Bill Chen Blog

I did bust out 20th in the HORSE tourney. It’s never really fun doing that, but I think there was more of a feeling of acceptance than last year. I never really had an in-the-money stack, my max was around 650k, where an average ITM stack was 1M, and I knew we were playing limits where losing one orr two hands would be several hhundreds of thousands. I will post about some of those hands later but first three PLH hands.

Hand #1. I start the day with 30K. I decided to buy in late around 1pm and get my full stack. So 200-400 blind level player 5-off makes it 1200, he has a little over 10K left. I have TT immediately to his right. What is your play? I decide to call. Flop K73 rainbow, he checks I decide to check. Turn is a 6c, putting two clubs on the board. Check again, I decide to bet 2K (pot is now 3K), he effectively jams, I decide to call, he has AcJc, I sweat the 15 outer and win. The question here is the check on the turn. I usually bet in that spot after two checks–the TT is vulnerable to overcards, etc, but then of course you risk a convenient check-raise.

Hand #2. Blinds 400-800, I have about 70K, Kathy Liebert has 18,800 exactly. I make it 2300 on the button with 44, Kathy makes it 7500, BB folds. Question is do I just jam here and play showdown? I decide to call. Flop is KQT, two clubs you have a club. Check, I decide to check. Turn is an Ac, check, I decide to check again with an eye to bluffing the river if a club doesn’t come. River is a 6, she checks, I jam, she calls with A9. Comments?

Hand #3. This is the hand that happened during when Jerrod was winning the Mixed. I have Kh4h. I have about 65k at this point, blinds 600-1200. Player in the cutoff makes it 3300, I call. Flop is 3h2h2c. I decide to check, bet of 4500, I decide to check-raise to 12K, he makes it 33K, I count my chips exactly and have 29K behind if I call. I decide to call here planning to jam on some rivers. I decided to send it when an offsuit A hits the turn. The cards I decided to send it in were a relatively high heart, an A, a K, or a 5? Comments?

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I happen to be still in the 50K HORSE tourney. I ended the day with 324K, thanks to a rush at the end. Hoss is also in, they don’t have the table draws up yet but I really need to get some sleep soon.
Sorry about the lack of updates. Actually many things have been happening. Jerrod won the 2500 8-game mixed event, congrats, it’s his first bracelet after his third time heads-up. It’s quite a feat getting in the top two three times over a hundred or so WSOP tournies. I am glad it went his way this time. More reason to buy our book…

We also had a great BBQ at our house last Saturday, wow that was a week ago! My friends were also in town for a few days it was great to see them again. I will post hands when I have some spare time, I went deep in the 10K PLH also, managing to bust out around 40th place when they paid 27.

But now I want to get some sleep for tomorrow. I am glad Carole and Josh came out to visit me, I wish I had seen more of them, but Matt and I were busy playing HORSE.

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So we are in the second day of the Stud event. Good luck to Sabyl, Matt Grapenthien, Bob Luria, and others also playing today. Sorry I haven’t had many posts but it’s late nights like this that stop me. My friends from SIG are coming into town today and staying for three days. BTW there is a Party at the Poker house 4-11pm Saturday. RSVP through one of the housemates or me if you know me, and we will send you details.

I ended with 35500 in chips. Nothing really eventful in the later rounds that I can remember, a few tough decisions at the beginning. The classic situation I frequently find myself in is a 2 brings it in, a 3 completes I have (J6)J with a T, a 4, and the bringing and completer to act, so I raise, the 3 defends, SO by 5th the 3 is showing 632 and I still just have (J6)J4Q, What is your plan? I decided to check and call. Jerrod argues for folding which I think is rather tight given how big the pot is now. Of course if you are against a small pair and a low draw you would call, but again it depends on the range of the 3′s hand. Andrew prock says calling down is the best option. Anyway, he catches a 4 on 6th and I decide to fold. But each oof these decisions are non-trivial. Even the 6th street decision, if it had been a 5, given that I saw a couple of 4′s fall, I might be inclined to call. This shows it’s hard to have generic rules for Stud games as liveness/deadness of cards is key.

Congrats to Matt Hawrilenko in the 10K limit Holdem, it’s Matt’s best game, and he could be the best limit holdem player in the world. I played at his table the first day and it was tough, although I got the better of him in many of the hands we played, he survived and made a good run at it before finishing 5th.

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Well I made it to 35th and cashed about 5K. I had one tough hand, we are close to the money, and the player to my right Bill the Croc from Australia has been playing rather tight. Cutoff raises, Bill raises from the button, I have AKs, so I make it 4 bets, losing the cutoff raiser and Bill calls. Flop is 632 (or some semblence of it) two diamonds. I decide to bet, Bill calls. Turn is the Jd, what do you do now? I decided to continue to bet and Bill thinks for a long times and claims to have folded a pair without a diamond. My thinking at the time is that Bill is likely to have AQ, KQ, etc with a diamond So I definitely want to charge him to draw to it. I mean if I check I am check-calling, perhaps folding the river.

Anyway that hand allowed me to make the money. The other hands went sort of downhill from there. On the last hand in the 4k-8k limit, I have AQ and I decide to 3-bet, with 9k behind. Flop is T-high checked to me. Question is do I check here or do I bet? I decide to bet, my opponent puts me in, he has a pair of 6′s and I am out.

Anyway I decided to play the 2K at noon today, but I am taking advantage of the late signup to play at 2pm. The reason is that I am planning to play the 5pm 10K limit holdem if I am out, so don’t want to spend 15 hours playing poker… Anyway I do play aggressively, the thing about that is that it works for a while until you get into an ineveitable confrontation and you have to win it. So I make my way to 10K, then I lose KK to a cold caller behind with 65s (flop Q53, turn 5). And then defend the BB with 55, check raise all in on a QdQc3d flop, he calls with AJ with the diamond draw, and he wins the race. I am not too unhappy as my plan was to play the 10K Limit anyway.

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I ended up with 60600 chips, which is nearly triple an average stack, there are 124 players left. 63 make the money. I am actually the second big stack there, as Dominik Kulicki has 61100. It was just one of those days where I gained chips on every round at a ridiculous rate. BTW congrats to Matt Hawrilenko, who finished 8th in the 3K HORSE tourney. I played that one too but busted early in the second day. So during the second day I was seated between Daniel N and Barry G, we were all chatting about something, and then one player says “I have a question, a hand question.” Daniel chirps up “A strategy question”? Anyway he has T877 on O8 two diamonds, there is a field raiser, he askes what he should do (they are playing 800-1600). He decides to reraise and on a flop of AJ3, one diamonds someone bets into him, he asks what to now…? Daniel quietly turns to me when he is away and says “see you get a lot of information just sitting down.” We never get to the O8 round, as he gets (J2)2 in the stud 8 round, decides to call a completion and a raise when I have (QQ)5 and wins with 2′s full.

So, about the limit holdem here are my chip counts for each round:

0-4500 to start
1-5600 (50-100)
2-8600 (75-150)
3-9025 (100-200)
4-10200 (150-300)
5-18600 (200-400)
6-22900 (300-600)
7-37000 (400-800)
8-48600 (500-1000)
9-52500 (600-1200)
10-60600 (800-1600)

So on average I probably over 10 bets/hr for the whole day. This *looks* like pretty steady growth, plotted on a log-graph anyone would be pleased but this is the tail end of the distribution, ridiculously running well

It’s really hard to recall all of the hands that happened as you do get to play a lot of hands during a limit holdem tourney. I saw Daniel N in the noon tourney, it’s a rare noon appearance for him, but he said he really couldn’t pass up a limit holdem tourney. I was very lucky to get a good table draw that didn’t break until round 9. There were several limped pots and really poor postflop play, basically players missing bets.

Here’s the hand of the day. After dinner there is a player on the button who limps. He is one of the originals at our table and says “Well, I would raise but I know you are going to call anyway.” SB calls. Flop is T74, check to him, he bets, SB folds, I call. Turn is a T. Check-check, River is a J. Check-check, he turns over QQ. I had A4 which to me is an auto check-call on the river, but I am not really sure I pay off in this case.

But anyway it’s nice to be able to take the blinds when I make a field raise. Because of this, I lowered my raising requirements in late position against certain blinds. This gets to be a problem as aware players behind me will lower their three-betting standards. I certainly fell into this problem when Rep Porter and Mimi Tran moved to my table in round 8. I have played a bit of short handed holded with both of them and they certainly ruined the party on a couple of hands. But before that, the problem with many players is that you can’t just tell them to play tighter, looser, more aggressive, etc. It’s like they can’t really balance their distributions postflop, they decide to ram A-high as a bluff, etc.

It is fairly tough to play after getting 3-bet. I raise with 98s two from the button. Reraise 1-off by one of the better players at the table. All fold, and I call. Flop is K97. Ok, i check-call. Turn is a J. Check-bet, your move? I reallly hate these situations here I decided to call down. Fortunately the river was a Q, he checks QQ behind and takes the pot, of course he should bet, but I would have folded (I think).

So even at 60K I still only have 30 bets for the next round (1k-2k) this shows how precarious these tournies are. I really don’t know anyone at my table but I will probably recognize a few faces from yesterday. Well today is another day, I probably won’t run as good, but I probably don’t have to run as good to make the final table.

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$1500 6-Handed NL and Mixed Tourney.

So I had a tough hand to play, it reminded me of a hand similar to the one Jerrod played yesterday. Blinds 600-1200, 100 antes. Player two off makes is 3500, I am on the button with 55, I call, and the SB calls. Flop is 653, two hearts. Check to me so I decide to bet 9000, call by the SB. Turn is a 4, check-check. River is a king, BB fires out 12K. Your move? The pot is 30.3K so I’m calling 12 to win 42 or 7:2. Yes, it seems like a value bet with either the 7 or the deuce, but I call and I’m shown T7. Then with 40K left in the 800-1600,200 round A player makes it 5000 in the field. Holding TT I decide to jam. Player in the SB calls with KK. IGHN. 70th place paid 4063. I guess I am glad I played, since I was going to sit out and just play the mixed and go to dinner, so it’s 2500 more than I would have.

The mixed tourney I will just tell you about the last hand. I had Q654 in PLO and got a free play. Flop is Q73, two clubs. UTG limper bets the pot, Goodbrian in the SB calls, it seems from past play that the initial bettor might be betting trying to taked the pot, so I effective jam (raise the pot with about 1K behind) with my last 13K. He folds and Goodbrian hems and haws and calls with QT and a small club draw. I don’t think I should have taken my shot there but today is another day of tournies.

NL 5k.

I played the 5K NL today. We started with 15,000 chips, ended the day with 31,900 chips. The second round I had a pretty tough decision. I pick up AA with 12K left, early limper for 100 (blinds 50-100) I raise to 400, field player calls, limper calls. Flop is 9s5s2d, I don’t have the As. Check, I bet 1000, fold, limper check-raises to 3000, what do you do? I decided to jam there, but I think calling is reasonable also. Terrence suggested calling and folding to a turn bet but I think that is fairly conservative. My opponent thought for a while and then asked “you really have a set of 9′s” and folded. I now have 17K.

During rounds 3-6, I play a lot of pots. There is a player who is playing a lot of hands in the field, either by calling or calling a single raise. So there are occasionaally 7-way pots in the game. It was an interesting situation to play in, I ended with about 25K. A couple limpers in the 100-200 round, player raises to 700, I reraise to 2000, he calls. Flop is KdQd4c, I don’t have the Ad. He has 11K behind. It’s a really weird situation to bet out here with especially on this flop, I decided to jam and he folded.

At dinner I have about 24K. I am actually pretty happy about the 90 minute dinner break, Gavin and I were able to eat at the Voodoo Lounge and make it back with a couple of minutes left.

After dinner, I make it up to 70K in rounds 7&8 and lose it back to 31900. The two big hands were where I had 5s4s. I call a raise in the field after another overcaller. Flop is AT7 with two spades and nobody bets on the flops. Turn is the 3s, I bet 5000 into a 7k pot, guy to my right who also cold called a raise also calls. On the river, I bet another 5K and get called. The player to my right had A7 so I guess I might have been able to get paid off a little more. Unfortunately my table breaks. In the 300-600 round, raised 5 way pot when I am in the BB with 88 to 1700. Flop is AT6, two spades, checked around, turn is an 8, now there are two draws on the board. SB bets 3600. I thought the board was sufficiently scary to raise to 15K, with about 25K behind. The SB thinks and folds. I prromised I would post about the hand in my blog so he he could find out what I had.

Round 10 was fairly bad for me. I will tell you the major hands I lost. One hand I raise to 3K with QJ, two callers who are the blinds. Flop is A9x. I decide to to C-bet another 6k, the SB calls and then bets out 15K on the flop. On one hand I have QQ. UTG raiser (5 off) raises to 2500 in the 500-1K round. I raise to 8K with QQ. The player looks at me and asks “Are you crazy?” He calls , flop is KT3, two suited, and he jams immediately for 20K more. What do you do? I decided to fold. Opinions?

Anyway I end the day with 31800, Gavin is to my left with about 69K. There was some discussion about whether to play the 10K O8 or wait for the 2500 short handed if I bust. I think I will play the 10K. BTW I created a twitter account–billchenpoker where I will posting chip counts.

The Excluded Middle House.

In a conversation about young players and Doyle someone said “it seems all the players are either younger than 25 or over 40″.

10k O8

I am out of the 5k NL. AK vs KK in the Omaha 8 up to 39k after the first two rounds.

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Well at the beginning of the day I was wavering on whether to play. I wanted to play the mixed the next day, and was invited to a meet and greet with Mario Batali at the Venetian at 6pm. I was going to take Jerrod or Matt but they both decided to play. The fact that the mixed was the 5pm tourney the next day decided the issue. I made it to the second day with 68700 and we’re in the money down to the last 108 so I am glad I played.

So in the first round, we started with 25-50 and 4500 in chips. Hand #3, I open for 125 in Seat 3, Seat 6 raises in the BB to 625, and I fold. Two more orbits, I open with JJ for 125, BB in seat 6 calls. Flop is T96, two spades. I bet 200, he check raises to 650. I call. He bets 1200 on the turn of a 4, I call. River is another 6, I check, he bets all-in and I call. He throws his cards into the muck and walks away from the table without showing them. Anyway, I did feel he was more likely to be bluffing or semibluffing, perhaps given the dangerous board it’s right to just jam on the turn.

Lots of small pots, ended with 11K after the second round. In round 3, I defend the BB with AQs, flop is QTx, two diamonds, I check raise to 1500, and he moves in, at this point I have 13K, and I decide to call. He has A9d and i sweat the draw and double up. At this point the table seems desirable in that they have been just calling my raises in the field and checking to me. I guess maybe it feels better than my actual equity, but it does seem I can take several free cards. One big hand when I had around 35K, player opens for 600 (in the 100-200 round), player in the field calls, I have KK in the small blind, so I make it 2100. The initial raiser folds and the field player calls. Flop QT7, i bet 3K, field player raises all in for 10K more. I do call, and he has 77 and I lose, I mean I don’t think I can do anything else.

So I am moved to Jerrod’s table with about 30K. A lot of small pots are played and I build my stack to 45K at the dinner break. One hand there was a raise 3-off, call, button raises to 2500, I make it 7000 with QQ, everyone folds he shoves for 20K more. I decided to fold. He later told me he had AK. Certainly I am at the bottom of my range,,,

One hand I got in with 97 on a flop of 9d7d2c against Td8d, and an 8 comes off on the turn, winning somehow. One hand I think I missed a bet against Jerrod. He raises 2-off, I defend the BB with 77. We both hava a lot of chips. Flop is Q82, I check, he checks. Turn pairs the 8, now I checked intending to call but against Jerrod the right play may be to bet. My distribution is unlimited at this point, and I rate to have the best hand. Many players will just take a shot at the pot there so the best exploitive strategy may be to check against most players. Anyway I get a lot of chips after dinner calling an all-in with 77 on a KQ-high board after my opponent bets the flop and checks the turn. I think my play was actually close in practice even if he didn’t give an indication he was bluffing. Then I end up taking AA vs QQ and build up to 70K, basically play a few small pots, and I have 68K at the end of the day.

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So we have a cool house for the WSOP. We’ve already started prop betting! So we rented a house with the same occupants from last year: Gavin Griffin (who found the house, thx!), Jerrod Ankenman, Matt Hawrilenko, Kenny Shei, Terrence Chan, and me. The house is pretty sweet with a snazzy pool, pool table, movie projector room, and this huge freaking aquarium in the family room. We are having a party on the 20th, details later.

So Terrence was talking about doing 100 burpees which seem to include doing a pushup and getting up and jumping. SO the conversation went Terrence: “So how long could do you think it would take you?” Gavin:”I don’t think I could do 100.” Somehow this ended with Gavin betting $1000 I couldn’t do 100 in an hour. I thought this was fairly absurd as it consisted to doing less than two a minute. After doing like 30 in 6 minutes, I bet Gavin another $1000 that I could finish them in 30 minutes. It did take me 25.

Then we had the bedroom auction. We have the following rooms:

1) Master Bedroom–you can imagine how fancy it is with a Jacuzzi in the master bedroom, etc, but it does have a hole in the wall where the TV used to go and it adjoins Bedroom #6. Gavin was also occupying this bedroom earlier along with Kristen and Penny so it also has dog hair.

2) Outside Bedroom, nice and spacious.
3) Hall Bedroom, it has a nice sitting area with a TV which is part of the Bedroom.
4) Smaller Bedroom but has a bathtub that’s important to Kristen, and thus Gavin.
5) Smaller Bedroom with a nicer bathroom than #4
6) Bedroom with no bathroom. Rules are when someone is up out of the room, person #6 is able to use their bathroom.

So the rules of the auction are that the winner gets first pick, pays the other 5 his bid price. We have a new auction for right to pick second, after the first person has picked. Winner pays the other 4, etc. Remember this is for six weeks.

So Terrence and Matt proceed to have a bidding on the first choice, Terrence is bemoaning the fact that we aren’t helping push Matt higher. Matt takes it for 1800 and takes the master bedroom.

I really wanted room #2 but was reasonably happy for room #3. I bid 800, Terrence bid 1000, I let him have it, I was a little sad he picked room #2, since he was temporarily staying in #3, and thought he might take it.

Jerrod pushed me to 900 for bedroom #3, clearly the only pick at this point. Jerrod bid 750 and I bid 900.

Then Gavin bid 700 for Bedroom #4, outbidding Kenny and Jerrod, setting up a fierce auction for the access to a bathroom. Kenny took it for 700.

So the results of the Auction were:

Matt #1 -$1800
Terrence #2 -640
Bill #3 -290
Gavin #4 +210
Kenny #5 +560
Jerrod #6 +1960

Analysis, Matt overpaid for the Master, since bedrooms #2 and #3 were of good quality. I would have bid more aggressively for #2 had I knwn Terrence was going to choose it but the overall result didn’t seem that bad. I thought Jerrod did very well to collect. I thought Kenny bid a little too much, a 1400 difference in the two bedrooms is a bit much to pay.

Anyway more on the house and the party later!

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Well 0 for 4 already. But the WSOP has just started. The 1k last weekend, I only played one level then picked up AdQd. 4 way raised pot preflop, flop is Ks6d3d I bet 300 into a 400 dollar pot, player in the BB check raises to 800, he does seem to know how to play. I jam for my last 3500. He calls with 5d4d, 3 on the turn. BTW, he still has all 14 outs, since all the straight cards work. He hits a 2 on the river. The 10K Stud yesterday, I had just a few unfortunate confrontations. Lost AA, KK, and then 77 when I hit a third 7 on 4th street to three different sets. But no I was never close to much, hopefully this changes soon. I would go through all the tough decisions I made during the stud tourney but it seems a bit painful at this point.

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I’m here again in Vegas for the World Series of Poker. I’m basically planning to play as many events as I can. Only 4 events are for sure. The 40K NL which I am still in, the 10K 8-game mixed event, the 50K HORSE, the 10K Limit Holdem and the Main Event. The others I plan to basically play event after event, maybe skipping the noon event if I want to play the 5pm and maybe skipping the 5pm if I want to play the next day noon event. Of course as usual SIG has been very generous giving me the time off to play. I have to say this year I again have a feeling of anticipation. I’m really excited to play these events. Maybe I should be a seasoned pro by now, but from my experience if there’s no feeling of butterflies at the start of a relationship, it usually doesn’t turn out well. It’s that feeling of anticipation, nervous excitement, and a bit of uncertainty. Like a tournament, you may be out the first round or play late into the night. Sure poker is a little different (and I haven’t been on a great date in a while) but you really need a little passion in order to keep learning and striving to improve your game. After all it is hard work to constantly think about the game from a different perspective and analyze whether you made the right play outside of the results.

Just a short note. So many of my friends will be in town the 19th-21st, I’m thinking of switching our annual house party to the 20th. Traditionally it’s the day before the HORSE tourney but there’s a 10K PLO in the afternoon that I could skip. If anyone has an opinion that may be attending the party, please comment.

So I’m in the 2nd day of the 40K. We started with 120K in chips, this year all the tournies are triple the starting chips, I don’t really like this trend of more and more chips, it all seems unnecessary. Anyway I would have to say my table and the entire tournament field was pretty tough. There were certainly soft spots, but most of them would be positive equity in another other WSOP NL tourney. I went on a rush in round 5, at the end of the round I had the vast majority of the 100 ante chips on the table but was only able to go from 110K to 190K. I lost a confrontation and my opponents were able to fold to my river bets, call my bluffs and avoid being trapped the time I flopped a full house. Actually in round 8 they folded to our blinds and the SB said “Wow, this is the first time that has happened”, and then proceeded to raise… But today is a new day. We started with 201, we are down to about 90. I have half an average stack, the blinds are 2500-5000 with 500 antes, so I have an M of about 12. No matter how deep stack the tournies start, the sage of M=10 to 15 seems vital. I am actually pretty confident with these stacks, so we will see how it goes. Today we are only playing 8 rounds, down to the 27 in the money, so it should end by midnight, and I will have some time to post about the hands from yesterday and today.

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