Check it out - we made the news!

removed busted link to first article :(

Wow. Not only is most of the information wrong, it's ridiculous:

• "weekly tournament" - sorry, we played 3-4 times a week
• The Meetup website was 'used to lure unwitting' participants to the tournaments" - the rules and procedures were clear

Second Article

Pretty much the same as the first.

This is my post about the San Francisco Bay Area Poker Meetup Group's end of the season freeroll, which we track results for on PokerSoup.com.

So we're about 30 minutes into playing the freeroll when things get interesting. I started on the button, and I folded my first 6 hands, which consisted of some terrible cards as well as A9 and A7. I decided not to throw away any of my chips since there were some strong players starting with more chips than me. I'm under the gun and see AQs! I raise 3 times the big blind and get five crazy callers :p

The flop is J95 with two diamonds, which doesn't seem so good for me. I'm sure somebody called with AJ or KJ or QT or something. Everybody checks - wow. I tell the dealer to give me a deuce and he does, but it's a diamond, so that's too bad. Everybody checks again, so I start to think I could be good, but probably not. I call for another 2, and he rips it right off the top. Everybody is checking around because they are afraid of my psychic abilities, and then we hear a knocking on the door.

Somebody jokingly said only the cops knock like that. Well, they were right. A grip of policeman come in with their guns drawn. Wowser.

They took pictures of all the players at the tables, all the rooms, the chips, the cards, the dogs - everything. They made us sit with our hands on the table and finally put the guns away. Somebody tried to take a drink of their beer, and was told there would be time for that later. That was good news at the time.

By the way, I was hoping to bust out early so I could go catch the Packers playoff game. The Packers were already down 14-0 when I left for the freeroll. I don't know why they have to start it out like that, but as I'm writing this, they are up 42-20. I think I gave it away with my cheese head hat that I borrowed from my roommate, so they let me be the last one to be interviewed. While we were waiting to be interviewed, one of the officers told us how stupid we were for playing at a place like that with open invitations on the internet, as thugs would be happy to come by with "big guns" and relieve us of our money.

About thirty minutes later I finally get interviewed. They asked a bunch of questions about how long I've been on Meetup, how long I've played with the group, what my email address and username for Meetup was, if I'd ever won, if I'd ever done a rebuy, who I thought paid the rent and utilities, if cheating was suspected, what other locations I've played at, and probably some more that I can't remember. My interviewer did make it clear that "all of us guys play poker" and they weren't targeting the players. Yay for that.

On the way out they took yet another portrait of me with my name on a note card under my chin. I guess that's so they can cross-reference my name with my interviewer to get any extra needed information later. Crazy. The guy walking me out to the street told me to be a little more careful about where I play in the future. He said they don't have any problems with poker, but as players we should be a bit more careful. He said it's not illegal to play a home game, regardless of the buy-in, but when people are "raking the pot, skimming off the top, and defrauding the players like what's going on here, it's not good." That's some pretty heavy stuff :/ It should be interesting to hear about how this all ends up, as most people were under the impression that everything with the group was complete legal and above the board.

That's about it. I just wanted to get everything out so people could satisfy some of their curiosity.

Oh, and by the way, we all flipped over our hands while we were waiting and I had the best hand!

Update: Here is my wrap-up post on this situation.

Losing on the turn seemed to be the theme of the night. Good thing I won't have to wait long for a chance at retribution!

AK No Good!

Blinds: 50/100

I get AK in early position. I raise to 300, the button calls one of the blinds call.

The flop comes A46. I'm looking to trap, so I check after the blind and the button bets 300. The blind calls and I call. The turn is a queen, which I despise, as AQ is a reasonable holding for my opponent, although I was hoping he had AJ or AT. I bet 600, he raises to 1200, so now I'm really skeptical, but decide I can't fold for 600 into a 3300 pot. The river is a Q, so I'm still cautious, but think I can still beat AJ, AT, and any flopped two pair, which is also a reasonable holding. I check, he bets 2000, and I grudgingly call to see him turn over AQ!

QQ No Good!

I am short-stacked after folding a lot of blinds away, there are 6 minutes left until re-buys end, and everybody is still playing relatively tight, so raise all in when I'm in middle position. Everybody folds, which I expected, until the under-the-gun limper calls, which I kind of expected (since it was obvious I was ready to go all in). He flips over QQ. Oh well, rebuy. But wait! They are shuffling the deck with all the mucked hands - huh?! The "floor manager" says to shuffle the remaining cards up and deal them out. I'm cool with that, because my opponent made the better play, so I shouldn't get to weasel out of my all in. Of course, the board comes J862A for the win! My opponent was none too pleased, obviously, but quickly regained his composure after calling somebody else's all in with his 72 for his own major suck-out :p

Top Two Pair No Good!

Blinds: 100/200

I have J8 in the small blind, with two callers, so I call and the big blind checks. The flop comes J86 rainbow, so I decide I'm hoping somebody has KJ/QJ and will bet it for me. Everybody checks to the button, who bets 600. I call, middle position calls to close the betting. I wasn't so happy about seeing the turn 3-way, so I kicked myself for not raising, as even KQ/QJ would call a min-raise. The turn is an ace, which is not what I wanted, but I didn't think the button had AJ, so it was better than a Q or K. The pot is 2600 and I have 3200 left, so I go with my plan and push. I get called by middle position, and figure he really must have A6 or A8. He shows A8 and I'm out of the tournament.

You Know Who You Are

Just to make one particular player happy, here goes. I had a shortish stack after the first screwing. I decided to have some fun with a raise with a suited king in late position. The small blinds calls. The flop comes AK4 with 2 of the wrong suit. My opponent checks, I bet 3/4 of the pot and my opponent doubles my bet. I really wanted to call or go all in, as my gut told me to, but I didn't listen because I decided I'd have enough to try again later (which did work, amusingly enough, against the queens). I'd analyze this hand further, but then this opponent might not give me the same tell that made my intuition come up with the correct move ;) Oh, I forgot to say my opponent had 99. Oops.

I really screwed up tonight at the tournament, so I'm going to purge it from my memory by writing about it here.

The Build-Up

I started out playing relatively tight, but I accidentally got involved in a hand with Andre when I turned an open-ender and he made a small enough bet for me to call. I made the straight, he tried to raise me off of it. I was scared of the possible flush, but my straight was good. I was playing relatively tight and trying to be aggressive and I built up a pretty nice chip stack.

We got down to 7 players, so I opened it up a little bit and raised 3x with my A6o. My opponent on the button calls. The flop comes T84 with two clubs, so I take a stab. My opponent thinks, somebody calls time, and he decides to push all in (for about half of my stack). I get the vibe that he doesn't want me to call, and it seemed reasonable that he would make the move on a flush draw, so I call. He says "good call" and turns over AQ. I sheepishly turn over A6. I was right about him not wanting me to call, but it was a bad call! Being the luck-sack that I am, the river is a 6. Lame for my opponent, but pretty good for me.

The Stupidity

I continued to play well and made it to the final table approximately tied three ways for the chip lead. I folded, folded, folded. I finally pick up AJc and raise 3x from under the gun. Everybody folds to the small blind, who calls. He checks in the dark - what?! The flop comes out AQ6. I bet half the pot, he raises three times that, and I go all in. I don't know why, and I wouldn't do it again, because it just doesn't make sense. I guess I didn't want to lay down my top pair, especially since it seemed my opponent showed weakness with the check in the dark. Oh, by the way, my opponent was one of the other chip leaders, so I was knocked out of the tournament in 8th. Stupid.

My only consolation is that my opponent told me he checked in the dark so I couldn't get a read off of him :p

Online

I decided to hit the tables real quick before going to bed, and I won a bit more than a full buy-in. Yay for that. I'm up two full buy-ins after 3.5 hours and about 600 hands.

I made some pretty good moves at pots where my opponents seemed weak and didn't get called down at all. I also managed to crack some aces with 97o. I had flopped middle pair and turned a straight draw. I led the betting to the turn because we were both in the blinds, but my opponent suddely went all in for 3 times the pot, so I decided to call. It turns out he thought the board was really ugly and wanted me out. Good thing the river made my straight! He went off in the chat box, but it's my policy to never type there. The other players at the table gave him a hard time because he "played his aces so weak". Funny.

I'm writing this post mostly to reflect on the hand that crippled me in Friday's tournament at the group I frequently play with. I had managed to make it to the final 12, but I probably should have been home already. The blinds were getting really high and we were playing with antes after the first hour or so of play, which means each hand takes almost a minute longer - which means we see about 7 or 8 hands each blind round. Anyway, I went all in with Q8s and was called by QQ, but I made a straight. That same opponent had suffered some pretty bad beats this tournament. :/

So, the blinds are 600/1200 and each of the 6 players has a 200 ante. That puts 3000 in the pot before the hand starts. The average chip stack is around 17k and I have about 25k, but I'm in the big blind. My opponent raises to 4.8k from middle position and everybody folds to me - I look down and see AQd. At the time, it seemed like an overbet, but looking at the numbers now, I don't really feel the same way. Anyway, I decided to put my opponent to the test, since he had about 24k before the start of the hand and I figured he wouldn't want to commit with a hand that at the time seemed to show some weakness. My opponent thought for a minute or so, and called with 99. I lost the race, and went out in my small blind the next hand.

In retrospect, I obviously wish I would have played the hand differently. I think it was coincidence that I was mostly correct on my "read" of my opponent's hand, too, which is a little disheartening. Just for fun, though, I thought I'd do a little mathematical analysis on whether or not my play had a positive expectation, and/or how some details may change that expectation.

First, the hand groups I thought my opponent might have and some percentages that he might have had them. These are just rough estimates that probably unsuccessfully try to reflect my opponents playing style, weighted a bit towards the probabilities to receiving those hands, and then subjectively weighted more yet towards the hands that make my decision look better ;)

• AA: 5%
• AK: 15%
• KK, QQ: 20%
• Dominated ace (AJ, AT): 10%
• Complete bluff with suite undercards: 10%
• Smaller pair (most likely JJ-99, but possibly others): 40%

My approximate win percentages against those groups:

Multiply the percentage chance that he holds each hand by the associated win percentage to get my aggregated expectation in this situation:

5% * 12% + 15% * 28% + 20% * 33% + 10% * 72% + 10% * 64% + 40% * 46% = 43.4%

Even if the expectation was positive, I'm not sure if I would make the same play again. Unfortunately, the fact that the average chip stack is a very small multiple of the blinds and antes makes the game seem a lot more like playing a slot machine. Had I hit that 50/50, I would have had enough chips to play (and it turns out my opponent won the tournament with those chips). I guess it's better than coming down to a coin flip an hour later and ending up on the bubble.

In other news, I lost half a buy-in playing Full Tilt tonight :/

I made progress on my goals for this year and signed up for an account at Full Tilt the other night. I didn't have any money in the account yet, so I started looking around for free tournaments. I stumbled into a "Poker After Dark" qualifier free roll sit-n-go, so I entered that.

It turns out Full Tilt is doing some sort of 3-level tournament structure to qualify one person to play in an episode of Poker After Dark for $120k. They have 180- and 360-person NL Hold'em sit-n-go tournaments, where the winner qualifies for another tournament (which can also be entered by spending your "Full Tilt Points", whatever those are). If you win this second-tier tournament, you then play in the 5000-player qualifier to get on TV. Pretty good for free, but quite a long shot.

I got roped into a 360-player tournament when I should have been going to bed, and I accidentally ended up playing into 6th place 2 hours later. I went out calling another player's bluff with KJ at a 976 flop when I had T7. River was a J, of course :p

Last night I decided to play about an hour of no-limit cash games. Stephen suggested I buy in at a level where I have 20 buy-ins, so my $300 account allowed me to comfortably play 5c/10c (max buy-in of $10).

I started up 2 tables and mostly folded for a while, but found myself itching to play some hands, which is not good - I wanted to play like this $10 was important. So I started up 2 more tables to help me keep focused. This worked well, as I spent less time thinking of reasons to call with hands and more time making sure I was keeping up with all the tables. I folded 90% of my hands pre-flop, raised with good hands and/or good position with the rest, and made most of my post-flop decisions based on the betting patterns and odds.

Early on, I had only won one or two small pots and was down on all but one table. I got AJh in late position, raised the unopened pot, and the button and big blind called. The flop was 992 rainbow, so I decided to take a stab. The button folded, and the BB went all in. My first reaction was to grudgingly fold, but I decided I just didn't buy it, and called down the QJ for the win :) That was the first decent pot I won, so it was a good confidence boost.

After playing for a while, I noticed that people frequently folded to pre-flop raises. I had AA twice and didn't see a flop, which was not what I was expecting. Conversely, once the flop was out, people called a fair amount, but usually folded on the river. My take is that the people were playing tight pre-flop, but once they had a draw on the flop, they wanted to see the river. One hand I raised with KQ in late position and had one caller, the flop was 955 with two clubs, and he check-called the flop and turn and folded when an ace-of-not-clubs hit on the river and I fired the third round.

One more: I got T9c in middle position and I limped in to a 3-way pot. The flop comes out 762 with two clubs and the big blind immediately over bets the pot all in. I had a hard time giving that play credit, especially with my flush, gut-shot, and potential overcard draws. I called, but then the button called, too. Oops. BB shows K6o and button shows 44. I'm a luck-sack and catch the Kc on the river.

I made $24 plus a yet-to-be-determined rakeback. Not bad for my first time out. Thanks for reading :)

I was inspired by Stephen's latest blog post (http://pokersoup.com/blog/uzjedi/show/my-lazy-year) to try and consciously play poker a bit more seriously. I figured it might help me achieve this goal if I actually wrote it down so I could hold myself accountable. So here is a list of some of the things I'd like to accomplish this year as far as poker goes.

Establish a bankroll and stick to it (with all the tracking that goes with it)

Sign up for an online account with rakeback and play/track at least 20 hours a month (and be profitable, of course)

Attend one 100+ player tournament (such as Lucky Chances) tournament a month

Read and take notes on a book a month

Regularly meet with like-minded people and discuss goals, strategy, etc.

Continue playing enough hours of fun poker, such as home games and trips with close friends and poker buddies who may become closer friends

That's a pretty aggressive list of goals, considering the other projects I have in the works, but I'm going to try harder this year. If I can do all of this, I will be a little bit closer to my fantasy of playing poker professionally.