When I read over SSMTT I often see a lot of the same mistakes over and over. I also see a lot of mistakes I used to make a lot, and I’d like to do what I can to try and dispense some concise information that will answer a lot of the basic questions. Sometimes there are habits you make or misinformation you’re given and end up creating bad habits, so I’d like to write a series of posts/articles to address some stuff, that may seem fairly basic to some but will hopefully clear up some common misconceptions.

I’d like to start with stack sizes and their relevance.

1. 10 BB’s and under. Basically, any hand you’re playing at this stack size is a shove. This is pretty common knowledge. However, with the increase in stars antes, and the high antes tilt already has, it very often becomes correct to start open shoving in the area of 15 BB’s.

When talking about shoving ranges with antes I’ve recently been turned on to a way of adding up your stacks relative size that I really like, known as ‘true BB’. What it comes down to is that the ‘true BB’ is 2/3rds of the starting pot. So if the blinds are 500/1000 with 100 ante at a 10 handed table then the starting pot is 2500 with a true BB of 1666. So if you’re sitting on the button with a hand like A5s and 15 BB’s, you can simply open shove since you have under 10 true BB’s.

2. 14-21 BB’s. Most (but not all) of the time you have a 14-20 BB stack you shouldn’t be open raising with hands that can’t call a 3-bet. There will, in fact, be spots where because of very weak/tight players behind you that you can raise/fold this stack size, but for the most part, this kind of stack's usefulness is more for restealing all in than open raising. This is in fact an optimal-sized stack to resteal, though many players these days are very aware that this is an optimal resteal all in stack so be mindful of players who are aware of what this stack size indicates.

3. 22-30 BB’s. With this kind of stack you have more room for open raising, but for the most part restealing all in has become a bit to large in most (again, not all) circumstances. Also, when I say restealing I mean shoving hands that don’t really want calls. However, with this stack you should be restricting your open raising range a little bit more than 30+, moreso in early position. With this kind of stack though, I would still be highly aggressive in opening pots in late position as long as the players behind me aren’t huge risks to resteal. In the low 30 BB’s a go and go is very often the best option when thinking of how to play a big unpaired hand pre OOP. Say you have 32 BB’s and a villain in LP makes it 3X. If you have AQ you should be going to like 9-12X and shoving most flops, although if you really hit it hard and think villain will bet you should check shove instead.

4. 30-40 BB’s. The important part about this stack size is that a lot of people try to resteal with it pre-flop. For the most part, especially in out of position spots, 3-betting this stack intending to fold to a 4-bet shove is pretty bad. This can be done in the upper 30’s in a few spots (and I would vastly prefer to do this in position than out with this stack) but for the most part if you 3 bet a stack of 35 BB’s or less you are putting to much of your stack to justify a fold pre-flop unless villain flips up his hand and shows you that you’re 2-outing or something. At this stack size you can open raise a ton, especially if you’re playing at lower stakes where people won’t resteal on you even after the antes kick in.

5. Over 40 BB’s. At this stack you mostly have the full arsenal available to you. You can resteal with the intention of folding, you can raise pre, get 3-bet, and 4-bet hoping to cause a fold, you can flat call in position, and you can open you’re full range.


Thoughts on what your opponents know about stack sizes: Most people have a good idea that when they're 10 BB’s or under they should be open shoving anything they play. When you see someone at 8 or 9 BB’s who’s been open shoving suddenly min-raise or 3X you need to be aware that he’s got a big hand a ton of the time. A really important thing to watch in people is their understanding in stack sizes and what their shoving range is light on a short stack.

When it comes to restealing stack sizes most villains have a concept of this without actually knowing they know. Yea, that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but let me put it this way; most villains know to shove a bigger range over your button raise with 15 BB’s than 25 BB’s. Even though they're bad, and they don’t understand why they're doing this, they can tell that 25 BB’s feels like too many chips. However, some villains will be totally unaware of these things and try restealing marginal hands for a huge amount of BB’s, especially out of position since playing in a reraised pot OOP is most bad players' absolute nightmare.

Also, a ton of your villains (and way more ranked p5’s than you could imagine) don’t realize how bad it is to open raise with the intention of folding at 13-20 BB’s so once you see a guy do this you realize that you can resteal off them when effective stacks are this size.

Okay, so I think that’s about it for now, I’m going to sleep fairly soon, but if you guys have any questions or want me to elaborate on certain ideas just ask and I’ll go into it all. I’ll probably write part 2 tomorrow.

I love Indian food. Since getting back to Melbourne I hadn’t found a regular place for my occasional Indian cravings, so I looked up Indian restaurant listings at www.yourrestaurants.com.au. I looked for the highest rated Indian places and found the place I’d seen while walking through downtown to be listed the highest, Gaylord Indian Restaurant. As I looked over the page I saw there was one customer review for the restaurant. It read as follows:
Not worth the effort
Located in the middle of the Melbourne CBD, this establishment seems to turn up its nose if you aren't in a suit. From the 6 requests for a jug of water before one came, and the derisive tone of the waiters, you could be forgiven for thinking they were in the business of trying to get you to leave.

The food itself was quite average, and for the cost is nothing to get excited about. The decor, like the restaurant itself looks good from afar, but on a closer inspection is quite tacky.

I'm sure it's reasonable if you look like you're worth a bundle, but forget it if you want a nice place to relax with friends.

Given that the ratings on the site were excellent however, and it was one of the easiest to get to in the area, I went to try it anyway. It was awesome. The food was great and plenty, the servers were polite and attentive, and the prices were beyond reasonable for a restaurant in downtown Melbourne. I decided I would write my own review in reaction to this clear life nits piece of shit, blasphemous article. Here is how my review, now posted on the site, reads:

Vinnie84 is a lying POS.
This excellent establishment, situated in Melbourne CBD, is totally fucking awesome. Nobody in the entire restaurant was wearing a suit, not even me with my propensity for wearing finely tailored suits that make me look more handsome than Dorian Gray.

I was brought water immediately by using an old restaurant trick called ASKING FOR IT. The waiters were by no means impolite or snobbish, what the previous moronic poster failed to realize is that a good portion of the staff does not have English as their first language and therefore are fairly brief with words in order to prevent confusion.

It seems clear to me that the previous poster was to self absorbed to realize such an obvious circumstance, likely leaning back in his chair and thinking to himself about that one and only time he had sex 27 years ago. I imagine when the waiter asked him if he would like some water in his subtle accent, Vinnie84 instead demanded that he “bring me the god damn hard stuff! I’ve got some forgetting to do.” After downing three fifths his bottle he began attempting to request water but in his drunken stupor was only capable of mumbling “Bringha me… bring me soma that’s clearish stuff!” The poor waiter, assuming he was asking for more vodka despite not having finished the previous bottle instead took the responsible route and refused him further service. After several screaming demands the waiter decided he’d better bring the man some water in hopes of preventing a case of alcohol poisoning in the restaurant.

When the waiter finally brought out Vinnie84’s dinner he was by far to inebriated to be able to taste it, and considering the horrible taste that the recollections of his droll, misspent life left in his mind, it’s no wonder the vileness spread to his taste buds.

As for the claim that the cost was ‘nothing to get excited about’, this is a blatant lie that makes it clear to me that Vinnie84 spends most of his dinners paying 50 cents to make the other bums eating out of the McDonalds trash get lost.

Most amusing in the previous review is the line “..but forget it if you want a nice place to relax with friends.” This portion of the review is clearly the most betraying, since I think we all know Vinnie84’s only friends exist in his head.

In conclusion Gaylord Indian Restaurant serves great Indian food with a staff that is high on efficiency and low on small talk. The prices are totally reasonable for the quantity and quality of food you get, and the food gets to you quickly. Also, Vinnie84 is a huge tool who cries himself to sleep.

All of this can be viewed via this link:
http://www.yourrestaurants.com.au/guide/gaylord_indian_restaurant/?count_view=no

I imagine most people would expect this blog entry to be about the WCOOP main event, seeing as It was the largest online poker event of the year. Let me sum up the entirety of the trip report for you:

Belowabove is sitting on my immediate left. We both have about 18.5 of our starting 20k, he had a few hundred more. I’m dealt 99 in the SB. Blinds 50/100

Preflop: I raise to 350, BA calls in the BB.
Flop: 6 9 J rainbow
I bet 450, BA raises to 1200, I call.
Turn: J
I check, BA bets 1750, I raise to 5800, he shoves, I call. He shows AJ.
River: 6.

There you are, WCOOP ME trip report. Riveting stuff huh? Anyway, I decided to use this blog entry as a sort of public service announcement, because hey, the more you know.

It was brought to my attention that there was a $10 charge on my credit card that showed up monthly. I had assumed it was for a Xbox live subscription, as I seem to recall perhaps creating one, but I wasn’t quite sure. However, I was completely sure if I created a paying one that it was only for a few months, and this charge had now been showing up several months longer. I took the chare name “WLI RESERVATIONREW ARDS C800 73270 CT” and plugged it into Google.

When people used to have unanswerable questions that plagued them in life, they turned to God. God’s infinite knowledge allowed for the reaching of understanding and peace. Since the creation of Google I’ve become an atheist, since Google knows everything and God’s utility has become irrelevant. And in the extremely rare occurrence that you can’t find the information and answers you seek on Google, simply turn to its cousin, Wikipedia. Knowing the web address of these two sites allows me to fulfill my potential as one of the world’s smartest men. Eat your heart out Ken Jennings.

Google instantly responded to my quandary. Turns out, the charge is part of an elaborate ‘rewards program’ scam. If you see a charge like this showing up on your credit card and want further information here’s an excellent link:
http://adam.rosi-kessel.org/weblog/the_man/webloyalty_aka_wli_reservations_is_a_scam.html

I called up the companies number and began making demands. I could give you a play by play of the conversation, OR I could ghost write it again. Yes that sounds more fun.

Upon finding the aforementioned website I became outraged and took it up as my mission to get my money back. I took the phone number from the website, fired up Skype, and dialed.

“Hello this is XXXXX with Reservation Rewards, how my help you today?”

“Hello this is George Dunst. I noticed a charge on my bank account from your company that I did not authorize that has been going for several months now. So, what’s up with this shit?”

“Oh yes, that. Well that’s our little scam. You see when you make a purchase through various companies, in this case EB Games (true part of story) we feed you some various crap where we ask for your email and don’t tell you we’ll be charging you, then just start billing without any confirmation.”

“Wow, well I certainly didn’t expect that kind of honesty. Alright, so stop it and give me my money back you lying bastards.”

“Ha, yea right. What are you going to do about it?”

“What am I gonna do about it? WHAT AM I GONNA DO ABOUT IT!? You listen to me and you listen to me good you stupid mother fucker. I was gonna play nice and just ask for my money back and go quietly into that good night, but now you’ve crossed the fucking line. Here are my demands; I want all my money back, 2 Hawaiian islands, a summer home in the Hamptons, a red Ferrari F50, and a helicopter. Not one of those lame news helicopters, it better have missiles on it!”

”And if we don’t comply?”

”Then I’ll pay for Larry The Cable Guy to come to your office and do 90 minutes of stand up.”

I heard the woman make a sort of noise on the other line that sounded like a mix of a gasp and choking. It sounded something like the noise actors make when trying to pretend their having a heart attack.

“Excuse me sir, I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation. I’ll put my supervisor on the phone immediately.”
A moment passed as I sat on hold, listening to the receiver play ‘The Girl from Ipanema”. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d lost my temper and made such wild and violent threats, but the cat was out of the bag now.

“Hello Mr. Dunst, this is XXXXXX. I understand that our company has made a massive error in offending you. I’ve got your list of demands here and want to assure you that we handle a situation like this with the utmost priority and seriousness. Do you have any preference on Hawaiian islands?”

”Just as long as there’s no lepers.”

“I see sir, but of course. Well I want to thank you for calling today and informing us of our error. Is it alright if I hang up now sir? I soiled myself when I heard about your threat and could really use a change in underwear.”

“Yea, I guess I’ll let you go… this time.”

I hung up and went back to my bench press, where I did 20 reps of 1000 pounds. Yep, I’m that badass.

So in the end Reservation Rewards agreed to cancel their subscription and refund the entirety of what they took. In these kind of situations, apparently the one phrase you need to use is “If my money is not refunded I will call my bank and charge back this item.” This sets you aside from most customers who aren’t aware that they can demand their money back and that authorization is very difficult to prove over the phone or internet.

I’ve written before how I consider people in terms of ‘realness’. That is, most people have a level of legitimacy to them. Often, players in the poker world struggle with the idea of dropping out of school or quitting their job, giving up that legitimacy. I’ve got less than a year left of credits to finish my theatre degree at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I’d like to get it done eventually, if only for the sake of having finished it, since the courses aren’t hard and I’ve already put 4 years into school. However, even after I finish it I see the chances of my going out and getting a job of some kind, be it in drama or otherwise, to be less than 0%.

I’ve been talking to a lot of young players lately, and have been fairly surprised to find that most of them don’t see themselves “just playing poker forever.” I always find this fairly surprising since, to me, poker is the sweetest occupation ever. It’s the ultimate form of capitalism with the invisible hand driving you to success which nobody else gets to share in or mooch off of. I work for nobody and nobody works for me. I make plenty of money, and the harder I work the more I get back, with some interference from variance. Never will I be subject to being an undervalued employee, underpaid, or ordered around by a useless or moronic boss.

I had five jobs or six jobs back in high school before the gambling bug bit me. At first I was a peanut guy at college football games, then a subway employee, then shoe salesman, then dishwasher, then host at a restaurant. I also did some judging work for my high school forensics team my freshman year of college but that doesn’t really count as a job per say. What I learned mostly from my stints in various occupations is that I hate working for other people and having some jackass who’s having a bad day decide to take it out on his employees because he spilled coffee on himself on the way to work or whatever bullshit excuse he or she wanted to be a dick that day.

A couple of those jobs weren’t so bad. What mostly determined whether it was miserable or tolerable ended up being the people I worked with. For example, the hardest and dirtiest work was at Subway and being a dishwasher at a restaurant called Morels, but most of the time the bosses were fair and my coworkers were fun so I didn’t hate it. Meanwhile, my fairly easy work as a shoe salesman at Finish Line and host at Damon’s entirely ruined my real world work ethic and willingness to take orders. Finish Line began my disillusionment with the working world and Damons managed to destroy it completely. When I found poker and gambling right after being fired from Damons suddenly something clicked in me; If I work really hard at this I can make enough money to never have to listen to anyone else’s bullshit ever again.

Most my current contemporaries are extremely smart and naturally gifted guys. Whenever I ask one what University they go to it always ends up coming back as something very prestigious with a major like ‘math’ or ‘statistics’ or ‘advanced super human computer in your brain statistical and analytical abilities’. Stuff like that. These guys seem to get very good at poker pretty quick, often at a very young age. Meanwhile, I’ve been playing for almost five years. At the start I was fed so much misinformation from books and guys who didn’t know what they were doing that my ability as a player was basically at a standstill for years. Eventually I found 2+2 and the elitist intellectual assholes that frequent the site eventually set me straight a little at a time about what I’m doing wrong. However, I have one huge advantage over the vast majority of the wunderkinds; I work so much harder. That’s not to say that any of them are lazy or undeserving, but the thought of working a real job again is enough motivation to keep me constantly seeking ways to improve with an obsession usually seen only in religious zealots.

The dream of course, is eventually hitting it so big that thinking about this all becomes irrelevant; the previously mentioned ‘big score.’ While many of my friends have hit that big score and handled it with subtlety and class, choosing to side step the spot light I just can’t see myself doing the same. I imagine if I did something like final table a major live event for some absurd sum of money I’d end up holding a huge “Celebrate Tony Making Bill Gates Look Poor” party where I wear a dollar bill suit and top hat smoking 3 cigars at once, standing at the door shouting at everyone to congratulate me before they are allowed entry. Then I’ll spend the rest of the party sitting in a thrown being carried around by four enormous body guards while I throw silver dollars at everyone and guzzle several magnums of champagne.

In my opinion, the sweetest part about hitting it big on the live scene is the potential for selling out. Signing a sponsorship deal with a poker site ought to be the goal of every clever minded poker player, as you get paid to do what you’d be doing anyway. Unfortunately, thanks to the hypocritical, sodomite legislators down in D.C., sponsorship for most US players is, at the moment, the impossible dream. However, anti-UIGEA legislation is gaining heavy ground and the idiot God Boys of the right wing have managed to back themselves into a corner against the WTO. An excellent article from Newsweek on this issue can be read here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20790111/site/newsweek/

The basic idea is that the US has lost in the WTO case over online gambling vs Antigua, and if they don’t comply by allowing online gaming back into the market then Antigua and numerous other countries that have faced losses can begin producing American entertainment and technology products at a fraction of the cost and legally sell them around the world. Hollywood and Silicon Valley are having a seizure at the thought of their products plummeting in value and are in the process of dispensing blood thirsty lobbyists to D.C. to hold a gun to various congressmen’s families. Good to see the system still works and that money still does truly make the world go round.

If all goes has hoped and the UIGEA is nothing but a memory within the next couple years, then the potential for sponsorship from a website for a young and upcoming US player increases enormously. People are slowly realizing that many of the established pros are either terrible at poker, terrible people, or both. That’s not to say there aren’t a few diamonds in the rough, guys with real talent who don’t explode at the misfortune of a three outer a la Phil Gordon. However, watching a few interviews from poker tournaments around the world makes it pretty clear that the majority of players tend to be either to dry or to eccentric for real marketability, though screaming and dancing every time you win a pot during the WSOP might be a good place to start.

Over the last year I’ve watched a lot friends hit ‘the big score’ in a tournament. I’m not exactly sure how big ‘the big score’ is, but I like to think it’s enough money that unless you’re a total spew tard in life you won’t go bust after hitting it. How big it really is ends up being relative for most people, but I think if you hit close to $100,000 or more that’s pretty god damn big.

At this point, almost every regular in the MTTc forum has a score of that magnitude or close to it. While I’m very happy that my friends--all of them quite deserving--hit it huge, it comes with a catch; I’m a petty and envious man so I feel jealous. I want to hit it really hard, too. I mean who doesn’t? The big, potentially life changing score is every serious MTT’ers dream, and an absolute ton of your overall profit in playing MTT’s comes from a few sizeable yearly scores. The hardest part to stomach is that I’ve been in a position to hit it huge a number of times now, and something always goes awry. I don’t feel like rattling off every time I’ve been three outed at a final table, but their have been a few times in the course of history that I watched huge amounts of equity slip through my fingers. So here’s what could have been:

1. The first major final table I made in live poker was a 1k buy-in in Australia that got like 260 guys. I was close to broke at the time due to bankroll mismanagement and running extremely bad. Luckily my friend Rob decided to back me online and as we’d made a little bit of progress we decided to take one shot at a live 1k event. Going into four handed at the final table I had a little over half the chips in play and the pay outs were as follows:

First: $79,360
Second: $46,080
Third: $28,160
Fourth: $19,200

As we returned from the break I looked down at TT on the button. The UTG player open shoved his short stack and I reshoved. He turned up K7o and runner runners a flush. Okay fair enough.

The very next hand I’m dealt TT UTG again and open raise. The SB goes for a resteal all in and I call, and he flips up KQ. Flop KQ7 and I’ve had a huge chunk of chips taken. We continue play for a while and I manage to regain some but not many chips when I look down at AK on the button. The UTG player again open shoves and I reshove. He shows KJ and promptly flops a J. OKAY FINE. I’m still in. Play continue for a while longer and it reaches 3am from a noon start time. Nobody is going out. The blinds have gotten very high. I look down at KK in the SB and UTG open shoves. The button folds and I of course rejam, BB folds. UTG flips up KQs.
Flop: Qxx
Turn: Q
River: X

Obviously, I was no pleased. I’m pretty sure my exact words were “GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!!” followed by smashing my fists on the floor. Yea, I got pretty excited over that kind of thing back then.

2. The second close call came during the 2006 WSOP ME. I was pretty bad at poker at the time (still am) but the field that year was nearly 9000 players and absolutely full of clueless spastics. I had a pretty aggressive pre flop style of play which got me pretty far since I was three betting a lot and not afraid to abuse the bubble. Two situations come to mind in regards to costing me a huge amount of equity in that tournament. The first came late in day two. The average stack at the time was 40,000 and I had 70,000. The opponent in the hand had 55,000. Blinds were 300/600 with a 100 ante.

Mp1 open raised to 2400 and I called on the button with 77. The blinds folded.

Flop: J 7 3 rainbow
MP1 bets 4500 and I call.
Turn: 6
MP1 checks and I fire out 10,000, to which he instantly check raised all in over. I of course called in half a second. MP1 flips over 66 and there’s now almost 3 times the average in the pot.
River: 6

The entire section of the tournament EXPLODED. MP1 begins screaming and dancing out of his seat, shouting “YEEEEEEEEEEEAH! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEA!!!!!” I stood watching it in relative shock while people came over to pat me on the back and ask if I didn’t want to maybe cry it out a little bit. I’m pretty sure some people made calls on their cell phones just to tell others what they’d seen, I don’t know, it’s all kind of blurry. I sat down, swore once, composed myself, and doubled next hand, then kept going. It’s hard to say exactly how much equity that pot cost me, though we were nearing the money and being able to abuse it

I managed to survive and get back into the game and advance well into day four. Late in day 4 my stack was hovering around 260k with the average at about 400k. There were 200 players left with the payout structure looking like this:

1st $12,000,000

2nd $6,102,499

3rd $4,123,310

4th $3,628,513

5th $3,216,182

6th $2,803,851

7th $2,391,520

8th $1,979,189

9th $1,566,858

10 - 12th $1,154,527

13 - 15th $907,128

16 - 18th $659,730

19 - 27th $494,797

28 - 36th $329,865

37 - 45th $247,399

46 - 54th $164,932

55 - 63rd $123,699

64 - 72nd $90,713

73 - 81st $65,973

82 - 126th $51,129

127 - 189th $47,006

190 - 252nd $42,882

So clearly we’re getting close to some big money. The button open raises to 30k and I shove my stack with AKo. The button thinks it over and makes the call with AQ.
Flop: Q J 9
Turn: X
River: X
It’s hard to say what that pot's equity was worth, though I’m sure someone could do the math and tell me a truly disturbing number.

3. The next time something interesting happened was a few months back when I made a run in the 1k buy in Sunday Million. To give you an idea of pay outs; 10th was $9,930, 4th $100,666, 2nd $179,760, 1st $353,186. With 10 left on the final table bubble, the chip leader of the tournament was one of the worst players I’d ever seen in any tournament but refused to fold and always hit. He put a gross beat on Matt24 at the final 3 tables calling off 30 BB’s pre with 3 invested holding K8o. That’s how he rolled. On the CO, I open shoved 12 BB’s with A6s and he decided to call in the SB with QJo. It was all over on the flop.

4. Of course there's the 95<88 on 678 flop early on day 3 of this years WSOP ME. I don't think that story really needs any retelling to anyone whose ever read this blog. God knows what having a top 10 chip stack near the bubble is worth in THAT tournament.

5. And of course the most recent so close feeling came last night, which is the reason I’m writing the entry on this topic. With about 30 left in the WCOOP 1k event, I got it all in with KK vs a short stack’s (250k) ATs and another medium stacks (about 980k) JJ. The board came A77XJ and the 2.1 million chip pot (the average was about 1 million, CL had 4 million) was shipped to both opponents.


So that’s my little bitch fest. It’ll be the last blog entry about bad beats until I play live poker again, but hashing those things over and over doesn’t really do anyone any good. However, getting them down on paper helps me sort of let them go and look towards the future. I really wish I was stupid enough to believe in being ‘due’ right about now.