WCOOP 2010 is here! The action starts on September 5th, 2010 all the way until the 26th which is when event #62 – Main Event starts. The WCOOP is the largest online poker tournament schedule and it only gets bigger every year. The great thing about the WCOOP is that all events are played on the internet. Unlike the live events such as the WSOP or the EPT, the WCOOP does not have any travel barriers. Whether you live in the USA, Europe or Asia, etc, it can be a complete turn off from traveling overseas to the WSOP or EPT to try and win one of these events. Here’s when the WCOOP shines, the WCOOP lets you play conveniently from your home without traveling anywhere. It allows anyone to enter without having to book many nights of travel, endure with jetlag, or play days for a single tournament. This makes the WCOOP, truely, a worldwide tournament. The buy-in ranges cater to any serious poker player where we can expect entrants from all poker players rather than be burdened by buy-ins that deter others away. The other great thing about the WCOOP is that there are online qualifiers to these events where players can easily find a suitable qualifier with ample amount of time prior to the event. Not only will the prize for winning one of these WCOOP events be astounding, but you will be honored as a TRUE world champion with a gold bracelet and diamond bracelet.
If you’ve been following my progress, you’ll notice that I’ve been entering many many online MTTs as of late. I want to being a World Champion by playing many events throughout the live and online circuits. The WCOOP 2010 is my first chance ever since my practice as of a couple months ago and I’m looking to make it pay off. Last Sunday, I final tabled 2 MTT’s for 3rd and 8th place so I’m going into this very confidently. I’ll be entering the majority of the Holdem events (both NL/LHE). Be sure to follow me at the tables and watch me give it all I’ve got!
For more complete details on the WCOOP go to -> WCOOP 2010
Below is my most likely tentative WCOOP 2010 Schedule. Things may change, and I may want to consider adding some events as well.
I’ve reached the required number of VPPs to obtain Supernova Elite in 2010! This is my 3rd year in a row getting Supernova Elite and it requires a lot of confidence and dedication to get there. It’s definitely quite the accomplishment after you get there! And of course the rewards are always nice! If you’ve got the dedication and commitment, give it a shot! And show your 6 black stars out at the tables w/ me!
For my information about Supernova Elite check out: Pokerstars SNE
Now that I’ve obtained Supernova Elite for 2010, conveniently the WCOOP is right around the corner! Now it’s time to become a world champion! I’ll be preparing my schedule and showing it to you guys probably in my next blog post.
After a short notice, I ended up flying out to Vegas for a day! Well it wasn’t exactly for no particular reason! It was a chance for me to meet up with some of the Pokernews Strategy team including Tony G himself! Everyone had a great time and our room was definitely super sick! What’s great is that you also get a 24 hour butler and VIP services that take you wherever you need to go in a Rolls-Royce Phantom! They sure make you feel like royalty here. Big thanks to Tony G and co for setting up a sweet villa! Check out the video to see our room. Excuse the slight mess around the room! hahahaha
I’d like to thank Mike and Adam for having me as their featured guest on this weeks 2+2 Pokercast! The great thing about this podcast is that you can browse the 2+2 forums while watching it or download it onto your itunes! Downloading is free so you can listen to it at your leisure! I must give a small warning though that we did have some technical issues w/ the audio when recording with me where my mic would go on and off at times. It gets better in the middle of the pokercast and I personally think it’s a bit clearer on itunes but that could just be me. Regardless, check it out! Give some feedback and most certainly enjoy it!
If for some reason you only want to hear me (although the rest of the content is great!) Fastforward to around 1hr,27min.
Just a reminder that tomorrow, Saturday 08/14/10, at 7pm ET, I’ll be doing the big game live webchat which you guys can participate in!
If you missed out on my live stream last time, well we’ve got something similar and with more poker coming up! If you’ve been keeping up with the Pokerstars: The Big Game, this week it’s showing loose cannon ‘Troy Howard’ taking on many big name pros! You’ll be seeing Rick Rahim, David ‘Viffer’ Peat, Antonio Esfandiarai, Chau Giang, and Barry Greenstein duel it out with him at the tables.
Here’s the special part! I’ll be hosting this week’s weekly webchat about the big game! I’ll be hosting the webcast where you guys can come on to the site and ask questions about interesting hands and things like that that happened in this week’s big game. Be sure to watch all 5 episodes to get the most out of the webcast!
The webcast will start on Saturday, 08/14/10 at 7pm ET for about 1 hour.
Here’s part 2 of 2 for the All Star Week 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo match! You’ll have to watch if you want to know who wins! Just remember the videos are meant for entertainment purposes =)
On August 1, 2010, I was scheduled to play a match for All Star Week 2010. I would be representing Team Pokerstars Pros in a series of Heads Up matches against All Star Week Challengers that consisted of SCOOP, WCOOP, Yearly TLB, Supernova Elites, and wildcards.
As you may expect me to have be participating in a NL match, I will actually be playing 7 Card Stud Hi-Lo. Maybe you don’t know the rules? Well I didn’t either so I had to look it up days before my match! Good thing I’m a quick learner and play money sure helped me out! I recorded my match and I’m displaying for your viewing pleasure w/ commentary my play of the final ~19 minutes of the match. Hope you guys enjoy it! Here’s part 1 of 2…expect part 2 soon!
On Monday the 26th, I was walking through a serene and green area with no commercial buildings in site. Relaxing and calm, I felt at ease…then suddenly…I hear…BEEP BEEP BEEP…WAIT how is it possible for me to hear BEEPs out here in such a green calm place? That’s when it hit me! I’m in a dream! WAKE UP!
After being kicked to reality, I checked my phone, and it’s about 9:30 AM. Now I remember what’s going on, today in my apartment there’s a test to test our emergency alarms. What a rough day! Now *KNOCK KNOCK*, I answer the door and they confirm that my emergency speaker on my apartment works fine and the *BEEPs* stop. I freshen up and log on my computer, to start my daily grind at the poker tables. Log into my pokerstars account and sign up for some online tournaments then suddenly…*BEEP BEEP BEEP*! Now I’m stuck in my apartment with nowhere to go as I already signed up for my tournaments and you can’t exactly quit without forfeiting. The *BEEPs* go on for about an hour and my day goes on…
Fast forward to today, back to the daily grind. Registered for my online tournaments again, playing some cash tables as well. It’s been a few hours and everything is going well. I’m getting pretty far in a tournament approaching the top 10% to cash and then…*BEEP BEEP BEEP*…WOW…”didn’t they finish checking everyone’s apartment unit for the emergency tests!?!” Sucks! Now I got to listen to this *BEEPing* crap again for an hour. Oh well, back to the poker with the *BEEPs*! As I continue playing my game, now I hear *rrrrrr “fire truck sirens” rrrrr*. Now wait a second, why are their fire truck sirens? Now I’m panicking …is this real? But I’m playing tournaments! Now I know what to do, let me call the office to see if this is a test or not.
*Ring Ring*
“Hello?”
“Hi, I live at this apartment and is this a real emergency evacuation?”
“Yes it is, for your unit only.”
*Click*
Now, I’m panicking because I’m still in my online tournaments and cash games! First thing I do is sit out of all of my cash games! Should I stay in my unit and hope everything is okay? 20 minutes until the 5 minute break for my tournament! Better start packing my backpack and hope the alarm just stops!
Now, what do I do? I’m still in the tournaments and it’s approaching the crucial part of the tournament! I need wi-fi! What’s close that has free wi-fi? Starbucks? I open up the browser and confirm that Starbucks now has wi-fi. Should I just go now or wait for my break which is another 15 minutes? I live on the top floor of my apartment and the elevators aren’t to be used at the moment as I heard numerous times over the speaker broadcast. Is it worth the chance I might die if something happens!?! Well the lady, who confirmed the emergency was real, sounded pretty calm! So it CAN’T be that bad right? So seems like a good idea to wait for the break!
BREAK TIME! RUN RUN RUN! WOW there’s so many flights of stairs and I’m carrying my backpack which is a whole lot of extra weight even for someone as strong as me! So exhausted! Maybe I should workout more but need to stay focused! The stairs eventually take me outdoors and I see firetrucks and police cars blocking the roads! Oh crap, I need my car and it’s in the parking garage underground. Now I’ve got to run all the way to the front of building to get back in so I can go downstairs to get my car! But is it dangerous? Who cares! I need my car to get to starbucks or I’ll be giving away free chips sitting out in my tournament! Lights are flashing throughout the apartment. I get to my car and drive out! STARBUCKS here I come!
Now I’m at Starbucks and I log onto my laptop and I order a Green Tea Lemonade! My favorite drink here!
“Sorry we’re out of lemonade”
WHAT!?!
“We can use mango juice instead though”
“Okay, sure”
I get my Green Tea with Mango juice…*sip sip*…WOW this drink is horrible. I take it back to the counter…
“Can I get another drink?”
“Yeah figured you wouldn’t like it because I didn’t like it either”
WOW thanks for giving me a drink you KNEW was horrible!
hahaha but all is well…as I’m blogging this at Starbucks as we speak! Good luck US!
Update!: I didn’t cash any of the tournaments! Right outside the money! ARGH! Emergency Alarm! Starbucks! Tournaments!
Over at Pokernews Strategy, we’ve recently added high stakes NL/PLO pro, Scott “URnotINdanger2″ Palmer! URnotINdanger2 is one of the biggest winners online and he’ll be making instructional videos for both NL and PLO. Adding URnotINdanger2 to our team makes our already strong team THAT much stronger. He’s already in the works of cranking out some videos so expect those to come as soon as they are available. Our strategy site only gets better from here on out.
Also, there’s a new free sample video which has a lot more action than my previous free sample. In this free video, I play $1/$2 NL across 3 tables with commentary after the fact. I’m pretty sure you guys will like this video so check it out!
Now that I’m back home, seems like a good time to give an overview of my WSOP 2010. I played 2 events this year for WSOP 2010 which was Event #44: Mixed Holdem and the Main Event of the WSOP. I placed 22nd in the Mixed Holdem event and I lost very early of Day 3 of the WSOP Main Event.
Recap on the Main Event:
I started the tournament with 30,000 chips, got there shortly after the cards were dealt in the air. When I finally arrived, folded a few hands and picked up 86clubs and isolated a limper. I figure it was proper for me to start figuring out my table as soon as possible while we’re playing very deep so that the mistakes would be minimal to my stack size if I were to make any. I weighted the risk & rewards. The risks? I figure making a mistake wouldn’t be so bad to my stack in the first few levels due to the ratio of the pot sizes to my stack. The rewards? The information I’ll gain about my opponents which I’ll be able to use in the later stages of the tournament when the chips are valued more since the blinds increase. Having said that, when I picked up the 86clubs, I flopped a flush on a King high all club board. My limping opponent overbet led the flop in which I just called so that I can play cautiously given we’re about 300 bb deep. The turn paired the top card King in which he threw out another overbet which scared me since if he flopped a set or higher flush, I would be drawing dead. However, this was the very beginning of the tournament and my information on this player was practically readless. Using my logic of measuring the early stages of the tournament, I decided the calling down here would:
1) Possibly award me the pot decently large pot
2) Give me information about this limping player and overbets which I can manipulate to my advantage in the more important stages of the tournament
3) Lose the pot but the affect of the pot size loss would be less at the 1st level due to the small blinds
Eventually, on the river he overbet the river again and I snapped called and he flips up trip Kings with a ’5′ kicker. Right then and there, I realized that this player was unlikely to be a professional player given his bet sizing, his limping range in early position, and his line of action on the type of board. While a top trips is a good hand in absolute strength, the relative strength of his hand is rather weak relative to the hands I would ever consider calling down with. Most professionals in that spot, would never call down worse in an environment where information is that severely limited. I’d imagine that if I was to call down in this situation of the WSOP 1st level, I’d always have at least trips with a better kicker as I wouldn’t be playing such weak kickers. As you can see from such a seemingly simple hand, sometimes there’s more to decisions than the cards itself. Even times, it’s beyond the chips and potsize. You have to be aware of how each play affects other outside factors such as images and information. In poker you’re playing a game of imperfect information, and the more you can close the gap, the more successful you’ll be.
Now I must say, that analysis above caught me off guard a bit so let me continue my recap of my main event. So I then proceed to analyze the players at my table, and a few seats to my left sat TJ Cloutier. This man is a legend, a very successful poker player who’s won many bracelets in the WSOP. It was definitely and honor playing with him, and Dan Cypra of pokersoftware caught up with me to do a quick short interview with me about my main event during day 1.
I eventually ended the day 1 with a stack very close to my initial starting stack. That was the 1st time during the WSOP that I played day 1a, so I had 3 days in between until Day 2. At the wsop, after each day, you get a new table redraw. During day 2, I ran my stack up relatively early in the day. The cut off who was a Swedish player who reminded me of Leonardo Dicaprio, raised and a short stack player right after him shoved all in with a little pair. I was in the SB and I reshoved all in w/ AKo to isolate the short stack player since my range was likely dominating him and I’ll pick up the dead money already in the pot. Leo tank a little bit then called my shove w/ QQ. There were some fans who I met earlier in the day railing me this hand so it was nice to have some fans in the crowd! They rooted for me and the door card came the King and I more than doubled up. Things eventually went a little sour as the day went on and I was moved to another table.
The new table, seemed pretty tough given the table talk. You can tell from the table talk that the majority of these guys played on the internet. One of these players included internet MTT specialist Adam “Roothlus” Levy. He played very well and placed 12th in this year’s Main Event. Congrats to him! Another reason I figure these guys were internet players was because when it was my turn to act, a few of the guys would say something along the lines of “hey you’re playing only 1 table” since I didn’t act instantly. When you hear the laughter all around, you have to figure that they know who I am based on my screenname and the amount of tables I’m capable of playing. It was a very enjoyable table in the social aspect! Eventually I ended the day very shortstack with about 21bb at about 21000 chips.
After Day 2, there was a break for 2 days so I found a thread on 2+2 which showed the table draws for Day 3! After looking over the names, I found that I was going to be reunited with Patrik Antonius from my EPT event. I was ready and hyped up to prepare for war again however my chip stack was rather short so my room for war was rather limited. I got there on Day 3, and found my table was actually moved to another table. Eventually I found my table and it was on the stage in it’s own exclusive area. I think it was the secondary featured tables without the holecard cameras but I’m not positive. I was ready and determined to run a stack up and start some fireworks at the table.
1st hand: dealt junk -> I fold.
2nd hand: In the BB, dealt junk -> I fold.
3rd hand: In the SB, dealt 88. Early position limps, folds around to me in the SB and I open shove 20bb expecting to take down the blinds and dead money from the limp. The BB snap calls my shove, and the original limper snap folds. BB flips up JJ and I failed to improve.
My day 3 must have lasted less then 3 minutes and it was very disappointing. I didn’t get to double my stack and give Patrik Antonius round 2 at the poker table. Although I was definitely bummed, two of my friends were with me who aren’t exactly poker savvy people but that doesn’t matter at all. What’s important is that, it changed my disappointment so quickly to a positive moment. We hung out for the rest of the day and I decided to fly back home early from Vegas. After typing out this blog, I thought that maybe I would talk about how much I would have loved to have done better. But you know, I’m actually very happy with myself and one of my motto’s is: “Reflect, don’t dwell”.
