Annie Duke
Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - Annie Duke
Last weekend I went up to Sundance to host and event to raise money for Boys and Girls Club. The event was put together by Mimi Kim and Kenny Griswold who run this great event called Chefdance every year at Sundance. Chefdance brings premier chefs from around the country to cook up at Sundance. Joe and I were lucky enough to be there the night Geno, the chef from Nove at The Palms, was cooking and, wow, the food was amazing! We love Nove, we love Geno and we were lucky to get to eat his food. Anyway, Mimi called me up a few weeks before the event to see if I could host it which, of course, I was happy to do. UB.com was generous enough to sponsor the poker dealers and tables which contributed to the fact that all the costs of the event were sponsored out so that all the buy-ins were pure profit for Boys and Girls Club. That is the way a charity event should be run and we raised over $100K!
I had tons of fun. I didn’t actually play in the event. Instead, I tapped out dealers and made sure to deal at every table. That was a blast. I am not a particularly adept dealer but I had fun and I think the players enjoyed having me deal to them. I dealt the whole final table as well which was particularly interesting since everyone had taken liberal advantage of the open bar by then. Needless to say, the players weren’t paying so much attention to keeping the game going by that point. But everyone was having a great time, which is what really matters at charity events. No sweat if people aren’t taking the poker seriously because no matter what happens the charity wins. That is why I love poker so much as a charitable vehicle.
So Joe made the final table and came in 4th! I am actually not sure what he won yet as they were still sorting out the prizes but I think it might be passes to see all the movies at next year’s Sundance which will be kickass because in the three times I have been to Sundance I have only seen one movie. I want to go one time where I am actually just there to see movies. I have only been up there to host charity events and each year I just fly in and out to host the event. I have no lingered to stay and enjoy the festival. If Joe gets the passes I will make sure to block out the time to see all the movies, which will make me really happy since we are both huge movie buffs.
Anyway, I really want to thank Mimi and Kenny for putting together such a great event that raised so much money for such a worthy cause. And, of course, thanks UB.com for supporting the event and for such a generous donation!
Tags: Boys and Girls Club, Poker Poker Poker, UB.com
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Tuesday, January 26, 2010 - Annie Duke
I am really excited about the schedule this year because it includes so many mixed games. Mixed games are a big trend in tournament poker right now. All you have to do is glance at The World Series of Poker schedule to see that. But outside of trendiness I think mixed games are really what poker is all about.
Back in the day before the TV cameras came around all the big games were mixed games. Whether you were at Bellagio or Commerce or anywhere else the biggest games around were usually some variation on HORSE.
There were good reasons for this. First, at the highest limits there are not that many people willing to ante up and in such a small group it would be hard to support a single game. The players bubbling up to the top all got there through different disciplines of poker so to accommodate everyone the big fame had to include everyones favorites which meant a variety.
More importantly, in my opinion, the high limit players believe that to really be the best poker player you have to master all the games, not just one of them. It is not an accident that everyone thinks Phil Ivey is the best in the world. He is amazing at all the games: stud, PLO, NLH, etc. You could invent a brand new game, explain the rules to him and he would find a way to be the best at that in short order.
Poker is not just NLH. When the cameras game around NLH was the easiest to televise. Exciting to the audience but simple enough that a bewbie could follow the action. During the first 5 years of the poker boom, poker seemed to erode to NLH only and many tournament series became a series of NLH tournaments only. Even the WSOP fell prey to this in 2005.
The WSOP gas now come back from the brink and is celebrating the variety that is poker. And I am so excited that UB.com is doing the same. So enjoy the variety of UBOC. I am!
XO
Annie
Tags: Bellagio, h.o.r.s.e., phil ivey, Play Poker, Poker Player, Poker Poker Poker, UB.com, UBOC, WSOP
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Tuesday, January 5, 2010 - Annie Duke
Twenty Ten! A new year and as usual I am just thinking that the last year went by super fast. Like blink of an eye fast. It was a fast year but a huge one for the poker community. The regulations for UIGEA were delayed. That was a big one since it was essentially an acknowledge by the treasury and the Fed that there were problems with the legislation and the way the regs were written that need more examination. In the poker community, we have all already known that. The UIGEA is a bad piece of government policy that deprives us of billions of dollars of tax revenue and puts an undue burden on the banks to try to enforce a law to protect against a completely legal activity that is a game of skill. The regs, as written, refuse to define what an illegal activity is. They just tell the banks that they cannot process transaction for any activity online that is illegal. Since the government refuses to define illegal or provide a list of activities that should be blocked that means they are asking each bank in this country to make that policy, to decide what is and isn’t legal and then to enforce in the stead of the government. That is the very definition of bad policy. Asking the general council of each bank in the country to interpret of the gaming statutes of each state in the country and then, after doing a job that should be done by the government in deciding what is and isn’t legal, to then enforce those rules is ridiculous. We are asking the banks to be judge, jury and enforcer all at once. Luckily, the Fed and treasury delayed publishing the regs to review since, apparently, they figured out that this policy was ridiculous as well. Phew! That was good news and a big win for poker.
The big loss for poker this year was the WSOP’s loss of Jeffrey Pollack as Commissioner. Jeffrey was a huge friend to the players and was very protective of players’ rights. He did an amazing job growing that brand and bringing poker into the mainstream, taking the brand out of the claws of the Behnens, who were running the WSOP into the ground. It is a big loss to the brand that the biggest champion of the players is now gone. That was a huge loss for poker but one can only hope Jeffrey will go on to do bigger and better things in the poker world from here.
Of course, I can’t forget the biggest win for poker: The rebranding of Ultimatebet.com to the new and awesome UB.com! UB has come a long way since Paul Leggett took over. Paul Leggett is like the Jeffrey Pollack of UB, snatching the brand from the jaws of defeat at the hands of some very bad people and bringing it to new heights. Paul really understands the poker community and has done an incredible job redefining what UB is and what the site means and can mean to the poker world. That is a big win because it protects us all from having only limited choices of where to play. The more great poker brands there are the better off we all our so thank you Paul Leggett for saving this brand.
All in all, 2009 was a pretty major year for poker.
Tags: jeffrey pollack, Paul Leggett, Poker Poker Poker, ub, UB.com, Ultimatebet.com, WSOP
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Friday, December 25, 2009 - Annie Duke
This past weekend I was part of the UB Poker School shoot. That’s right…UB is putting together a poker school full of great information ranging from how you navigate the site to basics of poker like position and starting hand selection to advance concepts like tilt and multi-tabling. After having been at the shoot the whole weekend and getting to listen to what all the pros have to say on these topics I have to say I am jealous. When I was coming up as a player there was just nothing like this available. I couldn’t just go online and find out what 11 time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth had to say or Player of the Year Eric Baldwin. There were very few books on poker and no videos for sure. There were no poker camps to go to like the WSOP Academy. Pretty much you were just on your own and that meant the learning curve was much shallower for those of us who started playing back in the stone ages.
Now that being said, I was one of the lucky ones back then because my brother happened to be Howard Lederer. Obviously, he was the one who taught me the game and he s responsible for most of what I know about poker today. First, that was really unusual that someone would have access to such a great poker mind back then. Second, it really makes me understand deeply the value of mentoring. Howard made my learning curve really steep. He saved me from so much unnecessary losing just by giving me some basics that it might take years for people to learn. A lot of concepts in poker seem really obvious once you understand them but can be very hard to figure out by trial and error. My brother took a lot of that trial and error away for me and that is why his lessons were so incredibly valuable.
While I was one of the only ones who had that kind of access back then, now everyone can have that kind of access through learning tools like the UB Poker School. And that is why I am so jealous because to school gives you the perspective of all of our pros, pros who are as amazing at the game as my brother. I had great access to my brother but what if I could have had access to 20 of players at the caliber of my brother? That is what the UB School is offering. So I hope you guys all take advantage of what is being offered when you see the footage come out in early 2010. I learned a ton just being there at the filming. Imagine what you will learn then!
Tags: Eric Baldwin, Howard Lederer, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, ub, UB Poker School, WSOP Academy
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Monday, December 14, 2009 - Annie Duke
‘Tis the Season to go on EBay and get pissed off? Seriously. I got the Christmas lists from the kids and there were a few things on there that you couldn’t find just anywhere. They really demanded a trek onto EBay. Now, I have never really shopped on EBay. My ex-husband used to be way into it because he collected Denver Broncos cards but I never really used it for anything. He and I did have an account that was attached to my email though. So when I went to log on it turns out that I couldn’t remember the password. So I called my ex and asked him what the password was. He gave me three possibilities on none of them worked. He couldn’t remember either. I mean, neither of us had used the account in about 9 years so it is not that surprising that we couldn’t figure out the password on the account.
So I got on with EBay live help. This was not as easy as it sounds. It is not like UB.com where the live help access is right there on the main client for you to see. On EBay you have to go through about 11 different clicks to even find the live help and then it is not a person you can call but just live chat. It took me, Joe and Ben about a 15 minutes just to figure out how to get the live chat going. That is just ridiculous. So I get on with the live chat and I explain that my email address is attached to this account that my ex-husband and I had and that neither of us can remember the password. Remember it is clear the account has not been used for 9 years so this should not be a big deal to let me have my email address back (EBay won’t let me open another account attached to the email address). The lady on live help tells me this needs to be passed up to a more superior agent to I get transferred. When the security superior gets on I now explain to him again what the situation is. I explain that the account hasn’t been used in 9 years. That it is clearly my email address (it is @annieduke.com and I am Annie Duke after all). That we just can’t remember the password and please reset it so that I can have my email address back. The guy now tells me that Ben Duke (my ex-husband) is the owner of the account so he can’t so that. I now ask if it is normal that EBay let’s someone squat on someone else’s email address and what if my ex and I were on bad terms then I couldn’t ever have my email address back? He basically says yes that is true. That the owner of the account is Ben and that means that I can’t have my email address back unless Ben gets in touch with them.
Now here is the mind-boggler: The agent now tells me to make a new email address and create a NEW account with that email address. Now I go nuts. I mean I endorse UB.com and we all are very sensitive about the issue of multiple accounts, obviously. And this EBay guy has now told me to go create a second email address and a second account on EBay. So I ask him outright, “So Can I just create a bunch of email addresses and have a different account for each of them?” And he says yes to that! So as much as you can yell into chat I did. I told him I couldn’t believe that EBay was encouraging fraud like that. I mean couldn’t someone create lots of accounts to leave themselves good feedback? If they had an account that ripped someone off couldn’t they just create a new one? He then backtracked and claimed they would have ways to know but gave be no specifics and it didn’t matter anyway because it is EBay’s policy that it is okay for a customer to have multiple accounts. We all know that is just not cool. That is how fraud happens. That is how people get cheated.
So here is the question: If online poker sites are clear about only allowing one account per customer and are bending over backwards to enforce this as a consumer protection issue but EBay allows customers to have as many accounts as they want then why is Congress not investigating EBay? Why is there not some Unlawful Internet Auction Enforcement Act? Because at least the online gaming industry is actively trying to prevent fraud and protect the consumer. EBay is encouraging fraud. Even their security experts tell you to go create multiple accounts. It boggles my mind that the government is focusing on internet poker while policies like EBay’s are allowed to go unchecked. I did finally get my account back but only after my ex-husband got on with the chat people and told them to give it back to him. Of course, I could have been pretending to be my ex-husband since it was just chat and not actually on the telephone. I mean Ben did actually do this for me but if we had been on bad terms I would have either been completely screwed or had to commit fraud myself and pretend to be Ben on the chat. Nice job EBay, protecting an account that hadn’t even been used in 9 years so someone’s ex could squat their email account. Bizarre.
Tags: Annie Duke, christmas, Ebay, internet poker, online gaming, Online Poker, ub, UB.com
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Friday, November 20, 2009 - Annie Duke
There have been so many transitions the last two weeks around here. Obviously, the main transition as far as UB is concerned is the big rebranding. Ultimatebet.com is now UB.com and that is really exciting…mainly because everyone always called Ultimate Bet UB anyway and, honestly, there are fewer ways to mistype it in your browser now! Seriously, that is not for nothing because I am the worst with the typos because I type so fast. There are so many ways to screw up Ultimatebet: Utlimatebet, Ultimeatbet, ultimatebte…you get the piture. How am I going to screw up UB.com? Especially now that Firefox automatically corrects misspellings of “com”!
Anyway, I am really exciting about the rebranding. I think it is such a positive change for UB.
On the not so positive side, I am really sad about Jeffrey Pollack’s departure from the World Series of Poker position. Jeffrey has been Commissioner there since 05 and has really done amazing things with that brand. I don’t think people remember what the WSOP was like before Pollack got a hold of it. Of course, prior to the brand being bought by Harrah’s, the WSOP was being run at Binion’s by the Behnen family who had acquired it from Jack Binion. When Jack ran the WSOP it was amazing in terms of how player friendly it was. I mean, sure, the structures sucked but tournaments were being completed in one day then so they kind of had to. But juice was incredibly low, less than 5% and the main event had ZERO juice. Comps flowed freely as well. If you were playing the events you basically never paid for any food during the whole tournament and that included at the yummy Binion’s steakhouse. Those were the good old days for sure (except that hardly anyone was playing poker tournaments back then lol).
When Becky Behnen took the tournament over from Jack the player friendly days were over. Juice went up and up and up. Comps no longer abounded. I was so upset personally about the direction the WSOP that I didn’t even play in 2002 except for exactly just the main event. It would take an army to keep me away from the WSOP and that year there is apparently an army keeping me away because of the way I thought players were being treated.
Now in walked Harrah’s and right from the start it looked bad. Still no comps, higher juice, no relationship with the players and, here was the worst thing, all of a sudden every tournament at the WSOP was No Limit Hold’em. Every day it the tournament was NLH and in the $1500 buy-in range. It was like Harrah’s knew nothing about poker at all and was taking its lead only from what was on TV. The rich tradition of the WSOP is supposed to be about all of poker, not just the small part of it that is NLH. We were losing the ability to reward Omaha play, split game play, limit play and all the other games that make up the rich world that is poker. For all intents and purposes, the WSOP might as well have been called the World Series of No Limit Hold’em.
Now, at the same time as this was happening at the WSOP, the WPT was also acting as a very poor partner to the players. At the time, the WPT set structures at the final tables to accommodate 6 hour windows (apparently after 6 hours they would have to pay overtime). Setting structures by how long you want to film rather than what is good for the players who paid the entries and the fees is preposterous, of course. What that meant was that you could have a tournament that leading into the final table had smooth 90 minute levels with no doubles ever and at the final table the levels would revert to an hour with the blinds doubling each level. At heads up, the levels went to 30 minutes. That is as player unfriendly as it gets and was directed by the WPT’s attitude that the Poker itself was the star of the show and the players were completely interchangeable. With that attitude there is no reason to treat the players well at all and it showed in the way they treated us.
So enter Jeffrey Pollack. Jeffrey had a completely different idea, a revolutionary idea even . He felt that the WSOP could not succeed without the players. That when folks watched the coverage on ESPN they were there to see the players and their personalities and that could not be disconnected from the poker. He understood that the folks who actually buy-in and pay those entry fees are human beings, poker players even. So he reached out and really created a partnership with the players, most notably by forming the Players Advisory Council, which I was proud to be a member of. The PAC had tremendous say in the schedule and the structures of the tournaments and I think the WSOP now has a schedule that really represents the whole of what poker is with structures that are amazingly player friendly. Jeffrey, with the PAC, really brought the WSOP back from the brink of becoming the World Series of No Limit Hold’em.
Outside of his hand in insuring that the poker at the WSOP was great, he always worked hard to make sure the experience of the players was great, too and that the players who had endorsements could fulfill their obligations and the ones who didn’t could still get a logo deal if they were lucky enough to get to a final or featured table. That, of course, is all good for poker. Jeffrey really has been a generous partner to the players and, in a very real sense, the players’ protector and defender at that brand. So I am sad and a concerned to see him leave the brand. I fear for what the relationship with the players will look like in the future if the people remaining at the WSOP don’t take the lesson from Jeffrey that success at the WSOP must be a partnership with the players.
Here’s hoping the powers that be at the WSOP and Harrah’s have taken note of the legacy of Jeffrey Pollack. His success comes from his bridging the gap with the players. His egacy is that of a great friend to the community and that is an amazing legacy to leave.
Tags: espn, Firefox, harrah's, jeffrey pollack, NLH, Players Advisory Council, Poker Poker Poker, ub, ultimatebet, WPT, WSOP
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Thursday, November 12, 2009 - Annie Duke
I am really excited about some awesome changes in the blind structures at UB. I designed the structures that we have been using for years and I have always been pretty damn proud of them. But even a good thing can become better and last week I ripped back through those bad boys and made some big changes with the help of Roothlus :) The changes are huge. Amazing. Crazy! Okay. I know I am exaggerating but I am really excited about them.
We have added tons of level including the 250/500 level for all tournaments. That is a big change because it means you don’t get that big 50% jump anymore from the 200/400 level to the 300/600 level. That is a big jump that I am so psyched we have reduced to two 25% jumps instead. IN our deepstack tournaments, we had this crazy 5/10 level in there which, when you start with 5K in chips was pretty useless. So we got rid of that but added in a 25/50 level instead. I love that change. Start a little higher so the hands in the first round might actually matter but smooth out the structure later so you aren’t just losing a level.
The change to the deepstack events is part of a new policy that some tournaments will now have different structures than others, depending on buy-in and starting stack. Tournaments which start with more than 3K in chips now have a different structure than those that start lower and any tournament with a $500 buy-in or more has a new structure. In total:
1) For events 3K chips and higher the 5/10 level has been removed but a 25/50 level has been added. In total 7 new levels have been added to the structure
2) In events starting with less than 3K chips, a total of 7 levels have been added
3) In event with a buy-in of $500 or more, the 5/10 level is removed replaced by the 25/50 level. In total 11 levels have been added to those structures
4) The UBOC final has a total of 21 levels added to it
5) All tournaments now have antes introduced at the 100/200 level rather than the 150/300 level
6) The structures for limit tourneys have also been revamped and the antes in stud tourneys have been changed to be in line with other sites.
7) The antes in stud cash games have been revamped as well.
I am really excited about all of these changes. The stud changes in particular really fix a problem that UB had in general that the antes and bring ins were often much too high a percentage of the small bet. Those have now been brought in line with industry standards which is nice because it increases the skill level of the game to know how to adjust to antes.
All in all, the new structures give you, the player, much more bang for your buck. No crazy all-in fests on UB. Every tournament on the site now offers more play for your buy-in. I am pretty proud of the changes
Tags: Adam "Roothlus" Levy, tournaments, ub, UBOC
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Monday, October 26, 2009 - Annie Duke
So I have officially processed my untimely demise in the Aruba Classic. Let me give you a little back story though. In the 7 years that I have played that event, I have made the money ONCE. That is right. One time. Now there is a really good reason for that. I generally go down to Aruba with my kids and the thought of staying inside playing poker for the whole trip when my kids are having a blast horseback riding and tubing and whatnot without me doesn’t really work for me. So I play some pretty bad poker when I am in Aruba generally because I am secretly, well not so secretly, trying to get myself knocked out of the event.
But not this year. This year I resolved that I was actually going to try really hard. Last year I had to leave before the event even started because Celebrity Apprentice conflicted with the main event down there. So I headed down to Aruba for exactly three days and then left in a shroud of mystery. I had signed a confidentiality agreement so I couldn’t tell anyone why I was leaving which made for some pretty interesting rumors. I did have to assure a few people that nothing was wrong with my family and there was no emergency while still being coy about why I left. Anyway, we all know how Celebrity Apprentice turned out. I am still trying to decide if it was worth it to leave paradise abruptly for 5 weeks of being called worse than Hitler by Joan Rivers.
Anyway, after having to leave last year I realized that I really missed the opportunity to play and so this year came in with great resolve to play my heart out. I showed up relatively on time and proceeded to get dealt the best cards of my life. In the first two levels I got AA 7 times, KK twice and QQ twice. I am not kidding. I really got dealt those starting hands. So of course I ended the two levels with 4K of the 15K starting chips. As expected really. I was either going to have all the chips on the planet or 4K. When I came back for level three I managed to flop top two with AJ suited vs 99 on an AJ9 board. Oops. That sent me to the rail.
So I managed to hit the parlay: I wasted another year of the Aruba Classic getting knocked out on Day 1 when I was actually really trying (proof of the trying part: I managed to still have 4K in chips after getting all those hands cracked) and I wasted the best run of cards I will ever have. Sheesh.
Now, once I got knocked out I decided to make the best of it and took the opportunity to go tubing with Joe. We got on one of those two man tubes and were having a complete blast because we had a driver who was really trying to create huge wakes to buck us off the tube. Anyone who has gotten thrown off a tube knows that it usually the best part of tubing. Joe and I were really hanging on, though, so the driver was creating bigger and bigger wakes to drag us over until finally he made a wake so big that there was no holding on the tube to stay on because the tube itself was flipping over.
So Joe is on my right and the tube is flipping right so Joe kind of turned over and was heading face down into the ocean below me as I was flipping over him when his heel snapped up on the way into the water and caught me right in the neck. That snapped my head back pretty bad and smashed my lower jaw into my upper jaw in a way that really sent shockwaves up the left side of my face. That was aside from the pain I was experiencing from having just been kicked really hard in the neck. So now I land in the ocean and I am just sobbing in there and Joe isn’t sure right away whether or not I am laughing or crying so he is laughing at first. Then he realizes I am actually in hysterics and helps drag me back onto the tube so the driver can take us in really slowly back to the dock. I say really slowly because every bit of turbulence we hit sent waves of pain through my skull. By that night the inside of my throat had really swelled up which took about two days to go down before it was comfortable to swallow again.
So I got kicked in the head by the cards in the tournament then kicked in the head by Joe in a freak tubing accident. Come to think of it, getting called worse than Hitler for 5 weeks doesn’t sound so bad after all.
Tags: aruba classic, Celebrity Apprentice, Joan Rivers, Poker Poker Poker
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Monday, October 5, 2009 - Annie Duke
A couple of weekends ago I taught a cash game WSOP Academy at the Bicycle Club in LA. During the academies, students get a combination of seminars and hand labs. The seminars are lectures that include some video hand examples. The hand labs give the students a chance to actually play poker in front of the instructors so that the hands they play can get deconstructed. At the end of each hand, the students turn their cards over and the instructors then talk about the good things they did and the mistakes they made. During one of the hand labs at the Bike, I got to experience one of those wonderful moments as a teacher when a student has that Aha! moment.
I was explaining a mistake a student had made. The person in cutoff had raised to 150 (blinds were 25/50). The player in the small blind had then made it 600 and the player in the big blind then made it 1275. The cut off then folded. The small blind now went into the tank for quite a while. While she was in the tank, I was thinking, “I really hope she doesn’t fold since the player in the big blind only min-raised.” At which point, she folded. The small blind now showed AJ and the big blind showed AK. Good fold right? Nope!
Obviously, I first explained what was wrong with the AK only making it 1275. The problem is that really any two cards that reraised in the first place should be calling that bet because of pricing issues so the raise doesn’t really accomplish much. It doesn’t serve to further define the hand of the original raiser and shouldn’t trigger a fold. Now, of course, in this case it did trigger a fold and that was bizarre which is what the discussion was about. I explained that the player holding AJ had to call 675 to win 2025 giving her 3 to 1. And that is why the fold was so bad.
At 3 to 1, if the player in the big blind had turned KK face up, the call would still be mathematically correct since AJ is better than 3 to 1 against KK. Against a hand like TT, the fold is a complete disaster because AJ is even money against that hand getting 3 to 1 from the pot. Even against AK, AJ is about a 3 to 1 dog so the call would be break even against that hand. The problem is that against the kinds of hands that the big blind could be playing, it is true that AJ rates to be the worst hand but it is also true that it doesn’t matter because there was enough money in the pot for the amount of the call to make it mathematically worthwhile to put the 675 in the pot.
I could see that the table was having a lot of trouble with the concept. I was having difficulty getting them to understand that it is okay to call even when you are 100% sure you have the worst hand if there is enough money in the pot to justify it. If you are going to win a hand 1 out of every three times but the pot is paying you as if you will only win 1 out of 4 times then you will make money on the call. Simple as that. But the students definitely were not getting it.
Then I had a thought. I realized I could show them that they all call on a regular basis when they know they don’t have the best hand. I pulled out the QJh and said, “What if that were your hand?” Then I pulled a board of Ah8h2s. I asked them how many of them would call a bet in this spot. They all said they would. Then I asked how many of them thought they had the best hand right now. Then the light bulbs started going on. They started getting it. Obviously, no one thought they had the best hand with the QJh on that board but they all would call because they figure they would make a flush enough of the time to make the call profitable. Their opponent could show them AK there and they would still all call. Somehow the flush draw makes it an obvious call even though you definitely don’t have the best hand right then.
But flush draws aren’t the only drawing hands. In fact, all hands are drawing at something. In the case of AJ vs AK, you are drawing at a J (or KQT). AJ vs KK is drawing for an A. Now if you are drawing for a flush there are more cards in the deck that help but it is no different in the sense that either way you are drawing. It is just about how many cards you are drawing for. The more cards you are drawing for, the more liberally you can call. The fewer cards you are drawing for the better your pot odds need to be.
Seeing the students’ faces light up as they got it was really cool. In fact, it is why I teach.
Tags: Bicycle Club, Poker Poker Poker, WSOP Academy
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Sunday, September 20, 2009 - Annie Duke
I am so excited for this weekend. I do about 7 or so WSOP Academies per year (some with UB’s own P0ker H0, Shawn Rice and Matt Graham and even Mr. Hellmuth will sometimes make an appearance). But whenever I can do one in my hometown it is pretty special. Special mainly because it means I don’t have to fly to Vegas and stay in a hotel and be away from my house. When you travel as much as I do believe me that is a special treat. Any extra time I get to sleep in my own bed is pretty special to me.
This weekend I will be at The Bicycle Club teaching my first ever cash game academy. The WSOP Academy has done a few cash game academies but never one where I am the instructor so I am really excited to branch out from the normal tournament play instruction I do. Joining me at this camp will be Ali Nejad and Shawn Rice so it should be really fun since both of those guys are really great. I spent this afternoon watching video clips from High Stakes Poker to analyze during the academy. Those are a really great learning tool since showing concepts in action is about the best way to really reinforce points.
It is also really valuable to show students that the top pros sometimes screw up :) I know I screw up all the time and I think players often make too many decisions based on fear of making a mistake. That kind of decision making process always leads to more mistakes rather than fewer since your decisions are driven by fear of screwing up rather than finding the actually correct line of play in a hand. Fear of failure rarely creates good decisions or successful outcomes so seeing that even the top players in the world make mistakes I think is a really good lesson to learn. I think it frees people up to realize that screwing up is okay as long as you see the screw up as an opportunity to learn. I know when I screw up I use it as a way to improve my game and I rarely get upset about it. This kind of attitude where you see opportunity in your mistakes also really helps stop tilt.
The video analysis is a new piece of the camp for me and I am really looking forward to analyzing the hands for the students. I am also going to be doing a full on pot odds section which I will no doubt really enjoy since unlocking the magic of math is always fun for me. Considering the tweet I got the other day, others may not feel the same though:
DivePoker@RealAnnieDuke looking forward to the impossible math this weekend…apparently the WSOP accademy is 100x harder when you’re around lol!
I, of course, consider that tweet a compliment 
Tags: high stakes poker, Matt Graham, P0ker H0, Phil Hellmuth, Poker Poker Poker, ShawnRice, ub, Vegas, WSOP Academy
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