No limit hold'em theory and practice

As part of my transition to playing live I wanted to read a no limit book. I ordered No limit hold'em theory and practice online. I'd heard good things about this title. Coming from Sklansky and Miller I was looking forward to some good material.

And it was good. Like Sklansky's Theory of Poker, it was not an easy read. Some parts were hard to get through. But it was worth the effort. I feel I got a lot out of it. I didn't really fully grasp and appreciate everything but that's OK. Like Theory of Poker I likely will read it again in the future. But like the authors said, after reading the book go play some hands, and then come back and read the book again. So now I'm off to play some hands.

The structure of the book was interesting. They spent a fair amount of time discussing the differences between limit hold'em and no limit. To some that might seem unimportant but it was great for me as I have predominantly played limit up until now. So that was great.

Also I didn't really realize this until I played at the casino, but this book is geared toward live play. That's fine too since I'm now a live player. So all in all this was a very good book and well worth the time and effort to work through it.

I will probably read it again some time in the future. But not too soon. I need to do some light reading next to give my mind a rest. Plus I want to read at least one different poker book first. There's still about four poker books that I want to read at some point.

Stars reload

I recently took advantage of the PokerStars WCOOP 50% reload bonus offer. I chucked in another $100. This is the first time I put money in at Stars since I first started playing for real money around 3 years ago on about a $90 deposit.

A great thing about Canada is that it is so easy to get bankroll onto the sites. I just entered my regular credit card number in and swoosh it went right through no problem. Same as last year when I put in $50 on UltimateBet. Yay Canada.

I've been playing more cash on Stars anyway so I figure I might as well get paid to play by working off a bonus. In fact I was thinking of putting some new money in on Stars anyway to bankroll some new games I want to try. This just does it a bit sooner but this bonus offer is timely. I hope Stars continues to do these from time to time.

At $10 NL it doesn't seem to be clearing very fast but that's OK. I may have a plan in mind to do something about that.

Played live at the casino

I played live poker for the first time last weekend. It was a great experience! It was at the Halifax Casino.

I had wanted to play for a long time and I finally saved up enough bankroll to play $1/$2 no limit hold'em. That's the smallest game available. I didn't know what to expect or really know what to do.

Anyway I sat down and got chips. I decided that I was going to play full. So I bought in for $200. There were a mixture of players, people bought in for $40 (the minumum), $60, $100 and $200 mostly. It was a pretty friendly game. There were a number of regulars there I could tell who knew each other well.

Due to my inexperience I made some mistakes mostly about not posting my blinds quickly or knowing when it was my turn. I was directly to the dealer's left so it was at times hard to tell when the big blind or the action was on me. Also I found the table felt kind of sticky and it was hard to lift my cards to see them at times.

Mostly I didn't have much to work with. So I just folded if I had a bad hand. One guy was sitting to my left and he was bugging me about folding preflop. He seemed to like being in almost every hand. He went to a new table after a short while.

There were some interesting hands along the way. One hand in the first hour I raised in early position to $8. A guy who seemed to be good 3bet me to $28. Everyone folded. I thought for a bit and decided to fold. He showed KK so I made a good fold.

Around a half hour later on I again raised to $8 first to act. Again the same KK guy 3bets me, this time to $25. This time I moved all in for $200. He thought for a little while and then folded. I didn't show. He brought that hand up with me a couple of times in the next two hours. I didn't tell him what I had but I agreed with his reasoning that when a guy shoves $200 preflop it is almost always very strong, like QQ-AA, maybe AKs. He said later on he had 99. We agreed it was a good fold to the shove.

I think that was the second hand I won. For my memory this is the first hand I won live. I called in the SB with 9s 7s and 4 limpers. Six of us saw a T88 flop. It was surprisingly checked through. The turn was a J, giving me a straight but putting two clubs on board. I bet $8 into the $12 pot. One guy called and the others folded.

The river was an offsuit Jack making the board T88JJ. I checked and the other guy checked too. He showed K9 I believe and my straight was good.

There was an interesting hand late in the evening. I raised Ad Jd in early postition to $8. An aggressive player on the button 3bet me to $18. I called $10 and we saw the flop heads up. The flop was AK2 giving me top pair. He bet $25 into the $39 pot and I called. The turn was a 7. The turn went check check and now I'm feeling a bit better about my pair of Aces. The river was another deuce making the board AK272. I didn't think the river helped him much. I led $50 into the $89 pot. He pondered for what seemed like a good while and finally called. He showed K7 and my Aces up were good to win it on the river over his turned two pair.

Thanks to that late AJ hand I was able to book a small profit for the evening. I was enjoying it and stayed until 3 AM. It was an enjoyable experience (probably more enjoyable because I won a bit) and I'll be looking to play some more there when I get the chance.

MTT cash

I cashed in an UltimateBet tournament for the first time recently. I finished 15th out of around 250 in a $2.20 event for around a $6 payout. Since my UltimateBet bonus expired I've reorganized my online play a bit. I play cash on Stars and tournaments on UltimateBet. My cash game lately is mostly $10 NL.

I'm defining MTT a bit more strictly. I have had some multi table tournament success this year. I've won a couple $2.20/90 man tourneys on Stars. But those are strictly speaking SNGs. They have a cap on the number of entrants and they begin as soon as they fill.

There's nothing special or unusual about an MTT cash. When I checked my records though I saw that this was my first MTT cash in 2009. I had gone 13 in a row with no cashes back to last December. That's the nature of MTT though. On a site like official poker rankings you'll notice that for even the biggest winners they have long soul crushing strings of zeros punctuated by the occasional cash and the more occasional big cash. But it's good to be in the money again in 2009.

I find UltimateBet has a pretty good tournament structure. Especially in the early levels there's more opportunity to play tight and wait for good hands. Although in the later stages when the blinds are increasing in larger chunks the 12 minute levels are a bit tougher. The fields are smaller than some of the huge tourneys on Stars but that means there's more regulars who you can recognize over time and get notes on.

November nine

Well the final table for the WSOP main event is now set. This should be the most interesting final table in a few years.

Phil Ivey of course is the big poker name. He's known even outside the poker world. Similar to Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth he's at least somewhat recognized in the mainstream.

In addition Shulman and Aikenhead are known at least among some poker players. I admit I'd never heard of them before the WSOP but I'm not a real follower of the poker scene beyond the biggest names.

Of course there's Darvin Moon. This year's everyman. Running very well and playing it pretty cool. Can he continue to run well and pull out the win. It would probably be best for poker if Moon wins it. It might produce something of a Moneymaker effect and bring lots of new players into the sites. That would be great.

So while most everyone on 2+2 is of course cheering for Ivey we should probably really be hoping for Moon. In any case we're looking forward to an entertaining final table in November this year.