Talkin’ Tourneys

Had an interesting weekend full of tourney watching & reporting. And playing!

The PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker is winding down at last, meaning I’ll have a week or so to recharge before heading Vegas-ward for another summer of WSOP.

Was another all-night affair last night, this time spent chronicling the Main Event -- the two-day, $10,300 buy-in, no-limit hold’em tourney the winner of which is scheduled to earn $1,162,350 (barring a final table deal) as well as the 114th (!) SCOOP winner’s watch. There are 27 players left in that one (out of the starting field of 615). Click here to read all about Day 1.

I say I played some as well this weekend. As noted here before, tourneys aren’t normally my thing. But they may become so. Hard to be reporting on these suckers constantly without desiring to jump into the fray now and then.

SCOOP Satellite (I run good)

Momentarily possessed with a mild case of SCOOP fever, on Friday I jumped into one of those hyped-up, turbo-style, rebuy satellites to the “Low” version of the Main Event (with a $109 buy-in). The tourney was just $1.10 to enter, and as it happened I had a few T$ (tourney dollars) in my account, so ended up using exactly $3.13 worth of those as I rebought once and took the add-on.

There were 257 entered, and after all of the rebuyin’ and add-onin’ it worked out that the the top 11 would win tickets, with the 12th-place finisher taking $85 or so. After about 90 minutes there were 24 players left, and somehow I’d zigzagged my way to 15th with a slightly below-average stack. At that point pretty much everyone was in shove-or-fold territory. In fact, looking back, aside from the very start of the tourney, I don’t think I ever had much more than 20 big blinds, and usually was sitting with less than 10.

Couldn’t pick up a hand for a while, and soon found myself dead last -- 17th of 17 -- and looking like I’d be bubbling. But I won a hand or two, including one especially lucky hand where I’d shoved with K-J and got called by a fellow holding K-Q. The flop came A-Q-10, the turn was another 10, then the river brought a surprising king to give me the straight. I don’t think I played a single hand after that, and eventually made it into the top 11 and won my seat.

It did cross my mind just to take the $109 worth of tourney cabbage and run, but those thoughts didn’t last long. Had happened before where I’d won a seat into the Sunday Million on the cheap, but decided to cash out. Considering this was essentially a freeroll, I thought I’d go for it.

SCOOP Main Event (I run not so good)

As it happened, when the tourney cranked up late Sunday afternoon my attention was divided as I was simultaneously writing a recap of another SCOOP event, so conditions weren’t ideal for concentrating on my table. Still, I chipped up a bit during the first few levels, then fell back to the starting stack of 10,000 or so. Wasn’t picking up hands to speak of, really, although did get A-A in the big blind the one time I was given a walk (no shinola).

Bled a few more chips after an unsuccessful steal or three. Then it was during hour three that the pivotal hand came up for me. Sorry I don’t have the hand history handy, but I remember it fairly well.

I had about 8,200 when I managed to pick up pocket aces again in middle position. I raised 3x, and only the fellow on my left called. He’d done a lot of calling, including showing down hands as light as ace-high, and as a result was down around 5,500. The flop came Q-J-6 rainbow and I continued for about two-thirds pot. When he quickly called, I thought he’d probably paired the queen or jack. I also thought he’d keep calling with just that lone pair.

The turn was a five, and again I bet something like half the pot. He again called, leaving himself less than 3,000. The river was a four, I bet about half of his stack, and he quickly pushed all in. I had something like 1,500 more to call with the pot around 10,000, so I did.

He turned over 8-7 (sooted). He’d flopped a gutshot, turned an open-ender, and got there. Now I was down under 3,000, and feeling not-so-great about my luck. Or my skill.

I did double up once before finally going out. Ironically, I ended up pushing a stack of about 10 big blinds with K-J and was called by K-Q (just like in the satellite). No miracles for me this time, though, and I was done in around 11,000th of the 19,188 who played.

BBT5 (all good again)

By then the BBT5 -- the Battle of the Bloggers 5 Invitational -- had gotten started. There were 112 entered in that one. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but I ended up making it through to the money (top 18) and then the final table.

When that final table started, I typed “let’s stop the tournament and finish up in November.” Then added, “I want a shot at some sponsorships!” Seemed like a good idea, but we ended up playing it out anyway.

At that point I was short-stacked (natch), but so were about five or six others. Ended up lasting to seventh for a modest cash, which made the miserable SCOOP performance go away pretty quickly. Thanks again to AlCantHang for the invite and pulling together the BBT5.

I believe there is one more tourney to go in the series this coming Sunday (5/23), although I have a feeling I might be sitting that one out in order to spend time with Vera before heading west. There are still a couple more Mookies and Poker from the Rail events, all leading toward the BBT5 Tournament of Champions on May 27th. Check Al’s post for more details.

Moving back over to the reporter side of things tonight for Day 2 of the SCOOP Main Event. Will be live blogging the final table with my buddy Drizz (who cashed in that SCOOP Main Event-Low, by the way!), so check the PokerStars blog for that some time during the early evening.

An Exciting Future Awaits

Interesting times around here at Hard-Boiled Poker. Lots of “life stuff” happening, about which I am going to be entirely vague today, I’m afraid. Will try to be less so as the week goes along, however. Wednesday -- an anniversary for HBP -- seems like it might be a good day to try to start being more specific about some of these changes concerning yr humble gumshoe.

Glancing a little further down the calendar also reminds us that Wednesday is momentous in another way, as it will be exactly one month until the start of the 2010 World Series of Poker (on May 28th). I think I’ve mentioned that I’ll be back at the Rio once again helping cover the sucker for PokerNews. Will also have some other things happening this summer, including a quick excursion down to Lima, Peru in early June to help cover the Latin American Poker Tour event.

Before we get there, though, there is the PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker which starts this coming Sunday (May 2). That’s also going to keep me plenty busy as I’ll be helping cover several of the events for the PokerStars blog.

The SCOOP schedule is a monstah. There are 38 separate events, each of which has a “low,” “medium,” and “high” tournament associated with it, meaning 114 distinct tournaments happening over a two-week period. The total guaranteed prize pool is $45 million, although it is probably safe to assume there will more than that ultimately won.

I’ve managed to score a seat in one of the “low” events -- a limit hold’em tourney -- so I’ll be fighting for a tiny share of the cabbage myself. Click here to see the entire SCOOP schedule, including all of the buy-ins and guarantees.

In other tourney news, I’m afraid I don’t have much to report concerning my so-so showing in that Battle of the Bloggers Tournament 5 Invitational last night over on Full Tilt Poker, where I busted relatively early on (in Level 7).

I logged on right around start time and found there was a new update to install. Took a few minutes to complete, actually, which meant I had to miss the first orbit or so. Kind of indicative of my tourney as a whole, really, as I found myself having a hard time getting anything going pretty much from the beginning.

(Come to think of it, when it comes to my jingle brain & tourney strategy, I probably could stand to install an update there, too.)

Actually picked up pocket kings twice during the first three levels or so, though got zero action despite the fact that I had been quite active otherwise. Had slipped below the starting stack a little when the chip leader joined our table two seats to my left, thereby making blind stealing a less simple matter.

Finally I was moved to a new table, although by that point I had fallen below 20 big blinds and was starting to look for a spot to double-up.

One such opportunity soon came. The hand began with poker author and Full Tilt Poker blogger Michael Craig opening with a 3x raise UTG to 360. Craig had built up a stack early on last night -- in fact, he had over 13,000 when this hand began, which put him in second place, I believe.

A player in middle position called Craig’s raise, and it folded to me on the button with A-K. I shoved my remaining 1,800 or so, Craig quickly called, and the third player folded. Craig showed pocket fives, the board ran out jack-high, and presto! that silly little frog avatar I use had vanished.

Thanks again to AlCantHang for pulling together the BBT5 and especially for the invite. (Get all yr BBT5 info here, by the way.) Will try again next Sunday!

Lots of other stuff to occupy me between now and then, though. More to come!

The Skill of the Players, the Skill of the Game

Played in the first of those invitationals in the Battle of the Bloggers Tournament 5 last night. There were 79 runners in this one I believe, and the top 15 spots paid. Thanks again to Sir AlCantHang for pulling the sucker together!

After a couple of hours and around 150 hands, I hadn’t been running particularly well though I felt okay about how things were shaping up. I sat with a little over 4,000 chips, which was below the average (about 5,000) with 47 players left. Blinds were 100/200, and I had just been moved to a new table that had several short stacks, plus a couple of folks in the top ten with about 10,000 each.

Soon I picked up pocket kings in the small blind, and it folded around to one of the big stacks who raised to 450 from the cutoff. The button folded, and I decided to put in a hefty reraise to 2,850, essentially saying I was ready to put the rest of my stack in here. The big blind folded and the LP player called.

Flop looked all right to me -- Q-7-7. My opponent had just called off nearly a third of his stack preflop, so for him to hold a seven felt unlikely. A queen seemed very possible, and as I went ahead and stuck the rest of my chips in the middle it occurred to me he’d probably have to call with a lesser pair or maybe even worse. He did call.

Alas, he did have a seven. Actually, he had two of them.

“Oof,” I typed, seeing he’d flopped quads. “Rigged,” he responded sympathetically. Two community cards later I was on the rail.

The hand made me think of a few weeks ago when I managed to flop quads a few times in short stretch while playing limit hold’em (wrote about that here). I remember looking around then to see the chances of doing so was something like 1 in 408 or something. The Poker Grump had calculated this once.

The hand also made me think about an exchange on The Poker Beat from a couple of episodes ago that I had meant to write about but forgot to -- one concerning that age-old “skill-vs.-luck” debate in poker. It was on the 4/8/10 episode, during the panel’s discussion of that recent ruling in a Pennsylvania appeals court that poker was “predominantly a game of chance.”

Host Scott Huff came up with what I thought was an interesting approach to the topic, even if it didn’t sound quite right when he proposed it. “Is it possible,” asked Huff, “that the way these courts are looking at it is that ‘Yes, while poker may be a game of skill, most people -- and I think we can all agree on this -- most people play poker as if it is a game of chance?”

Huff suggested going down to Hollywood Park Casino at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning to see how much “skill” was being employed in the games. Huff wondered if this state of affairs helped create the impression to non-players that poker really was “predominantly” luck-based. “Because in order for poker to be a game of skill,” concluded Huff, “you must be skillful at it. You must study the game.”

Like I say, it sounded like an interesting approach, although I remember at the time sensing there was something a little off about it. Gary Wise brought up one of those studies that shows most hands aren’t shown down -- not quite answering the question. B.J. Nemeth said it was a good point and jokingly wished Huff wouldn’t give poker’s opponents ammunition like this. Finally, Dan Michalski said that while he agreed poker was a game of skill we nevertheless “have to acknowledge that there’s so much chance involved, and when it comes to the politics of it, they are always going to be looking at it as gambling because it is something that is run by casinos.”

I didn’t think too much more about it, but then was reminded of Huff’s question again a couple of days later when I looked at the PokerRoad forums and saw that a poster had challenged his thesis that “in order for poker to be a game of skill, you must be skillful at it.”

You see the logical fallacy there, yes? A game can require skill regardless of how people play it. Indeed, how can one be skillful at a game if it does not require skill?

Such was the 6th Wilbury’s point on the forums, which included his noting that the presence of bad players in fact “supports the argument that poker is a game of skill” insofar as the difference between them and the skillful players is discernible.

Even so, I do think that when it comes to considering how non-players sometimes perceive poker, Huff probably has a point. Heck, even a game like golf can look mostly chance-based to the non-player. Makes sense to suggest that to those who don’t play the game -- who are often the ones drafting legislation or presiding over cases in which the question comes up -- poker sure can look like luck sometimes.

Especially when dudes are flopping quads on you.

BBT5 Begins, Betfair Interview

Hello, Friday. Has been another busy week here. I haven’t had the chance to play a heckuva lot lately -- just short sessions here and there -- although I always tend to do better when that is the case, so I ain’t complaining.

One bit of news this week was the launching of the Battle of the Bloggers Tournament 5, which gets underway this weekend. I’ve landed a spot in the invitational portion of the sucker, which means for the next few Sunday nights I’ll be playing some deep-stacked no-limit hold’em tourneys against my fellow scribes in the hopes of winning a seat into the Tournament of Champions that happens at the end of May.

There are other events associated with BBT5, too, to which all are invited to participate, with a bunch of goodies -- over $50,000 in cash and some WSOP seats -- up for grabs. Click here to read more about BBT5 and see the full schedule. And look for updates here regarding my efforts in those Sunday tourneys.

In other news, earlier in the week I enjoyed talking to the poker author and player Matthew Hilger. I interviewed Hilger for Betfair -- check it out.

Hilger runs a publishing company, Dimat Enterprises, which has put out several quality strategy books, including Hilger’s own Internet Texas Hold’em, a limit HE book of which I am a big fan.

Hilger also co-wrote The Poker Mindset with Ian Taylor, another book I like and have written about here before. A few times, actually.

Hilger and I discussed his books, the Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand a Time series by Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, and Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet, and other forthcoming titles from Dimat, including Jeff Hwang’s next PLO book. We also talked a bit about the state of poker book publishing, generally speaking.

I’ve really enjoyed the interviews I’ve done thus far for Betfair. I had done a couple for PokerNews previously as well. I am thinking at some point perhaps pulling together a list of the various interviews and articles I’ve written for other sites and posting them here somewhere, if only to keep track of ’em all. Always interesting to talk to the pros to get their insights and thoughts, and I also get a special kick out of talking to authors about the writing/publishing game, too.

The BBT5 awaits. Now I’m realizing I should’ve asked Hilger for tips on deep-stacked NLHE tourneys. I suppose patience will be in order. I think I’ll only open with suited pairs until the antes kick in.

Enjoy the weekend, all.