My kudos to Caesars (heads up tournament)
I have written in the past that I’ve had less than wonderful feelings for the poker room at Caesars. The Cliff Notes are that I just think it’s not as well run as the Venetian when they do a tournament series. I’m happy to say that this blog is a positive nod to a few things at Caesars.
I played their $1k heads up tournament yesterday, and was pleased to find out that they now give out a $10 food comp when you sign up. Previously, you had to make the dinner break in a tournament to get any sort of food comp, which I found a little bit greedy. They’ve fixed this and now properly feed you once you’ve paid the rake.
Just the fact that they HAD a live heads up tournament is pretty rad. Other than the WSOP and a heads up tournament in Canada, I can’t think of any other live heads up tournaments than at Caesars. Further, the structure was decent, with all of us getting 12.5k in chips and the blinds starting at 50/100. After playing their NBC Heads Up freeroll earlier this year, it was nice to know that for a bigger buyin, they were willing to give the players a fair bit of play.
In all, 62 players signed up and they modified the payout structure to pay 8 spots, which I thought was better than their original 4. They also were cognizant of tax laws, and modified the payouts so that only 1st and 2nd place would receive tax forms. This was definitely smart thinking on their part.
I ended up finishing just inside the money, getting knocked out by eventual winner Chad Brown in 7th place. My first two matches were pretty easy, but my 3rd opponent was a tough online opponent named Jason Koon. He continually 4-bet me, and I ended up having to call all in with AQ when he 5-bet bluff me with J7. Luckily, my AQ held up, and I was able to eliminate him shortly thereafter. Jason and I chatted for about 20 minutes after the match, and he gave me some advice about poker in general and a few leaks in my heads up game. That’s a pretty rare thing in the poker world, and I have to say Jason is a super nice guy. I hope to run into him more in the future.
My match with Chad Brown obviously didn’t go so well. Not only that, but it ended so quickly. He played very passively and just hit the deck head on. In the first pot I lost chips in, he limped in and I checked with J3o. The flop came AJ3, all spades, and we both checked. The turn was a blank and I bet and Chad raised. It’s too likely that he can have a combo draw like Ax with a spade, so I called. The river brought another blank, and I check called. Chad had limped in with 6s2s and had flopped a flush.
The hand that really tilted me was another pot where Chad limped on the button. I checked with 9h7s, and the flop came Th9d7h. I bet out, trying to protect against the draw-heavy board and Chad called pretty quickly. The turn brought the 3h, putting three hearts on board. I bet again with my two pair and flush draw, and Chad called me again. At this point, his most likely holding was a pair or a straight draw on the flop, and then he picked up a flush draw on the turn… something like K8 or K9 with the Kh. With any hand that beat mine on the flop, he would have raised the flop or the turn. When the river came a non-heart queen, I check-called a decent sized bet from Chad as it is too likely that he missed his flush and my hand was good. Chad showed down an awful KJo, no heart, for a rivered straight.
In my opinion, he played every street other than the river awful. Heads up, KJ on the button is a raising hand, almost 100% of the time. Chad limped. On the flop, Chad had a double gutshot with two overs, and I would strongly lead towards raising on the flop in position. Chad just called. On the turn, three hearts were on board, so KJ could be drawing to 2 less outs (8h and Qh wouldn’t help him in this spot), or possibly drawing dead if I had made my flush already. I would have folded, but Chad called. The river is just a luckbox card for Chad after he played the hand poorly.
My demise came when I raised with AQ from the button and Chad called (again passively, as it turned out he had a pocket pair). The flop came A65, and Chad check called. The Turn was an 8, and I feigned weakness and underbet the pot. Chad thought and then check raised me, putting in a largish raise for him. I then moved all in, and Chad instacalled with his set of 6’s. As passively as Chad had been playing, perhaps I could have folded the turn as it’s likely he has me beat with at least two pair. Unfortunately, I had underbet my hand hoping Chad would make a move, which made my all-in automatic.
Overall, I’m very happy with how I played all of my matches. I made the money, and the day renewed my confidence in my playing abilities. I forgot to mention it, but the field was heavy with pro’s such as Jason Mercier, Vanessa Rousso, Devilfish, Scott Clements, and BodogAri.
So… does anyone know of any other live heads up tournaments coming up?
Scheduling conflicts with poker tournaments
OK, this is getting ridiculous, and I have to blog about it. I just found out a couple of days ago that PokerStars’ LAPT will be kicking off season 3 with a $2700 tournament on November 19th in Costa Rica. While I’d normally be excited about this, I can’t make it as I’m already scheduled to go to Vancouver for the $2700 main event of the BC Poker Championships that begins on… November 19th. But we’re just getting started.
The Commerce in Los Angeles is having their LA Poker Open, and their $2075 main event starts on November 20th. The Taj Mahal in Atlantic City is having their US Poker Championship, and their $5250 main event starts on November 20th. And finally, the Venetian in Las Vegas is having their Deep Stack Extravaganza, and their $2500 main event starts on November 23rd.
All in the same week, five different main events are happening. This hurts both the players hoping to play these events AND the casinos holding the events. I just don’t get it. Perhaps it’s bad luck in that each casino didn’t know what the other is doing, or perhaps it was intentional, with each casino hoping to steal players from the other casino by considering it a better choice for the player. Either way, I think this has to stop.
It keeps happening and nobody seems to be doing anything about. Where’s Matt Savage in all of this? Can’t the TDA board create some sort of poker tournament scheduling advisory council? This way, tournament series can be staggered and players can play multiple main events instead of having to choose.
Nerding out
So I just wrote a little Perl program and I thought I’d share it for any computer programmer people that may be reading this blog, as I think it’s pretty nifty.
I use Gmail for email, and I forward certain emails to my web server, which reformats the message and forwards it onto my cell phone as a text message. For example, if I receive a private message on a web forum, I’ll get a text message letting me know. This works great as if I am not at my computer, I can respond quicker since I know that I have this private message waiting, rather than finding out later that night when I get home. However, if I’m already online and have gmail open, I’ll see the private message AND I’ll get a text message about it. Kind of annoying.
Today I programmed the solution. In the script that reformats the message and sends it on to my cell, it first does a check to see if I’m already logged into Gmail, and if I am, it won’t send me a text. It was actually pretty easy… the script just logs into my Gmail and then looks for a string of text at the bottom of your inbox that tells you if you are logged in from other locations. If I am, then I’m reading my email. If I’m not, then my Gmail is not open and it will send the text.
The only problem I’ve found with this is that if I have just closed my email when a message comes through, it still thinks I’m logged in, so it won’t send a text. I’m willing to live with this, though, as most of the time I am saved the double message.
Told you I was nerding out.
What I’ve been up to lately
I sit now on a plane coming back to Las Vegas from London, finally with a few minutes to update my blog. I guess I’m proud to say that this is my first “sorry I haven’t updated my blog in awhile” post as I promised myself I’d keep up with my blog on a regular basis, and have just been entirely too busy to sit down and write about what I’ve been up to. Luckily, I’m not really apologizing for this, so I guess it’s not one of those posts.
I don’t even know how long it’s been since I posted, but until a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been grinding out daily tournaments at the Bellagio for about 4 days of the week, keeping the remaining days of the week to regain my sanity and explore other opportunities outside of poker for the day I wake up and get sick of playing for a living. I had a few weeks where I ran surprisingly well, winning two Bellagio dailies and chopping one. Since that streak, I’ve been running bad and seem to keep bubbling. The more I play, though, the more I begin to see the big picture of poker and can take a bad beat or some bad luck in stride, which is something I’ve been working on for the last year. Actually, I guess I’ve been working on that for my entire poker career.
For the last ten days I’ve been in London returning to my seat in front of a computer running stats for Poker Productions, the company that produces such poker television shows as High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark. This time they brought me on to do the World Series of Poker Europe, which was a grueling seven day in a row shoot. The tournaments were typically 13 hour days, with most of the 20 minute breaks being used to confirm chip counts on the feature table. The final day ran about 17 hours, and then I only got 4 hours of sleep before getting on a plane for the journey home.
I was able to bring along my girlfriend, though, and somehow we found a few minutes here and there to do some touristy stuff in London. We checked out Buckingham Palace and tried a few restaurants in the area surrounding the Casino at the Empire. I wish I had planned a few days after the shoot to vacation there, but I guess hindsight is 20/20 — I didn’t really realize the days would be so long.
This is the second “open” tournament I have covered, the last one being the USPC in 2006. Now that I am playing poker professionally, I was really able to use my time covering the table to watch how other players play. I discussed a few key hands each day with my colleague Bill, and I have gained a little insight on how good players AND bad players think. I wasn’t planning on this trip to be so educational, but it was, and now I find myself itching to get home and play some tournament poker. That’s good as I was lamenting returning to my “chosen” profession. And in the process, I picked up a few tells on Daniel Negreanu and feel like I have a good line on how Barry Shulman play. Too bad I don’t play the same stakes as them and won’t be seeing them at the table anytime soon. But you never know.
OK, the intercom is telling me to turn off my PC, so I guess I’ll write more later. Hopefully I’ll have a blog post about a Bellagio win shortly. 
