Wrap-Up

I'm back home - still a little tired and down from my cold but it gets better and better.

Time for a little wrap-up:
In general (despite of the cold) it was a great trip. I enjoyed it, had fun and it was how I wanted to celebrate the first year of poker.
O.K. no exactly ... I wished I won more than I lost. But that's part of the game. You can't win everytime.

The hard numbers look like this:

Tournament Entries: $1.610 @ 7 tournaments (avg. $230 / tournament)
Winnings: $815 @ one tournament
Total loss of: $795

Travel cost: $300 for a total net-loss of $1.095

I was close on at least one of the satellite tournaments to another win and I was even closer at the first second chance tournament (one place off the money). With one of these wins it would have been just the travel expenses. With both it would have been a net win too. I don't consider myself unlucky. That wouldn't be fair. But I just realise that I wasn't that far away from making it a winning trip.

Lessons learned:
I was amazed about the number of SnG satellites they offer. Starting from $65 buy-in for a $500 chip up to $230 for four $500 chips. Anything is possible. And if you don't get the number of chips you need (or have too much) you can find easy ways to cash them for the full amount. So if my time allows I will definitely attend another circuit event. I'm thinking about either Rincon (San Diego), Lake Tahoe or Caesars, Las Vegas. But my game plan will be different. I will arrive early enough trying to win my entries through the satellites and attend the $200 second chances.

And yes, I decided for going "tournament only" for the future. I might pick up cash games again later but for now it will be only tournaments. They fit my style of play much more, they are more fun and even I can play them on the internet. I will make a plan to split my bankroll in a part that will be used for internet tournaments (including satellites, SnG's and regular tournaments) and another part for B&M tournaments. This includes Bregenz some other places with regular tournaments (maybe like Vienna etc.) and of course as mentioned some of the "bigger" tournaments.
As tournament play results in bigger but more unfrequent wins I will give myself one year again. After one year my tournament activities must show a profit to be considered successfull.

Side note: Daniel Negreanu won the WSOPC main event in Tunica. I'm really happy for him as he had a hard time in 2005 (after a great 2004).

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No more poker this week...

...but lot's of computer geek stuff ;-))
Feeling much better, started to eat again and enjoying my time at the conference!

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Being sick

That awful freezing table at the first "Second Chance Tournament" made me sick. I got a bad cold. Played the "Second Chance" once again (sitting there with a really warm coat) and made 38th of 117.

Took a look at the start of the WPT at the Gold Strike. Daniel Negreanu was there (same table with Barry Greenstein) and Mike Matusow sharing the table with John Juanda.

The next day my cold became worse. Unfortunatly it was my travel day. So I drove to Memphis, went on the plane to Atlanta and then on the plane to Orlando. I hadn't eaten for about 24 hours and had a bad stomach feeling (mostly to the cramped conditions as I was sitting on a window seat). I almost passed out due to low blood preassure on the way to the planes lavatory. That was really scary! The crew members provided me with a better seat and some energy bars and drinks. That really helped. I felt better and was able to go to the hotel on my own.

I still suffer from the cold but start feeling better. So hopefully I will be o.k. when my conference starts on Monday.

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No more luck

No luck with the satellites.

But fortunately they allow you to use your $500 token to buy-in the other players in the SnG and get their cash. So I got the full value for my token :-))

Played some 1/2 NL. It was interesting even without winning :-(( but it continued my thoughts about tournament and cash play.
There's much more strategic play involved in a tournament than in real money games. I know that I win a lot money from calling stations in the long run but it needs a lot of money and a lot of patience. There's not much pressure you can put on people in limit games and this seems to be simmilar in NL. You never know if you play somebody with an "infinite" bankroll who has no problem to dig back into his pockets. Those guys can be either a great payday or your worst nightmare - but you can only get them if you are tight enough. And if you are the shortstack you can't put pressure on anybody.
This is totally different in tournaments. Nobody can dig back into his pocket. Every decision is crucial for your tournament live. And even the shortstack is able to put pressure on other players if he uses his stack in the right way.

More differences for me: I tend to play looser in cash games than in tournaments. For the above reasons I'm much more aware what to play and when to laydown. I'm chasing far too much in cash games. I don't have the patience to wait hours for a good hand but I love the increasing tension from the increasing blinds in a tournament. Those 5,5 hours yesterday had been pure fun and total excitement.

I tend to agree that due to those differences some players are made for tournaments and other for cash. And only a small number will be successfull in both.
Looks like I am made for the tournament thing. Still thinking and evaluating...

I will quit for now and relax a little. Maybe I go down later for some 4/8 limit - we will see. For tommorrow I plan to play another $65 satellite for a token. If I get it I will see another "Second Chance Tournament" for free in the afternoon. Otherwise I will buy-in for the $200 and try it for a last time as I have to leave Tunica on Friday.

More and more of the "big guys" come into town as the WPT $10,000 main-event starts Thursday at noon. Saw Padraig Parkinson (you may have seen him on the cardplayer.com show with Jesse May during the last WSOP) and heard that Annie Duke came to town today. Daniel Negreanu was still in Australia but planned to play the WPT event.
They have a "Welcome Reception" for the players. Unfortunatly it's only for invited guests :-(

Before I forget - here's a little story from one of my satellites this morning:
We had one asian guy at the table - full poker gear (oakley sunglasses, hat and iPod). He played somewhat decent but something smelled a little wrong. At one point he raised and another player went all-in. The all-in-guy was shortstacked and I had him covered. I had AJs and decided to call the all-in. I had some fear that the asian guy would raise me all-in but hoped that he would fold to let us handle the thing. He folded indeed and showed two jacks. Wow! I didn't put him on that kind of a hand (his original raise looked more like a steal). And I never would have folded that J's. I busted the short stack with Ace high as he had 9Ts.
The asian guy was really upset and angry on himself for folding that J's. He was picking on me how I could call that all-in with those cards! Well, I was sure that the other guy didn't had a made hand and I was dominating him. More important: with the blind level we reached I was due to some movement. And, yes I was wrong about the possible hand of the asian guy (but right with my estimation that he would fold). Later we talked somewhat and it turned out that he was an online player that played his first ever live tournament. Didn't I say something smelled wrong with that guy?
That's one of the reasons I love the live experience of a tournament so much more than online play. There's so much more information to gather.

While I'm sittting in the lobby of the Grand to write this there is another guy sitting here with his laptop. After a while I heard some well known sound from his computer - he obviously is playing online poker! Hell, I don't get it - how can you play online poker in a hotel lobby with a casino just around the corner that offers almost every game you could get. That's really bizarre...

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The "Second Chance Tournament"

While I was around to wait for a $120 SnG they announced the $175+25 "Second Chance Tournament" to start at 5pm. This tournament is called "Second Chance" as it is a daily tournament basically created for those who dropped out early in each days main event. The blind levels are "only" 30 minutes because it is created to be over by midnight.

I took a shot at this one with a 125 players total. Had a nice run early during the first level but couldn't catch up and wasn't able to play a lot of hands for the next two levels. Slowly my average stack started to shrink and I was down to 10-15 BB's. Still no good cards. For the next 4 hours I managed to hang in with just two choices: Either fold or move-all-in. It was unbelivable. I thought I was out with about 60 left but still in, down to 50 ... 30 ... 20. I never came out of the hole but managed to stay in the game with some great all-ins and tough laydowns.
Two of the most remarkable Hands: All-in with KK vs AQ, flopping a set and making quads on the river. And the overkill hand: All-in with QJs and got called by an almost equal stack with AA. Cracked and busted him with two Q's on the flop for a set that even improved to quads on the turn. I really felt sorry for that guy ... but he took it in a great way. BTW - he gave me a tough bad beat about an hour earlier. So we are even now ;-)
Finally my luck run out: With 5500 chips left and Blinds 800/1600 (200 Ante) I found 88 UTG and raised all-in. It was folded to the SB who called with AK. Unfortunatly he caught two aces and I was out 11th of 125. Unfortuntaly they paid only 9 (from $700 - $8000). I was somewhat dissapointed to get eliminated here getting nothing after 5,5h but I was happy that I could stay that long. It was a great experience and I learnt a lot.

Playing tournaments is a lot of fun and I start to think if I am more into the tournament than the cash game thing. It just seems that tournaments fit my style of playing much more. No decision yet.

While we were playing they had the "Triple Draw Lowball" running. Don't ask me about the rules (I only know it's some kind of draw poker). This style usually doesn't get much players but is loved by the more experienced players for some reason. They had 27 players - which was one of the biggest fields for a WSOPC event in that category - with one notable pro: Robert Williamson III.

It's now breakfast time here and after breakfast I will tr to play another satellite...

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The $180 satellite

Waiting for a $180 Satellite SnG but seats fill slowly

Finally we got started. I really got cards this time - and played them well of course ;-)

Some tough laydowns that payed off as we had some good to decent players on that table.
Almost busted the first player with a flopped set of Jacks. He put me on two pair (holding the top pair himself and was quite surprised). He had some chips left but was able to hang in until 4th place. Despite of that I never had to go all-in again. No big movements but steadily climbing up. One painful loss: Flopped a straight with 79 in the big blind and slowplayed it as the flop of 8-10-J would have looked suspicious. Turn was blank and I bet half the pot. He called. River came a 9 I bet again, he called and showed a Q. Ugh, that hurt. Finally I ended heads-up with that guy. Allmost equal stacks. He asked to chop and I was thinking what to do.

My goal was to win a seat for the $1500 game next day. As we would get three $500 tournament tokens + $150 we had to split them 2-1 and some cash. That wouldn't help me so I was close to decide to play it out. On the other hand I would have been quite depressed leaving with nothing here. And he was a tough opponent. I don't think I won a single hand against him in the tournament.
So I decided to let him take two chips and I got one and $325 in cash. This left me with a net win in cash of $145 plus the $500 token. I will now play a $120 satellite later that day for the remaining 2 tokens. If I don't get them it should be quite easy to sell mine for about $400.

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It was fun and it still is... :-))

I really hoped that I would last past the first break - but there's nothing you can do if you don't get decent cards.

Too bad I didn't get the cards in the tournament that I got that night at the Horseshoe. I flopped several sets. Got some Full Houses including a Nuts-Full with Aces and rivered Quad 8's. Not that I needed them - I dominated the other guy with the flopped set of 8's anyway ;-))

Unfortunatly I couldn't capitalize that much from it as I played 4/8 limit. I really start to see the difference between Limit and NoLimit. If you play a good NL game you can put so much pressure on your opponents ... no way you can do that in Limit.
I'm still not sure if I am ready for NL cash game right now. But the call of the 1/2NL games get's louder and louder...

Go over to the Grand now to see if I could get into a satellite for tomorrows $1500 NL event. They had $120 satellites for the $1000 events and I hope they now offer something like $180 or so. I don't play a satellite if I still have to put up $500 for the entry to the event. But we will see.

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Out at the end of level 2

Out 3 min before the end of level 2 as 7th on our table. No cards but was making some good moves. It took us 30 min to see the first river. Had to fold AK two times vs. dominating raises. Went shortstacked after folding A9 vs. what I think was a high pocketpair. No cards . . . finally went all-in at the button-1 with Q10. Bad timing! Got called by QQ, Q on the river and over...

Prizepool was $96,700 with 220 players total. 22 places got paid. First prize was $29,975 and a $10k seat for the main event coming weekend plus a Ring (at WSOPC they get rings instead of bracelets). Winner: Wendell Barnes (Charlton, MA, USA)

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Shuffle up and deal!

Shuffle up and deal!

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I'm registered

That's it - I got my ticket. I was drawn at table 90 seat 3:

Was there early enough to avoid a long line. Haven't checked were table 90 is - they have a lot of tables...




...but I like the seat 3 position. I hate seats 1 and 10 as they offer limited view on several players. My personal favorite is seat 4, so seat 3 is almost best I could have wished. The good thing on the shootout format is that I will keep this seat (and my opponents) during the entire first round.

As allways they have a problem with the restrooms. That's one of the times were I wish I would be a lady ;-)) the men's restroom is quite far away. Don't laugh - If you manage to stay in the tournament long enough this will be an issue ... and those ten minute breaks every two hours with almost 500 guys running to the restroom that won't be fun.

But the tournament area is nice. They sell some WSOP merchandise there and have set-up a separate final-table with a small seating area in a mini-stadium style and some nice pictures of Raymer, Hachem and other WSOP winners around.

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Early morning in Tunica

Good thing I went to bed early! As usually I woke up early in the morning and couldn't sleep anymore. But I had a relaxing flight and caught at least 7 hours of sleep... so that should be sufficent. Now I'm sitting here with a Cafe Latte and a Cinnamon Roll checking my emails and writing this blog entry. It's cold and windy outside - but well, the +10 degrees Celsius is better than what they have in Germany right now. And hopefully I get +20 degrees Celsius next week in Orlando (I don't need another freezing Lotusphere like last year!).

BTW: I checked out the action at the Gold Strike too (the WPT Event) and ran into Andrew Black (5th place at last years WSOP).

(Picture taken from http://news.pokerpages.com)

Seems that he played the $2000 NLHE. I didn't recognise other faces but I wasn't there for a long time. I know for sure that Liz Liu, Men the Master and David Pham are around somewere (as they played some events before).
I love this "who can I recognize"-game but I pray that I won't recognize anybody at my table in a few hours! ;-))

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The night before the tournament

I finally arrived in Tunica. Nice room and free w-lan in the lobby of the Grand. Went over to the casino to check auf the place. Unfortunatly the registration was closed and I have to be there at 9 am tomorrow (hoping the line will not be that long!). Try to get some sleep to be fit for tomorrow..

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Short stop in Atlanta

Great timing - landed in Atlanta early enough to watch the thrilling end of the Steelers - Colts game. Departing for Memphis now...

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Now I really start to get nervous

Less than a week until my flight to Memphis and my first WSOPC tournament.
Looks like the first tournaments had been huge: 900 - 1,300 players. First place got over $100,000 and runner-up still over $50,000. I expect about 500 players for the Shootout but I wouldn't be surprised if it will be more.
Unfortunatlly I will miss both of the NFL playoff games next Sunday as I will be still in the air during the games :-((

After arriving in Tunica early evening I will reserve my seat for Monday and get a first impression of the atmosphere. It will be hard not to jump on a good cash game immediately. But I decided that beside some lurking and a good meal nothing else will happen that evening. I will go to bed early and try to be prepared and focused for the tournament. There should be plenty of time for cash games and other stuff after the tournament as I stay in Tunica until Friday.

As far as I know there will be wireless internet connection at the Grand so it the SMS thing doesn't work I will report immediatly after the tournament - hoping that you have to wait for a report for a long time ;-))
The tournament starts at noon (19:00 MEZ) and they will play until 2am (09:00 MEZ). Play will resume 2pm the next day (21:00 MEZ)

Blind Structure & Rules

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What a heartbreaking loss (NFL, no poker)

After the first half I had no doubt that I win my bets and it would have been o.k. The game was horrible and Washington the better of the horrible teams. But after the break the Bucs really showed heart. Chris Simms (their rookie QB) made some amazing moves keeping the game alive (including a TD). He has the potential to become a really great player in a short time.

All cumulated in a long TD pass that unfortunatly didn't count for the Bucs as the receiver "never had control" of the ball. I think it was a correct decision by the referee but it was indeed a coinflip decision (even after reviewing the situation several times). With the TD and a two-point-conversion (and I'm sure Gruden would have been brave enough for that) they would have won that game. Unfortunatly they lost their last timeout on the challenge and Washington had control of the clock.

So I won all my bets and made a nice win ... but the Bucs really would have deserved to reach the next round!

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Tampa Bay - Washington tonight (NFL - no poker)

I allways knew that this day will come - this game will be a true nightmare for me.

Tampa Bay is by far the team I love most in the NFL. Unfortunatly the line was TB -2.5 / WAS +2.5 and WAS is the better choice here. So I bet WAS +3 (buying a half point) together with +0.5 @ 1st half and the under37.5 for the game. Now I have to watch the game routing for TB but hoping that they will win by less than 3 points. Further more hoping that it will be a low scoring game.
If TB wins I still have a live future for them winning the conference - but they have to win two more games for that, so I would prefer not to lose my WAS wagers.

If you like to join me in my pain: You can find me tonight at the Champions Sportsbar (Marriott Munich) wearing full Tampa Bay gear ;-))

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How I will celebrate my first poker anniversary

OK folks, here's how I plan to celebrate one year of playing poker:

I told you that I will be in the US for a business trip so my first thought was: "Las Vegas". Unfortunately the business event is in Orlando and I would have to do Vegas on a cramped schedule.
While planning how this could be solved another place came to my mind: Tunica! For those who don't know Tunica - it's a small place south of Memphis with 3 clusters of 2-3 casinos each and nothing else around. A real wasteland (no Starbucks, no TacoBell, no short distance phone line etc.). Nice place for a celebration, right? ;-)) Well, I know Tunica from my BJ days and it's pure gambling with great conditions (regarding to BJ). Tunica and Biloxi had been the gambling centers of the south. After Kathrina there's only Tunica left.
But the thing that makes Tunica worth a poker trip at that particular time is that they will host not only one but two major tournament series at the same time. The "World Poker Tour" (WPT) will be at the Gold Strike while the "World Series of Poker Circuit" (WSOPC) will be held at the Grand. The main event will happen between 19th-26th of January (WPT first, followed by WSOPC). I won't be able to be there during the whole main event due to my business obligations and I don't want to pay a $10.000 entry fee - but it should be interesting anyway. It should be fun to see some of the poker heros (I know that Daniel Negreanu and Phil Helmuth will be there, just to name two). In addition there will be a great number of cash games of all possible levels from $4-8 up to $4000-8000.




But as it should be a celebration I decided I will play at least one of the "smaller events". I decided for the $500-No-Limit Shootout which will take place on Monday 16th. Basically a Shoot-Out has to be played like a "Winner-takes-it-all Single-table-tournament". You have to win your table to advance to the next round (or the final table - depending on the number of participants). Runner-up get's nothing. But with usually 10% of the field getting into the money you just have to win your first table to sneak into the money. Sounds easy? Well, we will see ;-))
Addtionally I will try to play some satellites to see if I can win a seat in one of the following $1.500 or $2.000 NL tournaments.

Am I nuts to do this? I don't think so. It's by far the biggest tournament for me and it's the upper level that my bankroll allows me to play but this is not just a tournament. It's a WSOPC event! If I get a great hand I will play it aggressively (and if I get AA on the first hand I will stand the risk to leave after a few minutes) but beside that I will try to stay as long as possible in the tournament enjoy it and learn from the others. If I'm out I will play satellites and/or cash games. Five days of fun at the center of the poker world ... that's what I call a great celebration!

If it works I will try to update my blog during the tournament via cellphone (at least every two hours during the breaks). We will start with 1500 chips and 50 minutes levels. 10 minute breaks after two levels.

I hope that a lot of supporters will follow my action and read my blog during my poker trip from Jan 15th to Jan 20th. And for those who are really brave and like to own a piece of Shadow: You may buy shares of my action (min. $100) - just email me at shadow@bj21.com for exact conditions.

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