically it says that some of us were born to be gamblers. Heheh ...

I for one cannot deny our family history. Before he passed away, my dad was a compulsive gambler of the highest degree and was a regular in the casinos around town.

The fact that I enjoy poker very much and have dabbled in some other forms of gambling do give credence to the gene theory. I am just glad that I have seen the bad effects firsthand and that I am now able to temper this impulse somewhat.

So my question is, are we all gamblers at heart? And all this talk about poker being a skill game is just our excuse to engage in this activity that undeniably gives us the rush that we all crave for.

Fantasy Basketball

Don't know if any of you guys play fantasy basketball, but I've been playing for the past 3 years and the new season has just started. One of the regular leagues I join in Yahoo has already finished its draft and here are the players I got. This is standard Yahoo Head to Head 12 teams with 9 categories with a 500 buyin. I am listing down the players I drafted and in what round.

Round 1 Steve Nash 8th Overall
Round 2 Ray Allen
Round 3 Deron Williams
Round 4 Luol Deng
Round 5 Zach Randolph
Round 6 Lamar Odom
Round 7 TJ Ford
Round 8 Monta Ellis
Round 9 Lamarcus Aldridge
Round 10 Nene Hilario
Round 11 Andres Nocioni
Round 12 Rudy Gay
Round 13 Darko Milicic

Overall, I'm satisfied with what I got. Wasn't able to get a top tier center, but from previous experience, quality PGs are more important. So I went with that strategy and getting Nash and Deron is pretty cool. I may have reached for Deng in the 4th round but I think he's just gonna explode this year. Was surprised to get Odom in the 6th as he would usually go on the 4th round but his injury last year may have affected his ranking.

Nocioni and Gay are what I call the "speculative with lots of upside picks" and I was happy to get them in the last few rounds. Milicic because I needed a shot blocker and I thought that he would get some burn in his new team Memphis.

Biggest Surprise : Nobody drafted Shaq. Yep. He's still available on the waivers. I'm guessing nobody wanted the FT% killer in their teams. I am actually hugely tempted because of my lack of quality centers. But I am wary of his injury history and the horrendous FT percentage.

Comments from other basketball junkies would be highly appreciated. =)

China and the Internet

As a follow-up to my previous post where I described how laggy and weird the internet connection in my China hotel was. Well, it seems I was actually correct in my suspicions. I just read in the Wall Street Journal today the following and I quote

"The China government blocks any site with words that might indicate objectionable content, according to University of California at Davis researchers. Although the blocking is inconsistent. 28% of Web sites with blacklisted words still reached their destination"

Poker Discrimination

I've played online poker for quite some time now and there's 2 leaks in my game that I've been trying to address.

The first one I will call poker discrimination. Much like racial discrimination, this is when you make certain assumptions about other players based on certain data that is available to you. And you then adjust your play accordingly which usually ends in disastrous results.

An example of these false assumptions are like the following:

1. See a player from China. Immediately assume gambler type. So you give no respect to raises until he catches a monster and you overplay your hand and get trapped.

2. A player with a girl avatar and a name like "littlemissmuffet" or "blondbombshell". You immediately discard her poker skills and think timid or worse dumb. What you don't know is that behind the avatar is a 19 year old math genius who's going to eat your fishy behind.

3. A guy who never stops yapping at chat. Continually berating you and other players such that you slowly get irritated and before you know it, he's gotten under your skin and you start playing marginal hands against him.

Let it be clear that I'm not talking about your reads on other players during the course of a tourney as these are crucial to going deep. I'm referring more to those online actions that act like a false tell. Since you can't read facial expresssions or movement unlike brick and mortar play. Some people take advantage of what's available and give you signals that provide a fake impression. If you fall for it, then you're playing sub-optimal poker which was their intention in the first place.

So how do I avoid these? Well of course, being aware is the first thing. Also, I've long turned off avatars whenever poker sites allow it. When somebody starts to talk trash in chat, i immediately block him off. This way, I can concentrate on the hand in play and play it according to its own merits with no external factors involved.

The 2nd leak is playing like crap after an MTT win. I'm pretty sure most of us are susceptible to this "human" reaction. Obviously after a big win, you're sitting pretty with your fat bankroll feeling all content. Your usual buy-in feels like peanuts compared to the amount that you just won. So what happens? Well, it's like you don't really care whether you win or lose. If you lose, so what. It hardly made a dent to your BR and you didn't even feel it. So you play loose and fast. The other possible effect after a big win is you feel invincible, you act like Hellmuth after winning his upteenth bracelet so you now play fancy with those semi bluffs on open ended straight draws and other tricky stuff. We can guess what happens next. You start a downward spiral and we all know how hard it is to get out of a losing slump.

So what can you do? Well, there's one thing I now do as part of my bankroll management. I make it a point to immediately withdraw half of the winnings. I do not keep it in the poker sites one second longer than necessary. Why ? It's still your money whether its in the site or not. Because for me, its more mental than anything elses. A $10 buy in with a $1000+ bankroll is more or less equal to playing like crap. There's no real penalty that I feel if I lose. So I try to cheat myself into thinking I have less money. I know its kind of lame. But it usually works for me. My focus is better and the incentive to win is there. Although I admit to a lesser degree. Taking a short break after a breakthrough win may also be a good idea. It allows the euphoria of the win to die down so that you go back to playing your normal game. Although, some may react strongly against this especially if you believe that poker is all about "riding" the moment.

What about the option of going up in limits? Well, this is actually a good idea for some of you out there. But since I now play a good amount of MTTs while still treating this as a hobby. I've come to respect MTT variance and I know how cruel the bitch can be. So this would depend on a lot of other factors before I make this decision.

Whatever you do to get yourself out of the afterwin funk, you have to admit, it's certainly a better problem to have than not winning at all. =)

Only in China

Well, as the title of my post suggests, I am currently in China on another one of my "product development" trips. I am actually sitting in front of my laptop inside my 5 star hotel room typing this post.

Why, you may ask, am I not playing poker and instead writing? Well, its because the internet is so crappy here that I can't seem to get a decent connection. It just keeps getting cut for some reason.

Actually, what's weird is that the other sites like google, yahoo and ebay work well. But I've tried to log into Pokerroom, Full Tilt and Pokerstars and they are all unavailable which is kind of impossible. So I'm logging this post at Thursday 9PM just to see. I have the suspicion that China censorship is responsible in some way.

The only poker site that's working is poker.com but the connection is so laggy that its like I'm playing in slow motion. I've tried some tourneys but my actions are so delayed that I'm checked or sit out automatically by the software even though I'm trying to bet. WTF!! After awhile, I just gave up.

To test this censorship theory, I tried to log into a porn site. And true enough, the connection suddenly cuts and I get the explorer message that says that internet is not available. I try another one and it suddenly works.

Hmmm... I'm thinking that they have some kind of filter installed in the ISPs that are blocking some of the known controversial sites but since there's tons out there, they can't block everything which kind of explains whys some sites work and some sites don't. Heck, I don't know if that's even it as I'm just guessing.

OK, but that's not really why this post is called Only in China. As you know, sometimes when you stay in a 5 star hotel room in the Philippines, and you open the side table drawer, you see a Bible. Well, that's the Philippines. Guess what I found in my side table drawer.

Heheh... a box of DUREX condoms. And its for sale for 30RMB.

Talk about proactive customer service. =) I'm guessing that some guest brought back a China Prosti, then suddenly realize he doesn't have any shield. Calls up the concierge and asks if the hotel has some. The hotel realizes what an embarassing situation this is and voila. Some chinese guy comes up with a great idea. Why not leave a box of condoms in the drawer and sell it for a profit? Brilliant !!! LOL

2nd Chance

Not too sure if the image is clear, but I just took down 2nd place in a $30+3 MTT over at Pokerroom tonight. (Still getting the hang of attaching images, but I think you can click it and it becomes bigger).

The ITM is doubly sweet because I came back from a very low stack of around $2o0 in chips ($1500 starting stack) . And the $30+3 buyin was from a $7 satellite.

Overall I was pretty satisfied with the way I played and am not the least bit disappointed with 2nd. Dealt out one sick beat during the bubble part when my AQ held up against a K3 two pair with an AK3 flop. River Q. Heads up was a 1 game affair when villain raised and I reraised all in with JJs. He called and showed A6.

Ahead 70-30 with all your chips in the middle. What else can you ask for ? The flop was 345. The turn was a 2. And that's all she wrote.

Average ROI and Interest Rate

A banker friend of mine who plays poker casually in some home games and I recently had a discussion regarding poker ROI (Return on Investment). I was telling him that an average ROI of around 8% to 10% for the SNG grinder is quite good.

He responds by telling me that he has some securities and bank instruments that earn more, 15% on average on an annual basis. I laugh out loud and tell him that the average ROI is on a per game basis and he says "what's the difference since its an average?"

I didn't have time to explain fully so I told him to read my blog and I'll post an example for one to understand better. I also decided its a good topic as there are some misconceptions as to what ave ROI and Overall ROI is in the poker world.

Let's assume 2 friends, Jim and John. Jim has $1000 and John has $500 and both of them decide to invest this money. Jim deposits his money in a time deposit that offers a high interest rate of 15% per annum while John decides to use the money as a bankroll for his newest hobby - online poker. John is a casual but fairly good SNG player whose average ROI is hovering around 10% at the $10 SNG tables. He is also very conservative so a 50x buyin bankroll is just right for him.

So which one earns more at the end of one year ?

Actually the answer is it depends on what limits and how many games John plays for that year. I know this answer is kind of vague, so let's make an actual example.

1. Jim assuming simple interest with no compounding will earn $150 for his $1000 investment for an overall ROI of 15%. Not bad considering the very low interest rate being offered by banks nowadays.

2. For John, we need to assume some things. He just plays $10 SNGs and he only plays one game a day. Let's say he was sick some of the time and he even went on a vacation a couple of times so that he only manages 300 games for that year. How much does he earn ? With an average poker ROI of 10% ( this means that for every $10 game he plays, he earns $1), John earned $300 or an overall ROI of 60%.

Do you get the difference ? Average ROI for a SNG poker player is on a per game basis. If an SNG game takes 1 hour to finish. Then it is similar to saying that he is earning 10% per hour on his investment. Multiply this amount when you multi table and the number of hours you spend and the numbers can be quite high.

Of course, my banker friend will say that the difference is that I just sat down and let my money earn interest. While you had to sweat and stress out the $300.

That is true to some extent, but that is why I made John the epitome of the low limit risk averse casual player. Not seriously playing for profits, only for fun and 300 SNG games is easy to achieve in a year. So its like John had fun and earned 60% on his investment at the same time.

Cool, huh ?

All You Need is Luck ?

When non-playing people find out that you play poker semi-seriously, I am often asked the question "Hindi ba swertihan lang yan ?".


To which of course I vigorously reply the negative, and give an answer similar to the following "Actually its more skill than luck, blah blah blah" and then I try to explain about probabilities and pot odds and bankroll management. After about 30 seconds, I get the glazed eyed look that tells me he's pretty much lost interest in the topic. So I tell him how much I've won so far, and he then perks up and is now asking me about details on how he can try it.


Of course, I gleefully help with the details, even volunteering to transfer some money to help him get started. In my mind, its my way of contributing to the growth of online Philippine poker. Getting rich fishes into the ocean is not a bad idea if you know what I mean.


But kidding aside, is it really all luck ?


Well, we all know its not. But its certainly a very big part of it. Case in point is the recent Pokerstars Sunday Million. I managed to catch the replay of the final table & the headsup match between hockeystud and dunk.


When they were down to 2, they agreed to chop the pot based on chip count so that one got $136,000 and the other $112,000 (rough figures). They then played for the final $30,000. Even before the headsup, there were numerous bad beats from one end of the table to the other.


Huge Payday. More than 5 million pesos for each of them for roughly 12 hours of work. I know the APPT winner took down $179,000. But remember this one is only a $215 buy in tourney


The interesting thing is if you check out their stats in official poker rankings for the pokerstars site and take out the win. You see that Hockeystud is a marginally winning player at around +4K. Dunk on the other hand was a marginally losing player at about -$3K.


You will also see that both these guys play a lot of the big online tourneys and the swings in their bankroll is quite large. But note that before the big 6 figure payday, they weren't really winning that much considering the buy-ins they were putting in.


Of course this is only for Pokerstars, and the data is limited from late 2005 to recent and it may not be complete. Also from the data, they appear to be regular MTT players and the variance is huge if you play exclusive MTTs. No SNGs for these guys if you believe sharkscope.


But I think you get my point and its certainly something to think about ........


One lucky night plus a good bankroll is all it takes ?? Heheh .....

Omaha Story atbp

In no particular order:


1. Accidentally entered a Pot Limit Omaha Hi SNG. Thought it was NLHE. And folded my way to ITM. Did not play one single hand except for the big blind and the table just busted itself out. I played my first voluntary hand when there were only four of us left. So 2 really big stacks, one small stack and me. The small stack was quickly eliminated. And then there were 3. Immediately noticed that one of them was already disconnected and was just folding away. But for some reason Big Stack villain#2 did not notice, so I stole a lot of blinds and got myself up even to him. Then a pivotal hand where I got the higher straight on an initial board of 6 7 8. Big stack villain #1 never returned and it was the easiest 1st I ever took. Low limit Omaha can't be that easy ? Will play some more games and see what happens.


2. Bubbled out in 2 NLHE Tournaments. One was an 8th place finish where top six gets paid. And the other was a 7th place finish where only Top 5 got paid. One was a bad beat where my set of Jacks got flushed on the river. The other was a bad push on my side, although was ahead preflop A-3 vs K-10. It was bad because I think I could have played that differently and kept myself in that game.


3. For some good news, I took down first in an Ultimate Bet $5.50 MTT. A case of "Last Money never dies". If you remember the UBE from my previous entry, I conducted an experiment where I was going to see how far I was going to go with the $1.50 I had left ($98.50 was lost to a drunken night of Blackjack) ala Ferguson. This abruptly ended when I realized that it was a semi waste of time. But I had actually gotten it up to a few dollars higher playing micro SNGs. That was a few months ago and I completely forgot that I had some money left in UB. Well, UB decided to remind me and also added $10 to my inactive account. So I decided to just play out the money and of course I immediately win an MTT to push my account over $100 and belatedly fulfill the objectives of that experiment. Mweheheh ....

Okay ... I know this is unscientific and has no basis at all. But have you ever noticed that whenever you have a small amount of money left and say "fuckit, i'll just play it out to close the account", you tend to win. This has happened to me twice already. The first time was during the early stages of my online playing when I had around $18 left in Poker.com and just played it all in a $15 MTT. I took down second for a little over $400.

Yep ... bullshit theory. But I just wanted to see if anybody had the same kind of experience.

Malaysia Quick Trip

I was in Malaysia the past 3 days for a quick business meeting. On paper, it was supposed to be 3 days 2 nights. But I was actually only there for 1 day. I arrived around 10 PM tuesday, had a meeting the whole wednesday, and went back to Manila on a 12 noon flight on Thursday.

Consdering the 3.5 hour flight and all the airport lags. Wasted 2 whole days just on travel and transits.

Anyway, here are the things that caught my attention in the short span of time that I was there.

1. Beautiful Airport. I would say on par with the Hongkong one. Yep, all the countries I have visited in Asia already have state of the art and modernized airports. Tayo na lang yata ang sputtering along on the decaying Terminal 1. I can imagine the dismay and disappointment of foreigners/investors when they arrive in our airport. We have to get our act together and at least try to get Terminal 3 open. Terminal 2 for PAL flights is OK, but Terminal 1 has to be torn down and rebuilt ASAP.

2. Cultural Diversity. Here you can actually see a good mix of Malays, Chinese and Indians living harmoniously together. They've sort of achieved a balance. So when you go to the mall, you'll see a chinese girl in a short mini-skirt and a moslem lady covered up from head to toe with only her eyes showing walking side by side talking animatedly.

3. Pic attached is the facade of the Sunway Lagoon Resort Hotel where I stayed. Really nice. Has a shopping mall right beside it, a theme park and if I'm not mistaken some sort of small animal sanctuary. And the hotel rate considering that its peak season was very reasonable.

4. Malaysia will be celebrating 50 years of independence from the British this coming Aug 31. So Kuala Lumpur, the capital, is really geared up for this big celebration. You can see Malaysian flags flying everywhere. The hotels and malls are decorated with all sorts of designs and they have all sorts of gimmicks and sales.

Overall, I would say a good place to visit. English is widely understood and spoken by everyone. Certainly cheaper prices than Singapore for everything from food to gas to shopping stuff. Traffic in the streets is OK. The flight schedule is erratic for Malaysian Airlines but if you're on a budget, go to Clark and take Air Asia.

I always get a nostalgic feeling of sadness when I take these trips and see our Asian neighbors and realize how far they have progressed. Sobrang layo na rin ng Malaysia sa Pinas. In terms of natural resources naman, we're at par with these countries, so its not that they have some kind of advantage. All the people i've spoken to agree on one thing. Philippines has the potential. We just need discipline from the people and a strong leader.

Oh well.... back to poker. Heheh ....

Bad Beat Central

Hahah ... just had to get them out of my chest. Busted out on the first hand in 2 tourneys one right after the other.

1. $5.50 buy in. UTG. First hand and I get AAs. Blinds were 5-10. I raise it to 50. Somebody reraises to 90. 2 callers before it gets back to me. Raise it again to 350. Guy who originally reraised calls. The 2 others fold and we see a flop. The flop was K 5 8 with 2 hearts. I go all in. Without any hesitation, villain calls and shows A heart 10 spade. Lol ..... yep. I was jumping in joy until he turns and rivers 2 hearts for the flush.

2. $11.00 buy in 1.5K GTD. First hand I get K9o late position. Blinds were 10-20. Two limpers and then 1 guy raises very high to 215. Fully intending to fold but I was playing an SNG at the same time and I click call by mistake on the wrong table. So I see a flop and its the miracle flop. Q J 10 giving me the straight. The guy who raised throws out a small bet. I of course go immediately all in. He calls and shows 10 10 for the set. Yeah baby. River was the Q to give him the fullhouse. Ouch.

Luckily I took down the SNG for some consolation. But still, ugh! . What can you do? You get your chips all-in when you're ahead. The essence of NLHE play. Can't do anything about the luck part. =)

Poker is like a Strip-Tease

After bagging that 1st place finish in the short-handed MTT, I was lucky enough to reach 2 more MTT final tables in the last couple of days. Although everything was just low buy-in with the cashes not exceeding $150, it was still nice scores that padded the bankroll

So now I'm strutting around, boasting to my wife that I've got this MTT game licked. I was licking my chops, just waiting for the chance to play another tourney.

Well, I think the poker gods decided that I was too confident for my own good and fucked me around by making sure I got a calling station in the MTT that I played last night. I raised AQ preflop and pot betted the flop with a Q showing and of course the caller had a gutshot straight draw that got made on the turn.

When he raised all in prior to the river, I knew I was in big trouble but as usual I assumed my poker opponent had rudimentary poker intelligence. Because the board was safe. No flush draw, no pair on the board with a Q showing. The only thing that could beat me was a set which was highly unlikely with his betting pattern. Or a 6-7 for the made straight. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that nobody would be stupid enough to play that hand with a strong pre flop raise and more so with the pot bet on the flop. So I called.

I couldn't be more wrong as he did chase his gutshot straight to the turn with the 6-7.

Arrgh ! ..... when will I learn my lesson? It's low buy-in, you get all sorts of players who think differently than logic would dictate or somebody who just wants to gamble. Read the bets, no matter how unlikely the situation may be. I need to realize that some players will play anything. I would have been low stacked but still in the running if I folded to that all-in.

The thing is, I've doubled up in similar situations lots of times before with the same raise all in play by guys who played KQ, QJ or Q 10. So what to do ?

Strip-teasing our minds. Poker is. Just when you think you've seen it all, that last piece of clothing always hides something unexpected.

Off to a Good Start

My 2nd year of playing online got off to a rousing start as I managed to take down 1st in a $5.50 buy-in short handed MTT over at Poker.com.

The critical suckout hand I will describe below :

Middle Rounds. Got AKs in late position. I pop in a raise for around 3.5x BB. One caller, don't
remember if it was the SB or the BB. Flop comes K 5 5. Good flop for me. The caller who is a player from China checks, so I bet out 3/4 pot and gets cold called rather quickly. At this point in time, I thought to myself, he can't have played an A5 with the raise. Even more unlikely is the 5 5. So I put him down on something like KQ or KJ which I dominate.

Turn is a 2. China guy checks again so I pop out another 1/2 pot bet. China guy thinks for a while, then suddenly reraises me all in. Alarm bells start to ring. Did he really play an A5?

If you've played with players from China before, you will notice that they're pretty fearless and will bluff at a lot of pots with midpair or draws. This was the only reason and the fact that I got him covered by a small amount that I called.

Guess what he showed ? 5 effing 6. Yep he played a 56 with the preflop raise. This completely threw me off. Good thing the river squeezes out another K (2 outer). And my full boat Ks over 5s beats his 5s over Ks to bust China guy out.

Man! Talk about lucky. After that, had good stack and just played ABC poker to make it to the FT easily. Final Table was straightforward as I got some good hands which paid off. Heads-up was against a pretty passive player who got lucky a couple of times. He called my KJ all in with his QJ. Rivered his Q. My DSL connection got cut for about 5 minutes which allowed him to steal a lot of pots.Managed to fight back with some aggressive play to gain a slight chip lead. Finally got him to commit an all-in with his A-rag against my pocket 3s. No improvement and that was it. 1st place. Woohoo .....

The cash was not really that significant but being the last man standing certainly feels good. =)

One Year and Counting ...

August marks the 1st year anniversary of my online poker odyssey.

Much like any other relationship, it has had its share of ups and downs. Some days you feel invincible as nobody can touch you, other days you bang your head on the table and just want to throw your laptop into the toilet as you can't seem to catch a break. Hot streaks and bad beats come right after the other with no logical reason. It is the ultimate love-hate relationship.

But overall, I have to say that I am quite satisfied with the way things have progressed so far.I know that my game has improved since last year. Better hand selection, better post flop play, better feel for the game. I also managed to pick up a few tricks along the way and have even learned to play Omaha and Stud. But I also know that I've only scratched the tip of the iceberg in terms of poker learning.

Luckily, my donkeyness has led to a decent positive ROI so far. From what I read, only 30% earn money playing poker, the rest are losing. My net profit playing online poker for the past year has been modest but fairly good. I would not have thought one year ago that I could earn that much extra money on the side playing what is essentially just a computer game.My bankroll has also increased significantly along the way. But my choice of limits and games has pretty much stayed the game. Still NL Holdem with some Omaha thrown in every once in a while. Still playing mostly low buy in SNGs. The main difference I would say is that I now play MTTs more often. Just ones up to $25 buy in max, But I have won a few here and there and that is also some validation of my improvement.

So what's next for me ?In a past post, I have outlined some goals that I would hope to achieve including playing in the WSOP, earning 1 million pesos, etc. I know some of them are long shots, but it's worth having some long term goals to look forward to.

For my next playing year, I'm pretty much set in my priorities. This will still be a hobby kind of thing for me. I will continue to play a few SNGs per night plus the once in while tourneys during the weekends. I will try to increase my limits some since my bankroll can already handle it. I would also like to try a few of those big Sunday guaranteed MTTs and maybe try to qualify for a WPT or WSOP tourney thru satellites. Some live tourneys in the Metro will also be a possibility depending on my schedule.

The most important thing is that I need to realize that I have a long way to go. Sometimes I get impatient when I read about these online poker "wizards" who earn tens of thousands of dollars every month. But one must understand that these guys play poker exclusively with thousands of games under their belt. I haven't even breached the one thousand game mark yet.

Slow but Sure. That should be my poker mantra. No need to risk my bankroll trying to go for the BIG win even though I'm basically freerolling with the amount that I have right now. I should be more critical about my play and always analyze how I could have played a hand better. Do not just attribute losses to bad donkey plays by opponents that suckout. In most cases upon further analysis, you could have avoided these coinflips altogether.

Burning out is also a concern as working the whole day 6 days a week, trying to be a good father to active toddlers and playing at night does takes its toll. Sometimes I have no energy or drive to even open my PC for poker. Taking a break for a day or two usually does the trick of recharging me. But again, once you start winning some, its like you feel sometimes na sayang yung opportunity if you don't get to play.

I guess it's all about keeping a sane perspective as to what poker is to our lives. It is not the end-all. It is just a highly entertaining competitive game that you play for fun which just happens to give you some side income. So I cannot be too stressed out if I bust out early or I get sucked out or missed some tourneys that I already qualified for because I couldn't wake up early enough.

I earn a comfortable living without poker and I can certainly live without it. But I am also highly competitive in everything that I do and working hard to be good at poker or anything else is something that I cannot help. It's always been in my nature. I'll probably die early due to some heart ailment because of this personality trait, but what can I do ? heheh

Well that's about it for my one year retrospective. I look forward to another year of playing poker and certainly hope to see some of you guys around. Good Luck to everyone.

Random Thoughts

Online Poker is not rigged.

Contrary to what you hear from all the naysayers and whiners, I honestly and truly believe that there is no reason for the sites to tamper with their poker games. It just makes no sense. They get their rake no matter what happens, so why risk this almost non-stop money making machine and favor one individual over the other. The variance is enough to make donkeys win on their gutshot straight draws some of the time to hook them for life.

I do have one theory though. Feel free to comment if you think it's stupid.

All poker sites use a random card generator. And these card generators are from different software companies. So the randomness is actually not that random. Because different individuals use different algorithms to simulate the so called randomness.

Do I sound logical ?

So am I saying the game is rigged? No! It is not rigged. Because rigging assumes that you want to favor let's say a newbie over a pro. But since both of them are subjected to the same randomness when they play in the same site, then it is totally fair.

What I am saying is that the randomness of one site is different from another. Meaning the texture of the cards are different. An example is that you seem to see more pocker pairs preflop in one site over another. Or that high cards come out more often post-flop in a particular site.

Randomness implies a lack of bias. But I have observed that to be a winning player in some sites, I have to follow a certain style. In FTP SNGs for sample, I have to be really aggressive to win. On the other hand, I have observed that in Pokerroom, I have to be somewhat conservative to book the win. So its like the randomness of FTP favors aggressive more than passive play.

(Shrug) Heheh .... just stream of thought blogging. Don't even know if I'm making any sense.

Wow !

I just read from the other poker blogs that a Filipino just cashed in the WSOP Main Event. Cool!

Placing 222nd out of a field of more than 6000 degenerate gamblers is quite the feat. More than the money, this shows to all of us local grinders the possibility of what can be achieved.

This certainly deserves a big and hearty congratulations. =)

Hello Pokerstars ... good riddance Paradise

I've long ago wanted to open an account in Pokerstars. Primarily to get a chance to play in the biggest tourneys available around the net. But since they were not accepting Click2pay which is my primary payment processor and I was too lazy to try bank transfers and stuff. It was probably something that wasn't going to happen.

Heheh .. that was until Paradise Poker through sheer greediness made it work. I deposited a small amount in Paradise a few weeks ago to avail of a sign-up bonus. After depositing, I noticed that there was no pending bonus. So I emailed them and asked. I received a reply that since I registered the Paradise account a few months ago, I wasn't eligible for the bonus even though I made my first deposit just recently in line with their promotion. They said it was only available for new players who registered and made the first deposit at the same time.

I know ... utter stupidity. Whoever heard of such a moronic ruling. All other sites give you a bonus upon first deposit. Who gives a fcuk when you registered the account? Obviously this ticked me off and I wanted to get my money out of there as soon as possible. So I went to their withdraw page.

Huh ? Strange. There was no click2pay option to withdraw even though it was clearly stated in their own website that you can only withdraw thru the same way you deposited. So I emailed them again. Their answer was that even though click2pay was a deposit option, they are sorry but it was not part of their withdrawal methods.

What a crock! I got the sneaking suspicion it was just a delaying tactic so that you end up losing the deposit before you could get a chance to withdraw. Scumbags seems like too nice a word to describe the people behind paradise.

In any case, I took a look at what was available and I saw moneybookers. So with nothing to lose, I registered an account with moneybookers. And then I made the withdrawal thru them. I received another email from Paradise CS. This time they were again apologizing and said that they have been recently having problems with withdrawals thru moneybookers.

I was pretty much shaking my head in disbelief after reading this. I resigned myself to just playing in paradise even though they had crappy customer support. Then suddenly 2 days later, without any notice. I received an email from moneybookers stating that I had cash in my account. I immediately transferred this to pokerstars which accepted moneybookers.

Woohoo .... And that is how I finally got an account with real money in Pokerstars.

Fiasco Update

Well ... the good news is I got a refund of the buy-in. (see previous entry).

But I did not get any share of the pot. It seems that there is a policy to distribute winnings among all remaining players only after the tournament is shut down. So even though I finished in 8th, I was not entitled to anything. The irony was they shut down the tourney a few minutes after I bust out. Hahah !!

I know its a crappy rule, but what can you do ?

At least its a good lesson for anyone out there who may end up in the same situation. Just hang-on and don't go all-in. Hopefully the admins realize the error quickly and shut down a tourney while you are still in it. This way you get a share of the pot.

I'm not sure if any of you have been involved in someting similar. Do other sites follow the same rule ? It's probably something useful to know for next time.

Poker.com Tourney Fiasco

I was playing in the 2K GTD at Poker.com yesterday. Was playing OK, had about average stack, 50 players left. Suddenly, I noticed that we were playing shorthanded (6 people) which never happens at this stage of the tourney. Usually, somebody would transfer from another table to fill up or your table would be broken I checked the tourney details and saw that it was happening to the other tables as well.

Shit. Probably a computer error or something. No choice, just had to play through. My table went down to 4 handed. Then was suddenly transferred to another table. This one played down to 3. Then I was left all alone in one table for like 5 minutes. Didn't know what the heck was going on.

Finally busted out in 8th when I got moved to a table with 2 other players who had very big stacks so I was forced to move in. There was no final table, it was 2 tables with 5 and 3 players each.

The thing was I knew I busted out in 8th because I was checking out the tourney details every once in a while and the time I've spent playing. But the site said I busted out in 37th which is out of the money. WTF!!

I immediately contacted support but all i got was a generic message saying that they encountered a problem and that the buy-ins have been refunded and that winnings will be distributed according to their policy.

So now its a day after and my buy-in has not been refunded. My 8th place finish which is worth around 60 dollars if I'm not mistaken is also NADA. I have a sinking suspicion that I'm gonna get screwed on this one. I forgot to get a screenshot of the tables showing 8 players left when I bust out. So if their database reflects 37th, then I pretty much have no proof.

Oh well, another instance to show how unprotected our online money is. We pretty much go with whatever the site decides to do. I'll post an update later if I do get a refund. =(

Pawned by a Fish !

Last night, I was trying to qualify for the Grand Prix tournament over at Pokerroom which had 50K guaranteed by playing in a qualifying satellite tourney.

Played well throughout until we were down to four. Only two got seats. There was this guy over to my right who just wouldn't shut up during chat. He kept making inane comments about how good he was and how he was going to outplay everyone.

Normally I don't really mind this stuff as its par for the course to have a weirdo like him in every table. On one hand where I was BB, this same guy just completed his SB. I pushed with an A5 suited. He showed AK and I was a huge underdog and lost the huge pot as we had almost even chips at that point.

What got to me was his comment afterwards : "Knew you would do that". And then he kept on prattling again about how some of the young guys never learned their lessons.

After I bust out. I stopped playing and analyzed my play. Did I really make a wrong move ? Did all his chatting affect me negatively to make that push ? Did I telegraph the move such that he had a good guess about my range ? I had about 10xBB at that point. Down to four, on the bubble, and I would never make a flat out bluff on that play. I would have done the same exact play for any A-rag card, two face cards and any pocket pair for some insurance just in case he called back.

It just so happened that he had AK when I made the push. If I had a pocket pair and he made the same trap. I would have been slightly ahead and busted him out on that hand.

But I did learn a lesson for next time. Since he was a weak-tight player, an alternative would have been to just raise 3xBB and folded after his push. Just didn't use reads and automatically played it aggressive at that point like I normally do.

You know what the kicker was. I sharkscoped him after the game and miracles of all miracles. He was a losing player with a negative forty something ROI.

Hyuk Hyuk. But thank you for the lesson. I'll see you next time.

Poker Wish List

Just for fun, I decided to jot down a wish list of things I wanted to do in the poker scene during the next few years or at least during my lifetime.

1. Play with a famous pro online/live.

The online part shouldn't be so hard. Full Tilt pros can be found playing in the site every once in a while. So all I need to do is to increase my bankroll enough such that I can afford a one time buy-in at their stakes. I enter, sit down, play one hand and cash out. mweheheh Bonus is to win a hand and call the pro player a donk.

2. Play in the WSOP.

This one's admittedly harder. Besides the visa hassles of going to the US, there is the fact that I can't really afford the buy-ins plus the additional expenses of Vegas. But I believe this can be achieved as all the major sites offer WSOP qualifiers every year. So one of my objectives going forward is to try and qualify for the succeeding versions of this crazy event. Now I just need to be really lucky or discover a missing uncle who just died and left me an inheritance.

I'm not delusional enough to wish for a bracelet. All I really want is to play in one event in the WSOP for the experience and if I get seated on a table with Ivey or Hellmuth, then I kill two birds with one stone. (see wish 1). Although Shannon Elizabeth would be much much better. =) woof woof

By the way, in case you didn't know, Hellmuth just won his 11th bracelet a couple of days ago (most by any player) and also has the most cashes in WSOP history. Say what you want about the poker brat, but he certainly has game.

3. Win a big online tournament.

When I say big, I mean one of the Sunday Guaranteed ones. And when I say win, I mean 1st place. heheh .... sobra bang kapal ....

I've won a couple of small buy-in tourneys and placed deep in one or two big ones, so I think I can eventually do this. But again I would need a pretty good bankroll to afford the $100++ average buy-in per tourney on a consistent basis. So maybe within 1 to 2 years from now would be a good timeline for this one. Again, being lucky is the key word here.

4. Make 1 million pesos profit playing online poker

Note that its pesos and not dollars. Actually 3 and 4 are interconnected as winning one big sunday tourney will surely make you achieve this goal. But even without the big win, I firmly believe that with patience, continuous learning, good bankroll management and a lot of luck, this can be achieved. As to when, heheh, now that is the question.

I know some of the above may be far fetched. But its always productive to have some kind of goal in mind. Besides, it's way too fun to write about stuff that you only dream about . =)

Played good but ...

2k guaranteed at poker.com. Played perfectly. No big mistakes. Was already ITM 18 players left with a good stack when this hand came up.

Cutoff position and I get KK. Folded to me. So I raised 3xBB. Guy in dealer position reraised all in. Had a pretty good read on this guy and knew he didn't have the rockets. So easy call.

You know what he showed. Queen effing three. Yep.

And of course this post wouldn't have a point if he didn't suck out. Flopped a Queen and rivered a three.

sigh

good news is i'm already ITM but without that suckout, it would have been a big payout as I would have been in the top 3 with 17 left.

grrr

Right or Wrong ?

Last night, I was playing in a $6.50 SNG at FTP. We were down to 4 and I had the lowest stack. Was basically just looking for the right time to push. But lo and behold, 3rd place guy suddenly goes all in, gets called by big stack and proceeds to bust him out giving me a sure 3rd and ITM.

Just two hands later. 2nd place guy also goes all in after flop and called by big stack guy again. And he busts him out again.

So without really doing anything from the bubble, I now have sure second. I had about 2K in chips against 12K which was a pretty bleak situation. Then suddenly I noticed that Big Stack guy kept folding and folding fast which means only one thing in FTP : he was disconnected.

So my question is, what do you do in this situation? (1) Do you steal blinds like crazy ? or (2) do you act like a gentleman and wait for him to reconnect, since basically his play is the only reason you even got to 2nd?

Well, I'm not going to pretend that I took the high road and did option 2. Heheh ... because I started to steal his blinds. My logic and I know that this is only a lame excuse is that I can't wait forever and he might not come back anyway. His house could have been struck by lightning and his broadband connection got fried. =)

Of course, after a few minutes or so, he managed to reconnect and I managed to steal enough such that we had even stacks. To his credit, he didn't say anything. No yapping about how I took advantage of the situation.

A few hands later I was slightly ahead in chips. He raises, I look down at A-5 and push. He calls and shows A-10. Flop was blanks, turn was a five and no miracle at the river. And I take down 1st.

Oops ....

Your comments about what you would do in the same situation would be highly appreciated. As poker players, are we obligated to act morally ? I mean this was just low buy-in so no real damage done, but I heard about something similar which happened in the Ultimatebet 200K guaranteed during HU play where the difference between 1st and 2nd was in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Poker and Pirates

Finally got to play some online pokah these past few days after a week long hiatus.

And the results are pretty mixed. First I lost a 5 dollar buy in tourney. Then I place 4th in a $2 buy in for $20 by sheer dumb luck. Then I get hot in the SNGs and ITM'd 3 in a row before losing 2. Busted out in a 10 dollar buy in at Pokerroom. Busted out again in the Poker.com 2k guaranteed. Bubbled out in 7th in a Full Tilt 45 person SNG (my AQ push called by an AK). Then finally capped it by finishing 17 out of 370++ in a 4.5K guaranteed over at Bodog for $54.

Hahah .... weird. It was like up down up down. No significant cash, just enough to cover all the buy-ins with a few dollars left over.

The last hand at Bodog was a classic. I had 6-2 in the Big Blind, when 2 other guys limp in. Blinds and antes were huge. Thought about jamming but decided to just check. Flop comes 6-6-7. Guy in SB pushes all in. I had him covered so automatic call. Then suddenly the other guy also pushes all in and he had me covered. Pot commited I had to make the crying call. SB flips over J-7. And of course the other guy had A-6.

That's poker! =) Hooks you with just enough drama and wins to ensure that you come back.

Also got to watch Pirates of the Carribean 3 with my daughter this past weekend. And I don't know if its just me, but didn't really like it that much. I mean the action sequences were awesome especially the boat fight in the maelstorm. But they put too much blackmailing and backstabbling events prior that you had a hard time following the plot. So instead of just enjoying the ride, you had to try and figure out what was going on half the time. My daughter kept asking me questions about who the good guy was. Mweheheh ... Being six years old, it was hard for her to understand why all the ugly looking brutes were the good guys. Weaned on disney cartoons like Snow White and Little Mermaid, the villains are always supposed to be fearsome and sinister. So Captain Jack Sparrow is the epitome of a villain except he's good...... well kind of ......

The Shanghai Experience

I was in Shanghai China the last 5 days for some business meetings. Just got back yesterday and here are the notables:

1. One of the most if not the most progressive city in China. Somebody said to me that it can rival New York for the number of skyscrapers. Has the 4th highest building in the world in the JINGMAO Tower. Worth a trip to view the city from the highest floor.

2. Taxis have small LCD TVs installed. Be wary as the taxi drivers drive like crazy so accidents are common. Traffic is also quite bad especially in the Puxi area.

3. Center is highly polluted. There is a perennial smog that is present. You can look up in the sky and not see any blue even if its supposed to be sunny. Just a grayish haze.

4. Nanjing Road - a wide shopping road that is closed to traffic and is exclusively used by pedestrians. Somewhat similar to streets in causeway bay in hongkong except on a bigger scale. Tons of shops from the designer brands to the local unknowns. (see pic)

5. Eton Hotel - hotel where I stayed in the Pudong district. Owned by Filipino tycoon Lucio Tan of Asia Brewery and Fortune Tobacco fame. Walls of the bathroom were made of transparent glass. Heheh ... pretty nice if you're staying with your gf or wife.

6. Have dinner in one of the restaurants in the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Located at the 56th floor of the jingmao tower. It offers you a breathtaking view of the city lights and the river while you're dining. Awesome food.

7. Maglev Train - travels at more than 500km per hour.

Didn't really have time to go around so that's pretty much all I can think of. Shanghai is nice for a 2 to 3 day trip like Hongkong. There are expats and foreigners all over the pace so English is understood in most areas. It's not a place for a relaxing vacation as the pace is too hectic and I certainly wouldn't want to live there. But it's worth a visit for the experience, chinese food and the shopping. You will also tend to realize that China has really become quite the economic superpower as you see the infrastructure and the huge buildings & factories that have sprouted up. All the top brands from cars to shoes have an office in Shanghai and it really is an exciting city to see.

Out on the poker front, haven't really had a chance to play since I got back. Looking forward to the long weekend to play in some tourneys and hopefully do well. =)

No Updates ... Another Trip

No poker updates basically because nothing significant to report. Busted out in one 5K guaranteed tourney last Sunday with the sickest beat.

Had about 20xBB nearing ITM when I got 66 in dealer position. Guy in cut-off raises to 2xBB. I just call. BB also calls. Flop comes J 5 6 with 2 hearts. BB bets half the pot. CO guy who has the same number of chips as me suddenly goes all in. Huh ?

No choice. Had to call for all my chips. BB guy who had us both covered also goes all in. WTF?

CO guy had 55. BB had AJ and of course I had best hand with my set of sixes. Guy with AJ is almost drawing dead as his only out is to draw 2 Jacks or 2 Aces. I think I was 80-20 to win that pot and triple up giving me the chip lead and an almost sure ITM.

Well of course that wasn't meant to be as CO guy turns and rivers hearts to complete a flush with his 5 of hearts. hahahah ....

I will be in Shanghai China this coming week for a business trip. Trip update when I get back. Heheh ... parang naging travel blog na ito ah.

Beach Trip

Recently took my family to an overnight beach outing in San Juan Batangas. Despite some initial apprehensions about the area's security from (rhymes with NBA), we decided to push through after a close friend of the resort owner assured us that there were no such incidents.

The drive took close to four hours and the last few kilometers are rough roads with no street lights, so you'd better travel while there's light as its probably a scary ride at night, but the remoteness of the place was part of the charm. San Juan is not as famous as Nasugbu or Anilao as its off the normal path. But the beach area is pristine. I would even dare say that the waters are cleaner than our top beach destination - Boracay. Which is not saying much since the place is kind of dirty now, and if you know what the locals know then you wouldn't even dare swim in its waters. Heheh.

Stayed in La Luz which is at the end of a long stretch of white pebbly beach . The place was private and very cozy. They don't allow you to bring your own food and instead require you to pay a certain amount to avail of your meals at their buffet table. I didn't mind this at all as it saves you from all the hassle of packing and cooking. The food was average at most, but you can eat as much as you want and their dining area is right up the beach front. So that's certainly a plus.

Not too many amenities, some snorkeling, cayaking and beach volleyball. But again its not a place where you go to socialize. It's a place where you can get some peace and quiet, a nap near the breakwaters, conversations with family and friends while drinking some San Mig light in front of the bonfire and nice relaxing massages in cabanas by the beach. No TV in the rooms, but the kids didn't mind as they had a blast playing in the surprisingly clean waters. As to how clean, let's just say that I did not see one single piece of garbage floating around. For a Batangas beach that is reachable by land, this is saying a lot.

So all in all. A great and relaxing trip. This is another place that I would add to my "must go" places. Great for a day trip if you're lacking in time but certainly worth the overnight stay. =)

Reason for Multi-tabling MTTs

I know that majority of SNG players multi-table to increase their profit. Logic being that more games played at a certain limit assures you of a good profit even with variance. The ups and downs will come but as long as your ave ROI is positive even if it is small, then you come out ahead in the end.

A good analogy is the supermarket. The owners don't mind making a few cents for each can of sardines that they sell. They are relying on the volume of thousands of shoppers to make their profit at the end of the day.

MTTs on the other hand are a different animal altogether. There is a very small chance of winning one of these babies as you play against hundreds of people, but if you get a Top 3 finish, then you're pretty much set and have made your profit in one big swoop.

Following my analogy, this would probably be the Louis Vuitton type of shops where they only need to sell a couple of pairs of bags and shoes a month and they're already set.

Having said this, would you want to multi-table MTTs ?

When I thought about this initially, I would think the correct answer is no. It is better to just concentrate on one table at a time so that you have a better chance of winning. Since the chances of that are already slim from the percentages and number of participants alone , you do not want to pass up any possible opportunity that comes up so you may want your full concentration on that table.

But having recently migrated to MTTs from being strictly an SNG player, I have realized that I play better when I multi-table MTTs. Well not for the same reason as SNG multi-tabling where volume means profit.

My primary reason for multi-tabling MTTs is to allow me to keep focus.

Huh ? I know it sounds like the opposite of logic. But hear me out. MTTs take a very long time to finish. On average, I would say 3 to 5 hours is the norm. During the majority of this time, you pretty much just sit in front of your PC, twiddle your thumbs and wait for hand after hand. There are long stretches of time when you have to keep folding crappy hands. There is a very strong temptation to finally get fancy and play marginal hands just out of sheer boredom. But this will be your downfall as it is very easy to get sucked into a hand where you flopped something and then you overplay it losing valuable chips in the process.

So what do I do? I just open up another table. Whatever's available. It could be anything. A $2.20 buy in tourney, an Omaha or Stud SNG, sometimes even a freeroll. This gives me the small distraction that I need during those long stretches of time where I need to fold. It keeps me focused during the whole tourney as my concentration is sharper trying to keep track of 2 tables or even 3. Just make sure that it is a somewhat small buy in game, something that you wouldn't mind sitting out of if you suddenly get a big rush of cards in the main MTT that needs your full attention.

And if you make it ITM in the side game that you opened, which happens more often than you might think, it becomes a pretty nice bonus. Of course, this advice only applies for somewhat experienced players. I wouldn't recommend it to beginners as you may end up getting confused and misclick fold when you're supposed to bet with your AAs. Heheh ...

So Multi-table for focus. And better focus means more profit. =)

Election Day Results

Final Tally ---> Novagalaxy 2 out of 3 =)

3 tournaments played this election day weekend. Managed to cash in on 2 of them. One was a very nice 2nd place finish in a $2K Guaranteed for $400. The other was a barely ITM 38th in the Bodog Double Stack 25K Guaranteed for $100.

Some details :

1. I think I could have taken down the 2kGuaranteed but I just got impatient. When we were HU, my opponent was playing very tight. So I bluffed a lot and this was working in the beginning as I managed to catch up to his lead. And then it was a looong see-saw back and forth affair. Finally went for a semi bluff with middle pair in what appeared to be a seemingly safe board. But unluckily for me, he played an unbelievable 7-4 and managed to flop 2 pairs. And that was all she wrote. To the credit of my opponent, he played very well. I almost had him with an AA when I was pushing continuously. He thought about it for a long time but made the good laydown.

2. The Bodog 25K MTT was tough. There were 400++ players and I wasn't getting any action with my good hands as everybody was being patient with the double stack. Managed to stay afloat with some jamming and a KK double up. But I was below average most of the time. Then this hand came up near the bubble part of the tourney.

Action was folded to me in the SB. I got 10-5 clubs. I had about 13xBB stack but there was a good amount in the middle because of the high blinds and antes. The BB was a very tight player so I pushed all in on a stone cold bluff. He insta-calls. Uh-oh and shows KQ. He flops the K for top pair and my percentages just dropped. But then I go turn and river clubs for the flush. Woohoo !! Just to rub salt in his wound, the last card was the Q of clubs to give him 2 pair.

When we were ITM, I tried to be aggressive to get a shot at the 6K first prize. First push was an A7 called by an A8 with no improvement for half my stack. Then I get AJ and push again. Caller shows A3. Hahah!! But I guess it was my turn in the suck-out wheel. As he magically flops the 3 and river is another 3. See what I mean about MTT variance. =)

But all in all, a pretty good weekend of tournament poker.

5 is the magic number

During the past week, I managed to play in 3 more tourneys. All 5.50 buy-ins, between 300 to 400 players. Busted out in two and placed 5th on one for around $100.

I know, 5th again. If I recall correctly, I think I've placed 5th three times already from the time I started playing MTTs more frequently. I don't know if I should consider this good news or bad news.

Maybe good in the sense that I've been playing consistent and making final tables every once in a while. But bad news in the sense that I've come close to winning some damn tourneys a couple of times but just falling a little bit short. I've said it before and I will say it again, the variance is just amazingly wide in MTTs and luck has to be with you to take down the win.

One notable hand I remember that got me the ITM. I believe there was around 28 players left, top 20 gets paid. I got Q10 in dealer position. Raise 4xBB. BB calls. Flop was Q 9 7. BB checks. I bet about half of the pot. BB calls. Turn is a 10 which gave me 2 pairs. BB pushes all in and he's got me covered. I think for awhile, there was no flush draw and I didn't think he had a set. I don't know if you could let go of this hand at this point, but I couldn't so I called for the rest of my chips. BB shows KJ for the made straight. Arrgh... I bang my head on the table. Of course, the poker gods are not that cruel most of the time. River shows another 10 which gives me the full house. I double up and coast comfortably into the money.

I bust out when I push with an A10s only to run into AK. Having used up all my mojo in that Q10 hand, there was no miracle this time around. Good Game. My next run at MTTs will be the election weekend. So hopefully I do well.

ITM and ROI in MTTs

Toybits3, another local poker blogger, recently made an interesting comment/question on one of my earlier posts. Like me, I believe he is also planning to play more MTTs vs SNGs and he has set a target for himself of an ITM rate of 10% and an ROI of 50% and asked for my opinion.

My instinctive answer was that an ITM of 10% to 20% is actually achievable if you're a patient player. Heck, my ITM is somewhere in this range and I'm not too experienced. The question is the 50% ROI. I made a comment about how hard it is to consistently place in the top 3 where the good money is and this is actually what matters instead of just barely making it to ITM.

I was not too satisfied with that vague answer, so I decided to make an example here to look at some possible scenarios and also for the benefit of everyone who maybe in the same boat as us.

I will use the payout structure of a tournament that I'm familiar with. The $15 buy in 2k Guaranteed tourney at Poker.com. There is usually only around 150 players and pays top 15.

1st - $600
2nd - $400
3rd - $200
4th - $160
5th - $120
6-10 - N/A
11-15 - $30

I did not put down the payout for 6 to 10 since it will not be too relevant in the example that I am making. Okay, let's assume 3 players. Player A, Player B and Player C. All 3 players have a bankroll of $300 and play 20 tourneys each.

Here are their imagined results:

Player A = ITM in 4 of the tourneys, places 11, 12, 13 and 15
Player B = ITM in 2 of the tourneys, places 3rd twice
Player C = ITM in only 1 tourney but places 1st

Here are their ITMs and ROIs

Player A -----> ITM = 20% --->ROI = -80% ----> Net Profit = -$240
Player B -----> ITM = 10% ---> ROI = +33% ---> Net Profit = +$100
Player C -----> ITM = 5% ---> ROI = +100% --> Net Profit = +$300

(hope I got my computations right)

So what does this tell us ?

Well, a good ITM rate is important since it shows consistency and a nice gauge of your poker skill. But it does not necessarily translate to a good ROI. For one to get a good ROI in Multi Table Tournaments, you'd better get some top 5 finishes sprinkled in your ITMs otherwise your high ITM rate will be for nothing if you're still losing money. A good example is player A.

That is why we should realize that making ITM in a tourney is just the first step. After you make ITM, then you cannot relax, yes you can feel proud about the achievement, but know that you still have a lot of work in front of you and you have to hustle your butt to make sure that you make it to top 3 because 60% of the pot is concentrated there. I actually read from Gavin Smith that these are the type of players he likes to bluff out of big pots in the endgame. Those who are already satisfied making it ITM.

Of course this is just a basic example using a single tourney. Other tourneys with different structures and more players will give you different results but I think the conclusion will come out the same. Making it to ITM is not enough, placing high is what counts to get a good ROI.

Also, I can now give a better answer to Toybit's question, the acceptability of a target ROI of 50% relative to your ITM target of 10% depends on what kind of tourneys you are joining. Looking at player B, he hits your target of 10% ITM and actually does good by placing 3rd two times, but his ROI is still only 33%. So we can say that if you plan to join these kinds of tourneys with fewer players, then your target may be a little high.

However, if the tourneys you normally join have humungous fields which bloats the pot relative to the buy-in, then maybe even one 3rd place finish will net you a 50% ROI and your target is just right. Of course, these tourneys with tons of players have unbelievable variance and are pretty hard to cash in.

I hope the above helps. =)

Labor Day Tourneys

Played in two $3000 Guaranteed Tourneys yesterday. One in poker.com and one in bodog. Busted out in the first one due to a stupid play where i semi-bluffed with a J10 middle of the tourney. Luckily I managed to cash on the 2nd one with a 5th place finish.

It took close to 5 hours to finish the 2nd tourney as there were around 400++ players. My back and butt was numb but I am quite happy with the ITM. Sucked out near the money when my JJ reraise all in was called by a slow playing AA. Turn was the J which kept me alive.

Was pretty much low stacked and card dead during the final table. But patience and some bluffs got me to 5th. At that point, the other 4 players had more than 100,000 in chips and I had around 30,000. Finally had to go all in when I flopped middle pair with half my stack in the pot. Of course, somebody flopped top pair and that was it.

One thing I've realized about large MTTs as I begin to play more and more of them. You really need some luck to survive. I mean, skill will take you deep. But there is always an instance where you have to be ready to risk everything and hope to get lucky.

This is especially true near the end part where the blinds are high relative to your stack. There is really no waiting for the nut hand before commiting your whole stack. I mean I had to play 92 and other garbage hands or I would have been blinded out. You just had to pick the correct spots and hope not to get called.

That is why a large enough stack for final table play is crucial. This allows a buffer for those suckouts which are bound to happen and gives you more flexibility in your play for the chance to take down 1st. Because as we all know, 1st is where the big money is.

But my observation is that you really have to be aggressive in the whole tourney to take a big stack with you to the final table. And this is the part where I am still lost. I play a generally TAG style with some bluffs/steals here and there. Sometimes if I'm really hot, I get a somewhat large stack. But most of the time, this style takes me deep/ITM but I always end up short stacked. And then I really have to hustle and take a lot of risks just to make the final table.

I will have to improve on this part of my game. How ? Don't know yet. But to be a profitable MTT player. I don't think TAG is the answer. So I need to adjust my style a bit and loosen up. Just gonna have to figure out when and where.

I am also susceptible to going on tilt when somebody suckouts on me for a big amount. Sometimes, I still have a good enough stack to carry on. But I end up donkeying it all away on marginal plays after I go on tilt. So another leak that I'm trying to fix.

Hopefully as I gain more experience, these things will come. =)

Palawan Escapade

Was in Palawan the last 4 days for a business meeting/seminar together with some people from our HK regional office.

It was my first time in this southern province and I have to say, Palawan is beautiful. It was clean, quiet and peaceful, people were friendly and the eating places were terrific specifically Kahlui and Badjao.

Stayed at the Legend Hotel in Puerto Princesa, which was supposed to be a very good business hotel. The facilities were ok but the service was kind of lousy. The hotel had all kinds of gimmicks to charge you extra for different kinds of services. So it was the only sour note in the otherwise wonderful experience.

We took the island hopping tour to Snake and Pandan Island. Did some snorkeling which was great. Saw Nemo and Dorie and lots of other famous fishes. =)

Also got to play a friendly basketball game with some of the locals there. 5 on 5 in a makeshift court with hard sand as the surface. The board was nailed to two coconut trees and was kind of skewed. Of course, there was no net on the ring. The players we were against were all barefoot. The score was close initially but eventually they just ran and fastbreaked their way to victory. Our thong slippers were no match for the Nike Free Palawan version. ;)

Had a blast, met some cool people, went to unique places and even got some work done. What more can you ask for? Heheh, the only thing missing was a late night poker game and it would be absolutely perfect. And the thing I realized was that it doesn't have to be expensive. Of course, you cannot compare it to Amanpulo, El Nido and the other high class resorts. But there are lots of reasonably priced hotels in the city and it is easy to get around. The tricycles were abundant and tour operators were in every corner for those island hopping or underground river trips.

Would definitely go back there in an instant. If you ever get a chance, highly recommended place. Two thumbs up.

64 chips

Played in a $5 buy in tourney last night. 1500 starting stack, 12 minute blinds, around 260++ players. Didn't really want to join this but couldn't find anything better.

Managed to double up early on when I limped a Qd9d in the SB with 4 other players. Flop was all low cards diamonds. BINGO. Got an aggressive player betting and I just went along for the ride. Villain showed A10 playing Top pair top kicker.

Middle of the tourney, disaster struck. Had a set rivered by a flush. Then a few hands later, I correctly read a bluff by a bad player so I played my middle pair all in on the flop. He rivers an inside straight draw.

This left me with exactly 64 in chips and blinds were at 100-200. Hahah.

Couldn't really wait for anything but I wanted a chance. Waited for a pot where there were lots of limpers. Finally got one and went all in with 3h5h. Flop got me a three. Then this really aggressive player overbets and scares away all the limpers. He shows A rag and doesn't improve which allowed me to survive and more than quadruple up. It was the correct play by him because there were lots of dead money in the pot and he didn't really care about eliminating me.

A couple of all-ins later, with some luck on my side, I managed to chip up to a semi decent stack that allowed some play (around 8xBB). One play that I find works well in MTTs if you're desperate in chips is to wait for a semi decent hand in late position. Then wait for an aggressive big stack to raise the pot. This usually scares aways everyone. You then push all in. More often than not, he is bluffing and is just trying to steal the blinds so he'll fold. If he calls, you have a good chance of beating him since his range of hands is pretty wide. I did this maybe twice then one aggressive player finally calls my reraise all in and shows 2 face cards against my small pocket pair. And I double up.

I now had a good stack close to average level and we were on the bubble (Top 20 gets paid). Just stayed tight and told myself to fold everything except monsters. Finally one of the midstacks in my table lose 2 successive pots and goes on tilt. And gets the honor of being the bubble boy.

Yeah. ITM. Coming back from 64 in chips. Bwahahahah.

I had about 9xBB at this point. But this is the part where all the low stacks go all in, so it is actually still prudent to stay tight. Just 2 hands later, we were down to 15. And then back to the bubble for the final table.

A super aggressive big stack raises 5xBB. Everybody folds. I was in the BB with KcJc. I push all in. He pauses and chats "What do you have ? AK or AQ, so maybe I'm 40%". He finally calls and shows 10c8c. Nothing flops and I double up. He comments "Stupid call by me".

Yeah. Final Table. Coming back from 64 in chips. Mweheheheheh. And I don't see the player who allowed me to survive.

Finally busted out in 8th when my pocket pair couldn't stand up to an AJ.

At this point, I was more than satisfied. I could have easily busted out middle part. Then again, during the bubble. Then again before the final table. So I'll take 8th and sleep happy. =)

Sunday Tourneys Blech ...

Played in 3 tourneys today. A $2,000 guaranteed in Poker.com, a $5,000 guaranteed in Bodog and a $2.00 buy in tourney.

Busted out in all three but was OK with my play. All the hands wherein I busted out, I was way ahead and I am happy that I got my money all in where it mattered. In the $2,000 guaranteed, I was 2 outered by a pair of 3's against my AAs middle of the tourney. In the $5,000 guaranteed, went deep and close to the money, but my QQs reraise all in was called by an AJ who then turned the Ace. Finally in the $2.00 buy in. My KKs was cracked by a real donkey who played an unbelievable Q10 with a preflop raise and an all in push after the flop. Villain then proceeded to river trip Queens.

Just for fun, I sharkscoped the last player who busted me out with the Q10 just to see if I was up against a psychic. Well, irony of ironies, she of course had the little fish flopping in the bowl and had lost close to US$1,500 in a span of around 600 games. Her graph was like a straight slanting line with no peaks.

But then again, what did I expect playing in a $2.00 one. It was like the poker gods telling me to shut up with my whining as everybody with basic poker knowledge knows that they have reserved the sickest beats in the low buy in tourneys. =)

Decided to quit after that last bustout as there seemed to be a pattern emerging in the beats. Imagine AA, QQ and KK cracked in 3 successive tourneys to bust me out. It was quite obvious that it just wasn't going to be my day. ;)

ITM but ........

In line with my resolution in the previous entry to play more tourneys, I surfed around some of the major poker sites to see if I could find a tourney that was suitable for my needs. As you know, it is almost impossible to find a good tournament that starts in the 8PM to 10PM range Manila time as I believe this is early morning in the US and all the poker addicts are asleep.

Finally found one in Bodog. It was a daily $2,500 Guaranteed Tourney that started at around 10PM with a good structure. 5,000 in chips, reasonable buy-in, 10 minute blinds that escalated very slowly. Less than 200 people. So it was perfect.

Got to play this last night. Started out good. Doubled up in the early rounds when somebody overplayed his top pair against my set of 4s. Got another good break when my QQs held up against an open ended straight draw. Before I knew it, I had a big stack around the middle of the tourney with half of the players eliminated. I believe I was in the top 5.

Then something happened. It wasn't that I was card dead, because I still got some good cards. But all my plays were not working out. If I raised pre-flop, somebody reraised all in and I had to fold. My limp ins were not being rewarded. I took some beats with good cards. And finally I made a bad call with an A8 against an A10 which crippled my stack. All these coupled with the blinds and antes going up.

When we were nearing the bubble, I was barely hanging on with around 10xBB. Just decided to fold and stay tight. A couple of rounds later and we were ITM. But I was severely short stacked. Finally decided to make a stand with Q4 suited against the BB who called with a K2. No improvement and that was it. Busted out in 15th place for a win of $30.

Should be happy with the ITM but obviously I'm not. I am trying to analyze how I lost the big stack and I think I was guilty of "fancy play" syndrome. My stack during the mid-levels was enough to comfortably make it ITM and still have a lot of play left for the final table. But I donked off majority of it overplaying some hands.

Damn .... I have to consider this tourney a critical lesson in stack management. I think it was the first time that I had a big stack like that in a tourney. In previous ones, I would normally be about average stack or slightly below and just maintained this to the final table by being aggressive near the bubble. So believe it or not, I wasn't too comfortable with the big stack because I didn't know what to do with it. Heheh.

The bad thing was, with the good structure and slow blinds, the tourney ended at 1AM. And that was me busting out in 15th. If I had made the final table, it would have probably ended at 2 AM. So if I decide to play this tourney regularly, it would result in me having only around 5 hours sleep before getting up the next day for work. And I don't think I can survive with 5 hours sleep on a daily basis.

So right now, I have decided that I will probably play this 2x a week. Maybe only on Fridays and Saturdays and we'll see what happens from there.

As to my SNG playing, still managing to play one or two games every night. Up and down is the term I would describe my results. Will ITM, lose a couple, ITM again, then lose a couple again. Am up a bit this month in SNGs, but only around 50 dollars or so.

Also heard about the $1,000 freeroll sponsored by nick (Poker Filipinas) on the occasion of his birthday. I admire this really great gesture to the local poker community. Unfortunately, cannot play this one as I will be in Palawan for a business seminar. But I am sure all the participants will have a blast. So Kudos to nick and GL to everyone !

Change of Pace

I recently reviewed the number of games I've played so far in my online poker odyssey and it appears that I've breached the 700 games mark this April. Broken down by site, they are roughly as follows

Pokerroom = 300++ games
Full Tilt = 300++ games
Poker.com = 70++ games

This is in approximately 9 months of playing. So If I divide the number of games by the number of days I've been playing. This averages out to about 3 games per day.

Heheh. Ngyek. I know. I need to play more games. I read in the blog of manila grind that he was planning 800 games for this month alone. So if I plan to catch up to him, I need to bust my ass. ;)

The thing is, I do not have time to play more than my current rate because of my job and family.
Well, unless I resign my job and become the next poker pro. But this is just a pipe dream that will never happen unless I win the WSOP or something equivalent. =)

So having said this. I decided to do some ABC Analysis between MTTs and SNGs. And the results are quite surprising. It actually should have been obvious from the start but I have not really been paying attention.

It seems that aproximately 90 percent of my net profit so far has come from MTTs. While only 10% came from SNG playing. The thing is, out of the 700 games played so far. I think I've participated in less than 30 MTTs. All the rest have been SNGs.

Now this data could be skewed by the big ITM in the grand tourney, but recent results show otherwise. I've been monitoring my MTT playing these past two months and it appears that I at least have a good ITM in every one of three or four tourneys I join.

So what does this tell me. Quite simple really, play more MTTs. Or more accurately, play less SNGs and transfer the limited time I have to MTTs. It seems that my style may be more suitable to medium sized MTTs. Efficiency wise, at least.

The facts say it all. 5% of the games I've played contributed 90% of the profit. Some of you may say that we cannot do a direct comparison as an MTT takes longer than an SNG so it eats up more resources. So converting it to number of hours spent assuming an average MTT takes 3 hours. So that's 30 MTTs x 3 hours each = 90 hours. Compare this to maybe 670 SNGs x 45 minutes each = 502 hours.

So another way to look at it. 90 hours of the time I spent playing poker contributed 90% of the profit. While the other 502 hours contributed only 10%.

Obvious diba that I should allocate more time to MTTs. The main problem that I see is that MTTs require a block of time, 3 hours at least. And in normal nights, I do not have this. At most, I have 1 to 2 hours of playing time. Just right for 2 to 3 SNGs.

So aside from Sundays and holidays (I also have work on Saturday), I really cannot play the normal tourneys that abound. So there lies my dilemma.

Heheh .. oh well. Let's see na lang what happens. I'm sure I can figure out a way to make use of this analysis/realization to my advantage.

AAAArgggh !!!

Warning in advance - Bad Beat Story.

Sorry, but just had to get this out of my chest before I exploded. Just got eliminated from the $3,000 Guaranteed Tourney over at Poker.com 10 minutes ago. It was the early rounds and I only play 2 hands and get busted. Wanna know what they are ? AK and AA

Yep

Get AK in late position with lots of limpers. Raise 5 x BB. Two callers. Flop is all rags with 2 spades. The two callers check. I bet 3/4 pot. One guy folds, the other guy just calls. I put him on a flush draw. Turn is a low card. Guy still checks, I bet maybe 2/3 pot. He thinks about it for a while which reinforces the draw, then still calls. The river comes out and its a 6 spade. Villain checks, I check. He shows 10 9 spades making the flush on the river.

WTF. He didn't even make any pair, just donkey calling his flush draw up to the river. Ok, I dodged a bullet on that one with the good read. Was happy even though I lost about a third of my chips.

Three hands later. I get the monster hand AA. Middle position with 1 limper in front. Raised 4xBB. Everybody folds, the limper calls. Flop is all low cards, suited spades. (What's with the spades ?) Villain bets about 1/3 pot. I raised him 2x his bet. Villain thinks about it for a while and calls.

So now the made flush or the low set is eliminated because if he had it, he would have already pushed all in after my raise as both of us were getting low on chips. So I knew I was ahead with my AA. Also had the A of spades which gave me the nut flush draw. Turn is another low card not a spade. He bets minimum, I just call.

River is a Queen of diamonds. Villain pushes all in. Shit. Pot committed with AAs. Had to call. Well, I don't know if you guessed it coz I certainly didn't put him with that hand. He had QQ and made his set on the river eliminating me in the process. Damn !!

Don't know if I could have played the hand differently. I put him on 2 high cards with a spade flush draw since he didn't raise preflop with his queens.

In hindsight, the alternate ways I could have played it is if I had pushed all in on the flop or on the turn, but I am pretty sure he would have called with his Queens since it was an all low card flop and he had me covered.

Man ! If you guys have any suggestions on how I could have played those two hands differently. Please feel free to comment. Was I too attached to my AAs ?

Just a passing thought. Sometimes I think we give credit to our opponents too much esp. in these higher buy-in tourneys. We put them on logical hands and bets but the donkeys are just as prevalent in these tourneys as the $ 1 or $ 2 ones.

SIGH.... @#$%

Anyways just as an update, I played about 7 MTTs this April including 5 this Holy week. And the results have been pretty encouraging. I had a high ITM in 2 of the tourneys giving me a good net profit. So am quite satisfied even with the above.

Planning to play more tourneys as time permits. Good Luck to every one !!