veeRob’s Blog

Whew… a month since my last blog post? Yeah, I’ve been super busy. Just like a rapper heads back into the lab every year or so, I went back to work running stats for Poker Productions. We filmed a week and a half of Poker After Dark and three days of High Stakes Poker. I’m not at liberty to speak about what went on, but rest assured that some great TV was made. I’ll be tuning in to see a bit of it, which is a pretty strong endorsement as I rarely watch poker on TV anymore.

In between tapings, I was able to escape to San Diego for my oldest cousin’s wedding. This was our (small) family’s first big event, and it was pretty fun. My aunt did a fantastic job organizing the wedding (with some assistance from my sister), and her candy buffet was a huge hit. Congratulations are definitely in order to Erica and her new husband Adam.

After filming was complete, I got right back to playing poker and entered a few Venetian and Bellagio tournaments. No love there, but I did make a final table of a Caesars $1k right before we started filming Poker After Dark. I got 4th, and I think I would have won had I not had my QQ cracked by 77 for a huge pot.

That brings us up to last week, when I traveled to Vancouver for the BC Poker Championships. I ran really well for most of the first day, and then I went completely card dead. On day 2, I ran QQ into AA, AQ into AK, lost a race with AQ against 22, and finally ran AQ into QQ. It’s very hard to win tournaments when the deck is so stacked against you.

The River Rock Casino did run a great tournament, however, and I plan to come back next year, hopefully for longer. They did have a few problems (bag + tag took forever, dealers were encouraging players to stall the clock), but the field size was amazing for the buy-in size and most of my complaints could be resolved with a little better planning.

The extra days off in Vancouver were nice as it was right after my girlfriend’s birthday, so we got a rental car and toured the city. It was a bit rainier than we had hoped, but we made the best of it, trying a few restaurants we discovered on Yelp and walking around when the rain let up. Granville Island on the last day of our trip was definitely the highlight.

Now we’re on our way to Arizona for a double Thanksgiving — one for each parent. After that we hop back in the car and head to San Diego for the long-awaited Transit War & Spell Toronto reunion show. Looking forward to that, and more importantly, getting back to Vegas and concentrating on grinding out some Bellagio Five Diamond tournaments. Til then…

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?

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.

Well this is a new one for me… I’m here to write a review of the iPhone (and iPod Touch) application PokerZig that a few friends of mine took a part in putting together.  Even stranger, I was bullied into downloading this application, so rather than getting paid, it costs me $1.99 to do this review.  But that’s ok… I was offered to be reimbursed, but I’m happy to support my friends.

If you don’t already know, PokerZig is an app that will allow you to find a live tournament in Las Vegas that suits your needs.  It does a decent job of doing so, as loading the app instantly shows you a list of upcoming tournaments, including time, venue, and buyin.  Clicking on a tournament gives you more information such as the average number of players, duration, starting chips, typical 1st place, and what % of the buyin goes to the house.  It also shows a rating from 1 to 5 chips (stars), though it’s very unclear who’s rating the tournament.  My first instinct was to go to the Bellagio tournament I play often and give it five stars like I do when listening to music, but it did not allow me to click to give it my rating.

It was then that I realized that I couldn’t click on hardly anything.  If I played a tournament that reported 40 average players and the day I played it got 20, I would love to click on the app and update a database somewhere so that the average would be better reflected for myself and future users.  This is one area that I think the app would be very useful for if a handful of players continually updated them, as the information available on the Internet won’t necessarily be 100% accurate.  If this application let you see past # of entrants and averages, it would be very useful.  For example, I tried to play a Wynn tournament that the Internet told me had an average of 30 players, yet on the night I showed up, it didn’t run.  Had I known via PokerZig that other players had run into this problem or that the field could sometimes be 10 people, I wouldn’t have ever showed up.

Another problem with this application is that at the bottom of the screen, you only have the option to see tournaments by date, by event series (they call it “majors”), or by casino.  I didn’t see an option to see tournaments sorted by buyin.  I want to play higher buyins, but recreational players may want a buyin in a certain range.  Another great option that I use on AllVegasPoker’s tournament listings is sorting by vig, so that I can find the tournaments that take the least amount out of the prize pool.  There is no reason why this app can’t integrate sorting by both buyin or vig.

Going further, I’d like to see this app offer a filter, rather than just sorting.  For example, I’d like to be able to pull up a screen to find a tournament with a buyin from $100 to $200, with a vig of 18% or lower, and between 11am and 5pm.  With all of the sliders I see on the iPhone, I see no reason why this wouldn’t be an easy task to program.  And, for completeness, why not have a “pick a tournament for me” option where you can shake your iPod and it will spin a wheel and pick a tournament that’s starting within the next hour.

Lastly, the app fails to make use of the location services available on the iPhone.  I believe the app could be programmed so that it would know where you were, and you could list tournaments sorted by proximity.  That way, if you were playing at Bellagio and busted out, you could see where the closest tournaments are that were coming up in the next few hours.

Now the question is will I continue to use it?  Unfortunately, for me, the answer is no.  See, I don’t own an iPhone, just an iPod Touch.  I would use it if I busted from a tournament and was looking for another tournament to get into, but I’d need Wifi to be able to do this.  If I had an iPhone, I would definitely be making use of this app in the future.  I encourage the developers to consider porting the application to Windows Mobile so I can use it on my Touch Pro.

So after my blog post and my tweeting about my displeasure with the World Poker Showdown not being up front with the fees they are taking, the Hard Rock poker room has been tweeting incorrect information in protest to my tweets.  Here’s the two tweets I take exception to:

ALL tournaments take 3% out for Mega Stacks. Line 1 of Mega Stack Poker Showdown payout SHEET DISCLOSES the 3%. Just read it~No SECRET

This comment is just blatantly wrong.  The “fact sheet” discloses the 3%, but the payout sheet and all of the promotional materials do not.

the wps tournaments take the same out as everywhere else maybe less! ever do the math on what they take out at the wsop? or the venetion?

Bad spelling aside, this is wrong as well.  In past “Deep Stack” tournament series, Venetian has taken 14.4% from their $340’s, which is $49.  $30 goes to the house, $10 goes to the staff add-on, and $9 (3% of the $300 buyin) goes to the staff.

As for the World Series, this year’s structure sheets show that they take anywhere from 6% to 10%, depending upon the buyin.  For the stimulus event, which was $1000 to enter (not $1000 plus some fee), they removed 10% total — 7% or $70 for the house and 3% or $30 for the staff.  For the $10,000 Main Event, they removed a mere 6% total — $420 (4.2%) for the house and $180 (1.8%) for the staff.  With a bigger buyin tournament with a bigger field, they’re making it up in volume, so they can afford to have a lower tournament fee.

To compare this to the World Poker Showdown at the Hard Rock, they’re charging $10 more than the Venetian did for their $300 events, which makes the tournament fee 16.9%.  To review, they’re charging $40 for the house, $10 for the staff add-on, and $9 (3% of the $300 buyin) for the staff.  On top of them having the highest fees for a tournament series here in Las Vegas, the Hard Rock seems to be missing the point that I am upset that they were not upfront and honest in what they were taking out, and their higher rake led me to believe they were not removing 3%, which would have made their tournament fee a much more reasonable 14.3% ($50 / $350).

Unfortunately, as I said before, the Venetian has posted their schedule for their upcoming Deep Stack series in November, and their $300 events have moved from $330 to $340, making their fees equal to what the World Poker Showdown is charging now.  Venetian seemed to influence the poker industry with its deep stack structures, so I am afraid that they may set a trend of getting away with charging $10 more for $300 events.

To summarize:

• WSOP = 6% to 10% withheld from buyin due to larger buyins & field size (fully disclosed on structure sheet)
  
• Venetian (past events) = 14.4% withheld from their $340’s (fully disclosed on schedule)
  
• World Poker Showdown = 16.9% withheld from their $350’s (not fully disclosed on structure sheet)
  

Yesterday was the most upset I’ve been leaving a poker room after cashing in a tournament that I can recall, and I’m ready to blog about it to give you all the details.

There’s a company called World Poker Showdown that runs one to two week tournament series for poker players that have smaller bankrolls — anywhere from $100 to $500 events with main events that are a few thousand.  Friday started their series at the Hard Rock in conjunction with the Canadian Poker Tour, who they partnered with in the Dominican Republic for a similar series earlier in the year.   As I had no poker tournament scheduled for this month, I was excited about the prospect, though hesitant about what the turnout might be.

On Friday I played event #1, a $300 buyin, which got 93 runners.   I busted out short of the money and ended up heading back on Saturday for event #2, a $500 buyin.  This tournament got a dismal 31 entrants.  I ended up taking 4th place for a paltry $1500 after 14 1/2 hours of play.  Prior to playing the tournament, I read all of the flyers in the poker room to understand what they were offering and how everything works.  The flyer they were disseminating showed a $340 buyin and a $550 buyin for events #1 and #2.  Compared to the Venetian’s most recent Deep Stack series, the Hard Rock’s $340 buyin was slightly higher than the Venetian’s $330.  When I showed up to the cage, I learned that there was a $10 “optional” dealer add-on that wasn’t listed on the flyer, so it ended up being a $350 tournament.  Venetian also has this option.

My real problem lies in the fact that Hard Rock, WPS, and CPT hid the fact that they were removing 3% for dealer staff without telling anyone.  Not one of the promotional flyers I have seen, nor the payout structure sheet inside the Hard Rock poker room, lists this 3% fee.  Further, the payout sheet shows the breakdowns for a 31 person tournament as paying 5 places and adds up to 100% payout, not 97%.  My 4th place finish was listed as 10% of the prize pool, which should have been $1550 ($500 x 31 = $15500 x 10%).  When the floor explained to me about the 3% fee, he could not show me anything that explained this.  He had to call the owner of the WPS to find out that it was listed on a separate sheet in the back of the poker titled “fact sheet.”  Even still, they apparently decided to “round down” the payouts to make a few extra bucks, as $1500 x 97% = $1503.50, not $1500.  Yes, it’s only a few dollars, but where is it going?  The other players aren’t as observant as I, so I estimate that the Hard Rock will make an additional $30-$80 per tournament if they keep rounding down like that.  I only hope that the dealers and floormen are pocketing this money and not the Hard Rock corporation.

Now I’m sure I’ll come off as a complainer by posting all of these facts, and that’s fine, I am definitely complaining.  But to clarify, my issue is not that they’re taking out 3%.  My issue is that this fact is hidden and not listed upfront.  On top of that, they’re still doing poor math, which I can only hope was a brief oversight for my one tournament.  On top of THAT, they’re charging more than “industry standard” for their $300’s.  I guess that’s the way things are going, however, as the posted buyins for the next Venetian Deep Stack show $340’s taking the place of $330’s.  Perhaps Matt Savage can explain to me why it’s costing more to run a lower priced buyin event.  I again commend Venetian for giving out $10 food comps with every tournament entry, which effectively lowers their buy-in price by $10 as I am usually at a tournament long enough to need to eat a meal.

I will say that though this is the first real tournament series the Hard Rock is running, they’re doing a good job of it so far.  The floorman I dealt with (I apologize for forgetting his name) was very reasonable and understood my concerns about the 3% as well as other issues, like introducing unscheduled breaks that prolonged the tournament.  The dealers were overall pretty good, though not well-versed with the TDA Rules as they are primarily a cash game room.  My advice to the TD’s is to educate their dealers a little better on this, especially concerning collusion as a lot of these players seem to play together on a regular basis and talk a lot about playing their favorite hand or other forms of unintentional collusion.

I had said last night that I will not be playing any more of these tournaments.  After discussing it rationally with my roommate, I was reminded that the players are bad and there is still good value in them, even if I feel lied to since the fees were not listed up front.  I may play more of these, but I will certainly be scaling back in the number of them that I will play.

So I just came across a link the other day to a PocketFives recap from day 4 of the World Series of Poker.  You can check it out at http://www.pocketfiveslive.com/perelman-bluffed-seat-literally-6130/.  While I appreciate the press since I’m a relative nobody, and I appreciate having one of only a few pictures of me at a poker table, it made me revisit a hand that I misplayed.

As PocketFives relayed, a player in early position raised to 8500 at 2k/4k blinds and another player called from middle position.  I was on the button with AhTh, and I elected to call.  Both players had me covered, and we were a few hours shy of heading into the money in the Main Event, so it made no sense to reraise.  We had just started the day, and I didn’t have a great read on either player.  Folding seemed to weak here, so I called.

The flop came A75 with two spades, and the preflop raiser checked.  The player in MP, who I Googled the night before and surmised was a decent player, bet out.  I smooth called, feeling like I had the best hand, but wanting to see what the early position player did.  He folded, so there was no trap here.

The turn paired the 7, and my opponent checked.  I thought for a bit, and settled upon betting, and this was my big mistake in the hand.  While I correctly had read my opponent for a draw and decided I had the best hand, it was a bad idea to bet.  If he folded, I picked up the pot, sure.  But if he raised, he’d be putting me to a decision for all my chips.  Can I really call for all my chips with AT before the money bubble has bursted?  Hell no.  Even worse, this was day 4 of the Main Event, meaning that the players that have lasted this long are fairly decent player.  My opponent could check raise with any two cards here and be relatively certain that I would fold, knowing that I can’t risk my tournament life before making the money.

As the story goes, he did indeed check raise me.  I didn’t take too long to fold, as even though I realized that this was a bluff probably around 80% of the time, I just can’t go all in here.  If I do, he would have been priced in to call, and he could have a 7, 55, or a flush draw that could hit on the river.  After I folded the player was all too excited to show his bluff — a gutshot straight draw with 42.

Luckily, I’ve gained a lot of emotional calmness this year, and the bluff really didn’t affect me.  If anything, I was only upset at myself for making the bet on the turn, which I realized was an error before he made his check raise.  The correct play would have been to check behind and then call any normal-sized bet on the river.  If a 3 hit, he wins the pot and I’m still in.  If anything else hits, he tries to bluff me and fails, and I have more chips to head into the money to fight with.

All in all, it’s really not that band of a hand.  I made a bad bet when I should have checked, even though I read the situation 100% correct in that I had the best hand.  One of the things about getting better at poker is realizing all of the situations and mindsets of yourself and other opponents, and I underestimated my opponent in this hand.  Luckily, I can learn from this mistake and not make it next year, or even in tournaments leading up to next year’s World Series.

Well, for those who didn’t hear, I played and cashed in the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event.  After living here for five years, I finally got a chance to play after winning a $550 mega satellite the day before the Main Event begun.  Overall, I’m fairly happy with my play.  I made it to day 4 and got 530th place for $23,196, a fairly decent return on my original $550 investment.

On day 1 I had 99 vs 77 get all in on a 975 flop, so that was lucky.  I also won a big pot when I played pocket aces a little tricky.

On day 2 I hit a very lucky hand when I played AT aggressively and made a straight against a guy’s slow played pocket aces.  Then I got very unlucky when a player decided to gamble with his AT against my AK and hit his ten.  That knocked me down, but before the day was done I was able to double up with AA vs 8h7h all in preflop

On day 3 I slowly burned away chips until I doubled up with 8c5c after a guy pushed all in on an 855X board with 3 hearts — he turned a flush.  After that, I was pretty much card dead through the end of the day.

Day 4 was the day where we broke the money bubble, so I had planned to be cautious until we were in the money.  Unfortunately, I found myself forced to push all in with pocket queens twice and AQ once before the money hit.  Scary stuff, but I was forced to.  I did misplay AT, though, when I bet an ace high board and knew a guy would run a bluff on me — he did.

My demise came when I raised with AsTs and one of the blinds called.  When the flop came Kc8c6h and he checked, I checked behind, planning on being done with the hand.  The turn came the Th, and he checked again.  With this draw heavy board, he isn’t likely to check top pair or a set twice, so I put out a bet now figuring second pair would be good.  He surprised me with a check raise, forcing me to fold or go all in.  I chatted with him, and it became clear to me that he checked with the intention of seeing a free river card, but now that I had bet, he decided to put me to the test.  I ended up going all in, and he called showing KhQh.  I was right that he had a flush draw, but I was unlucky that he had top pair to go with it.  The hand makes perfect sense.  Unfortunately when I read him for a flush draw, I had to gamble that he didn’t have a hand like this… I actually thought I was more likely to see something like Tc9c.  Oh well.

For my first year playing the Main Event, it was definitely liberating to have cashed.  I received a lot of pats on the back the next day in the Dream Team Poker tournament, and a ton of Twitter and Facebook kudos.  Hopefully next year I can duplicate my run and improve upon it.

Well, I’m pretty excited.  Less than 12 hours from now I will be taking my seat in the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event!  I won my seat in one of the last mega satellites down yesterday at the Rio for only a $550 buy-in.  When I moved to Las Vegas four years ago, I wanted to play in the Main Event.  After trying to qualify since then in tournaments within my bankroll, I have finally succeeded.

I wasn’t too impressed with the mega satellite structure.  With only 30 minute levels, I found myself short stacked after not picking up hands and then losing AK vs A5.  I ended up pushing all-in without looking at my cards, and a guy called me with QT.  I had J9 and got lucky when the board came 678TK.  I got lucky again a few levels later when played a hand poorly and reraised a guy all in with AQ and he had AK — I spiked a queen to survive and double up.  I got one more double up when I had QQ vs 88.  After that, it was mostly smooth sailing until there were 25 of us left, with the tournament awarding 25 seats.

I’m playing Day 1B, which is the 4th of July.  Unfortunately they don’t celebrate the holiday in Vegas like they do in San Diego, so I’m not missing too much.  And the first day of the Main Event is a short day, so I may even make it outside in time for fireworks… we’ll see.  Either way, I’ll be posting updates on Twitter & Facebook, so feel free to check my status there, or on pokernews.com.  Good luck, me!

I played my last WSOP tournament of the year yesterday, and unfortunately I didn’t even survive to the dinner break.  I flopped a set of 9’s and my opponent flopped a straight on a J98 board.  In a lot of no limit tournaments, you just have to avoid coolers like this.  I failed to do so.  Not a huge deal, but definitely a disappointment as event #54 was my last chance to have a shot at a bracelet for this year’s WSOP.  I cashed in the opening $1k tournament, and then failed to cash in four $1500 events.  I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised considering the fields were 2500+, but it would have been nice to have a second cash to keep my confidence up.

Seeing as how I have not found any offers to be backed for the Main Event, I guess I’ll be going another year without playing it.  There’s a handful of Venetian tournaments left, so I’ll probably be playing those as much as I can before I take a couple weeks off to visit with family and relax.