Sunday, January 11, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
Deep stack tournaments do not necessarily translate into interminable death-marches that last till dawn. A case in point is tonight’s UBOC Event #4, a deep-stack No-Limit Hold-Em event that started at 2:30pm ET. A total of 402 players resisted the urge to watch the NFL playoffs (though I’m sure quite a few were multitasking) and by the time we reached the final table it looked like this:
A few familiar names at that final table–Matt “WISCOMURRAY” Murray, for one. TRALAIRA, who final-tabled UBOC Event #1, for another. And they would be among those who lasted until the end, though the same can’t be said for LOLPWNU, who was eliminated in 9th place when he commited the last of his chips with pocket Tens (my lucky hand) and was called by COMPLETEDONK in the big blind holding the mighty Qd-5c. A Queen on the flop probably didn’t make LOLPWNU laugh out loud, as he went out in ninth place.
After the action was folded around to ILETURUN in the small blind he moved all-in to put the squeeze on STORER50, only to get squeezed back when STORER50 called with Ac-6h to ILETURUN’s 8s-5s. Just as they say you can never find a cop when you need one, ILETURUN couldn’t find an eight or five when he needed one and was eliminated in 8th place.
CHAUCHMEYER looked to be in good shape to double up when his Ad-Kd had ANABOOLA’s Ac-Qh. The flop and turn didn’t alter the situation and all CHAUCHMEYER had to do was fade a Queen on the river to double up. You know where this is going, right?–the Qs spiked on the river and cruelly sent CHAUCHMEYER to the rail in 7th place.
COMPLETEDONK was next to fall, shoving with As-4c and getting called by ANABOOOLA’s pocket Nines. COMPLETEDONK picked up a wheel draw on the river but the river brought no help and he was out in 6th. There are many brutal ways to get bad-beated out of a tournament, but the way STORER50 was ushered out the door is one that especially bugs me. He was all in holding pocket Sevens to ANABOoOLA’s Ac-9d. The 10h-4c-Qc didn’t threaten much, though the 10c on the turn gave ANABOOOLA a flush draw. But it wasn’t a club or an Ace that spelled COMPLETEDONK’s doom–it was the Qh, which put two pair on the board and counterfeited his pocket Sevens. ANABOOOLA’s Ace played and that lone card was strong enough to eliminate COMPLETEDONK in fifth place.
During play there had been some talk about making a deal, but discussions began in earnest when we got four-handed. ANABOOOLA had a sizeable chip lead but it was the shorter stacks who wanted a bit more bread before they’d deal. Play resumed and ANABOOOLA flexed his musclesby moving in from the small blind, and YUFOLDBSTHND called with As-5s. ANABOOOLA turned over Jd-4c, a modest holding that grew in stature when a Jack came on the flop. No Ace came to save the day and YUFOLDBSTHND was out in 4th place.
And that’s when the three remaining players returned to the negotiating table and tried to hammer out a deal. ANABOOOLA had about 75% of the chips in play and the three players went back-and-forth, forth-and-back coming up with terms that would be agreeable to all. Note to self–do some reading on negotiating tactics and the parsing of financial data. Either that or retain a CPA to assist in all dealmaking at the poker table.
But in the end a deal was made and that deal brought an end to the tournament. A situation we may see repeated in future events, or perhaps not. There’s a lot of money involved after all…but then again, that’s why they call it gambling. Congratulations to ANABOOOLA, TRALAIRA and WISCOMURRAY for a very good day’s work indeed.
Tags: Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, ub, ub tournaments, UBOC, uboc tournaments, ultimatebet, ultimatebet tournaments
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Saturday, January 10, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
I’m not one to toot my own horn, but…
Yes, that’s me knocking Shawn Rice out of today’s mini-UBOC event and collecting his $30 bounty. We’re about 20 off the money and I’m 11th in chips. Which of course means I’m gonna run Kings into Aces in three…two…one…
Cramping my style is Chris “PIMASTER” Vioxx, who is the big chip leader and sits three seats to my left. Chris won a UBOC event two years ago and I’d rather not lock horns with him if I can help it. Tight might be right.
And on CUE I lose 1/2 my stack when I run Ace-King into HOUN’s Aces. The good news is that I rivered the nut flush. The bad news is that it wasn’t the nut flush, as he flopped a full house. I will now commence the screaming and renting of garments.
UPDATE: And I’m out, three short of the money. I ran K-10 into PIMASTER’S A-2 and I didn’t improve. At least I was freerolling…yeah, that’s SUCH a comfort. It just goes to show you, the second you start talking smack, the second you start thinking things are going your way, that’s when the Poker Gods beat the crap out of you.
Mad, frustrated, in the mood to commit random acts of extreme violence…yeah, that’s poker for you.
UPDATE: And welcome to lifetilt! It turns out P0ker H0 freakin’ WON the mini-UBOC event I sorta-bubbled. I’d calmed down and everything but now I’m practically biting myself.
Tags: Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, UBOC, ultimatebet, ultimatebet championship
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Saturday, January 10, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
There were several familiar faces at the final table of last night’s UltimateBet Online Championship PLO w/rebuys event-Mark “P0ker H0″ Kroon being one of them. As we got down to the money bubble H0 was the shortest stack left and I thought he’d get his chips in sooner than later. I’ve never seen Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster, but last night I witnessed something almost equally remarkable–P0ker H0 playing tight on the bubble. But when the bubble burst (CUTEFRECKLES, sadly was left out in the cold) H0 shifted gears and planted his foot firmly on the accelerator, grabbing pots left and right until he arrived at the final table third in chips:
The first player eliminated was Matt “VENGMONEY” Vengrin, who bubbled the final table of the 2007 Aruba Poker Classic. Matt went out when OUTLAWNYC1 flopped the nut flush and that was pretty much that. THEGRAPER (love that name) was sent to the rail in eighth place when he flopped a flush draw to go with his pocket Queens but failed to improve against TRALAIRA’S Aces. And then, sadly, it was P0ker H0’s time to G0. After a 2c-Ah-4s flop H0 checked and then tanked after OUTLAWNYC1 threw out a bet. H0 moved all in and OUTLAWNYC1 quickly called. Both players had an Ace but OUTLAWNYC1 held two Kings to H0’s two Queens and a King on the river sealed H0’s fate:
VBILLER was next to fall, as DANTML flopped a set against him then made the nut straight on the river to lock up the pot. TRALAIRA had the bad fortune to get the last of his chips in only to see OUTLAWNYC1 flop a full house that left him drawing dead. “I’m getting very lucky,” OUTLAWNYC1 said in chat, and after making another huge hand said, “I flop monsters!”.
Grayson “THE_DEAN221″ Nichols was unlucky to flop trip Aces, only to find that DANTML had done the same and had him slighly outkicked. Nichols didn’t catch on the turn or river and that sent him out in fourth place.
And then there were three, with OUTLAWNYC1 holding a bit more than 50% of the chips in play. There had be talk during the final table about making a deal–idle talk, for the most part. But down to three-handed OUTLAWNYC1 again raised the topic and the three players paused to discuss possible terms. Making deals at a final table is a new feature here at UltimateBet (H0 talked about making a deal because he wanted to see how it would work) and the three players chatted back and forth about possible scenarios while a UB manager provided equity calculations and made sure all three players understood the chop and agreed. It took a bit of time, but when all was said and done the three players were satisfied and UBOC Event #1 came to a quiet end.
I happen to think dealmaking at final tables is perfectly acceptable and totally reasonable. The money in the prize pool belongs to the players, they have the right to discuss among themselves if they want to alter the payouts. If history has taught us anything, it’s that no chip-lead is ever safe, and since the payouts increase almost geometrically at the top of the ladder it’s understandable that players might want to lock in a nice score and not risk losing a huge chunk of change to a horrid beat. Having a representative from UB in on the proceedings helps ensure a player doesn’t get browbeaten or bamboozled into taking a really bad deal, so this is definitely a positive step. Plus, it was geting on 4AM and I (along with several of the players, I think) were getting woozy.
So, congratulations to OUTLAWNYC1, DANTML, AND RIMMER27, who can say without fear of contradiction that they were still standing at the end of the opening event of the UltimateBet Online Championship. We have a $300+20 No-Limit Hold-Em event starting at 2:30pm ET and the $500+30 Heads-Up event at 5:30pm ET. That’s right, two UBOC events today (and two mini-UBOC tournaments as well), so don’t miss out.
Tags: h0, mark kroon, matt vengrin, P0ker H0, plattsburgh, plo w/rebuys, poker tournaments, pot-limit omaha, rebuys, ub tournaments, UBOC, ultimatebet online championships, ultimatebet tournaments
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Friday, January 9, 2009 - Gene Bromberg
“It” being the third UltimateBet Online Championship, which kicked off this evening with a $100+9 Pot-Limit Omaha with rebuys event. Whew, that’s a mouthful. They say that a rebuy tournament doesn’t really begin until the rebuy period comes to an end, and that happens in about…20 minutes. We’ll be keeping an eye on things as the tournament moves along and posting little updates from time to time. Here’s one–P0ker H0 and Debo are currently in the top 20. Which of course means absolutely nothing. But it’s something!
Actually, not sure if I noticed this at first, but H0 and Debo are sitting at the same table. So that’ll make for some interesting conversation.
UPDATE: OK, the rebuy period is over and we have some final numbers. UBOC Event #1 started with 221 runners, who made 271 rebuys and 228 add-ons. That created a total prize pool of $72,000, which will be divvied up thusly:
1st $18720.00
2nd $11160.00
3rd $7920.00
4th $5760.00
5th $4716.00
6th $3960.00
7th $3240.00
8th $2520.00
9th $1800.00
10th – 12th $1080.00
13th – 15th $864.00
16th – 18th $612.00
19th – 27th $504.00
UPDATE: Michael Binger is hosting tonight’s PLO w/rebuys event and for the moment he’s the host with the most. Well, almost the most…chips I mean. He’s in 4th place right now, with P0ker H0 and Debo both in the top 15. If you knock out one of our pros tonight you get your buy-in back, but so far Michael, H0 and Debo have refused to cough up their chips and the hundred bucks.
UPDATE: There’s a running joke among my gang that my friend Ted is the Worst Guest Ever. He’s a powerlifter and goes about 285, so when he sits on the couch he tends to take up about 80% of it–and that’s before he lays down and stretches out. He also never wears socks with his shoes (and usually wears shorts in the dead of winter) so you’ve got this big dude rubbing his smelly feet into the microfiber suede. He also brings his own food when he comes over, since most households aren’t stocked with enough protein to stoke his furnace, and watching him joylessly stuff hunks of “meat” (he never bothers to check whether he’s eating chicken, pork, groundhog) into his maw doesn’t do wonders for your appetite. Then there’s the fact that all that protein usually gives Ted some manner of gasterointestinal distress, which he has to work through in your bathroom. Woe betide the host who doesn’t stock up on Lysol when Ted pays a visit.
Anyway, this long-winded and seemingly pointless blather does have a purpose. It would seem my friend Ted has some competition as Worst Guest Ever, as Michael Binger (the host for tonight’s UBOC event) was just eliminated by PHAT_CAT. Who wins his buy-in back despite shoving Michael out the door. Doesn’t seem quite right but, well, that’s poker.
We’re just a few spots from the money (top 27 pay, remember) and both P0ker H0 and Debo are still in the running.
UPDATE: Someday a Ph.D candidate in linguistics or the social sciences is going to write a book about the etymology of online poker names. Anyway, the money bubble just burst in tonight’s UBOC event, and the unfortunate who went out in 28th-place was CUTEFRECKLES. Curious to know how that name came about. H0 and Debo are still around but their stacks are about half the average and so their work is cut out for them.
UPDATE: We’ve reached the final table and P0ker H0 is still very much alive. He arrives at the final table third in chips (Debo went out 17th, alas) and I’ll be following the final table the rest of the way to see how things play out. I’ll be posting a recap tomorrow morning…provided the tournament ends by tomorrow morning. And here’s the makeup of tonight’s final table:
Tags: online tournament, Poker Poker Poker, poker tournament, poker tournaments, pot-limit omaha, UBOC, uboc3, ultimatebet online championship, ultimatebet online championships
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Wednesday, January 7, 2009 - Annie Duke
I have been thinking lately about my days back in Montana when I first started out as a professional poker player. I am not sure why I have been feeling nostalgic about the old days lately. It might be because I have been playing a bunch of $10/$20 limit hold’em on UB lately and that is what I started out playing back in the day in Billings, Montana at the Crystal Lounge. I think it has been making me think about my start in poker when the $3000 or so I was making a month at the start seemed like more money than I could ever imagine spending. I mean my mortgage was $125 a month so I guess that I didn’t have a whole lot of money pressure on me. Of course now I kind of wish I could go back to a time when $3K seemed like more money than I could ever imagine needing or wanting.
But anyway, I was thinking about one of the funniest games I ever played in in Montana. It was at a bar in Helena owned by this guy Myron. Myron was renowned across Montana as not being such a good player and he ran a game out of the back of the bar. The structure of the game was hilarious. It was a $1 and $2 blind spread limit game where after the flop the spread was $2 to $50. This meant you could get in for $2 before the flop and bet $50 after the flop. It made it easy to price out any draws for sure. The thing was that the other players played the structure really poorly. If they flopped some piece of the board they would come for whatever bet you made. That meant that you could send the price to a flush draw at almost even money and get calls if you wanted. I mean there would be like $10 in the pot preflop then you could just come out with $50 if you wanted and you could get called by flush draws there. It was pretty sick.
Now the other players in the game didn’t get this from the other side and would let you draw cheap. Of course, if you were drawing cheap enough for the draw you had to call because the implied odds were huge since you could bet $50 after you hit. I basically played hands that flop really well like pairs and A and K high suited cards. I would get in very cheap preflop, see if I hit, then ram the pot since they were all pretty much calling stations.
So, I have great memories of this game for a few reasons:
1) I won my first big prop bet there. I played during the playoffs and at the time I was a huge Eagles fan. The Eagles had made the playoffs so I had just checked the paper to see when the game was. I knew it was at 11 am Montana time but when we sat down to play Myron insisted it was at 2 pm Montana time. So I bet him $500 (which was a huge amount of money to me) and he sent someone out to get a paper and, of course, I won and got paid. Sweet!
2) It was the first and last time I actually saw someone bang their head against a wall. Myron was an emotional fellow to say the least and after he lost a few bad pots he walked over to the wall and actually started smashing his own head against it. That was my first introduction to how, um, shall we say colorful? Gamblers can be.
3) I won a ton of money in the game (over $2500) and got paid in a paper bag full of FIVES! Remember I said Myron owned this bar. Well, the bar made most of its money from the video poker machines in it. Myron accepted checks from the players in the game but I didn’t live in Helena and I wasn’t about take checks from dudes I had never met. I insisted on getting paid cash so I guess that explains the paper bag full of five dollar bills from Myron. He must have emptied out every machine in the place that night to pay me.
All right. That is enough nostalgia for one day. Oh, except to say that I remember it was so freaking cold that day in Helena you have no idea. I guess I am glad I don’t live in Montana now that I think about it considering it was 75 in LA today.
Tags: $10/$20 limit holdem, Annie Duke, blind spread, new year, poker tournaments, tournament structure, ub pro, Ultimate Bet Pro
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Monday, January 5, 2009 - Cardroom
Here’s your weekly roundup and congratulations go out to SB129397, SMTSXYCOOL007, BGMULA, JPSTATION and T8110 for taking the big tourneys down over the holidays and also to our deal makers MICHAELEAHCI and BONEZEE!
The Cardroom
Tags: Cardroom, Online Tournaments, poker tournaments, tournament, tournament results, tournaments, Weekend Round Up
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Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - Shawn Rice
Hello fellow UBers,
I have taken a small break and have not been playing as much lately because of some family medical problems. All seems to be much better now and thanks for the kind words from many of my friends.
Maybe a small break is just what I needed because I now have a strong desire to play poker like I have not had in a long time. As many of you know, UB puts me and a few other pros into the Ultimate Bet $200k guaranteed most every week with bounties on our heads. This makes it much tougher to win. You better not be bluffing too much too early because if someone knocks you out they win $200.
I just grinded away like I do most every Sunday and with like 70 players left I was the chip leader and I said to myself, “Damn I really have a good chance of winning this”. It is when I get close to the final few tables where I think I have a real advantage. Many people are looking to try and go up the pay scale and I am just looking to play situations where I can pick up as many chips as possible. I make the final table with under average chips but I felt totally ok with my stack because I was something like 40 times the big blind; and with the UB structure that Annie Duke help create I felt great about my position.
I did get lucky once. I was against a very aggressive player and I was in desperate mode. He picked up A3 suited and ran into A9 on a A78 flop. I get it all in and turn a 3, BINGO, I doubled up and made it to the final 3 and played what seems forever 3 handed. IMOLDPLZFOLD whom finished 3rd was very aggressive and I felt it was just a matter of time before he would run into a big hand and he finally did.
When it got to heads up, I had a very tiny chip lead and offered to chop. Second place was 27k and first was 46k. I had a lot of respect for FEEDMEMUNE’s game and therefore told him I would take 37k and offer him 36k. He agreed and we used the new chop system that UB now has at its final tables. The online UB Manager showed up immediately and I had my share in my account in no time.
More so than the money, I wanted the win. If I could get him to agree to the chop I would get that. I will be requesting the hand history for this tourney and will make a video for the public to see what I was thinking when I had to make the tougher decisions. I will post it on Pro Play Live where Annie and I have made videos along with many of today’s top poker players.
Looking back on this tourney, I think what helped me and what I did a little different is that I folded many close hands early. Say it was raised and I had a small pocket pair, I just decided I would not risk 10% of my stack to see the flop. I’d rather use my chips and being the agressor. I learned this from Loewa79 and Brsavage whom I think are the best at avoiding bad situations as far as calling your money off.
Thanks to everyone that watched and wished me well and congrats over the past week. I hope to make it happen again very soon.
Proud UB Team Member
Shawn Rice
Tags: 200k guarenteed, Annie Duke, poker tournaments
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Sunday, December 7, 2008 - Gene Bromberg
The final table of the WSOP Main Event was just about a month ago–quick, can you name who won? Yes, Peter Eastgate is now about 8% of the way through his reign, and if you haven’t heard much from him during that time it should come as no surprise. The poker world doesn’t stop spinning, not even when a new King is crowned, and in the last month there have been major tournaments in Australia, Costa Rica, Poland, and right now the Five Diamond World Poker Classic is being held at the Bellagio.
But the Main Event is still by far the biggest tournament in the world. The biggest fields, biggest prize pool, biggest media magnet. No other poker tournament comes close to the Main Event as the game’s showcase, and it was hoped that the decision to postpone the final table until November would create a surge of hype that would lure mainstream media outlets and entice corporate sponsors into pulling out their checkbooks.
That part really didn’t pan out. None of the November Nine signed big sponsorship deals (other than their alliances with online poker sites), and while the tournament received considerable media attention it’s not like Peter Eastgate appeared on the cover of Newsweek. Still, it’s hard to ignore the signs that the decision to postpone the final table was a rousing success. TV ratings were up 50%. The final table drew a large and raucous crowd, without a really big-name player in the mix. Indeed, the WSOP as a whole was a rousing success, with bigger fields, bigger prize pools, and a dramatic reduction in the logistical snafus from the year before.
But this is poker we’re talking about, and in poker no one is ever satisfied. Still, it was a bit odd to hear WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky’s explanations to Gary Wise about why the Main Event’s final table wasn’t an even bigger media spectacle. One of the issues Palansky raised about why there wasn’t more buzz around the final table was downright bizarre:
But the Presidential elections, when we made the decision May 1, no one knew it was shaping to be what it ending up being…
No one knew that the Presidential election (held a few days before the final table) was going to end up being a big story? One that would hold much of the world’s attention? That really makes no sense. The election of Barack Obama perhaps made the Presidential election an even bigger story than it normally is (and had Hillary Clinton become the first female President there might’ve been a similar spike) but Presidential elections are ALWAYS huge news. So huge that it tends to drown out everything else that’s happening. Even poker tournaments. When the final table delay was announced I thought the timing was odd, because it would closely coincide with the election, but I thought perhaps Harrah’s and ESPN were hoping to offer some counter-programming for those tired of seeing pundits declaim about The Importance of it All. But to have the WSOP Communications Director say that no one saw this coming…it’s very odd.
The other bombshell Palansky dropped was that Harrah’s arranged for members of the November Nine to appear on The Tonight Show and Ellen…and the players chose to pass. From how Palansky phrased his answers it seems that two different players were asked to be guests, but he didn’t say which players. And that led to considerable speculation about who the players were. In the 2+2 thread on the subject and in other discussions it appeared that Dennis Phillips, Chino Rheen, Kelly Kim, Scott Montgomery and Craig Marquis were NOT asked. It seemed logical that Peter Eastgate would be the most likely candidate to appear on a talk show, because he’d actually won the thing. Eastgate is of course from Denmark, English isn’t his first language, and he doesn’t exactly seem the media-whore type. He might not have felt comfortable going on national television and conversing in a language that’s not his native tongue, perhaps he didn’t know how popular The Tonight Show is. Perhaps he couldn’t care less about making ANY public appearances. And, perhaps, he wasn’t even the player asked.
One question I have that hasn’t been addressed so far as I know–if Harrah’s arranged for a player to appear on these talk shows, and the player declinded, did anyone at Harrah’s propose that another player take his place? Dennis Phillips seemed both an obvious and excellent choice to appear on a national talk show. Here’s your American Everyman, a good guy from the Midwest who loves the game, loves his St. Louis Cardinals, and is both willing and able to talk about living out a dream. It would seem that Phillips would’ve been an ideal guest for either show, and if their producers hadn’t asked for him at the start, did Harrah’s propose Phillips appear instead of the player who turned it down?
It will be interesting to see going forward if Harrah’s changes their approach to promoting the final table. I think it’s inevitable that there will again be a long delay (perhaps it’s not an ideal situation but there’s no denying that the TV numbers were WAY up) but will Harrah’s work more closely with the next November Nine in promoting themselves and the tournament? Harrah’s has PR and marketing expertise that most poker players don’t, as Shane Schleger said in the 2+2 thread:
I think it’s sort of ridiculous to expect poker players to take the “initiative” in attracting exposure for themselves as (Palansky) suggested, since this is not our area of expertise. Poker players are not trained entertainers, performers or politicians.
It also remains to be seen how much corporate sponsorship poker can hope to attract in the face of a global financial meltdown. GM just cancelled it’s endorsement deal with Tiger Woods–TIGER WOODS. Companies are battening down the hatches and who knows how bad the storm will be when the World Series of Poker reconvenes next June. Poker does have one big advantage over other games/sports–the fans actually play the game. They bring their own money to the table. I’m a huge hockey fan but I don’t know how to ice skate. The NFL is akin to religion in the U.S. but only a meager handful actually put on pads. People who love poker also love to play poker. And once they start playing they usually never stop through the course of their lives. They may not play professionally, or for high stakes, but they play. There are tens of millions of them in the United States and untold millions around the world. And a big chunk of them dream of playing in an event like the World Series of Poker. Many do more than just dream. Winning corporate sponsors is great, having players on talk shows is super, but in these troubled times it might be smart for Harrah’s to direct a bit more of their energy at the players themselves. Because they’re poker’s best, and most important, customers.
Tags: 2008 world series of poker, 2008 wsop, november nine, Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, world series of poker, world series of poker final table, WSOP, wsop november nine
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