Everybody’s Watching “The Micros”

Up late last night-slash-this morning following the Sunday Million on PokerStars. Nearly 9,000 played, a bit more than usually come out for the sucker. There was a deal struck with three players left, and the chip leader at the time ended up taking it down for $249,054.88. Not a bad final entry into the spreadsheet for 2010, that. (Recap here.)

With six players left one of them began having some recurring connectivity problems, prompting the other players to start chatting while they waited. One asked if anyone could recommend any YouTube videos, and immediately “The Micros” was suggested.

I’m guessing most readers of this blog have seen this clever web series that debuted about a month ago. The vids are mostly culled together using that Xtranormal website, the one that allows for the creation of animated videos by entering text and giving characters various traits, although that is supplemented with other audio and video post-production to make a slick-looking, highly watchable little program.

The series was created by Jay “KRANTZ” Rosenkrantz and John “JimmyLegs” Wray. The first “pilot” episode introduces us to a micro stakes regular -- Chase Berger -- who unexpectedly finds himself going deep in the “Sunday MegaMillions” while being rooted on by his friends Tommy and Rose. If you’ve somehow missed it by now, here it is:



Lots of funny “inside baseball”-type touches throughout, starting from the very beginning with the “RIP DOYLE” comment in the chat box by “D0uch3b@g” (a much-repeated, poor-taste raibird gag), the naming of our hero’s opponent “G1LD3NSTRN” (referring to Guildenstern, Rosencrantz’ ill-fated partner in Hamlet), Berger’s lifetime earnings to that point adding up to “’bout tree-fiddy” (a Two Plus Two catch phrase/meme), and so forth.

That “tree-fiddy” is actually $3.50, Chase’s total profit after more than 850,000 hands of micro stakes poker. That’s his profile/graph at left -- a portrait of the hopeless nit unable to take the chances necessary to nudge that stubborn line upwards.

Chase’s friends illustrate much different player types. Tommy is a consistent winner who plays high volume (he 20-tables to cool down) but is “too chicken to move out of the micros.” Meanwhile Rose plays under the username “BALLS!” and is a loose-aggro maniac with no problem handling monumental swings -- someone Chase considers “one of the craziest degenerates ever to play the game of poker.” Both Tommy and Rose appear to represent player types Chase envies in certain ways, but he somehow hasn’t been able to do anything to break out of being (as he puts it) “a break-even donk stuck in the micros.”

Fun, satisfying stuff, especially for those of us who primarily toil in the so-called “micro” or low stakes. Some might quibble with the plot of this first episode being too accelerated (or in some ways unrealistic), and those outside of the loop of the many Two Plus Two references might not laugh as much as those in the know. All in all, though, there’s a lot of entertainment here. Some genuine insight, too, I’d say.

It will be interesting to see where the show goes from here. There’s a second, shorter vid -- a funny “Holiday Special” that sort of advances the story a little while producing a few more grins. Will be looking forward to more, for sure. Lots of potential -- for the characters and creators both.

Amusing to think about the guys going deep in the real Sunday Millions taking time out to enjoy the fictional story of Chase going deep in the "MegaMillions." Perhaps the episode was inspiring to watch in some way.

Am starting to look at my graph for 2010, which I have to confess resembles Chase’s a little more than I’d like it to. Might have to rewatch Episode 1 to draw some inspiration, too.

Poker at the Speed of Whoa

Been helping out covering the Sunday Million tourneys for the PokerStars blog this month. Have seen some interesting things at those final tables so far.

For instance, last week the tourney happened to have taken place on 10/10/10. The biggest hand at the final table involved the winner -- SHIPP ITT -- going all in with pocket tens, flopping a set, and winning almost all of the chips in play. Three tens on 10/10/10! It would take one more hand to give SHIPP ITT the victory, but that proved the decisive hand. (Here’s the write-up of that event, if you’re curious.)

Another interesting facet of that final table story was the fact that SHIPP ITT began that final table ninth out of nine in chips. (SHIPP ITT’s real name is Mark Herm, I believe, to evoke a topic I wrote about earlier this week.) I’ve seen him go deep in other tourneys, though, and so wasn’t too surprised to watch him battle his way back into contention and then ultimately to victory.

Incidentally, there was one other hand along the way -- a big three-way all-in -- that SHIPP ITT won at that final table to survive. He had pocket tens in that one, too!

The PokerStars Sunday Million remains the biggest online tourney of the week. It just about always meets its $1.5 million guarantee, usually attracting more than 7,000 players every Sunday.

I hadn’t really paid attention to the Sunday Million for the last few months, but watching it these last few weeks I’ve noticed the structure is really quite speedy.

They start with 10,000 chips, but with 15-minute levels it usually only takes a little over two hours to lose half the field. Most weeks they get through the entire sucker in 10 or 11 hours, and by the time they reach the final table the stacks are often quite shallow relative to the blinds. It’s not a total crapshoot at the end, but it’s true that just about every big hand involves all the decisions being made before the flop.

Of course, I say the structure feels fast to me, but to a lot of these full-time MTT and SNG grinders it probably doesn’t seem that way. The pace of online poker is -- for the most part -- breathtaking. It has always fast been compared to live poker, of course. But even compared to just a couple of years ago, it seems most players desire an even more rapid, more action-filled game.

And that is precisely what the sites keep giving them. I mean, Rush Poker on mobile devices? Whoa.

Good luck to all playing in the Sunday Million this week. And for everyone, be sure to find some time to relax some this weekend.

Playback

To commemorate President Bush having signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act into law on Friday, I decided to play some online poker.

I played a hundred hands or so of limit on PokerStars. Actually did pretty well for the day, though I ended up a little down for the week. Looking back over the last couple of weeks, it appears that I’m just a few bucks up since having banked most of what I had had out in the various sites and in Neteller. So I’m still sitting on modest balances in both Stars and FTP at present.

I was just about to sign off Stars Friday when I decided to try one of those 375 FPP satellites into the big Sunday Million tournament. This was a turbo tourney (no limit Hold ’em), so the blinds went up every five minutes. There were 36 entrants, and only the winner won a seat in the big one. No consolation prizes here.

Never in the tourney was I able to build up much of a stack, really. I had gotten lucky very early on (in Level 2) on a big blind hand where I’d flopped trips and slow played, then recklessly ended up all-in after an opponent had turned a flush. Fortunately I filled up on the river and survived. After that I mostly stayed out of trouble and hit just enough hands and flops to stay afloat. Then I made a couple of decent reads once we had gotten to the final table to accumulate a few more chips.

Before long we were down to six players. Then came a hand about which I’d like your opinion. Let me set the stage.

We had reached Level 11, with 600/1,200 blinds and 75 for the ante. I was sitting on exactly 6,035 chips -- putting me in fourth place ahead of a player with 3,618 and another with 610. The top three players had approx. 20,000, 13,000, and 11,000 respectively.

I was in the big blind -- after posting 1,200 I was suddenly down to 4,835 -- and was dealt . With an “M” of not even three, I had all but decided that any pair would probably do, so as I awaited the action to come around to me, I had already mentally prepared to push. I watched as the super short stack went ahead and put his last 535 in the pot. Then I saw the fifth-place player push all-in with his remaining 3,543. Then I saw the button also push his entire stack -- around 11,000 -- in the middle.

What would you do here?

I thought about it, but went ahead and pushed. I know that it isn’t necessarily good form to call an all-in raise and an all-in reraise like this, but it made sense to me in this situation to go ahead and gamble. If I fold, I’ve barely got the chips to play a couple of rounds (and the blinds are going up up up). And, as it happened, I actually only had one opponent who could bust me here, as the other two had shorter stacks than I did. I clicked the button to go all-in and watched . . . .

Alas, the board came , and the button knocked out three of us at once having made aces up with big slick.

Did I do the right thing? Does it matter that I was eliminated there?

I hope not, because that’s not what happened.

Truth be told, I lied. I hit my set. The board actually was . The super short stack held 97 and so survived the hand, taking the small (3,125) main pot. Meanwhile, I took the rest -- almost 14,000. The other short stack was bounced (he had pocket queens). The button indeed had big slick, and so not only lost to my set but had to endure making two pair as well.

I ask again: Did I do the right thing? Does it matter that I won the hand?

It mattered to the button, who was a little miffed afterwards. Down to about 5,000 in chips for the next hand, he typed “what a clown 3 way allin calls with 66.” “Sure,” I responded ambiguously. A buddy of his from the rail described the play as “sick.”

I’d agree that if some of the circumstances were different -- for instance, if it weren’t the case that only first place carried any sort of prize -- the call might have been sketchy. But was it here? Never mind the result . . . you tell me. What would you have done?

Thanks largely to that hand, I ended up surviving until there were just two of us left. When heads-up began, my opponent had a 3-to-1 chip advantage. The first hand I had T7 and folded to his preflop raise. The second hand I had AJ and he folded to my preflop raise. Then on the third hand I was dealt and decided to push. He thought for a while and called with . The flop looked terrific -- . According to the CardPlayer calculator, I’m 81% to win from here. The turn was the . Still right at 81%. Unfortunately, the river was the , and I found myself finishing second, winning exactly what the guy who finished thirty-sixth received. Nada.

I wish I were lying this time -- that I could play it back with a different ending. But I can't. Still, it was a fun hour of online poker. Think I’ll play again tomorrow. Can’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t.

Image: Playback, Raymond Chandler (1958), Amazon.