Back to zero...?

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since I made a post... Actually, my last one was in April. I didn't write a single word for two months. The last time I skipped an entire month without making any posts was... over a year ago. This post is not an easy one to make and that's why I've been avoiding it up until now.

In the beginning of May I was feeling very prepared for the SCOOP. With our new office all set, my new spreadsheets and all the studying during April, I was ready to go. And the best part of it, we had a trip to Monaco planned during the first days of May. André had a photoshoot there and I decided to tag along for some fun time in Monte Carlo. The plan was to jump right into the SCOOP as soon as we were back, with my batteries fully recharged.

And that's what I did. I got back into the grind. Unfortunately, things were not going very well, so I saw my bankroll evaporating pretty fast. The chart that you will see below is my accomplishment for May. 

Now you may be thinking that 1,8k games during a month and especially during a SCOOP month is really low. And you'll be right, cause those results are from just one week. The thing is, the more I was losing, the less I felt like playing. And when I realized that I lost almost half my bankroll within a week's time, I decided to take some time off to clear my head.

Fear

That's when fear started creeping in. While being away from the tables, I started looking back at how the year went until that point. And the truth is, this year I've been losing money.

Another annoying fact is that the whole year so far I've played only 15,5k games. Just to put this into perspective for you, back in December 2012 when I was chasing the Supernova status I played 7k games in just one month. And since it's the hypers we're talking about variance is crazy. In 15k games there is quite a bit of variance involved so I can't jump to any solid conclusions about how bad of a player I am. I'll tell you one thing though: the fact that over the past few months I haven't made any money out of poker has affected my psychology in the worst possible way. 

The Hyper-Turbos

I was feeling like I was stuck in a dead end. I spent quite some time talking to André about the subject and he thinks that there's little value to the hypers these days. I don't know if it's because there are less players trying to qualify for tournaments through the hypers or if it's because the number of regulars increased, but that's the way things are right now. André would describe SCOOP days from a couple years back when he was playing where he would be the only regular at the table or maybe it would be him and one more. But the shark/new players ratio back then has nothing to do with what it is today. Last May, I would open the lobby 1-2 hours before a SCOOP tournament would start with the expectation of getting those great games. To my disappointment, I would open very few tables (far less than 12 which was my ultimate goal) and even those would not be great (3-4 regulars playing). I spent a lot of time staring at the lobby, watching games open with 6 (yeah you read it right - six!) regulars. Most of us saw the potential of the "prime time" before the start of a tournament - the only ones who didn't apparently were the recreational players.

I don't know why this is happening, if it's because people have moved to other formats or because way too many of us got interested in the hypers on a professional level. But the situation is what it is right now and we can't ignore the facts. I'm not saying that the hypers are unbeatable. Someone at André's level can probably still beat them with a significant profit. But if you are not at that level, you struggle. I've been talking to a couple of hyper-turbo players, some of my opponents whose opinions I respect. I heard all sorts of stories: from busting their bankroll (which came to a surprise to me cause I considered that specific player to be pretty good) to making a profit while getting a great amount of VPPs (which ultimately translates into money of course, but there's a big difference between making a profit at the tables right away and making it through rakeback).

The bottom line is, in my humble opinion, unless you're a brilliant player at the hypers then you should be getting ready to swim in tough waters. The margins have always been slim (an ROI of 1% which in other formats would be ridiculous is actually good at the hypers), and now they are getting slimmer. You need to accept the fact that there aren't enough games running at all times and keep yourself ahead of the rake, ahead of your opponents and ultimately ahead of variance. Which, in case you have forgotten is BRUTAL in these games. Sadly, those are a lot of obstacles to overcome. And that's why I think there are a lot of good players turning away from these games.

Cash Games

So having to deal with this new era of hypers, I started thinking about alternatives. What if I tried out a different format? MTTs are totally out of the question (if you have been following my blog for a while then you know why), sit n gos I've tried in the past and they're ok but... What if I tried something entirely new? Cash games is a format I've never ever tried before, not even with play money. And yet, that's where I think people really play poker. Not to mention that I would actually learn how to play flops and all... To be honest, it makes me kind of sad that I've been grinding at the poker tables for over a year now but I still don't know how to play flops. I feel like I'm missing the essence of it sometimes.

I started reading a book André gave me. Pretty soon I decided to stop cause it felt like I was reading Chinese. Okay, maybe not that bad cause I actually understood the language (and by that I mean both English and poker slang) but I did not make any sense out of it. The first chapter was about stealing. Why the heck would I wanna know anything about stealing when I don't even know the basics as in what hands to play and what hands not to?

I put the book aside and decided to spend some time reading the courses section of Poker School Online. I must admit, Pokerstars did a great job with that one. It's very well written and I feel like it can really help a new player get started.

My worst poker enemy

And somewhere among all that, thinking about the hypers, the cash games, my future in general, I get so discouraged that I stop before I even get started. Is the best decision to keep trying to make it at the hypers, a path that I've already taken but feel like I've failed? Or is it better to give a shot at the cash games? And if that's the correct way to go, how can anyone get up one day and say "Hey, you know what? I think I'll start making a living playing cash games!"? That sounds absurd to me. It takes years to learn how to play poker well so how can I expect of myself to make money out of it in the next, let's say, months or year? I even considered combining hypers and cash games. My idea was to separate my working time in two: half of it would be to study/play the hypers and the other half of it would be to study cash games not really with the goal to make money out of it, but in order to learn more about the format and make a more educated decision about whether that's the road I wanna take or not. André however discouraged me from doing that saying that in order to succeed in anything I'll have to allocate all my time and efforts to it so it makes no sense dividing my time. I still don't know who's right on this one.

So here I am, at a crossroads. I'm really unsure of what to do next. And I've come to realize that my worst poker enemy is following me both on and off the tables: my worst enemy is me. I feel like I can't take any more losing, even though I know it's inevitable and necessary in order to learn. Also, somewhere in the back of my head I think that if I don't take any action and don't do anything then I can't fail. Like, if I don't pick anything then I can't make a wrong choice. Which is as stupid as it sounds and there's no logic to it, but I'm trying to be honest.

Since the fear of what to do next was preventing me from doing anything, I just let the days go by. In the beginning I was telling myself it was a short break to mentally recover from that downswing. And I truly needed that break, but when I felt like it was time to go back to the tables, I kept postponing it over and over. I went on vacation, did some soul searching or nothing at all. And before I knew it, two whole months had passed.

What next?

I even considered the possibility of getting a normal job. That option has a lot of pros and cons and it would take a separate post to talk just about that. I'm just saying it crossed my mind and I haven't completely ruled it out. As for hypers vs cash, I think I'll stick to the hypers a little longer. Not sure if that's the best thing, but I've put so much effort to it that I feel like it's a shame to go wasted. Plus, I don't think I have the mental energy to start all over from zero again. So I'll put the cash games plan on hold. I can't say for how long - it could be only until I get my face smashed on the virtual felt playing hypers!

In any case, I know I'm not the only person out there struggling with this type of decisions. I'd love to hear your guys' experiences, your ideas, or advice. Maybe it will give me some inspiration, and I could totally use a bit of that at the moment.

I apologize again for the absence of two months, at least now you got an explanation why that happened. Hopefully I'll talk to you soon with a new blog post!

April and New Working Space!

Hello!

Okay, I'll admit that during April I've neglected the blog a bit. The truth is, it was not a very productive month poker-wise like I was hoping it would be. Here's a little update on what I've been doing lately...

Moving our computers and the rest of the stuff that we had at the office back home may have only taken a day, but putting everything back to order took a lot more than that. I put quite some effort into organizing everything... Our apartment was a mess! Then I got a flu (for the second time this year!). This time the fever lasted a bit longer and I ended up staying several days in bed and spent a whole week without working.

When I finally felt better, we were already in the middle of April and my poker skills felt so dusty that I decided the best approach would be to study and stay away from the tables. André suggested that I study the equilibrium for situations that are frequent so that's what I did. For those of you that are not familiar with it, if all players involved in a hand play according to the equilibrium then none of them win or lose money. The equilibrium represents the perfect balance, the break even point for everyone. It occurred to me that all this time I had been studying the game I was trying to figure out how to play against regulars and non-regular players. That means that I was studying how to deviate from the equilibrium without ever having spent time to study the equilibrium on its own!

Anyway, I created some spreadsheets of my own for the first time and I found quite a lot of stuff that I can improve in my game. As long as there's room for improvement I'm happy, cause I find it really frustrating when I'm losing and I don't know what I could be possibly doing wrong. Apart from studying, which took most of my working time, I spent a little time at the tables but I was playing low (mostly $18s). As a result, I didn't get a lot of VPPs and I didn't meet the minimum requirement of 6,5k VPPs per month to maintain the Supernova VIP status. Fortunately, each player is allowed to skip that requirement twice. This was only the first month that was happening for me, so I'm still Supernova. I plan on putting a lot of volume during May so hopefully I'll renew my Supernova status for 2013 soon and I won't have to worry about the monthly requirements anymore.

In my previous post I promised to tell you a bit more about our new working space and post photos when it would be ready. When we first moved into this apartment, that room was destined to be André's office. I was not playing poker back then, so he had all the room to himself. Then, when I decided to learn how to play poker on a professional level we rent an office and André didn't work at home anymore. That meant that we had an empty room in our apartment. Since André started doing his physical exercise at home around that time, he decided to use it as a mini-gym. He bought weights, yoga balls, a workout bench and a bicycle.

As you can imagine, when we decided to move our computers back home it was quite problematic because the old office room was now occupied. Fortunately, that room has a built-in closet. André keeps all his computer-related stuff in there. I re-organized everything and found out that he didn't really need to be using all of the closet to store those things, but only a small part of it. The rest of the space was just perfect... for the gym equipment! It does mean of course that he has to take everything out every time he wants to work out and put everything back in after he finishes, but that's not such a big deal.

Gym-in-closet

The only thing not fitting in the closet was the bicycle which is in the middle of the living room at the moment, but I'll figure something out eventually. Back to our subject... The closet was organized and the room was cleared out to receive all the stuff from the office. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so check out the one below:

No space to walk. Literally.

I probably look happy in the picture above but trust me, I wasn't. As I said earlier, it took me days to put everything in place. The annoying part was that in the meantime we couldn't really work. Even after André installed the computers and got them working, the place was such a mess that you felt like suffocating in there. At least I did. Working was out of the question until everything was nice and neat.

The only new piece of furniture we bought was a small library from Ikea. Our collection of poker books is constantly growing and it reached the point where it wouldn't fit the small square shelves that we had been using so far.

Does anyone feel like studying?

With a lot of patience, everything was sorted out. Our desks were cleared out of all the stuff and I utilized the square shelves that were previously used as bookcases to store everything away in white boxes. I think the overall space now looks very neat and tidy. What do you think?

Room Overview

My desk

André's desk

Overview from a different angle

Storage

Everything is organized and easy to find.

Printer

Just about when I've finished and I think it's time to celebrate, André ruins the moment by telling me that he wants to put his screens on the wall instead of simply having them on his desk like he used to. I don't know if you've ever tried to put a screen on the wall, but it's not an easy task. Now imagine putting three of them while trying to keep them aligned! What a nightmare!

It took us a whole afternoon to get the job done. Even though his three screens seem to be exactly the same, one of them is a different model than the other two. We didn't really pay much attention to it at first, but it turned out they are slightly different on the back, which resulted in one screen hanging slightly lower than the other two. Then again, it's a very small difference so after spending that many hours of taking measures, opening holes in the wall and creating a mess we decided to leave it as it is.

As usual, I got the fun part all for myself...

Cleaning time!

It was tough, but I think the final result was worth it. Here's André's current setup:

Screens on the wall

André's desk

So now I think we're pretty much done. In the future if we have more books it is possible to add another column to the library but that's about it. I think we have everything else that we need and it's all ready just in time for the SCOOP!

Let me know what you guys think about our working space and see you at the tables!

The Aftermath

Hello!

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post but I kind of got a blogging-overdose with those daily posts, so I hope my absence is understandable. March was a bad month overall and honestly I couldn't wait for it to be over. There are some subjects I'd like to talk about before I go on with my plans for April.

WBCOOP

It's not really news anymore since this has been announced for quite some time now, but in case you haven't heard I won the WBCOOP 2013 prize for Best Female Blogger. The article about the winners can be found here. You may think that after blogging everyday for over a week I'd be super excited for winning and make a post about it as soon as possible. Well that didn't happen cause... It didn't really feel like winning. To be honest, I was feeling quite gutted about the result. I put a lot of effort to my posts and I was aiming high... At the Best Blogger award. When that didn't come, all the rest seemed kind of irrelevant.

Actually, when I first heard the results all I was thinking about was what could have gone wrong. I was comparing the winner's blog to mine, trying to find any leaks or possible improvements I could make. I came to the conclusion that it didn't really matter. It's not about one blog being better than the other, it's a matter of personal preference. Things like presentation and content are very subjective and not everyone will have the same opinion about them. I noticed, for example, that the winner's posts on each individual WBCOOP event were short while mine would vary from big to huge. Some will argue that in the blogging world and with all this overflow of information, smaller posts are more efficient. Personally I much prefer long posts cause I think those in a hurry can do some "diagonal reading" and get the overall idea, while those more interested in details can read the whole thing. Again, it doesn't mean that one thing is bad and the other is good. It simply depends on what each person is looking for and a blogger can never write something that will satisfy 100% of the readers. Which is why I've decided to stick to my personal style and quit searching what I could have possibly done different to win the title.

A last thought that I'd like to leave you with before closing the WBCOOP subject for this year, is one I read at SuperNova125's blog: "A fun series for micro bloggers really but maybe not worthwhile for higher stake players". I don't play the really high stakes, but I don't play the micro/small ones either. And I can't help but wonder if this event even compensates the time of medium stakes players. I spent close to ten days playing the freerolls and blogging about them. That was very costly in terms of VPPs and potentially harmful to my monthly profits as well. If I had won the first prize that would have been obviously worth my time (even though that might not be the case for some higher stakes players), but that's a long shot and a pretty EV- bet.  And looking back at the series, I really didn't see that many Supernovas playing. On the contrary, I now understand better the "Oooohs" and "Aaaaaaahs" I was getting every time I sat down at a table. Six stars at the WBCOOP was pretty rare. At the same time I'm saying this, I don't really know what would be a good way to fix it. One option would be to be offering different tickets to players according to their VIP status and grant them entrance to different tournaments (that would of course have different prizes, kind of like the VIP freerolls). But that would be unfair to the micro/small stakes players, plus it would destroy the WBCOOP's ability to unite all the world's bloggers in one place. Not to mention I don't think there would be enough players around the higher levels to make it worthwhile for Pokerstars. So I really don't know how to mend this situation. I just hope Pokerstars' team will find a way to improve the series and make it more attractive to a bigger number of bloggers next year. I know I'll want to participate, I just hope it won't be such a tough decision when I put WBCOOP and grinding VPPs on the same scale. Of course the freerolls can't be at the same level as normal grinding, but I'd like to be able to choose to play the WBCOOP with less of a guilty conscience, if that makes sense.

Finally, I'd like to thank Pokestars for organizing the series and choosing me as one of the winners (even though it wasn't the place I was hoping for)! I'll be looking forward to it next year!

March Overview

In terms of results, March was not good. Here's the graph of the month:

I played around 4k games and lost around $2k. Very low number of tournaments which is very disappointing, but I've no one to blame but myself (okay, maybe I can blame the WBCOOP just a little! :P). What's really preoccupying though is that my level of play has gotten a lot worse.

Of course that isn't something that just happened in the month of March. It's a gradual deterioration that has started around the time I stopped having coaching with André. The other night, I was playing a bubble and I lost with AJo. I started complaining about how unlucky I got and André came to my computer to see the replay. I was 100% sure I played fine and just got unlucky. André's opinion was that I misplayed the hand. And well, if it's a poker subject and the two of us disagree you can probably guess who is usually right...

I don't remember what the play was so I can't describe it here. It got completely erased from my memory and the only thing that remains is the AJo along with a feeling shock when I realized that something I was totally sure about was actually wrong. Being uncertain of how to play at certain spots is one thing, thinking that you are playing fine when you are actually making mistakes is another...

André told me that I had to do something about it immediately or else I would see my bankroll evaporating in no time. Combine that to the fact that I'm down so far for the year and you'll get an image of what kind of mood I was in. At first I got pissed at André and told him that he couldn't judge the way I play overall just with one hand that he saw. He told me that he could because what he saw was indicative of the way I see  and understand the game. I still don't know how he got all that from one hand, but he was right.

When we had a mini-session of coaching he asked me about some ranges and pulled them up on ICMizer. First, when he was asking what I'd do at a specific situation I felt lost and found it really difficult to answer. Then, when I compared the correct answer with what I had written down on my paper I saw that it was a million miles away. Crap. This is bad. The worst thing is, that I remember myself knowing those ranges. I remember sitting down with André trying to solve a problem and my range would be closer to the correct answer than his. Where did that all go?

You know when you stay away from the tables for some time and then when you finally go back you're out of shape? You probably need to take it slow at first, study and try to remember things you knew but have forgotten. My theory is that the exact same thing happens to me, only instead of happening when I'm away from the tables it happens when I don't get any coaching with André. It's frustrating really, especially considering all the hours that both of us (André and I) have invested in me learning poker.

Anyway, it's pretty straightforward what needs to happen from now on. I have to study a ton and... get more coaching with André. The tricky part here is that he doesn't have much time. He has his own challenge going on, he needs to film videos about it, get some coaching himself, study, blog, etc. He is working so many hours that if we didn't live in the same house and work in the same space I don't think I'd see him much! So where will he find time to give coaching to me?

The Office

As you probably know, in February of 2012 we rent an office and transferred our computers there. The idea was to separate our work life from all the rest. We wanted to increase our concentration and productivity. And it worked, having the office was a very positive thing. Unfortunately, the truth is that we have to spend quite a lot of time going around. Even though it's not that far away from home, going in and out of garages, waiting at traffic lights and driving around quickly adds up. Not to mention it's ok when you leave in reasonable times, but quite often we happen to leave the office at 2, 3 or 5 a.m. At that time you just want to teleport to your bed if possible. We may be able to save only an hour or so per day, but that is huge for André. I'm kind of sad that we are leaving the office cause I've spent endless hours of grinding there and have a lot of nice memories but the truth is if that will allow him to have more time to coach me, fine, I'll take it. Plus, since poker has not been very profitable lately that's one less expense I'll have to worry about!

So from now on we'll be playing from home. We only moved back two days ago so not everything is ready yet, but when it is I'll make a photo tour to show you guys!

Computer dating

If you think this is about dating other people on the Internet... You are mistaken! What I meant was really dating a computer! Some months ago I spotted a great laptop at the mall... The Samsung 900X3C! The price was $1,7k which was way too high and I wasn't really considering to buy it, but every time André and I would go by the store I'd drag him inside to go take another look at "my" laptop. You know how some women will melt looking at showcases full of bags or clothes? That's kind of what I looked like, only I was hooked on that computer! I was very much love struck! I didn't even realize until one day as we were approaching the store André said "Do you wanna go inside and check your laptop?" How did he know in advance that I wanted to do that? "You are dating the computer", he said. It was true! 

As time went by, they dropped the price to $1,3k. Still too expensive. Then a month after, they took it further down to $1k. This was getting interesting. How much further down were they going to take it? Not at all apparently, as the next model of the series had already been released. The thing is, I hated the next model. Yeah it had better characteristics but it also had a major flaw: it was heavier. You see, one of the things I loved about the 900x3c in particular was that it weighed only 1,16 kilos! Even lighter than a MacBook Air of the same size!

But the next model was already here and weighed as much as a brick, while my favorite feather-light laptop was about to get discontinued... Our dating days were officially over! Things either had to get serious between us or... I would have to let go of the laptop once and for all. Around the same time, the WBCOOP money arrived. I didn't win that money at the tables, so it made sense to not include it in my poker bankroll. And even though it wasn't enough to buy my laptop, it would get me a pretty good discount. I don't have a computer of my own (I'm using André's hand-me-downs) so... I went for it!

I don't want to make it sound bad that I'm using André's old computers, they're still far better than the computer an average person has at home and that's what I use to play poker, but... I fell in love with that laptop and I didn't have a computer of my own. Plus, I travel quite a bit which was one more reason to make that purchase! I'm super happy with it, although I'm still getting used to Windows 8... That's gonna take some time!

That's all for now... See you soon with a new post!

WBCOOP Wrap Up

Hi everyone!

I couldn't say goodbye to the WBCOOP series without making a wrap up post about it and letting you know what I thought of it. This was my first year participating. I remember seeing it last year, but then I decided to not participate because I was just getting back to playing poker and my blog had been inactive for more than half a year.

This year, I decided I'd give it a try. I thought it would be fun and didn't think it would be a big deal if next to my grinding tables I had one MTT going. I'd make a small blog post here and there and that would be it. Boy, was I wrong!

Early in the WBCOOP week my grinding was thrown out of the window. I guess it depends on how much each one of us decides to get involved, but I found this series to be quite addictive. I'd play the tournaments and since they were MTTs they took a significant amount of time. Then, I had to write my blog posts which included reviewing hands and sometimes that took me more time than what I spent playing the tournament. When I was not playing or writing, I was checking other people's blogs. When I was running out of new posts to read, I'd check what were the latest tweets. And in between all that, I'd drop by the leaderboard and check what was going on there and who was ahead. In a few words, I was hooked. 

Results

I think it's in order for my last WBCOOP post to have a summary of all of my finishes. My profit was $9 and $49,5 worth of tickets. Not bad for an MTT newbie! Here's the list:

Event 08: 297 out of 570

Event 13: 95 out of 497 - $5,50 ticket

Event 15: 227 out of 401

Event 19: 33 out of 292 - $16,50 ticket

Event 20: 281 out of 374

Event 21: 19 out of 340 - $11 ticket

Event 23: 161 out of 509

Event 27: 338 out of 422

Event 29: 231 out of 619

Event 30: 22 out of 516 - $16,50 ticket

Main Event: 120 out of 1009 - $9

Organisation

Okay, probably not everything went 100% as it was supposed to. There were a few technical problems with tickets arriving late, or some people getting more than 10 tickets or tickets disappearing from accounts. These things unfortunately do happen, but it was eventually sorted out since only the first 10 tournaments of each participant would count towards the leaderboard and those who "lost" tickets got them back. 

Another issue came up with those who participated. The rules clearly stated that participants should make a 500 word blog post or a short video about their best Pokerstars moment. They also stated that the blog should be at least one month old and regularly updated. I'm copy pasting from the WBCOOP terms and conditions "We may seek and/or request evidence of this requirement to ensure compliance with these Rules." What I understand from this sentence (I may be wrong) is that Pokerstars did not hand pick who was fit to participate and who was not. They must have had well over one thousand entries, I can't imagine them checking (and reading) every single blog before they sent the tickets. The bottom line is, we're supposed to be adults. If you're a blogger, this event is for you. If you're not, then you should not take part in it. It's as simple as that. Pokerstars is not the school principal that will have us grounded when we misbehave. Each one of us should be responsible for their own acts. Which brings me to my next subject.

Behavior

Unfortunately there was some bad behavior, both on and off the tables. It made me sad to see once again people blaming the site, the other players, the cards, the VIP status, the weather, basically anything apart from bad luck or their poor play. I understand the feeling of frustration, but there's a limit to everything. Insulting others won't get you anywhere and it certainly won't get your chips back. At forums and blogs, I saw people complaining about having an old blog and not participating in the WBCOOP while others that created a new one did. You guys did the right thing by not participating cause your blog was not in compliance with the rules. Be proud of it instead of feeling bad cause others broke the rules. Also, if you think something about the event is not right try to say so in a constructive way, so as to help make it better. At least there were a few people who even though they had a negative opinion, they expressed it tactfully. This paragraph only concerns a small percentage, I think that most bloggers can actually speak properly instead of just insult, but still I had to put it out there.

Twitter

Apart from all the money to be earned at the tables and the leaderboard, the WBCOOP advertised two ways of winning: blogging and tweeting. I decided right away that twitter was not for me. I had an account but to be honest, I hardly knew how it worked. If you asked me 10 days ago what a hashtag is, I wouldn't have an answer. Yet when I logged in to see what was going on, I didn't want to leave. The community that I discovered at #WBCOOP is simply amazing. People from all over the word came together to share a common interest: playing poker. It's hard to stay back watching and not participate. Before I knew it, I was part of tweeterland! A big thank you to everyone for a super twitter-week. You guys are awesome! Oh, and good luck to Liam (@Rubikscube91) for the best tweeter award. If it was up to me, I'd give it to him here and now. Live coverage, stats, graphs, cheering up and always positive attitude, he is twitter-crazy! :)

Conclusion

The WBCOOP was for sure a lot more than I had expected. I discovered new poker blogs, found new interesting people, heard a lot of stories about good moments playing this game, wrote a lot of blog posts, tried out new poker formats,  had lots of fun... Oh, and I got some money in the process. Thanx Pokerstars for this great event! WBCOOP 2014? Can't wait! :)

WBCOOP Main Event

Hi everyone!

The WBCOOP is officially over. Since I did one post for each one of the tournaments I participated in, I couldn't leave out the biggest one: the main event!

The main event gathered 1009 players, being by far the biggest of the series. I played during over six hours so there were a loooot of interesting hands and spots. Since I can't review them all here, I chose those that in my opinion are the best 4.

The badbeat

So, action is folded to me. I'm on the cut-off with K8o and 57BBs. The player on the BB has about 3BBs left behind. The player on the SB is also kind of short with 14BBs. With all the antes and the blinds in the middle both of them should be more eager to gamble than the average so I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I had it coming. I raised 2,5x and got called by the SB. The flop came 6c-9h-Kc, a pretty favorable board for me. The SB checked and I bet 1,6k into a pot of 2,8k chips. The SB shoved over the top. I had to put 3320 chips to call and claim a 9,3k pot. Plus, I was holding top pair. And when the SB shoved, there was almost as much as his stack in the pot so I figured he shouldn't be in a tight range. He showed QJ of clubs... He was going either for a gutshot straight or for a flush. The very next card that hit was a ten and I lost. What can I say, I don't think I should have been in the hand in the first place so I got what I deserved... :P

The missplay

So there I am, with the chipleader of the tournament sitting at the other side of my table. I have 38BBs and get dealt a pair of pocket 77s in middle position. As expected, I min-raise against the chipleader's blind. Everyone folds and now it's up to him to talk. He re-raises me. I think about it a bit, the pot is 7700 and it's 3200 to call. I go with it. The board is 8-5-Q rainbow. He checks and I bet half the pot. That may sound weird, but that guy had been bluffing a lot and doing some strange plays. I thought my persistence would scare him away. The downside is, I've already invested 1/3 of my stack in this hand and I'm not even sure I'm ahead. He calls. Ooops! Okay, I'm probably behind here. The turn is a two and we both check. The pot is slightly bigger than my stack. The river is another five and this time he bets 8k. I know I'm most likely beat, but I have to give it a shot, I feel too committed. Guess what? He was holding pocket tens. No further comment, I misplayed this hand as much as humanly possible!

The suck-out

Okay, this is another epic one. I have ten big blinds and I catch ATo on UTG+1. The antes are huge, so there's a nice pot in the middle. Can't let go of this one. We're close to the bubble but we're not there yet. I really have to double up to make it into the money, and even then it's not guaranteed. But if I lose now, I walk away with nothing after so many hours of play... Finally, I shove... Nah, I'll spoil the surprise if I say more. Just watch the replay!

The exit

I'm on the big blind with 18BBs. We're already in the money and the chipleader of the table (same player I mentioned as chipleader before only now he's not 1rst of the tournament) raises 3x from the cut-off. I have A3o. Normally I would fold, but I've seen this guy min-raising 87o from UTG and bullying people around with his big stack and trash hands. An ace should be good against his range, so I shove over the top. Oooops, he called! It turns out, this particular time he wasn't bluffing or trying to steal anything. He was holding pocket Kings and raising for value! Unfortunately I never found my Ace (or the fifth card needed for a flush) so that was my last hand of the WBCOOP.

I placed 120th and got $9. I'm happy I got so deep in the tournament and even though what I won is far from the top prizes, it's still free money!

After I got eliminated I was feeling tired. I had been playing since I woke up and during those 6+ hours I forgot to have lunch. Thinking that it was probably better to go away from the computer a bit, I went to watch some TV and ordered a pizza. A couple of hours later, I went back to check what was going on in the main event and found twitter messages and the #WBCOOP hashtag bombarded with updates. The tournament had reached the final table and one of my twitter acquaintances, Tiger Cente, was actually in it! 

There were already a bunch of people railing for him and I joined the crowd. It was really fun to watch and cheer for him. Unfortunately I couldn't watch the whole thing until the end, I had to leave due to other obligations. When I got back, I was happy to find out that he took it down! Also, I had left the replayer open so even though it wasn't live, I saw how it all played out (only missed 22 hands). Here's a printscreen of the very last hand:

You can find Martin's blog here. Whenever they ask him what was his best Pokerstars moment from now on, I bet he'll have a new story to tell. There's nothing left to say except... Congratulations to Tiger Cente from India, WBCOOP 2013 Main Event Champion!!!

WBCOOP Event #30 NLHE

Hello!

The second event I played yesterday was the last one of the WBCOOP series, before the main event that is. It was your regular NLHE tournament. When it started, the first thing I noticed at my table was that pretty much everyone was sitting out. It was only me and the player on my left that were actually playing. Too bad that he was quite persistent and stealing the blinds from the rest of the sitting out players was not as easy as it sounds...

Anyway, little by little and with the changes of players at the table, we got a couple more people that were not sitting out. I decided to stop going crazy in an attempt to steal the dead money and play just a little bit more loose than my normal game.

I actually made it in the money in this one, which is great! That means that I was playing for quite some time and a lot of interesting hands came up. Since I can't describe them all here (I'd need to be blogging for a couple of days non-stop to do that), I'll pick my favorite three.

The first interesting hand was during the 7th level with the blinds at 125/250-a25. The player UTG immediately shoved. He had 15BBs. I was UTG+1 and was the one to talk next. My hand was AQo. Now normally, I don't mind calling an all-in of 15BBs with AQ. In this case however, there were 7 players left to talk after us. Some of them were deeper and maybe could call lighter thanks to their big stacks. Apart from that, the player sitting on the Big Blind only had 2,5BBs behind so he was almost certain to call. I hesitated. I had 22BBs but if I called 15BBs then I couldn't ever fold my remaining 7. So basically the choice was between shoving or folding. What would you do?

I shoved. Fortunately, nobody else called, not even the big blind that was super short. The opponent revealed a pair of 66s. I hit an ace on the flop, but the turn was a six so I lost a ton of chips. I was left with roughly 8BBs after that hand.

The second hand that really got my heart pumping was during the next level, with the blinds at 150/300-a25. My stack was slightly shorter than 12BBs and I got dealt pocket Tens on the cut-off. With a stack so short and a pot of 650 from the blinds and antes, if you get tens you know that you will eventually end up all-in one way or another. I saw players around the table folding, but it didn't get to me. A player two seats on my right shoved. He had a similar stack to mine, so that was understandable. He was feeling the pressure of the blinds going up and would happily go all-in with anything halfway decent. Still, my hand was very strong. I had to call. I took a deep breath and clicked the button. To my horror, I saw the player on my left shoving over the top. This one actually had a pretty decent stack. If he was shoving over two players, he should be holding a monster. I prepared for the worst! Everyone else folded.

My suspicions were unfortunately confirmed when the button revealed KK. The other player that shoved first had JJ. And I was behind both. I prepared to exit when I noticed the ten of hearts smiling at me from the board. I think I stopped breathing until both the turn and the river were revealed. None of them were relevant and I tripled up. I'm not sharing this hand cause there was awesome skill involved or something. I think all three of us played it fine and didn't really have any other option. I'm just sharing cause it was one of the sickest suckouts I've made! Epic!

Fast forward to the thirteenth level of blinds, 600/1200-a125 for the last hand of the post. I was UTG+1 and had managed to rebuild my stack up to 25,5BBs. I was dealt AQs and min-raised. Everyone folded until the SB who decided to re-raise me. He bet 7,2k and I called. The pot was now 16,7k and I wanted badly to add it to the 23,4k chips I had left behind. Fortunately luck was on my side this time. The flop was Q-6-Q. Unless he was holding a pair of pocket sixes, I was ahead. He bet first, 9,6k. I called. Turn: Jack of hearts. He bet 20,4k and I called my last 13,8k chips. He showed A3o. The river was a nine which was pretty much irrelevant cause he was drawing dead, and I won a huge pot with that  hand. What really baffles me is why he made that huge bet on the turn. I mean, sure he was holding an ace and thought that I shouldn't hit that board too often, but still... I don't know. I'm not skilled enough to judge his play and say if it was brilliant or a really bad one, but I really don't get it. Anyway, I was happy with getting most of his chips. :)

I lost quite a long time later when I shoved my 9BBs with ATo from the button. I actually shoved over the top of a raise from the cut-off, he had AJo but i didn't get lucky this time. Still, I made it to 22nd place and earned a $16,5 ticket. Quite a good score a think!

I hope you enjoyed this post... If you have any advice on my plays (or want to share anything else in general), please leave a comment. Coming up: WBCOOP's main event report!

WBCOOP Event #29 NLHE [6-Max]

Hello!

Today after breakfast I went for my weekly massage! What better way to get prepared for a day at the virtual tables? When I finally got to the office I was feeling super light and relaxed. I registered at WBCOOP event 29 about half an hour after it started. It had 15 minutes blinds, so no big deal. Snail pace! :P

While I may not appreciate slow blinds all that much, I certainly liked having 5 opponents at my table. When I got my seat, I took a look around and noticed that 2 out of my 5 opponents were sitting out. More dead money to steal, I guess. After registration closed half an hour later, there were 619 players registered. Biggest event of the series so far! I suppose everyone's trying to use up their tickets...

Anyway, the first hand where I got a bit of value was QTo. The cut-off min-raised. Now, QTo is not the kind of hand I'm super happy to play with out of position but that guy had been playing way too many hands, so I figured my broadway was probably good against his range. I called and the flop came 6c-Ts-9s, giving me top pair. I checked, he bet half of the pot, I called. Turn: 3 of hearts. Irrelevant card and the action of the previous street repeated. Check, bet half the pot, call. The river was Q of hearts, improving my hand to two pair. Since he was so persistent, I made a really small bet comparing to the size of the pot, in hopes of inducing a bluff. Unfortunately it didn't work and he just called. He had J9o and I won a 1,2k pot which was nice.

The next hand was against the same player. This time, he raised 3x from UTG+1. That was a bit too much comparing to his usual min-raises, but I was holding pocket Kings so I happily re-raised him. He called. The flop was 8d-2s-9h. 950 chips in the pot, so I bet 450. What did the guy do? He shoved! Calling would put me all-in, he slightly had me covered. At that point I started running disaster scenarios in my head, cause I hadn't seen him raise 3x before so I was afraid that he might be holding aces. But I won't fold such a strong overpair on a rainbow board. I called... He had 67s, of hearts. The turn was K of hearts, leaving him with way too many outs. He could hit a straight or a flush on the river. Knowing my bad luck, I prepared for the worst... River: Jack of clubs. I won! 

Shortly after, I got moved to a new table. Too bad, cause I was starting to enjoy having two guys sitting out. It felt like a 4-Max table, a format I played the other day and enjoyed quite a bit. The person that had the biggest stack at my new table was from Portugal. He asked if I was André's girlfriend (I get that from time to time) and we got into a friendly chat. At some point during the conversation, I got KJo and min-raised from the button against the Portuguese's big blind. He called. The flop was J-2-8 rainbow. Hitting top pair with good kicker, I went on with my standard way of playing. Not much to think of, I wasn't letting go with that board so we went on with the conversation. He called every bet I made until the river. I was curious as to what he could have, and was quite surprised to see all the chips going his way. He had 82s and hit a two pair on the flop! It's funny how I thought I was ahead all through the hand and chatting casually only to discover that he had me beaten from the start. I'm telling you, friendliest way someone took my chips ever! :P

Still, even after losing that pot I had above the average stack and was doing ok. Until I got A3s on the button. Action was folded to me and that's a nice hand to min-raise with, so I did. The player on my left re-raised me and that was not the first time that he was pulling that move. Since it was starting to become a regular thing and I was holding a suited ace, I called. The flop came Ah-8s-2h. My opponent bet 1085 chips into a 1,8k pot. This was starting to become dangerous. I was holding an ace, but I had a total of 3,7k chips behind. If I called now, I would probably get committed to the hand anyway. Then again, I was holding two spade cards, so there was also the remote chance of a backdoor flush. And the truth is, that was a very aggressive opponent he couldn't have a hand every time he cbet the flop! I called. Turn: ten of diamonds. He bet 2k. I just had to call there, even though he was putting me all-in. Unfortunately, he had AQo. The river wasn't a 3 so he beat me at the kicker. And with that hand, I was out of the tournament.

Once again, I didn't make it into the money. Also, I didn't last longer than half an hour in the tourney. But it's no big deal anyway, I had fun playing this one! The last WBCOOP event is starting in half an hour.

Time to use my last ticket! Let's see if I can make this one count... See you at the WBCOOP tables!