Atta22's Blogs

World Series of Poker Recap

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 7:18:58 -0500

I've been away for a while so I figure now is a great time to let you all know what I've been up to and what's in store next for Outstanding Poker!

I spent the last 2 weeks out in Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker.  This was my first time participating in the event.  As I'm primarily an online cash game player, the WSOP doesn't appeal to me as much as it does for MTT (multi-table tournament) grinders but I figured this year it might be fun (and profitable) to play in the Main Event.

I flew out in early July and planned to play in one of the $1500 No Limit Holdem WSOP bracelet events as well on July 5th.  After getting the "shuffle up and deal" from Jonathan Duhamel (2010 WSOP Main Event winner) we got going with 4500 starting stacks and starting blinds of 25/25.  

Nothing happened much until level 2 (25/50 blinds) for me, when I picked up KK in the small blind.  UTG+1 opened to 150 and got 2 callers when the action got to me.  I squeezed up to 725 and it folded to the last caller who already had a double stack.  He asked how much I had and then pretty quickly said "all-in".  I snap called obviously, as it's almost impossible for him to have AA in that spot after over-calling previously to a raise and a call.  He rolled over 77 and I was feeling pretty good...

... For about 3 seconds until the dealer turned over the flop where the first card was a 7.  I couldn't manage to spike a King so I was out pretty quickly.  That's the life of a tournament grinder I suppose.

I ended up spending the next two days playing live cash games at the Rio where the WSOP was being played.  There is a ton of action there leading up to the Main Event, as they run continuous satellites to qualify for the ME around the clock.  You can buyin I believe for as little as $550.  For every $10,000 in tournament entries they award a seat to the Main event.

Aside from the satellites, they run a ton of cash games as well.  I grinded mostly uncapped $5/10 during my non-tournament days and did pretty well.  My physical live game isn't that great as I don't play live very much, so I mostly just try to not give off any tells myself and don't put too much emphasis on getting physical reads off others, as I don't want to get fooled by a reverse tell at the same time.  The strongest reads you can make regardless are of a players aggression style and their bet sizing, which doesn't change whether you're playing live or online.  I find myself getting very bored playing live, as the 30 hands per hour pace just doesn't compare to playing 500 per hour while multi-tabling online.  It's very tough not to do something dumb with a weak hand live when you've been card dead for two hours straight.  Hands like K9-suited in early position become very tempting to play even though they should be insta-folds.

My good friend and fellow Outstanding Poker Guest Pro Ryan Smith also came down to play in the Main Event.  We decided to play Day 1A on Thursday July 7th as we figured the field would be softest then.  Although looking back I don't think it makes much of a difference when you play.  There is a lot of luck involved in your Day 1 table draw.  If you end up with a lot of amateurs you have a great opportunity to quickly accumulate chips.

Unfortunately my table draw was a lot tougher than average - pretty much all young internet pros and no one spewing chips (which is pretty common in the early levels of the main event).  Starting stacks were 30,000 chips with 50/100 blinds to start, and 2 hour levels.  I splashed around a little bit during Level 1 but couldn't manage to hit anything which bled me down to about 20k chips.  I had a super aggressive guy to my direct left who was 3betting me very often.  Level 2 hit with blinds moving to 100/200. I finally picked up AA in early position during Level 2 and raised to 500.  The internet kid of course 3-bet me to 1125 and everyone else folded.  I went ahead and 4-bet him to 2200 and he decided to 5-bet me back to 4000.  I then pushed my stack in hoping he had Kings or something but he insta-folded, signaling he was just making a spazz bluff.

Level 3 hit with 150/300 blinds and I was down to 18k chips after being pretty card dead where I picked up KK.  Another young internet kid opened and I 3-bet him.  He called and the flop came 866 with two spades.  He checked and I continuation bet.  He then reraised me and I then went all-in.  He snap called and showed pocket-Tens.  I held and managed to double up to 36k chips.

About an orbit later I picked up AKo in the small blind.  A new player to our table opened in early position and it folded to me.  I 3-bet him and he called.  The flop came down a beautiful AA6 with two spades.  I lead out on the flop and my opponent smooth called.  Turn was an offsuit-9.  I bet again, and my opponent raised me a good portion of my stack after some deliberation.  With trips and top kicker I was pretty confident in my hand, so we got the money in and he flipped over 66 for a flopped full house.  He had previously 3-bet bluffed on a dry flop versus another internet kid's check-raise (flop 966 where he showed KJo after everyone folded) so I couldn't squarely put him on a super unlikely flopped monster.  He also could easily have had AK for a chop or potentially trip Aces with a worse kicker.

So that was my main event, and I was out before the dinner break on Day 1.  Hopefully I can run better next year!

Ryan Smith ended up doing very well, and lasted until the bubble on Day 4 where he unfortunately got all in with 99 versus 33 and ended up losing.  Had he won that he easily would have cashed and potentially went deep.  I'll try to get him to blog about his experience at the WSOP as well.

I continued to play the cash games for a while, but Vegas becomes a black hole after being there for more than a few days and I was itching to get back to my online home.

While trying to adjust my sleep schedule back, I got an MTT bug and decided to play some online MTT's this past Sunday.  As luck would have it, I managed to win the PKR.com $530 Sunday Mega for $16k in a field of 123 players.  I guess the tournament world isn't so bad after all :)

In OP news, I'll be putting up a bunch of videos from myself, hockeyguy and mattutaylor to make up for the recent absence.  I have a good feeling that poker will be legalized and regulated in the US in the next 6-18 months so we're going to keep OP going strong and continue to pump out the content.

I love hearing how everyone's game is doing so keep writing your blogs and posting in the forums.  Also please let me know if there's anything specific you want covered in future videos.

Glad to be back!

Back from the fight

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 12:26:31 -0600

So I was away the past few days in Montreal where I went to the UFC fight of Georges St-Pierre vs. Koscheck.  While the undercards were somewhat weak, the main event was an awesome spectacle of GSP just dismantling Koscheck with left jabs.  After Round 1 he had his eye almost fully swollen shut.  Clearly GSP, not known for his striking, had a gameplan and masterfully executed it.

I'd say you need to do the same thing in poker.  You should have a solid gameplan versus the various types of players.  You should be hammering hard against the nits and forcing them to fold all but their monsters.  Conversely against the calling stations you should be going to valuetown as much as possible.  Knowing your opponent and how to exploit him is more than half the battle.

I'm going to be making a new video series myself over the next few weeks covering some of the themes that have been discussed in the forums/blogs lately.  I'm really happy with how the site is going lately and am hoping to take it to the next level.  We're going to be making a more structured training approach for Sit-n-go's and MTT's as well, similar to how we've laid out our Cash game series.  There's no reason why every single member here shouldn't be crushing the micro-stakes, and we're going to do whatever we can to get you there.

Happy holidays and good luck at the tables!

Cheers,

Tim/atta22

Dealing with shortstackers

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 2:43:27 -0600

Got an email from a member asking about how to deal with all the professional shortstackers at the table and how they manage to play upwards of 24 tables at a time.  Here are my thoughts:

I'd imagine some use software like TableNinja to help them with multitabling and some don't.  If they're playing 6 tables then they can probably get away without, but if they're playing upwards of 24 tables then they probably have some sort of script that helps them with bets.  You're right - they are annoying but they can be easily figured out based on their VPIP/PFR.  At the micro stakes, most play pretty tight with just premium hands.  Therefore you can steal endlessly against them.  However, the good ones will play 20/19 and can be tough to play against.  Just realize that they vary their starting hands widely based on their position - playing very tight UTG and very loose on the button.  So you need to adjust accordingly.  Use the "Raise first" stat in HEM to determine their range.  If they're opening widely on the button, you can 3bet them profitably with a wide range.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Tim

High Stakes Action

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 10:40:05 -0600

I promised to start posting some hands from my daily sessions so here's the first one.  I was playing $10/20 NL against a decent lineup.  The player in question here was another pro running 22/16 with an 8% 3bet.  We didn't have much history at this point but since we were somewhat deep at over 200 big blinds each, I read his smallish 3bet to be weak, so I decided to 4bet bluff.  Surprisingly he min-5bet me so I figured I'd take a flop given it was only $300 more and $1250 already in the pot.  I hit my bank card on the flop and given that we had no history I figured a check/call was good to potentially let him keep bluffing.  With less than a pot-sized bet left I wasn't too concerned about building the pot.  Turn checked through and I pushed the river where he snap called with AA.

Not a super interesting hand here but the one thing I'd say can be learned from it is that I'd probably fault the villain in this hand for making such a small 5-bet and giving me odds to call with my pocket pair given how deep we were.  Had he raised a little bit larger I likely would have folded without odds to call.

View this hand in the hand replayer

No-Limit Hold'em, $20.00 BB (5 handed)
Button ($4178)
UTG ($2116.50)
SB ($2457)
Hero (MP) ($4756.50)
BB ($4325)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 4&clubs;, 4&hearts;
1 fold, Hero bets $60, Button raises $180, 2 folds, Hero raises $400, Button raises $580, Hero calls $300

Flop: ($1550) 10&spades;, 4&diams;, 9&clubs; (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $860, Hero calls $860

Turn: ($3270) 10&diams; (2 players)
Hero checks, Button checks

River: ($3270) 5&clubs; (2 players)
Hero bets $3136.50 (All-In), Button calls $2558 (All-In)

Total pot: $8386

Moving along

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:43:42 -0500

Just got back from a brief trip to Vegas with some of my buddies.  Didn't really play too much poker except for a few hours on the first day there at The Venetian.  As you guys probably know, I'm much more of an online poker fan - I just find the live games too slow.  Why play 30 hands per hour when you can play 500 hands/hour online?  It's sometimes fun to jump up stakes when playing live and really focus (since the players are worse compared to online), but they only had $5/10 NL running at the Venetian when I was there so it was just super boring.

Anyway, back to the site - we've got a lot more solid videos coming in the next few weeks.  And yes frank684, I will be creating a full ring video specifically for you :)

I've also been meaning to start posting interesting hands from my own sessions on my blog so this will be a reminder for me to start doing so.  Each session I come across probably 2-3 interesting hands that I think everyone can learn from.

I hope everyone is doing well and I encourage you all to keep blogging!  I love reading the updates on your progression and stories about how you are doing and I'm happy to help with hand advice wherever possible.

Good luck with your games!

Cheers - Tim

Back from vacation, time to rock!

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 3:00:37 -0500

Now that the new site is launched and most of the technical issues are ironed out, it's time to get down to business poker-wise!  I've also been on two vacations over the past month, and I'm happy to announce that I got engaged a few days ago on a trip to Paris with my girlfriend.  We took a dinner boat cruise down the Seine river which ended up at the Eiffel Tower where after much haggling I managed to convince her to say 'yes'.  Kidding aside, I was quite happy with how it worked out.

I also went on a week-long fishing trip in Northern Ontario (Canada) on Lac Seul at Cherob Resort with a bunch of my buddies who I attended university with.  I'm no big fisherman but I managed to snag the largest fish of the week with a 7-pound/33 inch Northern Pike.  I highly recommend Cherob Resort if you're into Walleye/Pike fishing (with the occasional Muskie) as the lake there is filled with endless fish.  We'd routinely catch 15-20 fish per boat each day.  Here's a picture of a 3.25-pound Walleye I caught (yes, I threw him back as he was in the "slot", ie. at prime mating maturity).

So back to the poker scene - I have still been grinding in between my trips and the website work and things have been going well.  Now that I'm back for a while I'll be playing quite a bit of poker and I'll be focusing on ramping up our poker-related content as well.  We've added Morten who has begun producing videos for the site and I'm looking to add another coach as well.  Feedback is always appreciated, good or bad!  

I'll be producing a lot more videos myself in the near future now that things are in order.  Judging from the various member blogs/forum posts, I think there's still a lot of concepts to be reinforced at the micro-stakes so I think I'll make a few more videos there.  Please let me know if there are other videos you're interested in.

In the meantime, I have one challenge for everyone.  It seems that people still love to slowplay.  It absolutely needs to stop.  Please just take a step back for a few sessions and see what happens when you eliminate the slowplaying from your play.  When you have a strong hand, bet/raise whenever you have the opportunity.  I guarantee that you will profit much more by building the pot early rather than slowplaying and trying to get fancy.  I've gone into detail on the theory behind not slowplaying in some of my latest videos and I will be reinforcing it even more in future videos, but it still seems that people love to do it.  Just realize that in most scenarios at micro-stakes, slowplaying is costing you a lot of potential profit.  Please see my comment on this hand for a brief explanation.

That's it for my rant, good luck at the tables!

-Tim/atta22

Quick tip on reading maniacs

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:54:28 -0500

Came across this common situation today that I figured I should share about reading maniacs.  

The guy too my left was a maniac betting on every street non-stop.  A quick tip on reading maniacs - when they actually do have a strong hand/monster, they slowplay it.  They love to 3-bet big hands preflop and then check-back the flop.  So if you ever see a maniac take this line and then start betting weird on the turn/river, be concerned that they have a strong hand.  Or use it to your advantage if you have some implied odds to see another card.  Hence why calling his min 3-bet preflop with 55 is profitable, since I'll often times get to see a free turn card as well if he has a strong hand.

Here's the hand in question (or watch it on our replayer here):

***** Hand History for Game 9482301637 *****
$1,000 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Friday, July 30, 13:09:02 EDT 2010
Table Table 177387 (Real Money)
Seat 6 is the button
Total number of players : 6/6 
Seat 3: Hero ( $1,112 USD )
Seat 6: Lillifee ( $3,096.10 USD )
Seat 2: MaxleR ( $2,314 USD )
Seat 1: Rank1 ( $1,103 USD )
Seat 5: ineedtp ( $1,000 USD )
Seat 4: sayal13 ( $460.11 USD )
Rank1 posts small blind $5 USD.
MaxleR posts big blind $10 USD.
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Hero 5h 5d 
Hero raises $30 USD
sayal13 raises $50 USD
ineedtp folds
Lillifee folds
Rank1 folds
MaxleR folds
Hero calls $20 USD
** Dealing Flop ** 2s, Kc, 3h 
Hero checks
sayal13 checks
** Dealing Turn ** 5s 
Hero checks
sayal13 bets $30 USD
Hero raises $130 USD
sayal13 calls $100 USD
** Dealing River ** Td 
Hero is all-In $932 USD
sayal13 is all-In $280.11 USD
Hero shows 5h, 5d three of a kind, Fives.
sayal13 doesn't show As, Ac a pair of Aces.
Hero wins $651.89 USD from the side pot 1 with three of a kind, Fives.
Hero wins $932.22 USD from the main pot with three of a kind, Fives.