Bill Chen Blog

For the Main Event, Jerrod and the other housemates were of the opinion that we should play lots of pots postflop. This isn’t far from how I normally play anyway, I raise with a wide range of hands, and I am probably the most liberal in defending the blinds. Also I prefer smallish raises because that also encourages postflop play (yeah you’d rather take down the blinds most of the time, but there is a trade off if you raise larger you can’t raise as frequently). Yes, a lot of postflop situations are difficult, but the field is generally the weakest in tournament poker. You may make mistakes postflop and you may play in an exploitable manner, but you will also play better than your opponents in general and be able to exploit them. That’s the theory anyway.

I think I ended up playing about 25%-30% of my hands, which is a lot of hands over the five two-hour levels of play. The hands I am posting about are the hands I had the most difficulty with, so most of these hands I lost money on etc. Given the number of hands I played though I am reasonably happy with my play, even though it may not seem like it from the following hands. I did finish the day with 48,750 which is an above average stack. I really liked the structure this year much better than last year.

So in the first couple of orbits I pick up 65s 6 off the button, blinds 50-100, I have my 20K starting stack. I make it 200–we decided this was a little better than limping bcause it puts a little pressure on the blinds, I’m still deep stacked after the raise. So a player calls on the button, the BB defends. flop is Q53, I bet 400 the button calls and the BB folds. The turn is the 2, I check, the button checks. the river is now a J. I decide to bet 500, which is a third of the pot. Yeah it’s a thin value bet… So the button now raises, I had planned to fold of course, but I think there is some indication he’s bluffing. Anyway, he raises to 2100 and I call–the other players at the table said it was an insta-call but he did take like 30 seconds to make his decision. Anyway he says “you got it” but doesn’t turn over his hand. Eventually he turns over 95. Not a good start. It turns out he is a top French player, and accumulates a lot of chips early, he has about a 60K stack when we get into our next confrontation. I have to say it’s the best value raise anyone has ever made against me.

In the same round, I pick up KK 5 off the button. I open for 225, player 3 off raises to 750 call by the French player, I make it 2500. Initial raiser calls, fold, and we’re heads-up. The initial raiser has 15K left. Flop is 642, two hearts, I bet 5K and put him in on the turn when the 8 and the second flush draw comes in on the turn. He folds. Not a really tough hand, but just a question on how you generally play postflop.

In the 150-300 blind round, I raise in the cutoff with AQ, the button with 16K left calls, the SB makes it 3K BB folds. the SB has about 6500 left. What is your plan? I decided to call and fold when the flop is 842, two clubs. The thing is given my range I don’t know if I can fold AQ there, but maybe the best thing to do is to reraise all-in.

So a similar hand happened right after the dinner break. I have about 35K left, The aforementioned French player makes it 800, still the 150-300 round but with 25 antes. He has been playing a lot of pots but just lost a big pot an orbit earlier and seems a little tiltish based on his hand selection, but of course he could have just been doing this all along. He is down to 60K in chips at the start of the hand I am down to 32K. I have AK and make it 2500, he makes it 8K, what do you do? Here again I called, flop was 552, he checks. I decide to check back because it just seemed out of character there. Anyway the turn is a 4 he bets 13K, and I decide to fold. I am sure I hosed this in a few ways.

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Although the main Event to me was the 50K HORSE. Of course it’s painful to get there with 600K in chips and not cash, but hey that’s poker. What happened? Well I lost 3 big hands toward the end, two to Doyle , one to Brandon Adams. To Brandon, I had a made 7 on 6th showing 42T7 vs 6AQ8, me betting the whole way. So I fail to improve on the river. I value bet my 7, get raised and lose to a 6 on the river. Against Doyle I had (QJ)Q vs 5(QQ) he completed, I raised, he reraised. So we catch blanks, he catches a K on 6th, on the river I catch a J, but Doyle catches another K on the river and makes KKQQ vs my QQJJ. On the last hand Doyle completes with a low card, I raise with (T7)7, Katja behind me raises with a 4 showing, it turns out she had pocked aces and Doyle has pocket Jacks. I am all-in at this point. Doyle catches a J to win vs Katja’s Aces and fours. And I’m out also.

I have to say many of my friends have had success this year. Jerrod hgfalling had the biggest win, 300K in the $10K limit holdem event, finishing 2nd. I was probably more diplomatic on the air, but I certainly disagreed with most of the commentary during the final table. There was one point where the commentator (Barry Tannenbaum) pointed out Jerrod would simply give up on the turn if he check-called the flop and checked the turn. Certainly anyone who has played with us knows the check-raise turn is in our arsenal there. This is less a criticism of Barry because he’s just reporting what he’s observing, but it shows how it’s hard to generalize a player’s strategy even from observations of several hands. Also, playing short handed or heads up at a high level is different from the games Barry is familiar with and the idea of “momentum” or any effect of previous hands on how well Jerrod is going to play is certainly minimal.

Also, Bob Lurie finished 3rd in the 5K Stud-8 event, in a very tough field including Chris Ferguson who finished 2nd. Alan Jaffray made a final table of a NL tourney. Andrew prock made the final table of the 1500 Limit shootout, which required winning two tables. Matt Grapenthein also finished in the final table of the 1500 HORSE. Also congrats to fellow Team Pokerstars pros Daniel, Barry, and Dario for winning bracelets this year. I am sure many successes are left off this list so I apologize.

Matt hoss_tbf is going to have a man vs machine match. I am going to chill out a little before the Main Event, maybe play a little NL on Stars, try a few things, and be ready to play Saturday. Anyone who isn’t aware, there is a PokerStars party at Rain at the Palms Monday night. It’s a burlesque party and will be a lot of fun. If you need a pass to the party, contact me in some way.

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I won the O8 hand, I think the O8 play is definitely clearer. I feel I fold a lot more in “marginal” O8 situations because I have less of a sense what marginal is in that game. Anyway here’s another hand against Greg Raymer, that’s been reported in the press.

I have [Tc 9h] Jh in Stud, Greg completes with a 4 in early position, the only high card behind you is a K held by Perry Friedman, the next highest card is a 7. Poker is a game of live cards, so I reraise. A low card (Seat 5) cold calls two bets, Greg calls. On 4th Greg catches an A, I catch the Th, the low card catches a K. I bet, willing to gamble a little with it now, both call. On 5th street Greg catches another A, I catch a heart, the cold caller catches a brick. Greg bets, well at this point I call and the other player folds. I decide to call on 6th street when I catch a 7, and I river a flush, Greg checks I bet, turns out Greg started with JJ.

So I’m up early to work out at noon and then get ready for the tourney at 3. Does anyone know whether it’s in the Amazon or Brasilia room? Thanks,

Bill

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Just a quick note to everyone who has been rooting me on. The HORSE has been fun, I have 326K to start the day tomorrow, average is around 220. A lot of hands played today, obviously. I’m a little too tired to remember them all–we had to play six 9 minute rounds, more of the same tomorrow.

Ok a couple of tough decisions I had to make. So Greg Raymer raises on the button and you have AJs in the SB, you reraise. Flop is Q92, you bet, Greg calls. Turn is a 2. Now what? If you decide to bet, you get raised. What is your plan now? What happened was I called and called again when the river was a 9.

On the cutoff you pick up A445, you decide to raise, button 3-bets. BTW this sequence has happened a couple of times already. So the flop is AQ9 rainbow, you check, he bets, what do you do? Anyway I called. Turn is now an 8, and I check-call. Now the river is an 8, you check and he bets?

BTW I decided to call down both times, I won once. Guess which it is.

On another note, the structure is awesome.

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So this is the way I busted out. I have 230K left, which is slightly below average. I raise on the button with 98 to 16K with 3-6 blinds and 500 antes. Flop is Q76, two clubs, I have a club. I bet 20K, he check-raises 28K more, what do you do? I decided to call, I mean I thought about going all-in but with the blud draw out there and the garden variety straight draw I decided to keep it small. Turn is an 8 and he goes in. What do you do? I called thinking there was some chance I was ahead and if I wasn’t there were probably 13 or so outs. He had 86, so there were actually 14 outs and 3 to tie. Opinons?

Anyway I had a lot off interesting hands in the short handed which I may post about later. Congrats to Jerrod for 2nd in the 10K limit, he played extremely well.

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So I made it into the second day with 108K in chips, and we’re in the money. There are 73 players left, fellow Team Poker Stars Pro Dario Minieri seems to have drawn the same tale for the restart with around 191K in chips, he’s definitely someone I am going to be wary about. His specialty is heads-up no limit so that should suit him well in this format.

BTW Congrats to Jerrod, hgfalling, coauthor of The Mathematics of Poker for making the final table of the 10K limit holdem today.

So more hands later but a hand for very early in the day I will pose as a problem from the perspecitive of one of my opponents. In the 50-100 blind level, you have about 7600 in the BB, I am UTG 6-handed (3 off) and make it 250, call, cutoff raises to 650, you have QQ in the BB and make it 2100. Now I go all in, I cover the table by a little (I have around 8500), everyone folds, do you call the 5500 more with your queens?

So my opponent insta-called and lost to KK, I guess the question is what hands I could have there.

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So i decide to enter $460 6-handed satellite to get ready for the 1500 shootout. We get $2000 in chips and the blinds start at 25-25. I have a good time building it u to 3600. Then the following hand happens, limp by a short stack for 25, I raise to 125 wit KQs, BB calls. Short stack shoves all-in for 625, I call, now BB shoves for 725 more so I call again. BB has aces and unsurprisingly wins everything. Now his friend is sitting next to him and he goes on and on about how great a play his smooth call was, for like a whole couple of rounds (ten hands or so). SO this is a little annoying.

So at the end I get heads up with him. I have a little under 7K, he has a little more than 5K. He says “want to chop it?” I say “well I have a few more chips, and I really want to play, I’ll tell you what, I’ll take three lammers (1500) and you can have the two lammers and the cash (1130).” He starts by saying “Bill, I don’t know if you understand the structure of these satellites, a proportional chop isn’t fair (not that I was proposing one) for the short stack as anything can happen in the next hand.” Now I say “well I am pretty confident in my model of these things, let’s play.” This brings a chuckle from the three or four players watching. I do happen to win the thing.

So in the first limit of the 1500 shootout, this beautiful lady raises on the button to like 200, older gentleman calls in the SB, I fold the BB. Flop is T96, Check to her, she bets 400, he calls. Turn is a T check to her, she bets 500 or so, he calls. River K, now he bets out 700, she calls. Older gentleman shows TT, she shows 87s. He says, “you did very well not to lose all of your chips.” I say I would have check-raised her or bet more on the river. He now says “Well, that’s because I’m a gentleman, I think we all agree we didn’t want her to bust first.” He is of course completely serious. Of course this story ends up badly, Michelle ends up busting me with AJ vs my AQ.

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For the Stud 8 hand, i think he decision was split as t whether to play or not. Gavin Griffin, Andrew Prock, and Terrence all said play, but I think hey favored limping. I brought it in with a complete. I thought the play was close, I think Gavin and Andrew both thought it was pretty clear.

For the PLO hand, i think most of us thought We should bet out with a set instead of checking, there is no guarantee someone will bet. After Minh bets, I think a check-raise is the right play my thinking being that if you don’t want to check-raise you should bet out to make sure the bet goes in.

Comments of course welcome.

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I am at my cousin Julia’s wedding in Napa Valley today, so no poker. Congrats to everyone who made the second day of the heads-up. I am playing in the 10K limit tomorrow, I’m pretty excited about the tourney. I now remember how good some of the wine is in California, and how expensive it is in Philly, weird how it works out. Hope to get a chance to visit the Orogeny vinyards here but we will see how the festivities go.

Anyway couple of hands for discussion. I picked up (Tc9c)Jc in Stud 8, the usual 1 ante, 4-8 structure. two clubs are out and an ace is directly behind you, three people fold after the bring, your action?

Next hand, PLO. You have bout 40K both Doyle and Minh Ly cover you, blinds like 250-500, they limp to you in the BB with QQ(5c6c), flop comes QT9, two clubs? What do you do? If you check Minh bets 1500. What’s your plan? This isn’t hand I played, BTW but it generated some discussion.

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It was a joy to do the ESPN 360 color commentary on Daniel’s 2K limit holdem win. As it was limit, there were many hands that had flop, turn and river play so there was ample discussion. Nick Geber is great to work with. Anyway congrats to Daniel, he did play incredibly well, it is his fourth bracelet. A full report is on the PokerStars blog. BTW Daniel turned down giving me 3:2 odds to win a bracelet and also turned down 3:1 odds to win the bracelet once he made the final table. He actually thought 3:1 was a good price, but had many other side bets to worry about.

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