MPCC: $10k 6-max NLH

I'm heading to Macau tomorrow to play in the Macau Poker Cup Championship. I've decided to sit out the Main Event this year as I've been busy as of late and I can't squeeze 4 days out of my schedule. There's also the fact that I have very little incentive to play full-ring NLH events (or full-ring anything, as a matter of fact). Therefore, it's natural that if I could only make one event, it'll be the $10k 6-max No Limit Hold'em.

The tournament itself starts at 6pm but I'll be arriving in Macau three hours early. I'm happy to have secured a room at the new Hotel Okura which is within the Galaxy Resort. I'll hopefully check into my room and if the sun is out, spend a couple hours lying on the Galaxy Resort artificial beach. I'm also supposed to have dinner with Dale Philip (@daleroxxu) who is an interesting character online but I've never met in real life.

After dinner I'll be arriving at the Grand Lisboa poker room to (late) register in. I'm supposed to dominate my 6 handed table for a few hours until Day 1 ends and gather an insane amount of chips. That's the plan but obviously I can't be sure of it happening. One thing I can be sure of, however, is that my table will be very, very loose. =)

After Day 1 of the tournament there's a plan to hit Cubic. That's all I'm gonna say cuz it'll probably be all I'll be able to remember.

It should be fun!

Sunshine Of My Eyes

just walked pass the hong kong apple store for the first time ever (no I'm not an ifanboy so I didn't do the overnight pre-open line-up), and it stroke me as many are mourning steve outside the store. this song came to mind:
"you are the sunshine of my eyes,
that's why I'll always be around.
you are the apple of my eyes,
forever you'll stay in my heart."

Steve Jobs (1955 - 2011)

Today is a Black day for the innovative world. Apple has announced that their founder Steve Jobs is dead. I'm sad and affected, more so than when any other famous person has died. That is because when Steve was around, Apple created innovative products that truly fitted my personal needs and wants. It's like losing a personal friend. Steve has changed my perspective on many things. The iphone forever changed how I use a phone. The Macbook Air literally changed the definition of a computer. Even the ipad, it redefined the accessibility of information. I honor that.

I'm also sad because the innovative world will never be the same. I might be too naive to think that if Steve were healthy, we would've gotten an iphone 5 instead of an iphone 4S. But it's evident that Apple decided to take the safe road this time around and give an incremental update in the iphone 4S, instead of a total redesign which would've been the iphone 5. Apple decided to put sales ahead of innovation, to put investors ahead of users, and that I think is something Steve wouldn't have allowed. The iphone 4S marks a fallout of innovation. It reintroduced 2010 technologies and duck-fed them down their fans' throat. Dual-core processors, over a dozen Android phones had them six months ago. 8 megapixel cameras, we had those since 2005. 3.5" screens, they look like they time-traveled from 2008. Fixed antenna, don't even get me started on this. Most importantly, Apple has moved from leading the industry to catching up to it. The iphone has fallen behind peers. By playing not to lose, it lost.

A lot of people out there will go and buy an Apple product in honor of Steve. I won't. I will truly honor Steve by not buying an Apple product until it's met with Steve's standards. Say No to iphone 4S. 

WCOOP Event 58: $530 PLO Heads-Up LIVE BLOG

4:30am: fuck fuck fuck. bubbled after battling for over 1 hr. SO SICK.......

3:28am: Round 3 starting. Opponent is OLD TIME GIN from Canada.

2:27am: Round 2 took 7 minutes and 18 hands. Mr HABIBI is weak and tight and predictable. I took a 2:1 lead with nut flush vs straight, and the knockout when I jammed broadway wrap into his middle set and connects. More waiting for Round 3. zzzzzz.

2:20am: finally Round 1 is over. Round 2 opponent HABIBIYANOUR from Sweden.

2:05am: these 2 are still nitting up like grandmas. fuck.

1:47am: only 1 table still going. moonwatch79 vs caecilius. pls hurry up.

1:19am: only took me 19 minutes to win the match. The guy blew some chips with air when i called him down with the under boat JJxx on a KK7Jx board. He was down to 2:1 chips and I was able to further pressure that to a 4:1 chip lead. I gave the knockout blow with KT9x on a KsTs9s flop, he had the nut flush but I turned the T to seal it. Long wait until Round 2. zzzzzzz.

1:00am: first round opponent is radik-dn from Russia.

12:59am: bought into the $320 PLO HU 2nd chance 1 minute before it closed. 64 runners.

10:53pm: WOW busted holding QQxx on KQ6 board vs KTxx, turn T, river K. this is fucked up.

10:51pm: down to 4:1 dog after missing a wrap+FD trying to bust the guy.

10:49: 1.5:1 chip lead now after a flurry of attack.

10:43pm: back down to 1.5:1 dog on AAxx < JJxx.

10:30pm: back to even stack.

10:12pm: 2:1 dog in chips after missing a 12 outer.

9:59pm: ok no Round 1 bye. Opponent's name is allucan3at from Holland. GLME.

9:56pm: Hi guys, I'm gonna attempt to do a live blog on the go during the matches on this WCOOP Event 58 PLO Heads-Up. PLO HU is definitely one of my best games so I'm really feeling excited to play in this event. 4 more minutes until Round 1 starts. I'm definitely feeling it. (However a lucky Round 1 bye wouldn't be bad either.)

WCOOP 2011 - Events which I'll play (version 6.0)

Event # Date Day Time (ET) Name Buy-In Fee Guarantee

*1 04-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em [6-Max] $200 $15 $1,000,000

4 05-Sep Mon 11:00 $320 PL Omaha $300 $20 $300,000

*10 07-Sep Wed 06:00 $265 PL Omaha [Knockout] $250 $15 $225,000

14 08-Sep Thu 11:00 $265 NL Hold'em [6-Max, Knockout] $250 $15 $500,000

*16 09-Sep Fri 11:00 $215 PL Omaha [6-Max] $200 $15 $250,000

*19 10-Sep Sat 10:00 $109 NL Hold'em $100 $9 $800,000

*21 11-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em $200 $15 $1,250,000

22 11-Sep Sun 14:00 $530 NL Hold'em $500 $30 $1,500,000

*23 12-Sep Mon 11:00 $215 NL Hold'em [4-Max] $200 $15 $500,000

28 13-Sep Tue 17:00 $1050 NL Hold'em $1000 $50 $600,000

31 14-Sep Wed 14:00 $320 8-Game $300 $20 $100,000

33 15-Sep Thu 11:00 $320 PL Omaha [6-Max, 1R1A] $300 $20 $300,000

*35 16-Sep Fri 11:00 $215+R NL Hold'em $200 $15 $550,000

38 17-Sep Sat 10:00 $530 NL Hold'em [Heads-Up] $500 $30 $350,000

39 7-Sep Sat 14:00 $320 HORSE $300 $20 $125,000

*40 18-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em $200 $15 $1,000,000

43 19-Sep Mon 11:00 $320+R PL Omaha [6-max] $300 $20 $350,000

46 20-Sep Tue 11:00 $320 Mixed PL Hold'em/Omaha $300 $20 $225,000
49 21-Sep Wed 06:00 $215 NL Hold'em [1R1A] $200 $15 $400,000

*58 24-Sep Sat 10:00 $530 PL Omaha [Heads-Up] $500 $30 $125,000

60 25-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em $200 $15 $1,250,000

That's a total of 20 events (!) and total maximum damage is $9,400. (this is assuming a max of 4BI in the $215+R NLH and 7BI in the $320+R PLO.) Any event that I end up not playing will be refunded as part of the final payout.

I also have a plan to blog each event into a separate post. But it's a plan that'll be hard to stick to after the fifth event. We shall see.

Changelog

V1.1: Correction: the total amount should be $9,400 not $8,800.

V2.0: Replaced Event 28 $1050 NLH with Event 23 $530 NLH.

V3.0: Added Event 28 $1050 NLH back in. Removed Event 32 ($320 NLH 6max), Event 49 ($215 +1R1A NLH).

V4.0: Removed Event 43 $320+R PLO 6max and added Event 39 $320 HORSE.

V5.0: Added back Event 43.
V6.0: Added back Event 49. 

WCOOP Event 1: $215 NLH 6-Max

The game is No Limit Hold'em Shorthanded, one of the NLH variations that offers fast paced action and the WCOOP deep structure offered plenty of play. The low $215 buy-in and the gigantic One Million Dollars guarantee ended up attracting 7500 players, yielding a $1,500,000 prize pool. This would be my first WCOOP event in 2011 and I had a great start when I built my 10k starting stack to 43k only after one hour. At that point i was either 2nd or 3rd out of over 5000 players. Over the next 2 hours the table basically had the same players, less 2-3 eliminations. I was in very good command of the table with around 70k chips while the next biggest stack a measly 10k and the rest in four figures. It wouldn't be an overstatement to say that I was owning the table. And then I got moved.

I was seated on this new table to the right of this 50k stack, and the rest of the guys with less than him. I wasted no time and gave away plenty chips. In one hand, I doubled up a 17k shortstack by getting it in on a 689 flop with 7T and the guy had TJ. He peels the Q on the river to win with a better straight. I lost a few more small pots here and there and gave away a total of 25k to the table and I was down to 50k. At that point I was begging the table to not break as I want to get my chips back. Soon after I was dealt this hand:

Hole card: Red Aces. Position: CO. Blind 250/500/60

Preflop: folded to me and I raised to 1111, BB 3bet to 2400, i 4bet to 7500, BB called.

Flop: Qc Tc 2d. He checked. I checked. (To me his 4bet calling range is TT+, AK, so it was less a question of how much I can make off him than whether I'll go bust this hand. So I checked.)

Turn: Td. Bad just turned to worse. He bet 12500 into the 15000 pot and I had around 40k left. I wasn't ready to fold Aces just yet, but I was very close to. I called.

River: 6s. He checked, and I checked behind. (I think I missed a bet here, not sure.)

Showdown: I won the hand with Aces, he had AQ for top top.

I felt like I did badly by not stacking his remaining 24k. Did I play bad? Please use the comment section.

After that hand I was up to 71k, and after a few rounds my luck turned horrid when a guy called my 4betshove with AKs and flopped the nut flush. Yes that's right, I had Aces. I lost over 50% of my stack in this hand so I was down to just above 30k. An hour later, the blinds creeped up to 600/1200/150 when my stack was dwindling down to just above 25k. I decided to 3betshove KQ in the BB against a button raise, but the guy called with A9 and I lost the hand and busted out.

I busted out 1110th or so and the tournament paid top 960, but one can't be afraid to bubble if he wants to go deep, right?

Tonight will be the $320 PLO. This should be a great chance to practice my peddling skills and hopefully I'll draw a table with a few guys who's willing to gamble it up too! Gogogogogogo!

Quick Thoughts on Heads-Up Poker

What is heads-up poker about? It's about skills. Sure. It could be about luck. Except most poker players won't agree. It's about tilt. The real game of heads-up doesn't happen until one guy is on tilt. It's about figuring out how to tilt your opponent. It's about knowing when your opponent is on tilt and when he is off it. So you can put him back on.

It's about destroying your opponent and dismantling his game, down to pieces. There's no room in playing nice. Because when the game is two people, if you're not the winner, you're the loser.

It's about control. Control the tempo of the game, control when your opponent tilts, control yourself so you don't tilt.

It's about aggression. Aggression is a good way to gain control. But over-aggression is a good way to lose control, of yourself. It's about passivity. Being passive while maintaining control is an art, but it's an art worth mastering.

Most importantly, it's about making the table a living hell for the guy sitting across from you and making him regret ever sitting down.

WCOOP: 9 days to go. 9 predictions.

Nine days until I'll be losing A LOT of sleep for three whole weeks. I'll also have an amazing amount of fun (together with the proper dozes of heartbreaks) and hopefully some decent paychecks. And since this waiting game sucks, I'm gonna look into the crystal ball and predict my results:

* I'll somehow cash more PLO events than NLH despite playing 6 PLO and 12 NLH;

* I'll definitely definitely DEFINITELY make money in 8-game;

* I'm hopeless in NLH fullring freezeouts so I expect to cash no more than 1 of the 4 that I'm playing, very likely zero. In this case plssssss be the $1050;

* In contrary PLO 6-max is where I put my head down and get to work, I expect to cash 2 of the 3 that I'm playing;

* Historically I run extremely bad in Round 1 of HU events, so I'll go deeep if I make it past Round 1 in Event 38 and 58;

* There will be overlay in at least 1 event I'm playing;

* I'll end up not playing 5 of the 20 events;

* I'll also end up playing 1-2 events which aren't on the list, most likely to be the Main Event (duh);

* And err 1 final table. pls?

WCOOP 2011 - Events which I'll play (version 1.1)

I'm using this post to host a list of WCOOP Events that I expect myself to play this year. This is obviously mainly for guys who might buy my action. This list is bound to change over the course of now until the start of the first WCOOP event, and since I have no better way to keep track of said changes, I'll use the most geeky way, versions and changelog.

Consider this initial list version 1.0:

Event # Date Day Time (ET) Name Buy-In Fee Guarantee

*1 04-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em [6-Max] $200 $15 $1,000,000

4 05-Sep Mon 11:00 $320 PL Omaha $300 $20 $300,000

*10 07-Sep Wed 06:00 $265 PL Omaha [Knockout] $250 $15 $225,000

14 08-Sep Thu 11:00 $265 NL Hold'em [6-Max, Knockout] $250 $15 $500,000

*16 09-Sep Fri 11:00 $215 PL Omaha [6-Max] $200 $15 $250,000

*19 10-Sep Sat 10:00 $109 NL Hold'em $100 $9 $800,000

*21 11-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em $200 $15 $1,250,000

*23 12-Sep Mon 11:00 $215 NL Hold'em [4-Max] $200 $15 $500,000

28 13-Sep Tue 17:00 $1,050 NL Hold'em $1,000 $50 $600,000

31 14-Sep Wed 14:00 $320 8-Game $300 $20 $100,000

32 15-Sep Thu 06:00 $320 NL Hold'em [6-Max] $300 $20 $350,000

33 15-Sep Thu 11:00 $320 PL Omaha [6-Max, 1R1A] $300 $20 $300,000

*35 16-Sep Fri 11:00 $215+R NL Hold'em $200 $15 $550,000

38 17-Sep Sat 10:00 $530 NL Hold'em [Heads-Up] $500 $30 $350,000

*40 18-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em $200 $15 $1,000,000

43 19-Sep Mon 11:00 $320+R PL Omaha [6-Max] $300 $20 $350,000

46 20-Sep Tue 11:00 $320 Mixed PL Hold'em/Omaha $300 $20 $225,000

49 21-Sep Wed 06:00 $215 NL Hold'em [1R1A] $200 $15 $400,000

*58 24-Sep Sat 10:00 $530 PL Omaha [Heads-Up] $500 $30 $125,000

60 25-Sep Sun 10:00 $215 NL Hold'em $200 $15 $1,250,000

That's a total of 20 events (!) and total maximum damage is $9,400. (this is assuming a max of 4BI in the $215+R NLH and 7BI in the $320+R PLO.) Any event that I end up not playing will be refunded as part of the final payout.

I also have a plan to blog each event into a separate post. But it's a plan that'll be hard to stick to after the fifth event. We shall see.

Changelog

V1.1: Correction: the total amount should be $9,400 not $8,800.

Coming up: Macau Poker Cup $30,000 Highroller

Tomorrow I'll be traveling to Macau and I'll be on a mission. The mission is the win the Macau Poker Cup Highroller event for the third time. The buy-in is $30,000 this time and it's a vanilla multi-table-tournament. By my rough guess we should see 60-70 runners, putting together a prize pool of around two million HKD. Top cheese should be around 700k-800k. But it's less about the money than about defending titles. I'll for sure bring my best game to the table. Gogogogogogogogo!

Btw, go Mavs go.

Peter Eastgate's Comeback Statement

This was sent to me from Pokerstars as a press release. After reading it, I gotta say that Eastgate is quite a brilliant man. (I'm posting the original transcript here since I assume as a press release this is public info anyways.)

"Sometimes in life a person can feel lost and wake up one morning not recognizing who he is. Last summer that was how I felt. Prior to winning the WSOP in 2008, my life was very much a good solid routine of playing online poker and hanging out with my friends and family. Winning the WSOP changed that. I relocated to London and started a new life, the life of a high profile poker pro. For almost 2 years I was in a constant spotlight, travelling from poker tournament to poker tournament, doing thousands of interviews and never had a chance to catch my breath. In the whirlwind that followed winning the WSOP I lost track of the most importing thing in my life, myself.

Last summer I decided that I wanted to stop playing poker and catch my breath and find out who I am and what I want to do with my life. Over the last 8 months I have had a chance to reconnect with my friends and most important, my family. I have spent quality time with my family and really had an opportunity to figure out who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life. When there is no financial pressure it can sometimes be hard to get motivated to move forward as a person.

I truly enjoy playing poker. I love the competitive element and the mental challenges of tournament poker. I feel it is important to constantly grow as a person and for a while I didn’t feel I was moving in the right direction. Having had time to think about my life and future I feel I have figured out how I can combine playing poker with a healthy life outside of poker.

I do not consider this a comeback, as I always knew there was a good chance I would play poker again. During my hiatus from poker, PokerStars have been very supportive. Therefore, I am pleased that I will start out with playing two events where I will be sponsored by PokerStars. First, I will be playing the PokerStars.com EPT Copenhagen which of course means a lot to me, since it is on my home ground. Then I will play the NBC Heads Up Championship. I am fortunate that PokerStars have the best online tournaments, so I have an opportunity to get back in tournament shape.

There have been some questions about the sale of my WSOP bracelet. I was not trying to devaluate the WSOP name. It was not sold to make any kind of statement. It was sold to raise money for UNICEF and I am very proud and thankful that the sale raised £100,000 to UNICEF."

- Peter Eastgate

FTOPS Event 7: $216 HORSE

I played reasonably well in this one.

I Barely missed the money. (Busted 174th out of 903, money was at 112 places.)

Made some mistakes to go from $4000 starting stack to $2500.

Moved up to $6500 in Razz thru two hands.

Moved up to high point of $18000 thru Stud and Stud8.

Made more mistakes in Hold'em.

Somehow hit a Royal Flush in Stud8 to win half the pot.

Busted in Hold'em with AQ against QJ.

Oh well.

FTOPS Event 4: $1060 NLH 6-max

This is probably one of the tighter 6-max tournies i've played in, including live and online. I started and finished on the same table, and I was the first guy out of that pack of six to be eliminated. (read: over the two hours before I busted the table was purely doing chips-exchange.) I busted just before the 2nd break, and overall my run has been pretty bad.

In level 2 of the tournament, I got my flopped straight ran over by runner runner flush. It's not like I let it happen either, I bet out every street until the river when I managed to just check-call to avoid busto.

On one of the last hands, I got my flopped set ran over by the same guy with his runner runner straight. In the same whacky fashion, he called my cbet on the flop with 2 under cards (preflop he opened and I 3betted), called my bet on the turn with a gutshot straight draw, and finally made me call down his stack on the river. After this I was left with under 10BB and I shipped it in the 33 which naturally lost to JK.

UPDATED: Self Note: FTOPS XIX

Here's a quick list of what I plan to play in the upcoming FTOPS XIX (Feb 6 - 20). As a general rule I won't play any turbos or superturbos. Furthermore, I'll treat all Multi-Entry tournaments as single entry as it's just tilting otherwise. (Pls someone help me with these Multi-Entry spewaments as to how to optimally buy into it.)

Straight off the bat I would like to highlight that I most look forward to Event 17: $535 PLO 6-max.

Here's the list, note that all start times are in Hong Kong local time:

Event 4, Feb 8 10:00am: $1060 NLH 6-max

Event 7, Feb 9 10:00am: $216 HORSE

Event 10: Feb 10 10:00am: $109+R NLH 6-max (multi-entry)
Event 17, Feb 13 3:00am: $535 PLO 6-max
Event 27, Feb 15 10:00am: $1060 NLH (multi-entry)
Event 33, Feb 17 10:00am: $322+R NLH 6-max
Event 44, Feb 21 3:00am: $256 NLH 6-max KO

I'm looking to spend a total of $4,578. (All NLH rebuy games I limit myself to 4 buys including the add-on.) Action buyer welcomed.

UPDATED: Removed Event 35: $322 PLO HU as I'll be rather tied up that day!