Poker on the edge

I played in the Delta Gold poker tournament today at the Gold Strike. There were 96 runners, the buy-in was $340, the levels were 40 minutes each and we started with $10,000 in chips -- excellent.

I lasted until Level 9 (30 players left), although my chip stack was never as much as twice what I started with -- life on the edge. I was able to steal when nobody wanted a pot and survive mostly by picking my spots.

I busted out when it folded to a fairly big stack in the cutoff seat. He limped in and the button and small blind folded. The blinds were 800/1600/200. I held: ♠J ♠10, so raised another 4500. My stack was around 16K which means my M was around 5. With that, you're supposed to shove, but I thought that might look suspicious. By making a normal raise, my thinking is that if he had only a limp-type hand, he wouldn't be able to call it. If he did call it, I'd try and take away a bigger pot on the flop. He called!

The flop was good for me: ♥10 ♠7 ♣6. I moved in and he called and turned over: ♠9 ♠8 for a flopped straight. The turn was ♣8 giving me outs -- a 9 would give me a higher straight. That only happens on TV, though. Even though it cost me my chips, I thought my move was reasonable.

"I had no business being in that pot," said the villain, "but I was frustrated."

I'm glad he was frustrated -- I needed those chips -- but it wasn't to be.

========================================
A lady was moved to our table. "Are you a nice table or a crazy table?" she asked. By crazy table she meant a lot of raising and bluffing. What does this tell you about her? People would do better if they didn't say anything, actually. You can tell a lot by what people say, but also by how they say it. Are they educated? Do they sound timid? Etc. etc.

The tightest player at the table did this twice: He raised before the flop and got one caller. The flop was 10-high and instead of making a normal continuation bet, he moved all in. After the other player folded, he showed K-K.

Hands like that don't come along that often, and you have to get what you can out of them. What's wrong with making a normal CB by betting two-thirds of the pot? I guess he was happy an ace hadn't come on the flop. In a tournament, you have to build your stack, however, not win a pot. You're trying to win the event! Instead he blew his opponent out of the water.

Next Saturday, I plan to try again. GL me.





Images by MOJO and taken with my P&S.

Not a good omen

The poker room at the Horseshoe Casino (above) has 16 tables. All 16 were in use today and they had set up two more outside the rail.

I went there to play in their 4 p.m. tournament. This was a practice run/warm-up for the Delta Gold tournament tomorrow at the Gold Strike. I arrived around 1 p.m. and signed up for the Omaha-haha high/low game. They were in the process of trying to get it going, so I went to the Gold Strike (next door) to see what the tournament over there looked like. They had a ladies event that had around 60 players. The open event had about 170 (guesstimate).

Then I went back to the Horseshoe and wandered down to Starbucks (near the Horseshoe hotel lobby) to got a latte. Caffeine is a must before a poker game. When I came back, the O-8 game was ready to start. I played for a couple of hours, and it was uneventful.

About one hour into the tournament, I ran Q-Q into A-A and lost most of my stack. When you have plenty of chips, that shouldn't happen and I know better. Maybe I have it out of my system for the "real" tournament tomorrow.

Here's one cute hand: A guy had ♥K ♦K and made a big raise from the big blind, and got one caller. The flop was A-x-x (sorry, I don't remember which suits), and the guy with K-K shook his head and checked. The caller made a pot-sized bet and the K-K guy folded face up.

"An ace always comes," he said.

The caller showed his hand: ♦2 ♠2! He had made a nice read. Folks, it pays to keep a poker face -- I'm just sayin'.


Images by MOJO and taken with my P&S.

Things you might see at a basketball game

I went to see the Memphis Grizzlies play the Charlotte Bobcats (NBA) last night. The Bobcats won 93-89, boo. It was a fun game anyway.


Above, a Charlotte villain gets off a jump shot.


The Memphis dance team entertains the fans above.


Super Griz, the team mascot, urges the crowd on.


We develop our fans from a young age here in Memphis.

Images by MOJO and taken with my P&S.

The eye in the sky

In the previous post, I described a situation in which My 3000 in black chips disappeared at a tournament during a color up. What happened after I called for the Tournament Director?

Some of the readers who commented were on the right track. The TD had the game continue, went to the phone and called security. She was nearby and I could hear her describe the table, my seat number and what happened.

A few minutes later, the phone rang, she took the call and got her answer:

When they color up the chips no longer needed, a player who has the most ($100 black chips in this case), buys the chips from the others. Then the tournament staff buy all the (black) chips from whoever bought them. This speeds things up.

What happened in my case, as shown on the "tapes" (it is probably digital, but they call it tapes from the old days), the dealer pushed my three stacks of 1000 to the guy who was buying them and asked for three orange chips (total of 3000). The buyer tossed him the three orange. The dealer then tossed the three orange back to the buyer instead of to me!!

The TD explained this to the table, then told the buyer he owed me three orange. The buyer was not nice about it.

"I want to see the tapes!" he demanded. The dealer explained that that was not happening. The staff reviewed the "tapes" and that's what they were there for.

"By buying the chips, I was doing you a favor," he continued. "I can tell you one thing, I'll never buy up chips again."

Come on dude. It was only 3000 (he had around 60,000) and it's not yours. They saw it on the tapes and you owe the money.

The amount of chips wasn't that important, but it gave me confidence that the system worked as it's supposed to.

=========================================
P.S. I usually watch the color-up process. One time during the race-off, another guy had the ♦Q and I had the ♥Q. The dealer gave the bonus chip to the other guy. Apparantly he didn't know the rank of the suits. (It's clubs, then diamonds, then hearts and spades is the highest-ranking suit. Of course, I know this from playing bridge, but the way to remember is alphabetical: C D H S going up the alphabet goes up in rank.)

I asked him to call the TD, and it was straightened out.

When I sit down in a tournament, the first thing I do is count my chips. Once they short-changed me. You have to look out for yourself.

The case of the missing chips

I played in a tournament last night at the Horseshoe Casino (Tunica) that they call Wednesday Super Stack. Some tournaments let you start with 10,000 in chips, then rush the blinds up at a lightning pace. Because you begin with so many chips, they call it deep stack, but that's smoke and mirrors. (See Arnold Snyder's article here or buy his book to learn how to calculate whether a tournament has a favorable structure.)

Last night, the players started with 20,000 chips and the levels were 20 minutes with blinds going up at a normal rate -- so it truly was a good structure unlike some of the other so-called "deep stack" events. The buy-in was $110 of which $10 went to the dealers. This was one of the few tournaments I've played in which we didn't chop (split the prize money), and I finished second of out 33 runners.

Now that I've got the brag part out of the way, here is a situation that occurred: After nine levels, we had a 10-minute break. They were going to color up the black chips (worth 100 each). The blinds were going up to 3000/6000 with a 500 ante, so black chips weren't needed anymore.

I had 31 black chips, so I put them in three stacks of 10 each (worth a total of 3000) and tossed the other chip to the side. The normal procedure is that they will give you three orange chips (worth 1000 each), then race for the odd chip(s). This means the dealer will draw cards -- the more odd chips you have, the more cards the dealer gives you. In the race, you can win a purple chip (worth 500) if you get lucky and are dealt one of the high cards.

Sometimes, I stay and watch. The staff are usually pretty accurate, but mistakes can happen. I had to use the bathroom, however, so didn't wait around. Before I left, I put my card cap on top of my remaing chips with the stacks of black out in front.

When I returned, there were no orange chips. I asked the dealer what happened, and he said he didn't know because they pushed during the break, and he had just arrived at the table. The guy next to me said, oh they put them in your stack. Now this is a bunch of shit hot air -- they never do that.

It wasn't the end of the world as I had around 100,000 chips at the time, so an extra 3000 wasn't going to make or break me, but I'm just sayin'. I called for the tournament director and explained what happened. She called her assistant who had done the color up at our table. They acted like they believed me, but the three orange chips (worth 1000 each) were gone.

If you were tournament director, what would you do? What do you think their ruling was?

I'll post what happened after readers get a chance to leave their guess in a comment.

Test your play #1

This deal is from the U.S. Team Trials in 1969. Let's see how you would fare.

                ♠ 7 6 5
                ♥ 7 6
                ♦ 10 9 8 7 6 5
                ♣ A 2
==
                ♠ A K 3
                ♥ A K
                ♦ Q 3 2
                ♣ K J 5 4 3

You open 2NT and partner raises to 3NT. West leads the ♠Q and East unblocks the 10. Do you win it or duck?

If you duck, West can shift to a heart and attack that suit. Alternatively, West can shift to a club and attack your entry to dummy's diamonds.

Let's say you win and lead the ♦Q, hoping for something good. West wins the ♦A, East plays the 4. West now leads the ♠J as East plays the deuce.

Do you win it or duck? Here are all four hands:

                ♠ 7 6 5
                ♥ 7 6
                ♦ 10 9 8 7 6 5
                ♣ A 2
♠ Q J 9 8 4                    ♠ 10 2
♥ 9 8 5                        ♥ Q J 10 4 3 2
♦ A J                          ♦ K 4
♣ Q 10 9                       ♣ 8 7 6
                ♠ A K 3
                ♥ A K
                ♦ Q 3 2
                ♣ K J 5 4 3

If you duck, West will continue and East can make the brilliant discard of the ♦K, creating an entry to the West hand.

Do you notice anything? West must let East win the first diamond with the king and return his ♠2 to ensure the set.

Back to trick one: If declarer ducks the spade, wins the continuation and plays the ♦Q, West can win the ace while East discards the king! (East can also discard the ♦K on the third round of spades, but that's not as spectacular.)

Poker pearl #38

In the latest issue of Card Player (see image in Sunday's post below), Cole South gave some excellent advice when asked how one can learn to become more comfortable playing an aggressive style:

"Drop down in stakes and push your comfort level. When I was moving up in stakes, there were players in ring games who played significantly looser from late position than I did.

"I decided to drop down a level and force myself to open every button when the action was folded to me..... the experience was invaluable. Increasing my tighter ranges by 10% or 20% after opening every hand felt easy."

Another big poker tournament coming

Have you heard of Delta Gold? Well, I hadn't either, but that's the name of a tournament that starts at the Gold Strike Feb. 25.

If you click to enlarge the above, you might be surprised, as I was, at the variety of events. There's a pot limit Omaha event, there's pot limit Omaha high-low and there's 2 to 7 triple draw lowball! There's also a stud event and a ladies event.

I love the fact that I live around here and can conveniently lose my buy-in play in these things. Yes, I'll likely play in at least one. They love to collect blogger money. There's a rumor that lightning36 might make an appearance. and he's more than welcome to stay at the MOJO hacienda.

You can read more about it on the 2+2 forum here or Bluff magazine here or Poker Pages here.

Image is a scan of a flyer advertising the Delta Gold Poker Tournament.

Poker pearl #37

In the latest edition of Card Player magazine (scan of cover shown above), William Reynolds was asked about advice for poker players who want to add tournament poker to their repertoires:

"Tournament poker is all about picking your spots. If you don't, and you're not careful about tiptoeing around, you're going to get knocked out. It's all about finding the best spot in relation to your stack, the players, the blinds an so on; everything goes into (the formula)."

Watch your step

A dealer at the Gold Strike said that a couple of weeks ago, a young lady fell on this escalator and tumbled all the way down. They had to shut off the escalator for more than one hour -- she cut herself in the fall and they had to clean up the blood, make sure the escalator was running okay, etc.

The escalator is not dangerous, though -- alcohol was to blame. The dealer said that there are minor falls (not bad ones like this) when people get about one-fourth of the way down, then decide they want to go back up. That doesn't sound like a good decision, does it?

They don't get it

I played in the Friday night tournament at the Gold Strike. Only 32 runners signed up which is disturbing. I know the economy is bad, but the attendance is really down.

At the final table, I was in the small blind and held ♥J ♦10. The blinds were 500/1000/100 and my stack was around 17,000. It folded to me. What would you do?

Early at a final table, players are tight. They are getting settled in and want to see how others are playing. I raised to 3000, expecting to (most of the time) take the pot down right there. To my surprise, the big blind moved all in. He had 8500 in chips, so it would cost you another 5500 to call. What would you do?

This is a trivial call. For 5500, you have a chance to win a 12,500 pot, so that's 2.5:1 on your money. Also, if you lose, you won't like it, but you'll still have enough chips to continue (barely).

The villain turned over ♠A ♣5. The Card Player odds calculator says he is a 54.51% to win and I'm 45.13%.

The deal played out and I hit a 10, but an ace also came and he won the pot.

"When you called so fast, I thought I was in big trouble," said the Big Blind afterward.

What's wrong with this picture? Players like this are seat of the pants players. They have absolutely no concept of the underlying math.



Above is a shot of the Gold Strike poker room. Both images by MOJO and taken with my P&S.

Once there were two

Serious bridge players belong to the American Contract Bridge League, known as ACBL for short. Originally there was there were two leagues: the ACBL (headquartered in New York City, later Stamford CT and then Memphis TN) and the Pacific Bridge League, founded in 1933.

The PBL consisted of 11 far-western states, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, and the U.S. territories of Hawaii and Alaska. Collaberation between the ACBL and PBL began in 1940 when they standardized their masterpoint systems. It became known as the Western Division in the Forties and as the Western Conference in 1956 when it merged with the ACBL.

The ACBL is moving to a new headquarters, so I've been going through old files in my office. I ran across the below (and gave it to our archivist):


If you click to enlarge the above, you'll see a masterpoint certificate that was produced on a typewritter and signed by hand. Notice the Pacific Bridge League logo on the top left.

This lady moved from Las Angeles to Florida. When she did, the Pacific Bridge League sent her a telegram! That is so, um, well, 1950s I guess:


Were you aware that they used to have blue points? I sure didn't know that, but if you click on the image above, you can see that among this lady's 17 masterpoints, one was red and two of them were blue.

I also saw another masterpoint slip from 1945. The lady had won a tournament and was given a certificate in lieu of a trophy in deference to the war effort.

One of the great things about the new ACBL Headquarters is that it will have an interactive museum. The new office will open in March, but the museum won't open until sometime next summer. The bridge Hall of Fame will also be expanded and improved. Plan to come by our new offices when things get settled. If you come, I'd love to renew old friendships. If I don't know you, I'd love to meet you.

============================================
Did you know? The American Bridge League was formed in 1929. The merger of this group and the United States Bridge Association in 1937 produced the ACBL.

Buffett on bridge

This image accompanied an interview of Warren Buffett in Forbes magazine, June 2, 1997:

The short piece below is taken from that interview:

Sophisticated players recognize bridge as a game of probability -- like the stock market. "It's a game of a million inferences," Buffett explains. "There are a lot of things to draw inferences from -- cards played and cards not played. These inferences tell you something about the probabilities.

"In the stock market, you don't base your decisions on what the markets are doing, but on what you think is rational," Buffett says. "In bridge, too, if you always do the rational thing, you'll be a winner over time, though not necessarily that (session)."

He adds: "Bridge is about weighing gain/loss rations. You're doing calculations all the time. It's also a partnership game. You can mess up your partner or bring out the best in him. You can't win alone.

{The partnership aspect is one of the biggest differences between bridge and poker.]

"It takes a while to get the hang of (bridge), but that's what makes it a terrific game. There are always new levels."

==========================================

I interviewed Buffett and his partner, Sharon Osberg, in Las Vegas in 2008. I'm glad to say he's a down-to-earth type guy. He doesn't usually leave Omaha NE, so I asked him what he was doing there (besides playing bridge). He said he was meeting Bill Gates (another bridge enthusiast), and was arranging to give some money to charity -- he wanted to do it through the Gates' Foundation.

I took a cute photo of Buffett and Osberg that you can see if you click here.

If it's a race, run faster

The Atrium Cafe above is one of the many places you can eat at the Gold Strike Casino. If a casino doesn't offer a variety of good food, players will go elsewhere. Casinos love to take your money. In return, you get free/comped food -- good deal for them.

I went to play in the Friday night tournament at the Gold Strike. I was surprised to see it was a $70 buyin and you only got 5000 in chips. If I'd known that, I would have tried one of the other tournaments, probably the Horseshoe. With "only" 5000 to start with, you have to take chances to build your stack.

We started with 42 players, so there were 210,000 chips in play. At the final table, the average stack would be 21K. The tournament was playing five places. First was around ~$850 (I don't remember exactly) and fifth was ~$85.

One of the things I look for when I play live is this: Which players make an automatic continuation bet. That was important when I picked up ♦8 ♦7 in the big blind. A player whom I had identified as a CB type guy raised three times the big blind. It folded to me and I called. The flop was ♣Q ♥7 ♠3. I checked and the villain made a pot-sized bet. I check-raised him (I don't remember how much, but a sizable bet) and he folded. I actually had middle pair, but the check-raise would have worked no matter what I had. Players who always make a CB should check occasionally (whether the flop hits them or not) to mix up their play.

My crucial deal came when the blinds were 300/600/50. I was in the big blind with 6400 in chips and checked my cards: ♥J ♦J. The UTG guy raised to 1400. It folded to the button who thought a long time and called. What would you do?

If we had deeper stacks, I would call and decide what to do after the flop. If there were only one player, I might try a stop and go, but with two villains, that is less likely to work. I decided to shove. If they both folded, that would be sweet. If one called, maybe the other would give up and I would be heads-up.

Sure enough, the UTG called and the other guy folded. UTG showed ♥A ♦K. We were off to the races: The odds calculator says I am a 56.2% to 43.31% favorite (it doesn't add to 100% because there can be a split pot in some cases). This is excellent because not only am I a slight favorite to double up, there is dead money in the pot: the antes (450), the small blind (300), and the money from the guy who folded (1400).

Unfortunately the flop was ♠A ♣A ♠10! Not to worry -- tomorrow is another day and another tournament.

As I was leaving, I saw two Elvis impersonators at the bar. I asked to take their photo, and they were more than happy. People dress up like that either as a paid gig, or because they like the attention. These guys probably weren't paid, but they were having fun, for sure.


Then another impersonator ran up and wagged his finger in my face. "Your photo is no good," he said, "because it doesn't have ME in it." Sure why not? I took another shot and this time one of their lady friends jumped in. Some people will do anything to be on my blog, lol.


Images by MOJO and taken with my P&S.

Don't draw any more trumps

                ♠ 9 4
                ♥ Q 9 64
                ♦ 5 3 2
                ♣ K J 6 4
♠ 10 8 6 5 3                   ♠ 2
♥ 3                            ♥ 8 7 5 2
♦ J 10 9 8 4                   ♦ A 7 6
♣ 3 2                          ♣ Q 10 9 8 5
                ♠ A K Q J 7
                ♥ A K J 10
                ♦ K Q
                ♣ A 7

South opened 2 ♣ and eventually was the declarer in 6♥. West let the ♦J. East won the ace and led another.

Declarer drew trumps in four rounds and switched his attention to spades. When that suit divided 5-1, he needed three club tricks, so played the ♣A and finessed the jack, going down two when the defenders were able to also cash a diamond.

What's wrong with this picture?

Declarer has 11 tops tricks, so a superior line of play is this: After cashing the ♥A K, declarer can see the 4-1 heart break. At this point, declarer shouldn't draw any more trumps. He should lead a club to the king and ruff dummy's ♦5 with his ♥10. Next he can lead the ♥J to the queen and draw the last trump with the 9.

Playing this way, South can take four spades, four hearts, one diamond, one diamond ruff and two clubs -- that's 12 tricks.

An opportunity - should I do this?

I got the below in my hotmail account today -- a chance to get my hands on $16 million. I assume he'll want my bank account information next so he transfer the money to me. Should I do it?

Dear Sir/Madam, I have a profitable business proposal in my bank, that I want to transact with you for investment purpose. I am seeking your partnership/assistancein this business transaction to transfer the below fund to your country. The amount of money involved in this transaction is US$16,100,000.00. If you are interested get back at me with the listed information below for more details:
Name: ______
Address: _____
Phone No: _____
Sex: _____
Country: ______
Occupation: _____
Sincerely,
Mr. Kuo Jiann-Jong

An extra trick in the play

                ♠ K Q 10
                ♥ A Q 9 5
                ♦ 9 6 3
                ♣ K J 7
♠ 6 4                           ♠ J 9 7 2
♥ 8                             ♥ 10 2
♦ K J 10 7 4                    ♦ 8 2
♣ A Q 8 6 4                     ♣ 10 9 5 3 2
                ♠ A 8 5 3
                ♥ K J 7 6 4 3
                ♦ A Q 5
                ♣ ---

South opened 1♥. Because North-South were vulnerable and East-West were not, West felt safe bidding 2NT. North bid 3♣, unusual over unusual. West had shown length in the minors, so bidding either minor would be a cuebid. In the North-South methods, the lower cuebid showed a limit raise or better in the lower unbid suit -- hearts. The favorable vulnerability persuaded East to jump to 5♣.

What would you do with the South hand? South decided to bid 6♥. His thinking was that the opponents bidding and raising the suit he was void in improved his hand. With the information from the 2NT bid, South felt he might gain a trick in the play. He was right.

West led his singleton heart. Notice that the contract makes easily if he leads either minor. South won the lead in dummy and ruffed a club. He led a heart to dummy and ruffed the ♣J. Next, declarer played three rounds of spades, ending in dummy. Finally, he played the ♣K and discarded a diamond.

West was endplayed. A diamond would be a "feeder" into the ♦A Q and a club would provide a ruff and sluff. Either way, he had 12 tricks and his contract. If East had unexpectedly turned up with the ♣A, declarer could ruff and play a low diamond to endplay West.

I promise not to whine for at least one week

(Click to enlarge.)

Playing in a cheap-o MTT on Ultimate Bet, I had Q-Q and the villain had K-K. I sucked out, and it came (of course) on the river.

That prompted "Sick," "Unreal" and "Par for the course" comments from him.

Poker pearl #36

The latest issue of All In magazine had some good content. I'm lucky I live near the Tunica casinos. I can play live poker. Getting free copies of the different magazines is just the lagniappe a bonus.

All In reported this:

In a sign that Poker Stars may soon be going mobile, the online poker site recently bought Cecure Gaming, one of the world's leading mobile gaming software development companies.

You've gone on a trip and didn't want to lug your laptop along. No problem. You whip out your cell phone and play some poker. You're sitting around at the mall, waiting for your wife or girlfriend to finish shopping. No problem. You grab your phone and jump in a sit and go. How cool is that?

There is already an app to play bridge on the iPhone (or iTouch). It's called iBridgeBaron. You can read a quite excellent review of it if you click here.

Image at the top is a scan of All In magazine. Bridge players who know Ray Raskin (from the Philadelphia area) might be interested to know that Eric Raskin, the Editor-in-Chief of All In magazine, is one of Ray's sons.

Why are people afraid to play poker?

This screen shot is from a cheap-o $5 tournament on Ultimate Bet. When blinds were 15/30, he raised to 300 (too much, but not the worst play I've seen), and I re-raised to 700. If I had his hand, I'd call and reevaluate on the flop (being scared of an ace or a king because A-K is such a large part of my range). That's called playing poker. But, no, these guys have only one move: all in!

It's annoying that his bad play was rewarded. I guess we should be glad there's luck involved or the fish would go away.

We chopped again

(Above) They stopped the clock when we negotiated the chop of the prize money.

I went back to the Gold Strike Saturday night for the 7 p.m. tournament. The buy-in was the same as Friday -- $135 which included a $10 tip for the dealers. Only 38 runners showed up. This tournament used to routinely have 80 to 100 players. Maybe the attendance is down because of the WSOP at Harrah's which just concluded.

When we got down to 8 players, one guy wanted to chop (split the prize money). He lives around here and was anxious to get home. He said the text messages from his wife were getting "more belligerent." We gave the big stack a little extra and split the rest $414 for each.

When we chopped, the blinds were 2000/4000/500. I had 40K in chips which was almost average. With eight players, it cost 10,000 for one orbit. In other words my M was 4! That's typical of these tournaments. It becomes a shove-fest, and that's why players are so eager to chop. It's disheartening to play five or more hours and bubble out and get nothing.

Here's my favorite hand: When the blinds were 100/200, there were three limpers to the small blind who raised it to $1200. I had ♥10 ♦10 and plenty of chips. What would you do? Some say you should raise or fold, but here's a good example of why there are exceptions to that. I had position and was happy to just call. The limpers folded, as I knew they would.

The flop was ♦A ♠9 ♣4. Instead of watching the flop, I was watching the villain and he had a disappointed body language and checked. I fired a bet of 3000.

"Every time a f---ing ace comes!" he said as he showed ♣K ♥K and mucked. There really is something to keeping a poker face.

I was all in for my tournament life one time. That was at the final table when I had 6-6 and the villain had A-K. The board bricked out and my pocket pair held.

Also, at the final table, the guy on my left wasn't a very experienced tournament player. Twice it folded around to me and I managed to steal the pot with nothing. Once he called (I had 9-3). There was a king on the flop and I fired another bet and he called! I checked the turn, as did he, and the river was a 3, giving me a pair. We both checked and I announced I had a pair. He mucked after I showed.


The Gold Strike is a hotel as well as a gaming area. Shown above is the lobby.


The Gold Strike has a buffet and several places to eat. Above is part of The Food Court.

Images by MOJO and taken with my P&S.

No wonder the other guy wouldn't fold

Let's chop

I played a poker tournament at the Gold Strike last night. The buy-in was $125 with a dealer tip for $10. We started with 10,000 in chips. The levels were only 20 minutes and they zoom up pretty fast. Forty-one runners signed up.

I always like to figure out how many chips are in play and divide it by 10. That means that figure would be an average stack at the final table. I'm not sure why I do it because I don't really change my play to reach that "goal." Rather, I let the game come to me and take what I can get away with. Still, it's nice to know.

One of my big chip ups was with big slick. I raised three times the big blind, and another player moved all in. I had him covered, but not by much. Finally, I decided screw it and called. He turned over A-10, and my hand held up. This is normally a bad call because I've already represented my hand, but whatever.

I had determined that an average stack at the final table would be 41,000. There were 41 players with 10,000 chips each and that divided by 10 is 41K. This is an arithmetic average, and is usually above the median because there are always one or two huge stacks. When I got to the final table, guess what? I had 40,400 chips.

Then a funny thing happened. A guy suggested we chop the prize money. I've seen that one time before (where all 10 players agreed to chop instead of playing it out). That time, I was a short-stack and was happy to chop.

This time, five places would get paid. First was $1,850 and second was $1,030. Third was around $600 and fourth about $400. Fifth might have been $260 or something like that. If we chopped (divided the prize money), we would all get $410, the same as fourth-place money. I didn't really care because I was in the middle of the pack, chip-wise. Finally they all agreed, so I did, too -- end of tournament. I had mixed feelings, but these things end up being a crap shoot, so what the heck.

I didn't take any photos, so I'll go back Saturday and play again, and take care of that detail.

But the patient died

I went to the club last night and played with Brent. Playing against two good players, I held:
♠--- ♥J 10 ♦Q 10 9 4 3 ♣A K J 10 4 3.

At favorable vulnerability, I was first to act and opened 2♣. We are playing precision and this showed 11 -- 15 high-card points and (usually) six or more clubs (I could have five if they were headed by the ♣A K Q). My left-hand opponent bid 2♥ partner bid 3♣ and RHO bid 4♥.

You're up to bat.

I decided that there was too much of a chance that opponents could make their vulnerable game (I was right), and that 5♣ would go set less than their game (I was right).

But what if the opponents bid to 5♥? I don't really have much defense against that, either. I decided to get cute and bid 4♠. My thinking was that with a spade lead, I could ruff and increase our chances of defeating them if they bid on over 5♣.

The operation was a success! Over 4♠, the bidding passed out! I'll take minus 50 a trick versus their vulnerable game.

Here are all four hands:

                ♠ Q 8 7 6 3
                ♥ Q 9 2
                ♦ 8 2
                ♣ 9 7 2
♠ A 10 2                        ♠ K J 9 5 4
♥ K 7 6 5 4                     ♥ A 8 3
♦ A 5                           ♦ K J 7 6
♣ 8 6 5                         ♣ Q
                ♠ ---
                ♥ J 10
                ♦ Q 10 9 4 3
                ♣ A K J 10 4 3

In 4♠, I took one club and two spades for down seven and minus 350.

Even though they can make 4♥ (or 4♠ for that matter), and we go set 500 in 5♣ (according to Deep Finesse), this was a stone-cold zero. The score sheet showed two minus 300s our way, and some assorted 50s, 100s, etc.

Below is a shot of the results (with the names blanked out):

If you know what to do, do it

Phillip Alder has a bridge column, NEA Bridge, that appears in syndication in many local newspapers. (He also has another that appears two or three days a week in the NY Times.) The quality is usually quite good. This is from his Jan. 28, 2010 article.

You are on defense as West on this layout:

                ♠ J 7
                ♥ K J 10 2
                ♦ K 10 8 5 2
                ♣ 9 6
♠ K Q 6 2
♥ 9 7 5 4
♦ ---
♣ J 8 5 3 2

Right-hand opponent opened 1♦, you passed and LHO bid 1♥. Partner overcalled 1♠ and RHO rebid 2♦. You jumped to 4♠ and North bid 5♦. Partner doubled and all passed.

You lead the ♠K and partner plays the 3 (standard or right-side up signals). Is that discouraging, count or suit preference.

The article made a big point that it must be suit preference and West should trust his partner and shift to a club. Indeed, a club shift would set the contract. Here are all four hands:

                ♠ J 7
                ♥ K J 10 2
                ♦ K 10 8 5 2
                ♣ 9 6
♠ K Q 6 2                      ♠ A 10 9 5 4 3
♥ 9 7 5 4                      ♥ 8 3
♦ ---                          ♦ A
♣ J 8 5 3 2                    ♣ K Q 7 4
                ♠ 8
                ♥ A Q 6
                ♦ Q J 9 7 6 4 3
                ♣ A 10

What's wrong with this picture? Why can't partner overtake the ♠K himself instead of taking a chance that partner can't read the ♠3?

You can read the column if you click here.

Poker pearl #35

Antanas "Tony G" Guoga was interviewed in the Jan. 27 issue of Card Player magazine (see scan of cover above). He was asked about the high-stakes online games on Full tilt and who were the best players.

It was Isildurl, Viktor Blom until a little while ago, but ... he seems to be broke. It looks like Brian Hasting now is the best guy. Tom Dwan has been a great player ... but he's got to recover from the beating he took. Obviously Phil Ivey is great player. he has unbelievable ability, but he's got that nature of gamble. He wants to gamble all the time. I guess Tom does the same thing. It's interesting. Everyone wants to play the highest they can and see if they can go broke. That gives people the biggest thrill. That's the fascination aspect of it.

Unreal hand

The A-J guy moved all in. I was shortstacked, so I moved all in. USNaval called with 7-6 off!

The flop gave me an overpair, then I looked again and it was 4-5-8 and USNaval flopped a straight. To everyone's amazement, the turn was a 6 and the river a 7 to give me a bigger straight.

Weird.

Poker pearl #34

(Above) A scan of the cover of the February issue of Poker Pro.

Do you wear headphones at the poker table? If you do, this might make you think twice. In his "From the Editor" section, John Wenzel told about this:

At the WPT's Brunson Classic at Belagio (Las Vegas), the tournament was on the bubble. John Juanda moved all in from the button, verbalizing his bet without moving his chips out. This is common practice when you have a lot of chips. The dealer called out the all-in, as he is supposed to do. The next player to act was Chad Batista who was wearing headphones.

Small blind Batista (who didn't realize anyone else was in the pot) eyed Scotty Nguyen's stack in the big blind, and announced "All in."

The tournament director was called, and (surprise, surprise) ruled verbal declarations are binding.

Nguyen was happy to call as well, and turned over A-A. Juanda had A-6 and Batista had 2-2. Nguyen's hand held up.

=============================================
(Post Script) When Batista went all in, Nguen realized what had happened and began laughing at him. He and a visibly upset Batista traded words. The goof left Batista short-stacked and he busted soon after.