$5k PLO today

Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I've really been looking forward to all the PLO events so far this year, and so far it's been a big disappointment for me in the $1500 and $2500 not making it very far in either. the $1500 was kind of a crapshoot and I just got coolered, and the $2500 I got it in with the nuts but the other guy was drawing very live so while i think his call with no fold equity was somewhat marginal considering he didn't have the nut flush draw it certainly wasn't a terrible one and can't fault him for it.

The $1500 yesterday I just never really got going. I've felt like I played really well this trip but yesterday wasn't super happy with my play. I played a couple of hands a little weak early on as i was feeling out my table which cost me some chips and then made a couple of bad reads. Once when I flopped quads in a three way pot and thought the original raiser had an over pair a lot based on how tight he was and that he raised pre-flop in a pretty strong position, but it turned out the original limper tank/folded and the raiser instantly folded so I probably lost some action by not just calling. Then later I ran a bluff on a guy who had just taken down a few decent sized pots thinking I could move him off a hand and lost a little over half my chips. At that point I felt like the rest of the tournament was pretty elementary as I had 2500 chips at 75/150 so just finding a good spot to re-raise all in was important. I ended up getting it in with KQ vs ATo with a lot of dead money in the pot and not getting there.

Hopefully today's event will go well. I really feel like I have the biggest relative edge in PLO, even though NLHE is my best game. The opposition is relatively weak in most of the PLO events, although it should be significantly stronger in a $5k. Although so far this series every time I've been at a tough table I've done really well and every time I've been at a weak table I've done quite poorly. I think this is just a reflection of small sample size and variance, but maybe I'm better off against a tougher field!

-Rizen

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$2k NLHE today

Date: Mon, Jun 15, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Still feel like I'm playing super well despite the results. Yesterday in the $2500 PLO I got all my money in in level 3 with the nuts on the turn in a 3 way pot for nearly 20k. I had one opponent drawing dead, but the other had top set and a flush draw for 15 of the remaining 36 cards being outs, and I didn't hold. It's like the fourth time I've gotten my money in good for a monster pot in the early stages of a tournament so far though. With my style of play it's usually unusual I'm playing huge pots that early, but kind of hard to avoid it with the nuts! if i win any of the four and have a huge stack that early I have very little doubt in my mind I can make a pretty deep run. My timing has been really good too with both bluffs and value bets, and I just finally feel really in tune. I think not playing many live events this year made it take a few events for me to get in my comfort zone again and in a groove, but since the $5k I've felt REALLY good about my play.

i'll be updating via twitter and PXF texts again today. Good luck to everyone not at my table!

-Rizen

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$2.5k PLO today

Date: Sun, Jun 14, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I played REALLY well in the $1500 NLHE yesterday. Honestly between the $5k at the end of my last trip and the $1500 yesterday I feel like I'm playing some of my best tournament poker so far of the series. My table was pretty good yesterday with from what I could tell, 1 really good player at my table and 1 pretty good player, who were unfortunately both to my left, and the rest of the table was fairly average to soft. I had a really solid read on most of my opponents, and even a couple of sick tells I may talk about later but in case I play with those guys again during the series would rather not talk about now.

At any rate, I splashed around a little early and got down to about 3800 chips, then I had 77 UTG at 50/100 and made it 250, the player to my left made it 550. It folded back around to me and based on my read on him and his previous play I was 99% sure he had AA. So I called. Flop was Kc-Qc-7x and I checked to him. to my surprise he pushed all in (about 2500 chips) and obviously I called. He tabled the AA and I held. Took me up to about 7k. Played a decent sized pot with KQo vs two players on a JT7 board but when the T paired on the turn and both players were still betting it pretty hard I folded after sticking about 1500 chips in the pot pre-flop and on the flop.

A little later a player raised UTG and I re-raised with KK. he pushed all in for about 2k total, obviously I called and he had AK and I held. So I was running pretty well. shortly into the third level someone limped in MP. It was a chronic limper who was pretty loose. He never really folded to isolation raises and tended to call a lot pre-flop. It was 75/150. I had JTo in the CO so I made it 650 really just trying to get heads up with the guy. To my surprise the small blind (an okay player, but kinda loose pre-flop) cold calls, the original limper calls. I hit the jackpot flop of Q-9-8 rainbow. To my surprise the small blind leads for 700. Based on some things I had seen before I was relatively certain he was strong here. The limper called, and I went ahead and made a small raise to 2400 because I didn't think I was going to lose both of them since I though the SB was strong, and the SB and i were deep enough if I just called and the turn was a J or a T I would have a much harder time getting all my chips in the middle. The SB did call and the original limper folded. the turn was a 5 that brought a possible back door flush draw on the board. The SB just open shoved and I obviously called. He tables 99 and in my mind I'm just thinking 'deuce, deuce, deuce' but the river was the Q and he filled up and I was out.

it was a 17k or so pot though, and at that table with 17k chips in level 3 I REALLY like my chances of a deep run in that tournament. If i can keep getting myself in those spots and playing well I'm going to get deep in a few tournaments before this is all said and done with some nice stacks. I was really happy with my play yesterday and look forward to carrying that level of play out throughout the entire trip. if I do i think this is going to be a very profitable trip.

Side note, congratulation and good luck to my friend Scott Clements, who is an O/8 beast!! He's chip leader in the PLO/8 $5k going into the final table today I believe. Take it down Scott!!!

-Rizen

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Ask Rizen

Date: Fri, Jun 12, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Been enjoying the time at home. Took the family to see 'Land of the Lost' Wednesday. I really only thought it was okay, but the kids got a kick out of it with all the dinosaurs and stuff. They're huge Transformers fans so I'll use them as an excuse to see the new Transformers moving on my next trip back. I head out to Las Vegas again tonight in time for the $1500 tomorrow. Glad to have gone home and gotten well rested though, and ready to go back out and hit the grind. On to the questions.

Q: What would your approach be if you had to train a complete n00b to make $25/hr net profit playing internet poker? Would he have a better chance 3-4 tabling cash games? MTTS ? Or SNGS? How much of a roll would you need? Which site would you want her/him to start on ?

A: Interesting question. First I guess I want to say that I'm not sure just anyone can make $25/hr net profit playing internet poker. It used to be somewhat easy to do if you had some discipline and ability, but it's much tougher now. I would definitely say that SnGs are not an easy way to do this and wouldn't really recommend that path. It's possible with rakeback and the ability to play like 12-16 tables to do for sure, but it's not easy. MTTs at this point I feel are where a vast majority of the fish hang out, but there are huge amounts of variance in them which make it tough.

This is kind of a non-answer, but I think it would really depend on the person's personality makeup. I don't really think any of the 3 methods you listed are easier than the other. MTTs have the most fish I think at this point but it's really tough to make consistent money at it. If the person were a very disciplined math oriented type person I would probably try and teach them how to play lots of SnG tables at once. If they tended to be more creative and were better at post flop play/hand reading I'd go with cash. As far as what site I would obviously recommend everyone play on Lock Poker.

Q: Hey Rizen, I loved the book top five poker book of all time. I am an aggressive maniacal small ball player. I'll raise w 57 suited and so forth. I confuse, intimidate, and players never know what i have. When they decide to play back at me i've got the goods. I accumulate chips in tourneys fast and it is not uncommon for me to get a quick chip lead. I'm having trouble in tourneys in the period right before the bubble. E.G. Tourney pays 18 out of 177 45 players left. usually at this point I'm about 35 bb deep. I'm usually chip stack here and the average stack usually has about 22 bb. This is where I'm imploding or runing into huge hands. At this point in the tourney I'm not trapping or playing middle pairs. But is there a time to tighten up my play even further to aa kk only. except versus desperate short stacks. People perceive me as a maniac at this point even though I'm playing solid.

A: I tried to clean up the question a little bit for readability. I hate to give the usual poker answer 'it depends' but it really does. If you have a maniacal image then you have to plan on getting played back at a lot when players start to get desperate. You can't completely tighten up your range because that's bad too, but you need to adjust to the way players play with ~20 BBs. That usually means opening less pots from middle/late position as you will get re-shipped on a lot. I will often defend my blind a bit more and 3 bet a little more. Maybe steal from early position some too. Basically you want to start accumulating chips in ways that won't allow the ~20 BB stacks to use their stack as a weapon and ship over you all the time. And if they are doing that, well you're going to have to raise/call lighter to make up for it.

Q: Live 1/2(sometimes 2/5). Lately I have been clueless what to do in spots like this.I call somewhere in late position with like 98 suited and the board comes...962(rainbow)....and a very tight conservative player bets about pot into a few people? which can be like 40$ Most people only have stacks of like 200$...

Or I call with like 97 suited and the flop comes....j63 .... I have a flush draw. I call a small bet on the flop after 2 people call so the total pot is maybe 65$ The flush hits with like a 10 .And a tight conservative player puts in bet of like 40$ 2/3pot.

A: Well there isn't really enough information on the first one. Since you say a $40 bet on the flop with 4-5 people in the pot, I'm going to assume we're dealing with 2/5 since that doesn't make much sense for 1/2. If the stacks are $200 deep at 2/5 then you have to ask yourself why you're playing those hands in the first place? I'm not saying you shouldn't be playing them, but if everyone is playing 40 BBs then your implied odds are going down. You can't really peel with just a pair with a bad kicker in a 4-5 way flop when a conservative player bets out so I probably do fold here. If you are finding these to be trouble spots though and you are either folding the best hand too much or calling and stacking off worse too often then you should stop playing these hands pre-flop in this game.

On the second one though, if you are playing 97s pre and you turn a flush and then fold, well that's probably a mistake. Obviously there are a lot of game dynamics and things that go in as well, but if it's the same type of game (40 BBs deep) and you're playing 97s and not getting your money in when you hit the flush, you shouldn't be playing the hand pre-flop. I would never ever play this hand at a table where I wasn't comfortable getting all my money in 95% of the time if I hit my flush. If I'm looking for excuses to fold when I hit my hand then something is wrong.

-Rizen

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Good to Be Back Home!

Date: Tue, Jun 9, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I'm only home for a few days, but it's great getting to see the kids again and sleep in my own bed. I think I've gotten more sleep in the last few days than I got the entire time I was in Las Vegas. I've spent a lot of time since I got back just catching up on general things. Spending some time with the family, I finished my Bluff column for the next issue, and I've been playing a little PLO on Lock Poker. I had some pictures taken last night some of you might see in an upcoming Bluff Magazine issue, but I'm not 100% sure about that nor how much I should say just yet so I'll leave it at that for now.

Aside from that just been doing normal catch up stuff. Paying bills, getting things in order for my next trip, etc. I have a small favor to ask of my readers. If you like the new site design I would like to ask that you mention it on the forums (Pocket 5s, 2+2, ITH, FTR, etc). I'm normally not much of a self promoter but with the latest redesign and the partnership with Lock Poker I know there are a lot of people that haven't visited in a while and I'd like them to get a chance to see the new site and new features. Yes it is a bit of shameless self promotion and for the cynics out there it is to generate some buzz around things, but I'm really excited about the new web site and partnership with Lock Poker!

-Rizen

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Welcome to the (once again) new rizenpoker.com!

Date: Mon, Jun 8, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I'm sure everyone who has made it here noticed that the look and feel of rizenpoker.com has changed. The wonderful (and might I say quite talented) design team at Lock Poker has done a substantial overhaul to the look and feel of the site. As always, I do appreciate any feedback anyone has on the new site and will take all of it into account.

I'm back home now for a few days before heading back out for the WSOP. The $5k I felt I played really well in and chipped up great, even after losing a pretty big pot in the first 10 hands with pocket kings. With 3 hands left to go in the day though at a completely new table the CO opened the pot. I had no clue how he played but I had QQ so I re-raised him. When it came back around he 4 bet me and at that point I felt like I had to decide if I wanted to go all in or fold. Without knowing much about the player having only been at the table an orbit or two and him raising in the CO and me 3 betting on the button I shoved all in and he snap called with AA. I didn't get there and went from about 75k chips to out at the end of the day. It was a cooler, although if I had been at the table long enough to have a stronger read on the guy maybe I know more and can make a better decision.

I'm disappointed I didn't cash or make a day two while I was out there on the first trip, but hopefully I'm saving all my run good for the later events! I obviously missed 'Ask Rizen' last Friday. Quite honestly with the WSOP I barely even remember what day it is. I will probably be a little hit and miss on the 'Ask Rizen' feature until after the WSOP, although I will do my best to keep doing it every Friday during the Series.

-Rizen

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$5k today

Date: Sat, Jun 6, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Yesterdays $2.5k started off pretty well. I was at a really good table for me with a pretty good seat and ran my stack up to $8500 pretty quickly. I had the best player at the table to my immediate right and was able to take down a lot of tiny pots early on. Our table broke early though and I got moved to the worst seat at a much tougher table with an online cash player ('Kadabra' I think?) GBecks, another online player whose name I don't know, and mossified84 all to my immediate left. The first two pots I saw on the table saw two 10k+ pots and two players bust. So I knew there was a decent chance I would be playing some big pots. Oddly though, it didn't really happen that way. Generally the players to my left stayed out of my way except for a few random calls and three bets. I was playing pretty tight because I expected to get a lot of action without creating it but my impression was off some as I never really did get much action period, on my bluffs or real hands, so in hindsight I probably should have been bluffing a little more.

I lost a big pot just before dinner with T9s vs 85 when GBecks raised in early position and a really weak/loose player called on the button with the 85. I had T9 of hearts in the big blind and Garrett had been raising my BB a lot and in early position a lot in general so I called. Flop was 9-7-6 and it checked through. I lead into a brick (I think a 4?) turn and Garrett folded and the 85o obviously called. River was an Ace and the button only had 2k left and the pot was about 7k at this point so I put him all in. I was never folding if I checked, and the player wasn't capable of bluffing there in my opinion. This player was weak enough I could see him calling with a worse hand though, so I thought value betting was okay. Obviously if I check the hand plays out the same way.

Coming back from dinner about 5 hands in a guy who was playing about 35% of his hands (and folding to 3 bets A LOT) limped, I had ATo and 15 big blinds so I shipped and he had AA. To run into AA and not KK/QQ/AK there is pretty unfortunate for me. i did flop a ten and a back door flush. I called for a spade on the turn for some serious river sweat, but I didn't get it or a ten and was out.

$5k is today, will probably be a tough field. More starting chips though, and hopefully I can get a better seat draw if not a better table draw. Can't control those things though, and if I have a bad draw I'll make the most of it. I'm bound to win at least one big pot this series if nothing else by dumb luck and statistics. After this event I'm back home for a few days before coming back out.

-Rizen

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$2500 NL today

Date: Fri, Jun 5, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Gonna make this one kind of short. $2500 NL today, should be fun. Yesterday’s event I had a SUPER soft table that got a little tougher when the moved Jason Potter into the 5 seat and Steve Paul-Ambrose into the 10 seat at late registrations. Entire table was pretty passive, and I just got unlucky [...]

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$2500 NL today

Date: Fri, Jun 5, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Gonna make this one kind of short. $2500 NL today, should be fun. Yesterday's event I had a SUPER soft table that got a little tougher when the moved Jason Potter into the 5 seat and Steve Paul-Ambrose into the 10 seat at late registrations. Entire table was pretty passive, and I just got unlucky when a player in early position just called with AA and I had AK. Flop was K high and I basically value towned myself on every street thinking I was good the whole way. He never raised or anything so I was shocked when he flipped AA.

I'll tweet my table draw when I get it for those of you that want to live sweat and will be doing updates on breaks as usual, hopefully more than once today!

-Rizen

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$2k NLHE Today

Date: Thu, Jun 4, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I was a little tilted on the ride home last night. I was pretty excited about the $2500 HA (mixed PLO/PLHE) event. I got off to a pretty good start, was playing pretty well, had made some really tough (but good, I think) lay downs. I had looked around the table and had a pretty [...]

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$2k NLHE Today

Date: Thu, Jun 4, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I was a little tilted on the ride home last night. I was pretty excited about the $2500 HA (mixed PLO/PLHE) event. I got off to a pretty good start, was playing pretty well, had made some really tough (but good, I think) lay downs. I had looked around the table and had a pretty good idea of where my chips were going to come from and how I was going to get them. I think I misplayed an AK hand a little versus the table fish and probably missed some value. I got overly cute with the hand and played it kind of slow, something I really discourage my students from doing with big hands, but I still won a pretty good sized pot and was up around 13k.

There was a pretty good older gentleman across the table from me who I'd made both big lay downs against. I think they were good, but after seeing me lay down two pretty big hands (I didn't show them, but agonized over the decision for quite some time and don't usually act in those situations) he was betting into me a little more and adjusting I think (and rightly so). He was making a lot of full pot bets, which is actually a good thing in pot limit, but compared to the rest of the table I really felt like I could trap him at some point later into running a big bluff against me based on the table dynamics and his play style.

He had raised UTG and I flatted in the CO with TT66ssdd. Sometimes I muck that hand pre because flopping a set of tens or sixes can just be a trouble spot in PLO and a t high flush isn't super easy either, but I had position, the table fish was in the small blind and likely to come along and I had a read that I could potentially get the pre-flop raiser to run a big bluff against me. Flop was Q76 with two spades. So I have bottom set plus a bad flush draw. The original raiser pots it, I call, fish folds. Turn was a red 2 (not putting a second flush on the board). This is where I think I might have gotten a little cute. He pots it and I just flatted to try and induce a river bluff since my two flats was really repping a draw and based on prior play I could see him 3 barreling with any hand that had the As in it. If I shoved the turn he plays pretty perfectly probably, but at that point i probably should have been happy to take down what was in the middle. Although he would have been getting about 4:1 or so on a call, so he very well might have called anways.

River was a ten. He shrugs his shoulders and shoves. i was going to snap call any river but when he shrugged then shoved I felt like he was trying to induce a call by acting. I couldn't really justify folding the 3rd nuts there though so I called and he had KK89 no spades. I set it up pretty well based on table dynamics, under-repped my hand to induce the first two barrels (although he probably thought both barrels were for value since I was calling on a draw heavy board). In my head I was already counting my ~30k stack and off to day 2 which is a huge mental mistake before even the second break, but I'd been playing so well I got ahead of myself. Poker isn't a game that always rewards the right plays, and i think I should have shoved the turn not just because I lost the hand, but because at that point the value of winning the pot (especially in a tournament where chancing a suckout can put you out) was greater than trying to induce a third barrel.

I'm fine now and was honestly un-tilted within about an hour. I'm just going to go and try and play my 'A' game again today. So far I haven't won a significant pot where I was all in the whole series, so if nothing else the law of averages is bound to catch up eventually and let me get there even if I get my money in bad (which isn't the goal!). Based on my historic WSOP play I have a history in the smaller buy in events of either being out before dinner break or making a deep run and cashing. That's mostly because if I can work a decent chip stack into the middle levels I feel I have a huge advantage, but it just hasn't happened yet. I was hoping with the slightly better structure and triple starting stacks this year that would help change things a lot, but so far it hasn't for me, although the sample size is pretty small so far.

-Rizen

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$1500 6 max today

Date: Wed, Jun 3, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

The 6 max event is today. Every day I feel like I talk about how I was looking forward to today’s event, then I just looked through this schedule for my first trip down here and realized i’m looking forward to every event. I really don’t want to bust out of today’s early event, but [...]

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$1500 6 max today

Date: Wed, Jun 3, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

The 6 max event is today. Every day I feel like I talk about how I was looking forward to today's event, then I just looked through this schedule for my first trip down here and realized i'm looking forward to every event. I really don't want to bust out of today's early event, but if I do the $2500 PLHE/PLO mixed event, which I feel is one of my stronger events, is later that day. This year i'm probably most excited about the PLO and 6 max events as I feel I'm much stronger than most of the field in both of those. Next is probably the $2500-$5000 no limit events, as i feel I'm pretty strong when the stacks start out a lot deeper. I think the $1500-$2000 no limit events are good, but unless I can run my stack up to 10k or so before the antes get in play I feel like it handcuffs my game a bit as I really like to try and exploit bad players post flop, but unless you have a decent amount of chips you can't be seeing too many flops.

I felt like I made a few small mistakes out of frustration yesterday, which in the grand scheme of things didn't cost me anything i don't think, but still something I try not to do. I had a REALLY transparent player on my left who was betting nearly full pot with strong made hands and half pot or under with weak made hands. He never bluffed, even as a semi-bluff with draws. If he wasn't the pre-flop aggressor (which was most of the time) he would donk bet full pot with good hands and check/call weak hands and draws. Check fold misses. There were some really weak/tight players at the table too. It was a great table it just didn't work out. I had AK vs the transparent player and whiffed and his 74s nailed the flop pretty hard and i put a few more chips in the pot than I should have after I knew that he hit it, but that was the only big mistake I remember.

As a side note, Lock Poker is redesigning this website so you should see a new version of it going up in the next week or so. I know it was just redesigned but Lock Poker has a world class design team (not to take anything away from the person who designed this) and is going to be able to do a lot of really cool things with the site. They have some great ideas and I'm really looking forward to seeing them in action. I think you guys will enjoy the new look and features as well!

-Rizen

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$1500 NLHE today

Date: Tue, Jun 2, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

So far in the first two events I’ve played I lasted about a grand total of 4 hours and have won about 1 pot. That’s kind of the way it goes in these low buy in events sometimes, but I’m hoping if I’ve had to experience one end of the spectrum in variance i’ll get [...]

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