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Not that I’m especially bothered, but qualifying for the Main Event would have been something to aim for, even though I’d have taken any opportunity to cash in my ten large and play smaller tournaments with it instead. The World Series of Poker 2008 will take place between May 30th and July 17th 2008. I’ll roll into town a few days after all that. Oh well… The reason it feels like I’ve been offline for the past week or so if that my home office is being reconstructed. After nearly four years of stepping over boxes that I hadn’t quite unpacked since moving in, as well as the debris from my organic, floor-level filing system, the time has come to do things properly. As part of my re-fit, I’m getting the mother of all desks. For reasons that the picture should make obvious, it’s not assembled yet, but this is what it looks like laid out on the floor. The long side is a whopping 2.2m, almost bigger than the room itself and certain to present a very interesting challenge when it comes to flipping the thing over after it’s been built.
Nice job with the end pieces, Ikea. This is "full serve" furniture so I didn’t even have chance to make that mistake myself, it took a trained professional to cock it up. Why would you think to look in the box to make sure everything is the same colour, really? The picture is distorted a little because I used a super-wide lens, and this also adds an element of terrifying perspective to an already scary carpet. It didn’t seem quite so brown in the shop, I promise. When the carpet fitter was here, he saw that I was working downstairs with my desk set up on the card table and talk quickly turned to poker and I got the obligatory bad beat story. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Pocket aces flops a set, big stack villian pushes with suited trash, runner-runner flush. "It’s like they can see what cards are coming", he said. "My mate says there’s a program you can download so you see what everyone else has got even if they fold". Presumably his mate has heard about the alleged super-user access in Absolute Poker. Either that, or he’s going to fall for a bullshit scam like this (and I realise by linking to the site I’ve just helped to increase its Google rank, but really if you’re daft enough to pay them money, you deserve all the trojans that it’s bound to come with).
I also found out he plays most nights on PKR or William Hill and enjoys six-tabling $1 sit-and-gos with a bottle of vodka. It’s an activity that that I’ll try to review in due course, but sounds like it’s something that needs a name of it’s own. I’m going to go with Absolut Poker. Ithankyou. Word is out that Dusk Till Dawn have finally been granted their casino license this afternoon. There’s such excitement that the Blonde Poker forum has effectively crashed right now – it just took a good five minutes to load this thread with the announcement, which already contains about 300 pages of awesome MySpace-style graphics or armies of clever dancing smilies congratulating them, with other wittily appropriate comments like "ship it". The Nottingham card room should now open in November. Good luck to them – they’ll need it. The delay to the opening, originally planned for April, is thanks to objections from three major casino chains (two of which did not even have a casino in Nottingham when they protested) and has already cost an estimated £100,000 a month. Building the club before being given permission to operate was a fantastic business decision. They’re also still adamant that no house-banked casino games will take place on the property, even though the full casino license that has been granted would allow them to do this. It is to be a poker-only venue, and poker – particularly low-cost, well structured, dealer-dealt tournaments that the majority of their pre-registration members will be expecting – is just about the least profitable game that a casino can offer. Winning a license to print money but choosing to produce only a handful of fivers is another fantastic business decision. The club will have all the overheads of a casino, but without any of the cash cows. We’ll just have to wait and see just how soon blackjack and roulette are introduced "due to popular demand". Meantime, they could use the the "session fee" loophole to charge whatever they need to do to survive, but thanking members for their support in showing that there is indeed enough demand to warrant a casino license by stinging them with a 30% or higher rake just doesn’t seem right. So they’ll probably have to rely on live action for revenue. Since September 1st, cash games can be raked or charged hourly – and how. I picked up a copy of the new charge schedule at the Vic at the weekend, where they’re more than happy to lighten the wallets of rich Londoners by up to £15 per hour – and that’s without a dealer! If people in the East Midlands are desparate for a game of cards, then maybe they’ll pay that too. The Vic has a dice table. Just the one tucked away in the corner, but nevertheless it’s the first I’ve seen in a UK casino, amid the gazillions of electronic roulette stations. The roulette there has two video feeds from separate wheels and you can pick which one to bet on. This gives punters a reason to play on two adjacent machines at the same time – for the multi-tabling professional. Vij had come along on Saturday to watch me set fire to his 5% and clearly had the urge to lose more money after he’d seen me bust out of the poker. Craps was going to be his game of choice, although he’d mostly forgotten how to bet – and how to keep the dice on the table! So Vij concentrated on trying to shoot while I got to call the bets with his money. The thing with craps is that it has to be a busy, rowdy table to be fun. Well, the two of us made it three (although that miserable bastard wouldn’t bet unless he was shooting) and at one point there were as many as five people standing around the table. We didn’t quite reach critical mass to keep the game going and hi-fiving and shouting were unsurprisingly not present, but if there was even a little bit of a vibe I’d probably have wanted to stay longer. The game wasn’t that bad at all. They only allow single odds but with 50p and 20p chips in play you don’t get penalised for only betting the minimum. Place the 6 and 8 for £3 each and you win £3.50 when it hits. If you can still find a $3 craps game in Vegas (clue: it’s not on the Strip) you won’t get any change when you press a winning place bet to $6.
Without the change, there’d be no point taking odds on a £3 line bet for any number other than a 4 or 10, but a 6-5 true odds bet pays £1.20 for every pound behind the line. The English denominations actually work out pretty well for the small-timers. They definitely don’t let you bump up the bet to get a round payout – I tried! – and when I only put £2 down for 3-2, the dealers really didn’t know whether that was allowed. To prevent all hell from breaking loose, just make sure your odds bet is the same amount as your line bet. Frustratingly, hardways had the same £3 minimum as all the other bets, so there was no chance of a heroic parlay with loose change. The odds were pretty good though (for sucker bets) giving 9.5-1 on the hard 6 and 8 and 7.5-1 on the hard 4 and 10. The deliberately confusing 10-for-1 and 8-for-1 in Vegas actually mean a payoff of 9-1 and 7-1 respectively for a house edge of about 9% or 11% – one of the worst bets in the casino. These adjustments halve the edge, and if only they had made it a quid minimum I’d play a hard six or eight with 4.5% juice all day long. I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t know how to adjust to the standard of play in the EPT satellites. Particularly on Sunday, it seems I had a lot to learn. The following mania all happened during level 2 (blinds 50/100). The under-the-gun player raises to 350. A frustrated Scandinavian calls and the next player re-raises to 900. The re-raiser only has 700 left, so he’s going nowhere and I’m suspicious about why he hasn’t just moved all-in already. I find pocket jacks in the cut-off. It’s the best hand I got to see in either tournament, but with an UTG raiser who has me well covered, it’s not a good spot to gamble my stack so I fold. UTG makes the powerplay of a smooth call. Obviously he wants to take the flop 3-way, but the other guy dissapoints him. Naturally with a pot of over 2000, the remaining 700 gets thrown in on a low flop. We see the re-raiser’s pocket 9s hold up against UTG’s T8s. Lessons learned: Pocket pairs are always raising hands. Folding to a re-raise is weak. I stayed out of the way for this one. All folded to the button who raised to 350. He had 98o, but the steal attempt is OK. Big blind defends with J5, a little stubborn but in fact the best hand. Soulscan successful. When the flop comes J97, carnage ensues. BB check-raises all-in with his monster top pair and the button decides it’s a great idea to not get pushed around, calling his last 4000 chips to win about 6000 with a gutshot and middle pair. Seat open. Lessons learned: Always defend your blind by calling out of position with garbage. Folding a straight draw is weak. That bustee had used up all his luck in an earlier hand when he had raised small preflop with pocket aces, followed by a massive all-in overbet on a 952 flop. Just go ahead and tell everybody how strong you were before the flop and hope nobody caught up. For sure you won’t get called now unless they got very lucky to outflop you. But outflopped he was, by pocket 2s. Then turn 5, river 5 put him back in front in the cruelest way possible. Next, I limp after three others with 67s. One more player calls and the short stack big blind moves all in. I’m starting to get desparate and wonder if there’s any reason to call here after it’s folded back to me. I decide it’s not even close – the pot odds aren’t good and the raiser has been quite tight. In fact, in the land of the results-oriented, my 67 would have made a straight. I know this because the player on the button called and also made the straight with 63o. Pocket aces went home. Lessons learned: Limp with any old shit if you have position. Folding once you have put chips in the pot is weak. I didn’t survive long into level 3. In fact the levels were a complete trainwreck. We were sent on a break at what I thought was the end of level 2, but when we got back it was still the same level. "Another 2 minutes at this level", they announced. About fifteen minutes later, the blinds actualy went up. In level 3, blinds are 100/200. The only reason there are still t25 chips in play is that antes kick in on level 4. And to think I was worried that I might not be able to make an 8pm train home if I did well. I was down to a thousand and change on my small blind and with 3 limpers already wanting to take a cheap look I completed with 78s. The big blind pays no attention to the action so far and makes it 500 to go. One of the limpers now decides to fold, but two do come along for the ride. Having been unable to find any spots to gather chips so far and expecting to be called if I actually get chance to open-push in the next orbit, I decide I have to play this hand. I could call and close the betting, then be the first to throw my chips at any flop that looks good, but I don’t fancy pulling a stop-and-go against three other players, and with less than 1/5th of the pot size left to bet. By moving all-in here, I want to re-open the betting to allow the agreesor to isolate, and leave plenty of dead money in the pot to give a reasonable payoff if my second-best hand improves. Not a superb situation to be in, but I’d run out of time and couldn’t expect to see much better. In fact we take a flop four ways, and it doesn’t really surprise me – even though one of the callers has left himself with just 300 chips now. Never mind. I’m right back in the game if I get lucky here. Flop: 89T with two spades – a pair and open ended straight draw. Could be worse, until I see the other cards. 67 is loving his made straight and I can only split with him. But we’re both actually drawing dead to QJ in spades – the current nuts with a flush draw to boot. So there ends my EPT journey. £660 for less than three hours of poker. Next year, I think I’ll probably not bother. I’ve had to set this all up in advance in case I can’t get online while I’m in London. Haven’t even decided if I’m taking my laptop yet, because I can’t check into my hotel until after 1pm and the tournament starts at – obviously – 1pm. So I think I’ll have to travel light. So here is the live update graph for the benefit of the new and improved 11-man Team Donut: Darren, David, Geoff, Jill, Kevin, Larry, Matt, Paul, Rich, Vicky and Vij. I should get some football shirts made up or something. Who wants to be goalie?
As things stand, I didn’t quite raise enough stake to play both satellites although it’s close (24% sold, I would need at least 30%) so there’s a chance that I will get more and still be able to play them both anyway. But unless I post here otherwise before kick off, or use one of the first text messages to my chip count graph to announce that I’ll be playing on both Saturday and Sunday, it’s just the one satellite this time. I realised that it would be unfair to wait until after I’ve played the first tournament to see if I could convince myself to make up the shortfall, so I have to make this decision before things get going. I have to draw a line somewhere, and I did originally say that it was 30%. As promised, I’ll refund your stake if you only wanted to be involved with the two chances of qualification, rather than the larger share from one satellite. Just make sure a message lands in my mailbox or post a comment here before 1pm Saturday. I had no joy trying to book a free train this Saturday so I’ll end up travelling on an open ticket, which makes me pretty flexible and so I’ll take donations right up until the last minute. It could still happen! 🙂 The chap I spoke to at Virgin Trains said he had no idea why every single West Coast train to and from London on Saturday was restricted (Friday and Sunday were just fine) but agreed with me that it was very strange. Something must be going on, but I don’t know what. Usually you can book a ticket right up to 6pm the night before; the seaside trains tend to have limited availability for comp tickets but I’ve not had to pay to get to London at the weekend in a long time! EDIT @ 9am: I’ve made the 30% so it’s two satellites as planned. Team list above updated 🙂 After my spectacular break-even performance at the Orleans Open in July, I’ve decided to put together another sponsorship package for anybody who fancies a piece of my action. It was great fun last time (not just for me, I’m told) with the live chip graphs and all the winning. So let’s give it another shot. Well actually I’ll be trying to putting something together along the same lines for my Christmas Vegas trip. I doubt there will be a festival on – it’s very unlikely over Christmas week (as it’s the quietest time of year) or over New Years (as everybody is too busy getting drunk, or getting their tits out, or watching others get their tits out) – so I’ve not quite worked it out yet. I’m thinking it will probably be a crawl along four of the major cardrooms, playing whatever the best value tournament is at each. It’s only a ten day trip, but I’m sure I can figure something out. In the meantime, I’ve come up with another adventure to share. This time it’s a real shot at greatness and fortune – albeit a long shot. And I’ve left it until rather late to start begging for money too. Two weeks today – Saturday September 21st – I intend to play a £330 super-satellite at The Vic to try to win entry into the EPT London Main Event. That’s a £5500 buy-in, so there’ll be one seat awarded for every 18 players in the satellite. I’m quite keen to double my chances of getting there by having two attempts to qualify via a satellite, and so I’m going to sell myself off in small chunks to try to get there. Here’s the deal. The bankroll I need for the two days rounds up to £700. That’s 2x £330 for the poker, and I’ll use the other £40 towards accomodation in London – I don’t think that’s exactly taking the piss. A 1% share will therefore cost £7.00. I take many different payment methods – but a player-to-player transfer on a poker site is usually the easiest, and makes it easy to pay out winnings too. BUY A STAKE IN ME AT THE EUROPEAN POKER TOUR FOR JUST £7.00! That was for the benefit of anyone who was just skimming the blog. They’ll go back and read this entry in ful now, maybe. Ideally I want to sell 50% – a pretty big chunk, but that way I’ll still be paying the same amount to play as I was always going to but will have doubled my chances of making it to the Main Event. This is more about the chance of getting to play in a major tournament than it is about winning a life-changing jackpot. Although half of £750,000 isn’t exactly insignificant… However, with just two weeks to go I’ll be amazed if I come anywhere close to that. So: If I sell 30% or more (£210) then I’ll definitely play two satellites. It’ll cost me no more than £450 for the two stabs, and that’s just about within my budget. If I sell less than 30%, I’ll only play one satellite. I’ll offer backers the option to take double their percentage in the single tournament, or to withdraw completely for a refund. So if you bought 5% for £35 and I only played one satellite, you’d could actually end up owning 10% of me when I make it into the money and onto the TV table. With Vicky Coren sitting to both my left and my right, hopefully. If I intend to play two satellites but win a seat in the first one, then I can’t double the percentages, or I’d end up with nothing left for myself! So in that case if I was allowed to play the second and sell the seat, I would. Otherwise I’d play another £330 tournament, like the second-chance event at the Vic on Saturday 29th. Sounds good doesn’t it 🙂 To get involved or if you think you can pick holes in my masterplan, email chris at luckydonut.com. We’re in the money! From 219 entrants, 22 will return for Day 2. The top 27 get paid, so I have $1470 (minus a tip, to be decided) in the bank. With the $920 from Thursday, that means all my backers are already getting virtually all of their money back, with a possible profit on the horizon. The next money checkpoint is when 18 are left – we’re playing 9-handed – and then 10th to 18th place receive $2525. Top prize is $57,000, but that’s a long way off. Don’t get too excited, though. I only have 9500 in chips left (the second shortest stack), the next level is 1000/2000 blinds with a 500 ante. Oh, and I’m also on the big blind next hand. I had to survive two 50/50s to get this far (pocket 9s and 6s both holding up against overcards, all in pre-flop) and I’m going to need to gamble again almost straight away tomorrow. I never really managed to accumulate chips, after seeing almost no cards at all for the first nine hours! I’d seen ace-king twice (one time folding it pre-flop when facing a raise and re-raise) and pocket tens once. No pair higher than that the whole time. It was a tough table to steal from, so generally I stayed out of trouble. My key hand – and in fact probably the most difficult hand I ever played – was when I was finally dealt QQ. Blinds were 400/800 with a 100 ante, and I raised to 2500. The player to my immediate left, who had come to the table with a large stack and played very aggressively since arriving, just called. The small blind also called. Flop: jack-eight-something. I can’t remember exactly, it took me quite a while to settle down again after the hand! The small blind checks, and I bet 5,000 – I have 11,000 left. The aggressive player moves all in and the small blind folds. I change my mind about what to do 300 times, amazed that nobody calls the clock on me as I must have taken at least five minutes to finally call. He flipped over ace-jack for top pair, top kicker and I didn’t get unlucky. For the first time in the tournament, I was above average in chips! I’d love to be able to explain what exactly convinced me to make the call, but it’s just a bit of a blur. 🙂 We’re back in action at noon (8pm UK time) tomorrow (today, in fact, just about everywhere now). EDIT: I’ve pulled the live update graph for Day 2. It didn’t serve much purpose. I saw 98s on my big blind and moved all in after one player raised. I was just hoping that I wasn’t dominated, getting more than 2-1 on my money with the high antes. No such luck – he flipped up A8 and I didn’t get there. One hand played, and 22nd place.
Tournament begins at 12 noon (8pm UK time) I don’t want this to sound like a bad beat story, because I played it bad and put just as much money in the pot when I was behind as when I was ahead, and should have lost less. But this is what went wrong in the limit tournament, and why it just felt like I played a slot machine for six hours. For the first three hours, you spin the reels and win or lose a small amount of chips. If you run hotter than the Human Torch then you might be able to double up by the end of level 3. Likewise, if you’re incredibly unlucky or repeatedly try to force moves that are doomed to fail in a limit game, or call down with crappy middle pairs, you might be broke sometime before the start of the fourth hour. I never thought I’d criticise a tournament structure for being too slow, or starting with too many chips, but this one was. You wait around five hours, your good hand doesn’t hold up, you’re dead. Could have done without all that waiting around and passing 2% of my stack back and forth, really. For most players, the game actually starts round about level 5, where you can start to dent another player’s stack and improve your own significantly enough to make a difference. At this point, you’re betting your tournament life on a couple of spins of the reels. My first moment of significance – and my moment of doom – came in level 6. Blinds were 200/400, and I raised to 800. The player to my left called, and the next player in turn raised to 1200. It’s four bets from me. Piggy in the middle called, and the other raiser did his best to cap it (it’s a five bet cap) but only had 150 more. We saw a three-way flop with 3750 (about 16 small bets) in the pot. With one player all in, I checked in the dark expecting to see no further action for the rest of the hand. Flop: 9 T Q The cold-calling suckout monkey bet. I realise now that I should just call down here, but instead I decided to unleash a mighty check-raise. What purpose does that serve? None, really. He is folding nothing for 19-1 pot odds, and the last thing I need to do is cripple my stack. Yet that’s what I did. After he called, I then spitefully bet out on the small turn card. Why didn’t I pay attention to the fact he was betting a dry side pot in the first place, and consider that just perhaps I was already beaten? Why not take into account that being able to play another hand if I’m not going to win this one is more important than pushing a tiny edge that I might not even have? Only after he raised did I realise that pocket kings were no good. But with 12-1 pot odds to draw to the gutshot, and possibly two more outs to catch a set I had to call. There’s no getting away after that. Just in case he overplayed top pair, I check/call the river. His set of nines is good enough to beat me, but not the set of tens from the all-in player. So I lost 1.5BB more than I should have on the hand. It doesn’t sound that significant, but it was. With only a thousand and change left, I was committed to whatever hand I decided to play next. The best sniff of anything I got the next two orbits was A7o, and I barely lasted long enough to pick up the dinner buffet coupon (although I do have a 100% record of surviving long enough to collect this extra food comp) before busting out. I finished about 60th out of 90 players. A big disappointment considering this was the extra tournament I wanted to play that made me decide to look for backers to cover the additional cost. However, I can now say with some certainty that I’m not going to go out of my way to play a limit tournament again! |
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