Wound up going back home last night and playing a full schedule tonight, where I proceeded to lose something like $60 on the day. Given the $1500 or so in entries this isn't even a negative, except in tilt dollars. The highlight was another decent finish in the Sunday Million, where I took 167th after losing two huge pots deep ITM (AQ < A9, then AA < a 3 way KQs/AJ AIPF big pot where I induced a squeeze) and then a 15xBB flip for the deathblow. I also took a huge stack into Hour 3 of the 535 FTOPS ME, then busted out after going *0 for 91* consecutive hands (in a 9 max tournament this is something like a one in ten thousand spot...ugh.)

Anyway, the highlight of the day is this hand, which I also posted on 2+2:

ull Tilt Poker Game #3302830235: FTOPS Main Event (22695133), Table 406 - 20/40 - No Limit Hold'em - 18:17:34 ET - 2025/08/19
Seat 1: Dorothy Parker (5,265)
Seat 2: pcon23 (4,825)
Seat 3: Bbuddy4brkfst (4,805)
Seat 4: silas22 (4,912)
Seat 5: gawyn (4,957)
Seat 6: Adar (5,375)
Seat 7: saladfingers44 (5,086)
Seat 8: Tarantula_Joe (5,035)
Seat 9: zeeland (4,740)
pcon23 posts the small blind of 20
Bbuddy4brkfst posts the big blind of 40
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Adar [Js Jd]
silas22 calls 40
gawyn folds
Adar raises to 160
saladfingers44 folds
Tarantula_Joe has 15 seconds left to act
Tarantula_Joe raises to 525
lots of people fold
Adar calls 365
*** FLOP *** [2s Ac Jh]
Adar checks
Tarantula_Joe checks
*** TURN *** [2s Ac Jh] [Ad]
Adar bets 640
Tarantula_Joe has 15 seconds left to act
Tarantula_Joe calls 640
*** RIVER *** [2s Ac Jh Ad] [Kh]
Adar

I think I post too many of these hands, in part because I've run really cold in these spots (I swear that nobody runs into a bigger boat/quads with a full house as much as I do given my volume), in part because I feel that they're partly avoidable. Earlier on today, in the Bodog 100K, I made a mistake and busted in the first hour on an AA vs. KK hand where I slowplayed PF, bet the 6648 board when he check/called (correctly reading him for an overpair that would stack off), but then shoved anyway when he bet into me on the K river - at that point, I should know his most likely hand got there and just call. That hand was in the back of my mind when I was playing this one, so despite feeling like I "had to" pay off, I wound up just check/folding.

Fun sidenote: after the hand, I looked this guy up on pokerdb and found that this was almost definitely someone's backup account (total of 3 tournaments in the last 2 years, none over $24.) This actually made me want to pay off a little more, but given that he'd played only one hand in 30 minutes, it was probably fine anyway.

After today, I'm probably partly going back to cash for a little while - still playing plenty of tournaments, but also jumping into the Cake 10/20 and 25/50 NL games when they're soft. That plus razz should keep me happy for the rest of the month; I feel like I need the practice with bigger stacks.

In four years of playing poker, I've never managed to outright bubble a big satellite until today. 35'th/169 with 34 paid - they tried their best to bust before I did, but just never quite got there. I think there are a couple of spots where I missed open shoves, but in the end it was more of a case of too many short stacks winning coupled with too much outright stalling eating what used to be a very safe stack with 45 left. Ugggggh. Since I consider sats my best game, there's just no excuse for this, and I'm really surprised at how annoyed I am about losing some fraction of 5K in equity (yes, it's a big 1K satellite to a 5K event, but MTT's are like that - I was playing 4 handed for a 48,000 first place prize only a few days ago and didn't even feel disappointed when I finally lost.)

On top of that, my roommate is in the hospital with a very screwed up finger, so since I never had any plans to play the main event here if I didn't satellite into it in the first place, this is making me want to leave TS and go down early for the weekend. I'll figure that out tomorrow morning.

Some fraction of my life tilt is doubtless contributed by the hand before the bustout: I'm in the (4/8K) BB with a 12K total stack *before* posting when MP, the second shortest stack at the table, decides to shove ~20K (gape.) SB calls blind *expecting me to be committed and overcall* - of course, I instafold.

MP's hand: KK. SB's blind call? K5 suited. Despite that clear riggedness, he even managed to hit a 5 on the turn! Like I said, life tilt.

In conclusion, I'm managing to be remarkably whiny about winning some number > 10K on this trip. Hmm.
---

Today's 1K non-satellite final table featured mlagoo (2nd, 36K) and kalensc (third, 22K - he's the same guy who won the first event) along with a couple of other guys I know. In other words, my clique pretty much destroyed Turning Stone (and the Internet MTT's held during that time) after pretty much destroying the Internet during Vegas, too. Even when you bubble sats, I guess poker is easy.

I'll be honest - I tried to figure out how to recap that tournament from a couple of days ago and couldn't really do it, because it winds up being one big "I raise with a decent hand, flop/turn/river the nuts somehow and get paid off" fest. I think I have good instincts in all limit games, especially when making thin value bets and calldowns, but if I had to rank my HORSE game, this would be #4 (I probably play gin rummy better than stud high.)

So, in lieu of a recap that's probably wildly wrong, I'll just post some fun hands that I'm pretty sure of. This one in particular is just ridiculous:

Seat 1: Carmen35 (3,255)
Seat 2: strohsix (2,680)
Seat 3: MrKrabbs (3,150)
Seat 4: quincyg (2,685)
Seat 5: Adar (3,565)
Seat 6: AK_47_JAZZ (4,033)
Seat 7: tommyturks (2,650)
Seat 8: jtsnakes (2,850)
Seat 9: bodark77 (2,132)
Adar posts the small blind of 15
AK_47_JAZZ posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Adar [Kh 9s 4s Ks]
tommyturks folds
jtsnakes folds
bodark77 calls 30
Carmen35 calls 30
strohsix folds
MrKrabbs folds
quincyg calls 30
Adar calls 15
AK_47_JAZZ checks
*** FLOP *** [Kc 5s 2h]
Adar bets 30
AK_47_JAZZ folds
bodark77 calls 30
Carmen35 calls 30
quincyg raises to 60
Adar raises to 90
bodark77 folds
Carmen35 calls 60
quincyg raises to 120
Adar calls 30
Carmen35 calls 30
*** TURN *** [Kc 5s 2h] [Jc]
Adar bets 60
Carmen35 calls 60
quincyg calls 60
*** RIVER *** [Kc 5s 2h Jc] [7s]
Adar bets 60
Carmen35 calls 60
quincyg raises to 120
Adar has 15 seconds left to act
Adar raises to 180
Carmen35 folds
quincyg calls 60
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Adar shows [Kh 9s 4s Ks] three of a kind, Kings, for high
quincyg mucks
Adar wins the pot (1,140) with three of a kind, Kings
No low hand qualified
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,140 | Rake 0
Board: [Kc 5s 2h Jc 7s]
Seat 1: Carmen35 folded on the River
Seat 2: strohsix didn't bet (folded)
Seat 3: MrKrabbs didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: quincyg (button) mucked [5d Ad 5h Th] - HI: three of a kind, Fives
Seat 5: Adar (small blind) showed [Kh 9s 4s Ks] and won (1,140) with HI: three of a kind, Kings

PF, my hand is terrible, and later in the tournament it's a fold, but here I have the odds just to flop top set (and hope it holds.) I do, so I bet/3 bet the flop, not because it's a very good hand right now (I'm pretty screwed if some low cards hit) but because there's lots of people in the pot and I probably have enough equity to pop it. The turn alters nothing, but the river brings a low, so now I'm only getting half the pot; the reason I bet is because there's 2 others in with me and I may as well get an extra 1/2 bet in now, before they decide to check behind with A4 on the end or something. Except, for no apparent reason, the guy with a smaller set decides to go berserk, raise one more time and let me 3 bet (after I double check that I do have the high lock, lol) to knock out the very likely low hand in the middle, winning the whole pot. Wow.

If you haven't realized how easy it is to overplay a hand in O/8 yet:

Seat 1: Carmen35 (2,096)
Seat 2: strohsix (6,388), is sitting out
Seat 3: MrKrabbs (3,575)
Seat 4: quincyg (1,780)
Seat 5: Adar (4,395)
Seat 6: AK_47_JAZZ (7,006)
Seat 7: mjorgenson13 (4,080)
Seat 8: LUVEMnLEAVUM (4,375)
Seat 9: bodark77 (1,960)
AK_47_JAZZ posts the small blind of 50
mjorgenson13 posts the big blind of 100
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Adar [3d Ks Ac Kd]
LUVEMnLEAVUM folds
bodark77 calls 100
Carmen35 has 15 seconds left to act
Carmen35 folds
strohsix folds
MrKrabbs folds
quincyg folds
Adar raises to 200
AK_47_JAZZ calls 150
mjorgenson13 calls 100
bodark77 calls 100
*** FLOP *** [Qd 2d 7d]
AK_47_JAZZ checks
mjorgenson13 bets 100
bodark77 calls 100
Adar raises to 200
AK_47_JAZZ folds
mjorgenson13 calls 100
bodark77 raises to 300
Adar calls 100
mjorgenson13 calls 100
*** TURN *** [Qd 2d 7d] [Js]
mjorgenson13 checks
bodark77 bets 200
Adar calls 200
mjorgenson13 calls 200
*** RIVER *** [Qd 2d 7d Js] [4c]
mjorgenson13 checks
bodark77 bets 200
Adar raises to 400
mjorgenson13 folds
bodark77 raises to 600
Adar raises to 800
bodark77 calls 200
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Adar shows [3d Ks Ac Kd] a flush, King high, for high and 7,4,3,2,A, for low
bodark77 shows [Ad 3s 5d 3c] a flush, Ace high, for high and 7,4,3,2,A, for low
bodark77 wins the high pot (1,950) with a flush, Ace high
bodark77 ties for the low pot (975) with 7,4,3,2,A
Adar ties for the low pot (975) with 7,4,3,2,A

I flop the second nuts for high, river the nut low, and...get quartered after putting in at least one bet and possibly 3 bets too many on the river. Given the way the hand went down, the other guy almost always has an ace high flush when he does that call/3 bet move on the flop, so on the river, I'm just not winning over half the pot. Even if I do raise the river on principle, though (I think going for the overcall may be better), I should just call the 3 bet.

Somebody was wondering about my (all but) bustout hand, so here it is:

Full Tilt Poker Game #3258606818: FTOPS Event #8 (22618608), Table 95 - 40000/80000 - Limit Omaha H/L - 5:54:55 ET - 2025/08/15
Seat 2: Adar (381,430)
Seat 3: muckmehard (1,554,222)
Seat 6: Kiajessie (971,724)
Seat 8: AD-Stars22 (311,624)
muckmehard posts the small blind of 20,000
Kiajessie posts the big blind of 40,000
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Adar [2c 2h 3s 7c]
AD-Stars22 folds
Adar raises to 80,000
muckmehard folds
Kiajessie raises to 120,000
Adar calls 40,000
*** FLOP *** [3c Ks Jc]
Kiajessie bets 40,000
moetman (Observer): u should be folding here adar
Adar calls 40,000
*** TURN *** [3c Ks Jc] [5h]
Kiajessie bets 80,000
Adar calls 80,000
*** RIVER *** [3c Ks Jc 5h] [6d]
Kiajessie bets 80,000
Adar calls 80,000
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Kiajessie shows [Ad Ah 2d Qc] a pair of Aces, for high and 6,5,3,2,A, for low
Adar mucks
Kiajessie wins the high pot (330,000) with a pair of Aces
Kiajessie wins the low pot (330,000) with 6,5,3,2,A

Nothing I can really do about this one - it's obvious he has aces PF, but when I flop a flush draw shorthanded in a big pot, I'm locked into the hand until the river. The river call is mandatory because I know two of his cards, and the only thing that scoops me out of the entire pot is exactly AA2x, AA4x or AA7x. Oh well.

---

Obviously, I skipped the 500 dollar tourney the following day (I busted at 6 AM, it started at 10 - not good) and also skipped the 1K event today in the mistaken belief that there was a 1K satellite this afternoon. Turns out that's tomorrow, so I've got an extra day to rest up, celebrate Nath's birthday (that's today - wish him well, everybody!) and win myself a 5K ME seat.

Oh yeah - Turning Stone hates cameras or something, so so far I have exactly 2 pictures on this trip. Dammit.

After the < 2 hour run at TS, I put in a full tournament schedule tonight but quickly busted out of everything except the FTOPS LO8 event I entered on a whim...where, 9 hours later, I just finished fourth for $17,700. I mostly did this by running ridiculously hot with my starting hands and having very few actual decisions anywhere. "lol, donkaments" indeed.

I'll recap this later, as much as I'm capable of analyzing a limit Omaha/8 event (not much at all.)

Short update:

I wound up not playing Event 3 (the bounty tournament) for sleep reasons, either. I did play the 6 max this morning (and the 1K 6max FTOPS event last night), but didn't last long.

I did play a couple of interesting hands from those two events. From the 1K FTOPS, with 3K starting stacks:

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Adar [Ad Ah]
Adar raises to 60 (UTG)
doheme calls 60 (Button)
*** FLOP *** [8d Td 7d]
Adar checks
doheme bets 80
Adar calls 80
*** TURN *** [8d Td 7d] [7h]
Adar checks
doheme bets 260
Adar calls 260
*** RIVER *** [8d Td 7d 7h] [Qh]
Adar checks
doheme bets 380
Adar calls 380
*** SHOW DOWN ***
doheme shows [9c 7c] three of a kind, Sevens
Adar mucks

Even in 6 max, this flop is ugly enough (particularly because of the increased range that your opponents have) to play it slower, especially when you have the A and don't fear the main draw. (If my aces were black, I'd probably do something like check/call, bet.) Once the turn pairs the bottom card on the board, I'm committed to a showdown but still don't want to invest too much - too bad that it turned out to be his gin card. BTW, betting out here is fine too; the main problem is that if raised, a 3 bet doesn't get you anywhere except into a 300 BB pot with the worst hand. Anyway, I wound up losing the minimum here, then going broke with AT to 55 that limp/called a big raise on a T522 board with a flush draw. No biggie.

Today, I didn't really have a decision to make anywhere except 'cbet, then fold'. In 6 max MTT's, with escalating blinds and ramped up aggression, you have to hit flops, and I didn't, so busto came quickly (although AQ < AJ AIPF for a 50 BB pot to actually bust me didn't help - oh well.) I'm mildly unhappy with one hand that I did play, so I'll talk about it now:

At 50/75, with all my raises getting picked off by the guys to my left, I was forced to make a third straight raise UTG with A T (I say 'forced' because it's generally too good of a hand to open fold in that spot, but under the circumstances it might've even been better.) The player to my left, who probably had me pegged as weak tight because I'd had a habit of winding up with 8 high at showdown, called my raise and then called my cbet on a K 9 2 board. Now the turn came the 5 , and I had 2500 behind with 1200 in the pot. After thinking about how much to bet here, I wound up checking, planning to CR AI to anything resembling a 600-800 chip value bet, but to my annoyance, he bet 1100, instead. Now I had very little fold equity and ace high. "Oops".

In retrospect, I should either check/fold the flop (my image was probably so weak that this cbet simply wouldn't get him to fold anything) or be prepared to double barrel that turn. Really, the major issue there is the bad bet size/stack size ratio (if I bet 700 and I'm raised, all my options suck) and [before I check the turn] how often he has a king, vs. something like J9 or a flush draw I can blow him off of. If I felt he was going to full pot the turn when checked to with any frequency, clearly, I should just bet myself. Meh.

On the bright side, I got enough sleep to be ready for the tournaments in the next couple of days. Oh, and gobboboy chopped the 325+40 bountyment for 22.5K/nath won a decent $50 freezeout on Stars for 11K last night. Good track records.

The one problem with these tournaments (I'll have a trip report up at some point this week - this room and series are both very well run) is their start time of 10 AM, especially when I didn't get there until 10:30 the night before. The play was typically ugly save for the 18-21 "this is my WSOP" online crowd, but in a largely "when is this over so that I can go to sleep?" performance, I basically played Event 1, a 300+40, on autopilot for six hours, got it in as just over a 40/60 shot to somewhere around triple up to a nice stack, and lost. There weren't even any interesting hands involved - possibly one or two at most. A couple of people I know've had better luck; after bouncing all over the map and constantly sucking out (heh), Shaundeeb took fifth for around 8K, and Kalen (another roommate from the WSOP) is CL 4 handed for a nice first prize of 34K.

Event 2 today is the 200 rebuy, which I'm skipping because, as I'm writing this, I'm already playing most of my Sunday online schedule (plus that whole 'sleep' idea I was so fond on). From what I hear, it's a nice structure as well (who's ever heard of a 50/75 level? They have it in all of these, though) with some very deep play. I'm definitely a fan.

I'll be back to posting daily (or close enough to daily) for a while starting the day after tomorrow, as I'm taking a ten day trip to Turning Stone for the HPT series. Pretty much everyone I know in poker has been to one or more of these at some point, and a good chunk of them have made FT's (or better) there, so it's time for me to give that series a shot, too. The blind structure and event lineup do look incredible.

I played a lot for the first time in a while yesterday and today. While I got nowhere thanks to some bad beats (and, I have to admit, some bad play in tonight's HORSE FTOPS event - I'm just not as good in stud high and, to a lesser extent, stud 8 as I am in razz), but enjoyed myself and am looking forward to the live tournament scene/FTOPS combination again. (Though, to be honest, the WCOOP events on Stars are much, much better for me - between paying less for them thanks to W$ and all of the odd events I can dominate most of the field in, it's no contest.) I don't think I'll ever play the live tournament scene as much as I would have said I would before the WSOP - it's just too draining an experience overall - but it's a nice change of pace.

Time to go see how wearing the "Stars Million Winner" jacket alters my image, heh.

edit: Added some pics - back from my 'pre-haircut' and 'pre-shave' phase, obv.

I didn't play the Sunday Million last week and went out early the week before, but tonight, I made another deep run in the biggest tourney of the week to get a 40th place finish. I actually got it in behind a couple of times for a change and played a couple of hands questionably, but mostly made the right plays at the right times again until losing a consecutive flip and 62/38 very late (sigh). Two of these kinds of deep runs in nearly consecutive tries really does mean a lot, though.

Here's a fun hand against a guy that had been getting away with playing 40/30 or so for an entire hour:

Seat 1: never river (41470 in chips)
Seat 2: loonatic111 (36328 in chips)
Seat 3: HHHthegame88 (88449 in chips)
Seat 4: ANDREA1984 (62134 in chips)
Seat 5: A.Brandon (26250 in chips)
Seat 6: RyanT5o (64585 in chips)
Seat 7: Leonidas_l (72854 in chips)
Seat 8: gyme (36603 in chips)
Seat 9: adanthar (70124 in chips)
never river: posts the ante 250
loonatic111: posts the ante 250
HHHthegame88: posts the ante 250
ANDREA1984: posts the ante 250
A.Brandon: posts the ante 250
RyanT5o: posts the ante 250
Leonidas_l: posts the ante 250
gyme: posts the ante 250
adanthar: posts the ante 250
ANDREA1984: posts small blind 1250
A.Brandon: posts big blind 2500
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to adanthar [As Ad]
RyanT5o: folds
Leonidas_l: folds
gyme: folds
adanthar: raises 5000 to 7500
never river: folds
loonatic111: folds
HHHthegame88: raises 15000 to 22500
ANDREA1984: folds
A.Brandon: folds
adanthar: calls 15000
*** FLOP *** [6h 7c Ah]
adanthar: checks
HHHthegame88: checks
*** TURN *** [6h 7c Ah] [4d]
adanthar: checks
HHHthegame88: checks
*** RIVER *** [6h 7c Ah 4d] [5d]
adanthar: checks
HHHthegame88: bets 65699 and is all-in
adanthar: calls 47374 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
HHHthegame88: shows [Kc 5h] (a pair of Fives)
adanthar: shows [As Ad] (three of a kind, Aces)
adanthar collected 145748 from pot

I haven't put in much time at the tables these last couple of weeks, largely due to writing, running errands and being lazy (okay, not in that order.) When I've been playing, it's usually been what I charitably call "WCOOP preparation" - games that nobody plays. I've won a fair bit in triple draw and 5 card draw sats, but those are so esoteric I don't even think they have a future on Stars. Primarily, I've been trying to get better at razz.

Currently, I think I'm somewhere between breakeven to a small winner at the top regularly running (ie, 10/20 to 30/60) games online. I have a few midsized to big leaks on third street, mostly because I'm still looking for the optimal amount of raising to do - position is much more important in this game than it looks, but it's hard to say exactly what you should raise vs. fold UTG. But I'm winning, or at least not losing, anyway, because the amount of basic errors people make in this game is incredible. (If you're at all interested in it, you should get Sklansky on Poker - the only really decent book on razz - just to get a sense of what I'm talking about.) They call fourth in pots that were *limped* (not even completed) on third when they hit a king vs. a low card; they check very dangerous looking boards when they pair up on sixth, then make hopeless bluffs on the end; they loosen up shorthanded and play tighter in full ring, when the right play is actually the opposite...it goes on.

Enough about bad players, though. The reason I'm writing this entry is because razz on FTP (but not on Stars!) has a feature/play you should be using a lot in MTT's and cash. It's simple and easy to do, and I think FTP razz trains you to do this in other games as well. Specifically, against decent to good razz players on FTP, you should very often "bluff call" on the button on third street when you have a low card showing heads up, and especially if you have two low cards (even if the third is terrible or a pair).

The reason for this and the math behind it is simple. FTP has high antes, so that you're always getting great odds on a call in all of their razz games, and good razz players know that when they catch a T-K and you catch a decently low card, they should just fold to a bet in a heads up pot. This will happen about 1 in 3-4 times depending on the dead cards, so against somebody who knows this, heads up at a full table, the play will almost automatically show a profit. Furthermore, FTP mixes up your 3 hole cards (including the river card), so if they do call and you wind up somehow seeing a showdown, unless the cards are 555 or something else really ridiculous, they will likely assume that you started with a decent 3 card hand and just caught a brick on the river. To play optimally on FTP's razz tables, you must frequently do this - and that's a play that transfers right over to calling weak hands on the button vs. generic ABC TAGs and floating some flops in NL. It's like a built in aggression trainer that makes you free money, and as a bonus, you get to be forced to pay attention to the people that actually know to fold fourth - ie, read your opponents :)

Fun fact: Since Stars does *not* do this, it's easier to tell who's terrible, since calling 6Q3 on 3rd stands out. The contrast between the play at the two sites is very enlightening - just that one rule change makes the game play completely differently, and Stars actually plays way more aggressively because (I believe) people zero in on the clueless and isolate them with raises that much faster and more effectively.

In my last blog, somebody asked me what tricks I've learned over the last couple of months. I wasn't going to talk about it much - there are some things you just don't talk about when you play with the same people regularly - but there was a thread in the 2+2 HSMTT forum that got mostly deleted which is a pretty safe thing to turn into a blog entry. (If you read that forum, it was the 'QT on a Q high flop vs. an old nit' thread - it was 45+ posts and now it's mysteriously 28. No clue why it got pruned, and it's a shame, because a lot of those posts were interesting.]

At any rate, here's the hand:

---

400-800 (100)

cutoff : hero (T70,000) Been at the table for 1 hour and established tight aggressive image

SB : (T50,000) Standard older nit, although he seemed to be opening up, may have just been a rush

BB: JC Tran (T150,000)

Folds to hero in cutoff, raises Qc10s to 2200, SB and Tran both come along for the ride.

Flop Q64 SB leads 2000, Tran instamucks

Hero???

---

Most of the better MTT pros took the 'call the flop, raise the (2x) turn when he only bets 2500' line. [Hero raised to 8K - a small raise, but one that works decently live. I'd raise to 12K but that's quibbling.] This is something that has *definitely* changed in my game since Vegas - the ability to turn top pair into a bluff. A lot of players...actually, probably almost every MTT pro...just don't ever bluff with hands that have showdown value, but when playing live - especially in big tournaments with lots of people just happy to be there - I think not doing that is a major mistake. When he bets the turn, his most likely hand is a better queen, and the fact that we actually have a queen is irrelevant; we might even be better off with 65, because if we're behind that hand has more outs (and it's very very rare that he has exactly JJ-99 etc.) So, since we don't want to call down this bet and a river bet for no apparent reason only to lose, we may as well convert our hand into a bluff; if he calls, fine, it's the WSOP, and we can always follow up with a huge river bluff (on any river - here, it came the J, and my advice was for hero to shove for just over a PSB when checked to).

Bakes and 0evg0 then said that a good hand reader would see through that, mostly because of the size of the turn raise. I know 0evg0 is under 21, and I'm pretty sure Bakes is too, so that part of their replies is influenced by them not playing live enough - it doesn't matter what you raise to, old nits will fold regardless. But the more important part of that reply is that they both, especially 0evg0, said stuff like 'you're bad if you raise to 8K with only a flush draw on the turn'. The other half of what I learned in Vegas: that's 100% not true. Internet players correctly interpret tiny bets by live nits as weakness, but we then make the mistake of thinking our opponents play the same way as ourselves, and we wind up making big raises when smaller ones would still be fine. The real reason to raise to 12K, rather than 8K, is that the follow through bluff shove on the river doesn't look so big that a nit might 'correctly misinterpret it' as a bluff (never mind that I'd value shove all my real hands there too.) But if we're raising to 8K as a means of pot control - say, if we're not sure about whether to bluff shove any river, or maybe we think we might have the best hand and it's more of a 'range merging value semibluff' - we can easily do that with a flush draw, a Q, complete air, etc. and it'll have almost the same effect (re: our fold equity on the turn) as a 12K raise. We could even do this with top set, as long as our plan is to make the river bet smaller and milk whatever hand he thinks might be good. In other words, the fact that the raise is small, should, in theory, mean very little re: our hand range, and that we can very easily have a flush draw here.

Okay, so what does all this actually mean? Basically, when playing at Turning Stone next month, I'm going to make all of my turn and river raises smaller relative to the pot (keeping in mind the pot size relative to my stack size) and see what happens. I have a hunch the results will be good.

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Took another 11th place (barf) in the 215 HORSE event I played last night. Not much success this week otherwise, but then again, I played very little due to a lot of writing I had to complete. As a consequence, I'm done with the magazine articles I talked about a while ago; they should come out this fall and I'll reprint them here. I probably like writing about poker more than playing it :)