Sunday, March 30, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
March Madness
In what is easily my favorite sports weekend of the year, the first week of the NCAA tourney started off pretty dull on Thursday, but the next 3 days more than made up for it. There were many exciting finishes, and the Tampa sub-regional on Friday was crazy with two 12's and two 13's advancing. My only disappointment was Drake getting knocked out. I really had high hopes for them. They had everything I like in a team; but they played one of their worst games of the season. They still had a chance to win after battling back from 16 down with 8 minutes to go to tie it and take it to overtime. The buzzer beater to end overtime was hard to take.
In the only pool I'm in (ran by Mr. Thomas Fuller), I am in a tie for first place with Toph after a monster second round (I nailed 13 of the 16 picks). I have all of my Elite 8 picks alive, but my hopes mainly lie with Texas getting at least to the final game and Wisconsin making the final four (instead of Kansas).
In the only pool I'm in (ran by Mr. Thomas Fuller), I am in a tie for first place with Toph after a monster second round (I nailed 13 of the 16 picks). I have all of my Elite 8 picks alive, but my hopes mainly lie with Texas getting at least to the final game and Wisconsin making the final four (instead of Kansas).
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Congrats Toph!
Today Christopher "Toph" Moore took down the Wynn Classic for almost 700K. This was by far Toph's biggest win of his career, and apparently he owns the Wynn Classic (he placed third in the inagural event last year). Interestingly, the 2nd place finisher (Ryan Young) and Toph will both be staying in the house we rented in Vegas this summer for the WSOP. They didn't even know each other before this event.
Monday, March 10, 2008
What a Week!
Last week ended as it began on a very big high note. If you remember, Monday and Tuesday were one of my biggest 2-day stretches ever in cash games. This hot streak continued all week long, and by the end of Saturday, I was easily having my best week of cash games ever (about 80% above my previous best). On Sunday, I lost a little in cash games (but not much). However, the last tourney I played on the day satelitted me into the WSOP Main Event this summer along with $2,500 in spending cash. Thirty of the 617 players won entry. All in all, it was my second biggest week ever online (the best was when I got third in the Poker Stars Million last Spring).
In the satellite, I think I played one of my best tourneys ever as far as controlling risk and picking my spots well. In a seven hour tourney, I shoved allin and was called just once (at the 200/400 level by a nut when I had AK and he had KJ - he called a 5x shove there). I shoved allin over the top of someone 7 times (with AKs, 88, AJ -against nut, AQ, 33, and AQs and KK against different nut who was min-raising every hand near the bubble). The only other two big hands were when I called of 70% of my stack with AK at the 750/1500 level and won against AJ, and when I shoved allin for 75K w/ KK from the SB with 32 people against BB who had 50K. He snap called with AQ. I held and locked up a seat. Some of my preflop folds with between 40 and 50 people left were AK to an open and RR in front of me (RRer showed QQ), JJ to the same scenario, and AQ against big nut who basically min RR me. Rarely do I go through a tourney where there isn't a significant hand I truly wonder if I made the right play, but this was one of them.
Furthermore, yesterday Jason and Mandy both final tabled the UB Sunday 200K with Jason taking home the big prize for a sickening 3rd time in less than 1 1/2 years. I have officially started calling this tourney the UB 200Jay Guarantee. The only thing that could have made the day better was if Tom would have also qualified for the Main Event with me. He took a gross beat with 35 players left. A guy open shoved from the cutoff for about 15 BBs (I think), and Tom called with AA. Of course the shover's QTo sucked out to send Tom out on the bubble.
In the satellite, I think I played one of my best tourneys ever as far as controlling risk and picking my spots well. In a seven hour tourney, I shoved allin and was called just once (at the 200/400 level by a nut when I had AK and he had KJ - he called a 5x shove there). I shoved allin over the top of someone 7 times (with AKs, 88, AJ -against nut, AQ, 33, and AQs and KK against different nut who was min-raising every hand near the bubble). The only other two big hands were when I called of 70% of my stack with AK at the 750/1500 level and won against AJ, and when I shoved allin for 75K w/ KK from the SB with 32 people against BB who had 50K. He snap called with AQ. I held and locked up a seat. Some of my preflop folds with between 40 and 50 people left were AK to an open and RR in front of me (RRer showed QQ), JJ to the same scenario, and AQ against big nut who basically min RR me. Rarely do I go through a tourney where there isn't a significant hand I truly wonder if I made the right play, but this was one of them.
Furthermore, yesterday Jason and Mandy both final tabled the UB Sunday 200K with Jason taking home the big prize for a sickening 3rd time in less than 1 1/2 years. I have officially started calling this tourney the UB 200Jay Guarantee. The only thing that could have made the day better was if Tom would have also qualified for the Main Event with me. He took a gross beat with 35 players left. A guy open shoved from the cutoff for about 15 BBs (I think), and Tom called with AA. Of course the shover's QTo sucked out to send Tom out on the bubble.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
The Power of the Ace
I have been playing a lot of Omaha 8 recently. I have played a some 3/6 and 5/10 PLO8 and Limit O8 from 15/30 all the way up to 100/200. I really like this game when played short-handed. At a full ring game it is rather dull to me because it turns into a game of the nuts. Short-handed makes it much more exciting and very fast paced. I purchased the Poker Tracker software for Omaha to help shore up leaks in my game. I thought now was a good time to analyze some things because I have about 3800 hands in the software and I am up $400 (so basically break even). I was down a ton until I made some changes. I feel much better about my game now.
Anyone that knows the game understands that the Ace is the most powerful card in the deck by a mile. What this blog is aiming to do is to quantify how big it really is. The table below summarizes how various cards do in generic terms. The first chart is ranked by BB W/L/hand.
Card_Times Held_VPIP_Won $ (WSF)__Money W/L__Big Blinds W/L per hand
J_____ 1083____ 29%____ 42%______ -$12,071_______ -0.09
K_____ 1072____ 31%____ 42%______ -$8,171________ -0.08
9_____ 1115____ 25%____ 44%______ -$6,002________ -0.06
4_____ 1110____ 40%____ 46%______ -$4,950________ -0.05
6_____ 1104____ 31% ____49%______ -$4,350________ -0.03
T_____ 1079____ 29%____ 45%_______ $55_________ -0.01
8_____ 1041____ 28% ____48%______ $2,633_________ 0
Q_____ 1154____ 31% ____46%______ -$3,171_________ 0.01
5_____ 1058____ 38% ____46%_______ $759__________ 0.01
3_____ 1091____ 44% ____48%_______ $165__________ 0.03
2_____ 1131____ 42%____ 51%_______ $4,718_________ 0.05
7_____ 1070____ 29%____ 49%_______$4,881_________ 0.08
A_____1077____ 80%____ 54%______ $29,432 _________0.33
What's interesting about this is that the top 5 are all used as low cards, and the bottom 3 are all high cards. Furthermore, all 8 possible low cards are the top 8 in Won $ when saw flop %. There are a couple statistical anomalies. I think the 4 should be doing much better. Maybe I am overplaying some hands (most notably A4) and getting second best too often. However, the 7 being my second best category is an obvious anomaly. I'm sure I've won some huge pots along the way that coincidently had 7's in it, but I expect it to fall down to the 6th to 8th place over time.
One thing to consider with all of these, is that many of the hands I do play with say a 6 in it also has an ace. This leads me to the most notable statistic in my opinion:
Hands __Times__ VPIP___ Won $ (WSF)___ Money W/L____ BB W/L per hand
w/ an A _1077___ 80%____ 54%_________ $29,432__________ 0.33
w/o an A_2810__ 19%_____ 39%________ -$28,875__________ -0.11
and even if you only look at the hands I saw flops with
w/ an A_ 858________________________ $32,459__________ 0.45
w/o an A_539________________________ $1,129__________ -0.03
By looking at this data (along with many other studies) I think I have improved my short-handed game, and I expect all of these numbers to improve over time. However, one thing will never change and that is the immense power of the Ace in Omaha 8.
Anyone that knows the game understands that the Ace is the most powerful card in the deck by a mile. What this blog is aiming to do is to quantify how big it really is. The table below summarizes how various cards do in generic terms. The first chart is ranked by BB W/L/hand.
Card_Times Held_VPIP_Won $ (WSF)__Money W/L__Big Blinds W/L per hand
J_____ 1083____ 29%____ 42%______ -$12,071_______ -0.09
K_____ 1072____ 31%____ 42%______ -$8,171________ -0.08
9_____ 1115____ 25%____ 44%______ -$6,002________ -0.06
4_____ 1110____ 40%____ 46%______ -$4,950________ -0.05
6_____ 1104____ 31% ____49%______ -$4,350________ -0.03
T_____ 1079____ 29%____ 45%_______ $55_________ -0.01
8_____ 1041____ 28% ____48%______ $2,633_________ 0
Q_____ 1154____ 31% ____46%______ -$3,171_________ 0.01
5_____ 1058____ 38% ____46%_______ $759__________ 0.01
3_____ 1091____ 44% ____48%_______ $165__________ 0.03
2_____ 1131____ 42%____ 51%_______ $4,718_________ 0.05
7_____ 1070____ 29%____ 49%_______$4,881_________ 0.08
A_____1077____ 80%____ 54%______ $29,432 _________0.33
What's interesting about this is that the top 5 are all used as low cards, and the bottom 3 are all high cards. Furthermore, all 8 possible low cards are the top 8 in Won $ when saw flop %. There are a couple statistical anomalies. I think the 4 should be doing much better. Maybe I am overplaying some hands (most notably A4) and getting second best too often. However, the 7 being my second best category is an obvious anomaly. I'm sure I've won some huge pots along the way that coincidently had 7's in it, but I expect it to fall down to the 6th to 8th place over time.
One thing to consider with all of these, is that many of the hands I do play with say a 6 in it also has an ace. This leads me to the most notable statistic in my opinion:
Hands __Times__ VPIP___ Won $ (WSF)___ Money W/L____ BB W/L per hand
w/ an A _1077___ 80%____ 54%_________ $29,432__________ 0.33
w/o an A_2810__ 19%_____ 39%________ -$28,875__________ -0.11
and even if you only look at the hands I saw flops with
w/ an A_ 858________________________ $32,459__________ 0.45
w/o an A_539________________________ $1,129__________ -0.03
By looking at this data (along with many other studies) I think I have improved my short-handed game, and I expect all of these numbers to improve over time. However, one thing will never change and that is the immense power of the Ace in Omaha 8.
Craziness
The last few days have been a complete roller coaster for me in poker and in life. I had one of my worst two day stretches followed immediately by one of my best two day stretches. My daughter broke her wrist (she is fine, but will be in a cast for a few weeks). We had 75 degree weather over the weekend, and then Monday night and Tuesday we had freezing rain, sleet and 6 inches of snow (with more supposed to come later this week).
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