Category Archives: General Poker

Clearing the Decks: Discipline

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Another unpublished piece from earlier this year that I thought was a lot less finished than it was. This is the kind of thing that happens when you work full-time, play a lot of poker, and spend hours each week writing and researching. Stuff falls through the cracks.

Last Friday night’s Final Table First Friday $20K GTD NLHE went pretty well for me, a nice continuation cash for the year and a good kickoff to the month before this year’s World Series of Poker season, which starts in just over three weeks. I played with no intention of rebuying.

I almost put my intention to the test when I played 9♣ 2♣ from the BB (short story: let my aces get cracked by 9x 2x in a $600 tournament at the Venetian six or seven years ago) and called a 3x raise with one other caller. The flop’s 9x 6x 2x all red. The original raiser bet 1,200 and the caller goes all in for 2,900, I shove 10K or so, the original raiser folds, I’m up against Ax 6x and the ace hits on the river.

Made it up to 60K after I busted a new player’s kings with 4♥ 6♥ just after the first break, then there was a long, slide down to 40K by second break.

Five and a half hours in I got into a three-way hand with tens holding against nines and Kx Jx. I had over three-and-a-half times the average stack with 36 left and 18 paying.

I was moved three times before the final table, with my last couple of tables featuring a very nice, slightly tipsy woman from Texas who claimed she didn’t have much experience playing poker, since it’s not legal there. She was very gregarious and doing extremely well despite her claims of inexperience. She made a couple of big calls that put her in flips (which she won), before losing a big chunk of her stack in a hand where she was ahead 70/30. She did have a tendency to risk more of her lead than might have been prudent.

We took nearly an hour to go from 14 players to the final table, then another hour to lose two players. A player with about a quarter of the chips in play was in seat 1, talking non-stop, holding out for a bigger payout but also complaining about how tired he was. A couple of deals were proposed and I was the holdout until we were down to 8. The motormouth got $3K and everyone else got just over $2.5K.

The next day’s (technically, only about 7 hours after I got home) Portland Meadows Kentucky Derby $30K GTD NLHE Survivor tournament was one I was looking forward to, hoping to string two $2K cashes together in the weekend. Sadly, it was not to be. I lost chips, then took some from the always-aggressive Barron Nakama when I three-bet his raise with Ax Kx. I picked up A♣ A♠ the very next hand and three-bet his raise again, with the flop coming 9x 7x 7x. We ended up all-in and he, of course, had called my 3-bet with Ax 7x. Chalk it up (again) to “old man with a big pair” syndrome.

I was down to 5,500, then managed to drive my way back up over 10K before I jammed over a 3-bet with Qx Qx from the cutoff, right into the button’s Kx Kx. I didn’t even make it to the end of buyins (no reentry).

Looking forward to the Final Table $50K GTD NLHE next weekend. Take time to appreciate your social club poker rooms and volunteer player/dealers, because it looks as if there may be another move from various governmental organizations to shut the whole thing down.

But enough of that. Let’s talk about survivor tournaments in general and the Ignition Casino $5K GTD Thousandaire Maker in specific.

Simply  put, a Survivor tournament is similar to a satellite, where the prize pool is divided into equal-sized pieces. Most Survivor tournaments have a pre-defined payout, and everyone who makes it to the money gets the same amount of money (a ticket, in the case of a satellite). There is usually one exception: when the prize pool isn’t an even multiple of the payout amount, anything left over goes to the player who busts before the others are in the money.

As an example, if you have pre-defined payouts of $1,000 (as in the Thousandaire Maker) and a prize pool of $7,200, seven players would get $1,000 and the eighth would get $200. You can easily adjust payouts in any manner you like, and the payouts are simple to calculate. Have a $225 buyin and want to pay about 10% of the field? If 1 in 10 players is paid, the payout would be 10 times the buyin: $2,250. Got 176 players and a prize pool of $39,600? That’s 17 payouts of $2,250 and one of $1,350.

Want to extend to 15% of the field? Pay 6-2/3 (1/15×100) times the buyin: $1,500. Same number of entrants and prize pool is 26 full payouts (176×15%=26) with 27th getting $600. Better than a min-cash 7 out of 10 times even when you semi-bubble the Survivor.

The secret of the Survivor is that you need to be good and lucky to stay profitable playing poker tournaments. In Survivor tournaments you just need to be good. You don’t win the giant, sexy money, but if you can play them often enough, you can stay ahead of the rake. If you’re good enough.

I played my first Thousandaire Maker tournament on Bovada just over three years ago. In that time I’ve played a total of 149 Thousandaire Makers on Bovada and then Ignition. The payouts are $1,000. The buyin is $75+$7. I’ve cashed 16 events, with 16 full payouts and one semi-bubble. Cost to me: $12,218. Payout: $16,850 (nearly a full payout for the semi-bubble). Profit: $4,632. +38% ROI.

Only 7.5% of players get paid in the Thousandaire Maker, less than 1 in 13 entries. Since Bovada originally “sold” their poker operation to Ignition, I’ve only seen  the number of entries get into triple digits once, so the number of $1K payouts has always been 5 (the guarantee), 6, or 7.

At least a couple of nights a week the Thousandaire Maker doesn’t run, not enough players have signed up by 8:15 Pacific (9 is the magic number) for the game to run.

R-Day Minus 39

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The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

Not going to go into the details of this one. I made a good call early on and doubled up, then got cut down to a quarter of the starting stack by the same player. Worked it back up, got the add on, then ran jacks from the small blind into UTG limped kings and busted in three hours.

Did a last-minute buyin to the nightly Ignition Casino $5K NLHE Turbo. It was down to 200 players from over 500, with 90 playing, and the big blind was up to 1,600 (on a 10K starting stack). Got it in on the second hand in a 4-way all-in pre-flop with J♠ T♠ and made the best hand on the turn with two pair, but a Broadway draw got there in the river.

Played a $7 buyin Ignition Casino NLHE Jackpot Sit-n-Go for the first time in a while and immediately got a 5x $35 payout table, then took it down by knocking out one player and having the other lose his connection (I went into heads-up with a 5:1 advantage anyway).

Clearing the Decks: Vegas Trip Report

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I wrote this back in June and never put it up, Figured I’d better get it posted before…you know.

Something the Sat Dragged In

I made a quick trip down to Vegas over the weekend that may be my last for the summer, since it didn’t go so smoothly.

I headed down with one of my co-workers, Ben, who was seeing the WSOP for his first time.

We got a room at the Rio, since we just had a couple of days, getting into town at 7pm on Friday. We got a Lyft to the hotel, got checked into a room  in Masquerade with Trump’s hotel in the middle of our view, then headed down to the floor, where we immediately ran into Kevmath. After a brief chat I hustled over to the cage to buy into the evening’s $585 Mega Satellite, I made it all of 40 minutes until I bet my pocket tens that were good to the river when A♠ K♠ made a backdoor flush.

Ben and I headed over to the Strip, starting off at Planet Hollywood, where I introduced him to the Mutant Poker Original Friend of the Blog Brad Press who was enjoying some cash game action.

We walked up the Strip checking out the Friday night crowd, as Ben displayed for me his strategy for winning at video roulette, then headed back to the Rio.

Saturday morning we headed down for the 9am WSOP $185 Mega Satellite, where Ben made it about halfway through and I busted 17th, with 8 places paying $100 cash and three $500 tournament buyin lammers. The single-table satellites were going off all around for the Millionaire Maker, but they also ran a satellite for that afternoon’s Eight-Game Six Handed bracelet event, and eager to play some games I don’t get a chance at at home, I jumped in. Amazingly enough, I was (a distant) second in chips by the time we were down to three players, but I ended up going out third.

Ben headed out on his own adventures most of Saturday, ending up in a small tournament at Treasure Island where he chopped for what would be the only cash of our combined weekend. I headed to the Venetian Deepstack Poker Championship $40K GTD NLHE Survivor hoping to pick up one of the $3400 payouts. I wasn’t the only one, as my table had a couple of pros I recognized. Over at another table was Carlos Welch. When I came back from break, I had the scare of my life, as another famous name walked past my table, I thought he was looking for his seat, but he was on his way out.

Played a couple of games on WSOP.com, then did the Mega Satellite again on Sunday morning. Busted out of that, headed to the Orleans and jumped into a tournament there.

I guess I’m lucky that I busted, because even though our flight (on the wretched Spirit Air) was an hour late Sunday night, the game still hadn’t hit the money by the time we were originally scheduled to take off.

So that’s probably Vegas for me for this year. I think trying satellites was the best strat—any one of them would have made the whole trip even, and the big one on Friday would have been fantastic (with a $50 cash payout and $5K in lammers). On to the next attempt.

R-Day Minus 40

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The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

After the turkey was consumed at my brother’s house for Thanksgiving, we came home and I got into the nightly Ignition Casino $4K GTD PLO8. As is usual for me in Pot-Limit Omaha tournaments (and I assume, for a lot of people), it was a rather down-and-up affair over the 200+ hands I played before getting to the final table.

I was under starting stack over the first 40 or so hands, crossing back over the line, then back under, then took a big hit that dropped me to half the starting stack (and about 20bb). I more than doubled up on hand 50, lost a third of my stack three hands later, then zoomed into the top 10 on the leaderboard just a few hands later. Volatile, a the kids say.

I dropped out of the top 10 a couple of times, but I was back up there by the time the bubble approached. I laid back, accidentally folding one hand I intended to play, and with blinds jumping up quickly, I was one of the short stacks by the time we reached the final table.

There was a bit of an overlay in the tournament—one of the few times I can remember getting in one like that. And I managed to outlast three of the other players to grab 6th place for a nice 500% ROI. Only another $97,816 in earnings before the end of December and I keep playing!

PNW Poker Leaderboard Special: Fall Coast Classic & Fall Poker Round Up

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As I mentioned the other day in the Planner, it taken a while for the results of the Fall Coast Classic at Chinook Winds and the Fall Poker Round Up at Wildhorse to get reported to The Hendon Mob, but they’re finally incorporated into everyone’s standings and I can get on with this report.

First, the New

There were a lot of players who got their fiirst large (or first ever) recorded cashes at the Chinook Winds series, and at the top of that group was Portland’s Eshan Porgaharibshahi who picked up his first three flags with final tables in the three biggest events:  $150K GTD NLHE (3rd, as part of a multi-player deal at the final table), $100K GTD NLHE 6-Max (5th), and the $200K GTD NLHE Main Event (3rd).

It’s kind of surprising that Kristi Means (also Portland) got her first recorded cash at the $200K GTD NLHE Main Event—she’s been around the poker scene for quite a while—but her first place finish was it.

Seattle’s Chris Wang picked up his first two recorded cashes with a 9th place finish in the second of the $75K GTD NLHE tournaments and a win in the $100K GTD NLHE 6-Max.

Out at the Pendleton NLHE Main Event, Reynaldo Iturbide of Wapato got his first flag for third place.

Bend’s Zach McKirahan bested the other 458 entries in the Chinook Winds $150K GTD NLHE to seal a first place finish for his first recorded cash.

Second place in the 516-entry opening Friday tournament in Pendleton wasn’t Monte Thissel‘s (Burns) first cash, but it was bigger than his other two by a lot.

Leigh Zaphiropoulos only had to come from Newport to Lincoln City to make another final table there in the $200K GTD NLHE Main Event (6th) for his third and largest recorded cash.

Gresham’s Tom Garry got his first recorded cash with a 2nd place in the $75K GTD NLHE Re-Entry. There were 316 entries.

Tim Mooney from Beaverton was also a first-time casher, geting 4th place in the Chinook $150K GTD NLHE. Chester Dooley of Albany got 6th for cash number 2, and Bend’s Richard Scocum got his first cash with 5th place.

Kirkland’s Brendan Rajah picked up his first cash at Wildhorse, with a 5th in the NLHE Main Event.

The Usual Suspects

The winner of the Pendleton NLHE Main Event was Spokane’s Michael Jutte. It was his largest cash, and so far all of his recorded cashes but one (going back to 2010) are at events at Pendleton.

The more successful of Portand’s The Poker Guys, Grant Denison, took 2nd place in the $200K GTD NLHE Main Event at Chinook Winds as part of a heads-up deal. The tournament had 375 entries and a prize pool of nearly $243K.

Rick Larson of Port Orchard was the winner of the 31-entry NLHE High Roller at Pendleton, then he turned around and won the 388-entry tournament the night before the Main Event.

Portland’s Stuart Young had just two recorded cashes before the Chinook Winds tournament and he’s a double-dipper He picked up three cashes at Chinook and another at Pendleton. He just escaped being the bubble boy in the Chinook Main Event, but he made three final tables: 7th in the $150K GTD NLHE, 2nd place in the $100K GTD NLHE 6-Max, and 2nd again the the NLHE Main Event at Pendleton. He had no cashes before the beginning of this year.

Gregory Lindberg of Corvallis is the other double-dipper. He won the $75K GTD NLHE at Lincoln City, then picked up 4th at the Thursday night tournament in Pendleton and another 4th in the Wildhorse NLHE Main Event.

Tareq Amhaz from Longview won the $75K GTD NLHE Re-Entry at Chinook.

Yakima’s Brian Lawrence picked up his best-ever cash with a win in the opening Saturday tournament at Pendleton. Zack Baille of Pasco won the opening Friday event, Rich Hampton (from Pendleton!) won his biggest-ever cash in the Thursday tournament (with Eric Kline of Seattle coming in 2nd), and Spokane’s Bob Schulhauser took first place in the Pendleton NLHE Seniors.

And that’s all for now.

 

 

R-Day Minus 43

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The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

Results from the Chinook Winds Fall Coast Classic and the Wildhorse Casino Fall Poker Round Up have finally been reported to The Hendon Mob, and state rankings have been updated. New PNW Poker Leaderboard out soon!

R-Day Minus 45

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The Poker Mutant will be retiring (mostly) from poker on 1 January. This is the latest installment in his thrilling countdown to the End of Times.

I’m trying to make the most of my last couple months of poker, so while I’ve reserved my Saturday afternoons for stuff at home since Portland Meadows initiated their noon $10K GTD NLHE tournaments (at least when I haven’t been on a poker trip), I’m trying to cram them in.

I got there not long after the start of Round 1, and promptly managed to lose 6K of my 25K starting stack to a very nice Russian lady on my right when she flopped the wheel and I turned a flush draw and made two pair on the river after raising 4♣ 8♣ under the gun.

I managed to chip back up from that and a few other bad choices with K♠ 5♠, after I turned the nut flush. A low fifth spade on the river made me worry for a minute about a steel wheel, until I realized that my five blocked any straight flush.

That was about it for success, though, as far as my stack went, though I did crack the table up with a joke about Neil Diamond tickets. I clung on with a couple of shoves, pulling out a chop with Ax Jx v Ax Kx when the board double-paired. I went into the third break with half the starting stack. I ran it back up to 32K, but the blinds were eating big chunks out of my stack, there were several big stacks at my new table, and I went card dead, picking up absolutely nothing where I had two cards both above eight.

Eventually, on a button raise against my big blind, I shoved 4bb with 6♥ 5♠, got called by Ax Tx and busted on the flop. Out 32nd place, 17 from the money.