KO'd With Pocket Kings: Why Does It Only Happen To You?

Getting knocked out of a tournament with a pocket pair of kings seems to be the particular bugaboo of many players. They hate it. And I understand why. Pocket kings are a big hand, and no one likes losing when they are heavily favored from the get-go. Whenever it happens, it’s memorable; that’s for sure. When you are eliminated from a tournament or severely crippled and would have been KO’d if only your opponent had a sufficient amount of chips to cover you, you can rest assured that it will happen with your good hands, not your weak ones. You’re just not going to get eliminated with hands like 8-3 offsuit except for those occasions when you go all-in on your blind and that was the random hand you happened to be dealt.

When you make big bets before the flop, it’s usually going to be with a significantly sized hand, and since a pocket pair of aces wins a lot more than a pocket pair of kings, it’s the KO with kings that seems most memorable. Even elimination with Big Slick doesn’t stick in your memory to the same extent, because as good as it is, A-K is still a drawing hand and an underdog to any pair at all in a heads-up confrontation. But things are different when you’re holding a pair of kings in the pocket. You’re favored against any other holding except a pair of aces, and if you have pocket kings and your opponent has A-K, you’re still favored since he is essentially drawing to only three outs — oddball straights and four-card flushes notwithstanding.

An opponent figures to hold a pocket pair of aces when you have a pocket pair of kings about once in 24 times. Since you figure to have a pair of kings about once every 220 hands, you probably won’t be involved in an aces versus kings preflop match-up more often than every 175 hours at the table. So it won’t happen often, which is why it seems so devastating when it does.

On the other hand, if you raise with a pocket pair of kings and see an ace flop, it’s an entirely different story. With an ace in his hand, your opponent figures to pair it on the flop one time in six, and that’s not all that uncommon.

Just don’t waste time or energy worrying about situations like these. You don’t get dealt big pocket pairs all that frequently, and when you do, you’re going to have to risk your money if you want to propel yourself up the tournament leader board.

Me, Lenny, and Rick (we've been friends since the third grade) with wives Deirdre, Susan, and Barbara preparing to board the helicopter in Skagway. 

Deirdre and future sled dog 

With the dog team atop the Denver Glacier outside of Skagway, Alaska 

Driving Dog Sleds in Alaska

300 dogs are barking at once and it’s bedlam. Pandemonium reigns; a cacophonous madhouse as three teams composed of 12 dogs each are in harness, hitched to dog sleds sleds, barking, and eager to go. These dogs are born to run. They’re bred for it. The remaining 270 dogs that were stretched out atop their kennels or cooling off in the snow just 15 minute ago when we arrived have joined the chorus. When they saw 36 of their ilk in harness and making ready to run they all wanted to run too, and now they’re yapping, howling, crooning, and keening, as if a full moon has risen over a den of werewolves.

But it’s not night. It’s day. In fact there’s very little night in mid June in Alaska, and three couples: Barbara and Rick, Lenny and Susan, and Deirdre and I are standing on top of a glacier somewhere east of Skagway and much higher up in elevation. We’ve flown in via helicopter and are getting ready to drive some dog sleds.

I’m as eager to go as the dogs. Contrary to what you see in old movies, these dogs are not all Alaskan huskies; they are mixed breeds -- mutts for the most part -- but they are bred to run and trained for the task. The lead dog on our sled has run the Iditarod three times, won it once, and at 12 years of ages this will be her last year as a working dog; she’s set to retire at the end of the season and chill out as a pet for Matt and his wife who own this dog camp. Matt’s wife just had a baby and so Matt is here on his own, living on the glacier all summer long, together with a group of mushers, college students who help out, and a cook. They live in tents right on the ice, shuttle down to Skagway via helicopter once a week for a proper shower and a chance to do laundry and then it’s back to the dog camp to give tourists like us the experience of a lifetime: driving a dogsled team and careening in and out of mountain passes, and flying up and over alpine lakes and glaciers via helicopter on the day that our ship made port in Skagway.

All of the mushers working here in the summer season are full-time dog breeders who raise sled dogs for a living. To sign on, they must bring a minimum of 30 dogs with them. Everything is ported up over the mountains to the top of this glacier via copter: the big cook tent that serves as a mess hall and social gathering spot for employees, smaller sleeping tents, loads of plywood used to construct some 300 dog kennels, fencing materials, sleds, portable toilets, food, two Hummer-sized track vehicles used for towing things across the ice, all the dogs, and everything else you can imagine.

After an orientation we’re ready to go. Ever since Lenny convinced me that this was a once in a lifetime experience and we really had to take this dog sled trip even if it was a little pricey, I’ve been ready to scream out that line I’ve heard in a hundred old movies and TV shows about the Yukon. “Mush, you huskies,” I shout at the top of my lungs, and we’re off. Two sleds in tandem, pulled by a dozen dogs who are trained to run up to 100 miles in a day but only do 10 miles a day in the summer off-season just to keep in shape and maintain their conditioning. Deirdre is sitting in the front sled, the musher stands behind her, and I’m riding the runners of the rear sled. It’s my job to stay vertical and to apply the breaks upon command of the musher who, after all, is the only one who really knows what he’s doing.

We drive across the snow-capped glacier until the dog camp is a small object far behind us. Lenny and Susan and Rick and Barbara are mushing along in other sleds. The mushers try to keep the sleds apart because the dogs are so competitive that they do not like it at all if another sled passes theirs on the trail. After the dogs stop for a short break ¾ the dogs tire easily in the heat, and that anything above 10 degrees Fahrenheit is considered hot by sled dog standards ¾ Deirdre and I switch positions and she drives while I sit in the sled towed along by the dog team. A short time later Deirdre slips on an icy runner and is pitched off the rear of the sled into the soft snow. But only her pride is wounded as we switch positions again and Deirdre opts for the relative comfort of the lead sled’s seat for the remainder of the journey.

After returning to camp we’re given a tour of the facilities. There are a number of dogs with litters of puppies and Deirdre falls in love with one of them. I’m sure she would have tried to negotiate for the dog if only there was some way to smuggle that pooch back on the Sapphire Princess.

This really was an incredible adventure, one I’d recommend to anyone who takes an Alaska cruise. It was an experience so amazing that each moment continues to play itself back in my head like a tape on an endless loop, and it’s been doing that for days.

Cruising in Alaska

There’s no poker content in this post, but I’m having the time of my life on a cruise to Alaska. We’re onboard the Sapphire Princess, having left Seattle this past Sunday. Yesterday we visited Ketchikan and this morning we cruised the Sawyer Glacier in Tracy Arm Fjord. In a few hours we’ll be docking in Juneau.

This is my fourth or fifth Alaska cruise and I never tire of going up here and seeing the sights. This time there are 10 couples comprising a group of friends that go way back. With the exception of one friend-of-a-friend, I know all of the guys from as far back as elementary school. My oldest friends in this group I’ve known since the third grade, and the newest of the group are guys I met my first year in college, and although we’ve kept in touch with each other through the years, we’ve never all gotten together like this as a group.

What spurred this on was a much smaller get-together two years ago, when four of us met in Florida for a week (most of my friends migrated from New York to Florida; while I made my way out west and eventually found myself in Palm Springs), where we did things we hadn’t done for years, like play stickball in the street with spaldeens that my friend Rick found somewhere on the Internet, and generally behaved like we were still 16 years old.

We had so much fun that we knew we had to blow this up bigger and better so we expanded the group, decided to go to Alaska, and this is where I am now.

I know this post might bore many of you to tears because there’s no poker content in it, but I love every moment of it. In fact, if it were any more fun it probably wouldn’t be legal. I’ll get back to playing poker and writing about it next week. This is just a week off from reality and responsibility and it’s just something everyone ought to do every once in a while.

A Paean to Bloggers

The World Series of Poker has grown so big there’s no way for one person to cover it all. Often three events take place simultaneously: Day one of the latest event, Day two of the preceding day’s tournament and the final table of a three-day event are played like a three-ring circus, and you have to crane your neck all over to see what’s going on, and where.

So how does the casual observer tune into all the detail and ambiance of each event, as well as pick up every tidbit of gossip and rumor that swirls around whenever you get a lot of poker players competing for a lot of money all in one place? You go to the people who are closest to the action: the bloggers.

But you can’t just read one blog; you need to read most or all of them, because taken together they provide an incredible view of the World Series that neither the magazines nor broadcast media, nor any lone blogger can provide. But the bloggers’ collective effort gives you a rich tapestry of this event. And they’re all over the Series, providing an incredibly detailed, sometimes intense, usually irreverent, gossipy, opinionated, immediate, and compelling look at something that’s equally a poker tournament, a cultural phenomenon, a TV production in progress, and a six-week party.

The bloggers are mostly people you haven’t heard of, and if you have, it’s probably only a passing awareness. But they are there, frequently working 24 and 48 hours at a clip with no sleep, living on junk food and sugared energy drinks, while bringing you events in as near to real time as they can. Only the time required to type their reports separates what you read from when you read it.

Many of the bloggers, such as Amy Calistri and Mike Paulle, are covering the tournament for Poker Pages. Others, such as Pauly McGrupp is writing for his own blogs, which include The Tao of Poker (http://taopoker.blogspot.com/), and the Tao of Pauly, as well as online web sites such as www.lasvegasvegas.com.

Pauly is a terrific writer and seems to have transcended the need for sleep since he provides coverage for just about everything transpiring at any and every hour of the day and night. Mike Paulle brings you up-to-the-minute listings of player standings, and Amy Calistri knows everything about everybody and tells us all about it.

The bloggers are journalism’s poor relations much of the time. That they are overworked and underpaid goes without saying. That they do what they do more for the love of it than the money they are paid goes without saying. But if you want your view of the World Series that’s as immediate, as unscripted, as frequently politically incorrect as you can have it, then read these poker blogs each and every day.

Taken together you have an incredibly comprehensive view — sometimes it’s a bird’s eye overview, other times it’s a worm’s eye of more intimate details than you probably want to know; where the blogger’s subjective perspective on things is as significant as the event he or she is covering (the late Hunter S. Thompson would be proud) — of what’s going on each and every day at the Rio.

The blogger’s have my admiration, each and everyone. They’re working their tails off and I’m sitting here hoping that if you bother to read this far, you’ll take the time to seek out their blogs and read them. I think you’ll be glad you did.

What Do You Do When You Flop Second Pair?

Is second pair worth a call? While flopping top pair is pretty easy to play in most hold’em games, playing second pair can be dicey. Suppose you’ve had a free play in the blind with A-9, and the flop is Q-9-3. Now what?

If someone bets, he’s probably got a queen or else he’s bluffing. Sometimes he’ll have a pair of tens or jacks too, but as far as you’re concerned the situation is exactly the same: He’s got a bigger pair than you do and you’ll have to run him down to win the pot.

In a fixed limit game bets are still small on the flop, and as long as the pot contains about three big bets — $50 or $60 in a $10-$20 game, for example — you can usually see the turn card as long as the cost is only one bet.

Here’s how to figure it. You’ll probably need to catch a third nine or hit your kicker to win the pot, so we’ll operate on that assumption. You have five outs to make two pair or trips, so you’re almost an 8.5-to-1 dog to catch the card you need. If you figure the implied odds will provide a payoff in excess of 8.5-to-1, it pays to stick around for the turn.

But remember, if the cost is any more than one bet, toss your hand away. It’s going to be too expensive to play. If your hand improves, you can bet, or even raise. But if you miss and someone bets, save your money and throw your hand away.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Well it is … almost, but this is poker and there are always a few caveats:
1. If you’re heads-up, the pot probably won’t contain the fifty or sixty dollars necessary to make your draw worthwhile, and that’s the bad news. But there’s good news too. When you’re heads-up you shouldn’t assume your opponent has top pair just because he comes out betting. The fewer the number of players in a pot, the more likely it is that someone is either bluffing or semi-bluffing with an overcard or two. And when there are only two of you, second pair stands a pretty good chance of being the best hand right now instead of a hand that needs improvement.
2. Be leery of sequenced boards, especially if hitting your second pair would also put four sequenced cards on the board, or four cards with just one gap. Either one portends a straight.
3. Be careful if you have a pair in your hand that’s bigger than second pair but smaller than top pair. Sure, you’ll beat second pair with that hand, but your prospects for improvement are pretty futile. With a pair in your hand you only have two cards to draw at. But with second pair, you’ve got five outs.
4. In shorthanded games, particularly online games with five players or fewer, second pair is often the equivalent of top pair in a full game, so you can come right out and bet it for value. Most of your online opponents will bluff a disproportionably high portion of the time, and an overcard on the board — especially if that overcard is NOT an ace — does not necessarily mean your opponent has top pair.
5. Aces are a special category because in shorthanded games most everyone plays ace-anything, and when an ace flops and there’s any appreciable action, you have to use some sound judgment to decide whether your opponent has the goods or is bluffing.

One Bad Movie and One Great Book About Stuey Ungar

Last night High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story, a movie that was never released to theaters, was shown on TV. Much as I love poker, and as compelling a character as Stu Ungar was, I found the film unwatchable. The story line was choppy and casting both Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa in the same movie made it tough to realize I was watching this particular film and not a rerun of The Sopranos.

As diligently as I tried, I finally gave up and watched The Outlaw Josey Wales, a 1976 western that’s one of Clint Eastwood’s earliest directorial efforts, and a film that’s a lot more enjoyable even the fourth or fifth time around than High Roller.

But a much, much better take on Ungar’s life is One of a Kind: The Rise and Fall of Stuey “The Kid” Ungar, the World’s Greatest Poker Player, by Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson. I was able to read an advanced uncorrected proof, courtesy of Nolan Dalla and I did so with much trepidation.

Nolan is as close a friend as I have in the poker community, and he’s been working on this book since 1998. Over the years, I used to ask Nolan when the hell he was going to finish the book. And I wasn’t the only one, either. Everyone who knew Nolan would begin conversations with that very question. He was always adding to it. Finally, it was nearly done, but far too long and the publisher suggested that he take on Peter Alson as a co-author. Alson, you might recall, wrote the wonderful Confessions of an Ivy League Bookie a few years ago. Together Alson and Dalla were able to edit it down to 300 pages.

Before I opened the book, I was afraid that Nolan, who labored so long on it, would have missed the mark completely and seven years of effort would have been down the drain. Now admittedly this was a completely irrational fear on my part because Nolan shared chapters and snippets of the book with me over the years and I enjoyed everything I read. Still, he’s a very close friend, and I wanted to see him succeed.

And succeed he did. This book is masterful, and ranks right up there among the best of the books that have been written about poker. It’s right up there with A. Alvarez’s The Biggest Game In Town, which is the standard against which all books about the poker lifestyle must be judged.

But Stuey Ungar wasn’t just about poker. If he was arguably the best no-limit tournament hold’em player anyone ever knew, there’s no argument at all regarding his prowess at gin rummy. He is considered the best gin player who ever lived, and I haven’t heard anyone — even other gin mavens — argue that point.

One of a Kind is also a story of choices, lifestyles, love, compulsions, family, and drugs. Ungar was about all of this and more. He was always protected by mobbed up guys. He could be kind and loving and incredibly considerate one moment and a wise-ass street punk who was unbelievably self-centered the next. He had all the characteristics of an idiot savant: a tormented genius who made all the right choices at the card table but couldn’t get out of his own self-destructive way when it came to making decisions about other aspects of his life.

It’s a compelling story, a great read, and Ungar comes across as simultaneously much sadder and much more sympathetic a person that I expected. If you take mya dvice, you'll skip the move and buy the book.

One of a Kind is published by Atria Books, a division of Simon & Shuster, and should be out this summer. Dalla and Alson did a terrific job and my hat’s off to both of them. But to Nolan, who is, after all, a close personal friend and someone I watched go through the highs and lows of what turned out to be a seven-year project (and much longer than even he might have expected when he first took it on), kudos on getting it done well and done right.

Lou Krieger 

The Growing Popularity of Shorthanded Poker

It seems to me that online poker may be changing the game in some very fundamental ways, ways that no one ever gave much thought to way back when online poker was in its inception. Back then I imagine most players thought that Internet poker would merely replicate the game we play in land-based casinos, but that just wasn’t to be.

Online poker is probably as responsible as television for a revitalization of no-limit hold’em, a phenomenon that’s been widely documented by poker columnists, bloggers, players, casino execs, and TV commentators alike. Another outgrowth of online poker’s influence on the game, but one that hasn’t attracted as much attention, is the growing popularity of short handed games.

Six handed games were never very popular in casinos, and many of those who play exclusively in land-based casinos don’t like the idea of short handed games, which is one of the reasons casinos have traditionally hired proposition players. Props keep short handed games from breaking, and keep the customers sitting in full or nearly full games that may otherwise have died if management wasn’t able to run a few players into games that are on the verge of dissipating in the wee small hours, or using them to prop up games that are just getting started early in the day.

But online players are an entirely different breed of cat. Many, if not most, prefer playing six-handed games, and playing two or three games — or even more — at once.

A quick check of Poker Stars at 10:00 AM California time today showed two full $3-$6 games and six that were six-handed. The same thing was true in the $5-$10 games: Two were full tables; six were short-handed. When I checked the $10-$20 games, all three were six-handed.

Thinking it might be unique to Poker Stars, I made a quick tour of Royal Vegas Poker and found this:

$50-$100 One short-handed table, no full games.
$20-$40 One full game; three short-handed games.
$15-$30 Three short-handed tables.
$10-$20 One full table; three short handed.
$5-$10 Three full games, three short-handed.

In tallying up the games, I counted table size, not the number of players at the table. So if a 10-handed table had only five players, I counted it as a full table. Short handed tables were those that accommodated six players or fewer. And while it was morning here in California, it was evening in Europe, which is where Royal Vegas Poker draws many of its players from. So these stats are not the result at taking a look at things only during some odd hour; it was prime time for many of these players and the vast majority of them seem to prefer playing six handed games instead of full games with nine or ten players.

Maybe it’s no surprise that the World Series of Poker introduced a six-handed, no-limit game this year. The organizers clearly had their finger on poker’s pulse when they decided to offer at least one tournament event that looked for all the world like an online event, except for the fact that players were sitting across a physical table from each other instead of a virtual one, and they could only play in one game instead of a multitude of them. But who knows. Maybe future WSOP’s will allow players to sit in one event with a laptop by their side, so they can play in two or three events simultaneously. If nothing else, it’ll make the online crowd feel right at home.

At World Series of Poker 

Quonset Hut Dreams

Last night I had the Quonset hut dream again. It’s a version of a dream I’ve had quite often, especially when I’m in Las Vegas. You remember Quonset huts. They’re prefabricated buildings made of corrugated metal, shaped like the longitudinal half of a cylinder resting on its flat surface. These semicircular, arched-roof buildings, typically insulated with wood fiber if they were insulated at all, were popular during World War II, but have been replaced these days by the sort of tent-like structures you see used on military bases, for school classrooms, and for any other purpose requiring a semi-permanent building.

But in my dream, it’s no ordinary Quonset hut I’m in. Instead of seeing the underside of a corrugated steel roof, this hut is handsomely finished with teak strips running longitudinally along the underside of the building’s roof. The interior is decorated like a British club, with leather chairs, dark paneling on the walls, and a plush carpet. Floor lamps and pot lights in the ceiling wash down on walls full of traditional artwork is subdued, and create an ambiance of quiet dignity.

It’s a very long hut, at least five times longer than other Quonset huts, and there’s a door at either end, as well as door right in the middle of the room. I come in the middle door, wondering what I’m doing there. Then I see the doors at either end. One door is labeled “living;” the other is marked “dead.”

It’s clear to me now that I’m in some kind of purgatory and I can’t tell whether any of the other people in the room are alive or dead. The room is full of people, but none of them are speaking, none are moving, all of them are sitting as still as they would be in a photograph. Then I notice guys in jump suits with employee identification badges around their necks walking around the room with asparagus knives; the kind of knives field workers use to cut asparagus. They are very long, as flexible as whips, and razor sharp.

The knife wielders go from person to person. Some they examine and ignore, but others are turned over on their side. The knife wielders then take their asparagus knife, insert it through the bottom of the foot, and with the flick of a wrist they deftly hollow out their victim. It doesn’t hurt. There’s no sound, no blood, and apparently no pain. When it’s over the knife man moves on to another person. Every now and then someone gets up and walks up to the door marked “dead” then exits through it. Other people occasionally get up and leave through the door marked “living.”

It’s now evident that they’ll eventually be coming for me too, and I don’t want to leave it to chance or to their whim as to whether I’ll be allowed to leave with the living or be hollowed out and consigned to the door of the dead.

While I wonder what to do, I’m suddenly seized with the clarity of the answer about why there is neither blood nor pain when people are hollowed out. It’s not their body that’s being hollowed out; it’s merely the appearance of their body. It’s really their soul.

Why me? Why now? Is Las Vegas ripping my soul out from under me? Can a city do that to you; even one I love visiting? (Though I don’t think I’d be happy living here on a permanent basis.)

Will Las Vegas steal your soul? Can it hollow you out? Or does poker do that? Perhaps it’s the poker lifestyle that separates man from soul? I’m not sure. Although Quonset huts play a part in many of my recurring dreams, I’ve never quite figured out their symbolism. But it’s clear as a bell that I’m fighting against being separated from my soul, and just maybe it’s too much poker or too much of Las Vegas’ surrealscape that does it to me.

I don’t know. But I do know the dream. I’ve had it time and again.

Dismal Omaha/8 Showing, Hot Rumors, Breakfast with the Boys

Dismal Showing in the Omaha/8 Event
Although I’ve won steadily in the cash games here at the World Series of Poker, my results were dismal in the $1,500 buy-in Omaha/8 tournament, which is the one event I played. I made it halfway through the field, but my hopes died on the vine with a hand that figured to be the winner up until the last card, when the fates had something entirely different in store.

I began with Ah-2h-Qc-Ts in the big blind and flopped Jd-9d-8c. Although I had no diamonds in my hand I had a queen-high straight, which was the best possible high hand at that point. The next card was the four of spades, which could not have given any of my opponents a better high hand, and with two low cards on the board, if the fifth and final card was an eight or lower, but wasn’t an ace or a deuce, I would have the best low hand too.

I was hoping to dodge a diamond because a third diamond would mean that anyone with two diamonds in his or her hand would make a flush and beat my straight, and I was also hoping that any low card did not duplicate my ace or deuce.

But the last card dealt was the ace of diamonds, the worst-case scenario from my perspective. I checked. A player to my left bet and was raised by another of my opponents. I knew when the ace of diamonds fell that I could only win was if everyone else checked, indicating that no one had a draw to a diamond flush or a draw to a low hand. But when confronted with a bet and a raise, I tossed my hand ¾ a hand that had been the best possible hand up to that point ¾ and tossed it right where it belonged, in the muck.

That hand took most of my chips. I managed to survive with very few chips for the next two hours, but was unable to build my stack back up to the point where I had a fighting chance. The ultimate hand was uneventful. I bet my bottom dollar, was called, and I lost. But that’s how poker goes; sometime you win and sometimes you don’t.

Six-Handed, No-limit Hold'em: A New WSOP Event
Yesterday was a new event, a $2,500 buy-in, six-handed no-limit hold'em tournament, which seems to be modeled after the popularity of six-handed play online. I didn't play because I had a lot of writing to do but the event played quite rapidly. Just like online, when the game is short-handed and the blinds come around that quickly, one has to gamble with hands in order to avoid bleeding to death at the table. I expect this game will be a big hit in subsequent years too.

Today's Hot Rumor
The hot rumor of the day is that 2005 will be the first and only year that the WSOP will be held at the Rio. With harrah's all set to acquire Ceasar's Palace, the word circulating around here is that nextg year's event will be held there, right on the strip, in an equally large convention center. Whether this rumor has any veracity, or will pan out by this time next year, no one seems to know. The deal for Ceasar's is not yet done, so all sorts of things can happen. But for right now the talk on the street is for the 2006 WSOP to finally make its way to the Strip.

If anyone has any more information than I do, shoot me an email.

Breakfast With the Boys
Today I had breakfast with some of the best poker minds in the game. Bob Ciaffone, Jim Brier, Barry Tanenbaum, Al Schoonmaker and Bob Morgan, a friend of Bob’s, met for breakfast at the Carson Street Café in the Golden Nugget and talked about poker for two hours. Once again, I came away feeling very fortunate to know these guys, to be able to pick their brains, and share insights into the game with them. This is something that’s incredibly valuable to me, and when there’s an event like the WSOP that brings a lot of these folks into town, the opportunity to talk about poker is something I never want to miss.

Two hours with this group is like reading four or five new books. New ideas, revisions to old ones, new emphases, strategies for games that are new, or changing, or different, such as the short (six-handed) table play that you find on the internet, or heads-up play, the new baby no-limit game craze ¾ we talked of all of this and more and I loved it. To paraphrase that popular advertisement: Breakfast, $6.95; poker insights, priceless!

Homeward Bound
I’m set to drive back home tomorrow, but I’ll be back here in July for the final event. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

2005 College Poker Championship

Chad Flood, 20, a junior from the University of Minnesota -Twin Cities, is the 2nd Annual College Poker Championship(tm) Winner (www.collegepokerchampionship.com). Flood outplayed 25,000 students from 55 countries -- more than ten times the number of participants in the 2004 World Series of Poker -- for the title and a $41,000 academic scholarship. A $1,000 donation to the American Diabetes Association will also be made in his name.

Flood, an economics major with a 3.0 GPA, placed in the top 100 in the 2004 College Poker Championship (CPC). He returned in 2005 with the goal of placing in the top ten, but with an additional year of poker preparation and conditioning, Flood has now established himself as the World's Best College Poker Player. He is determined to defend his title in 2006. "I will definitely play in the College Poker Championship again next year," said Flood. "The CPC is a lot of fun and as I've found, an excellent way for students to earn scholarships in non-traditional sporting events."

The top finishers played extremely well. They were able to quickly determine their positions and make sound decisions based on a solid understanding of the game.

Top-Ten College Poker Championship finishers (Rank, Name, School, Charity Donation)
1. Chad Flood, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, American Diabetes Association
2. Patrick Coughlin, Purdue University, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International
3. Jordan Slabaugh, Ohio State University - Columbus, The First Tee
4. Andrew Van Gilder, California State University - Northridge, Accounting Association, California State Northridge
5. Hunter Frey, Texas State University - San Marcos, St. Jude Hospital
6. Will Culpepper, Texas State University - San Marcos, American Heart Association
7. Bryan Steuer, University of Delaware, Tsunami Relief Organization
8. David Bell, Lane Community College, Boy Scouts of America
9. Gary Chan, Polytechnic University - New York, American Red Cross
10. Justin Lowery, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Humane Society

Campus Rivalry Challenge
Throughout the competition, students also accrued points for their schools in the campus rivalry challenge. Pennsylvania State University topped the charts, gaining recognition as the world's most competitive poker campus and earning the title of 2005 College Poker Champion. The top-ten schools:
1. Pennsylvania State University
2. University of Florida
3. Florida State University
4. University of Wisconsin
5. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
6. Purdue University
7. University of Illinois - Urbana
8. University of Texas
9. University of Central Florida
10. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

With the explosion of online poker and the success of 2004’s initial Annual College Poker ChampionshipTM it seemed natural to hold a another tournament where poker-playing students from all colleges could come together and test their skills against each other, while competing for scholarships. The tournament began in September and recently culminated in an online final that featured an incredible reversal of fortune and some dramatic hands before Chad Flood was crowned College Poker Champion 2004.

How Chad Flood Won It
To set the stage for the final confrontations, at the final table, pcoughli (Patrick Coughlin) took out Deathpooky. IlPrincipe then took out Meteor and Chipacabra (David Bell). Pcoughli then knocked out Stubbots, IlPrincipe, hemipowerswt, ajv174 and SlayerOSU (Jordan Slaybaugh).

This set the stage for Chad Flood’s incredible comeback victory over Patrick Coughlin.
Heads-up play lasted 18 hands, and when it began pcoughli (Patrick Coughlin) had 81.4% of the chips (557,560.48) with Fluddy (Chad Flood) holding 18.6% of the chips (103,939.52) Fluddy doubled up early with a pair of Queens.

The final crack in pcouchli's armor came when pcoughli slow played a pair of aces and smooth called on Fluddy’s big blind. Fluddy, who held 8d-2d, would probably not have called even the most modest of raises from Patrick. The flop was a miraculous 2h-8h-8s, giving Fluddy an almost against-all-odds full house!
Coughlin bet 12,000 and Fluddy smooth called. In an amazing reversal of fortune, the hunter became the hunted. On the turn pcouchli bet 36,000 when the 6d fell, and Fluddy smoothcalled again.

The board probably looked safe enough to Patrick Coughlin; on the turn it was 2h-8h-8s-6d, although Flood did find enough of a hand to call Coughlin’s bet on the flop. So he must have had something, possibly a flush draw, but pcoughli could not possibly think that there was a monster under the bed!

The river card was 4d, which eliminated any possibility of a flush — which in Patrick’s estimation had to be his best guess as to why Flood’s had called his bet on the flop and turn. Now pcouchli bet 48,000, and without hesitation Chad Flood went all-in for 201,879. When Patrick called, he was eaten alive and was left with 137,742.
The final nail in Patrick Coughlin’s coffin was hammered in on this hand.

With the blinds at $6,000-$12,000, Fluddy was dealt Kd-6s and pcouchli 8c-6d.Flood raised the pot to 36,000 before the flop, and Patrick Coughlin called. The flop wasKs-Kc-3c, and Pcoughli chose the wrong time to bluff when he made an all-in bet of 101,742.

Chad Flood called instantly. The rest was anticlimactic, as 8d on the turn and a Td on the river brought Flood the 2nd Annual College Poker Championship, and title of the Best College Poker Player in the World.

He also won a $41,000 scholarship award, and a $10,000 contribution to a charity of his choosing.

It was an amazing event. Patrick Coughlin, who did most of the work in KOing six of the final table competitors, ran smack into buzzard’s luck when Flood flopped a full house with 8-2 against his picket pair of aces, and flopped trip kings on the final hand when Coughlin picked the wrong time to run a bluff.

College Poker Championship 2006 Summer Freerolls
The College Poker Championship is open to college students worldwide, and no purchase is ever required to play. CPC 2006 officially launches in September 2005, and promises to be bigger and better than the first and second Annual College Poker ChampionshipTM events, and players who register now for CPC 2006 are eligible to participate in the CPC 2006, Early Bird Freerolls.

CPC is a free online tournament available to all registered college and university students worldwide. The tournament provides an exciting and safe atmosphere for students to compete, win scholarships and learn practical life lessons from playing Texas Hold'em poker, the hottest game in the world. The 3rd annual College Poker Championship will officially launch in September 2005 with more students, contests, and scholarship giveaways than ever before.

Early-bird registration and weekly practice games are available now at www.collegepokerchampionship.com. Details about the full tournament structure, prize pool, dates and times will be announced shortly.

For the past two years I’ve volunteered my time as host for the College Poker Championship, a charitable poker tournament designed to find the best Texas hold’em, no-limit college poker player in the world and to support students' educational endeavors with huge cash scholarships and make charitable contributions in their names. I intend to be there in year three too.

At the World Series of Poker

This is the first in a series of periodic reports from the World Series of Poker. I’m here from June 6 through June 9, and then I’ll be back for the main event, the $10,000 buy-in, no-limit hold’em tournament. That one is poker’s big Kahuna, with 6,600 anticipated entrants and a prize pool of $66 million.

I arrived anticipating long lines. More than a few posts on the Internet Newsgroup, Rec.Gambling.Poker mentioned five-hour lines to register for the series. And that was just the first step. Registration is a two-step process, at least initially. First you need to stand in line to get a player’s card, which is then shown each time you register for a specific World Series event.

With the three-hour and forty-five minute drive from Palm Springs to Las Vegas, and the long lines I was anticipating, I planned on leaving home about 6:00 AM, arriving at the Rio at 10:00 to first get my player’s card and then sign up for the tournament that was scheduled to start at noon. It wasn’t until I arrived that I realized the day’s event was a limit hold’em tournament. With 1,000 or so expected to play, I knew it would go way longer than my stamina would carry me because I was already tired from getting up at such an ungodly hour. So I opted for cash games and set my sights on playing tomorrow, in the Omaha/8 event, when presumably I’d be fresher from a good night’s sleep.

Sunday is a great day to drive to Las Vegas and the road was clear all the way. I drove straight to the Rio’s convention center and looked for the registration line. Those five-hour long waits were long gone. I realize registration is always longest on the Series’ first day, because that event is immensely popular, and besides, once you get your registration card it’s good for the entire series. Once in hand, you only have to go to the poker cage to pay the entry fee for any of the events you intend to enter, and you can do this twenty four hours a day, seven days a week.

Only twenty people were in line when I arrived, and with three attendants to process them, it wasn’t any worse than a line to buy movie tickets, and I was through in a jiffy. Comparing the facilities at Binion’s to those at the Rio was a night-and-day analogy. The Rio’s convention center is very big, and the Series was set up in the biggest of the center’s rooms. Two hundred poker tables easily housed the thousand or so players in today’s event, as well as players from the previous day’s tournament (most are two-day affairs, with new tournaments beginning at noon, and second-day carryovers commencing at 2:00 PM). Even with two tournaments running simultaneously, there was room for satellites and for cash games too.

A $20-$40 hold’em came was starting up when I walked into the card room and I was able to get a seat in it. I figured the game would go for about two hours, at least until the tournament began. I was lucky from the get-go when I flopped two pair with A-9 from the big blind and then flopped two pair with A-J a few hands later. Both held up and I won. I was ahead from the first or second hand I played and never fell behind the entire session.

Some interesting hands came up in what I expected to be a game of relatively short duration, although we continued short-handed even after the limit hold’em tournament began. I received a free play in the big blind with 7-4 offsuit. The flop was 8-6-2, giving me an inside straight draw and two opponents. One of them showed no energy whatsoever, and didn’t appear to be the kind of player who would like that flop. The other player was quite erratic, raising far too frequently, and then throwing his hands away when the flop didn’t help him. He kept buying in for $300 at a clip, which is far too little for this game, but he apparently liked to play that way and no one else seemed to mind. I checked. So did the straightforward player. The erratic guy came out betting and I figured he had nothing at all and was only betting because both of us checked before it was his turn to act. It was a pretty easy read. This guy was very animated when he bet his bluffs, but sat stone-faced and quiet -- which was unusual demeanor for him -- whenever he held a good hand. I flopped a gutshot and knew I could checkraise him easily if I hit it. I also planned to bet out on the turn if it wasn’t a card that figured to help him and he might fold. So I called his bet. The turn was a nine. I bet. He folded. My read was good!

Another interesting hand involved a clueless player to my right (CPMR) and a guy who called too much (GWCTM) seated to his immediate right. Once again I received a free play in the big blind with Jh-7h and was lucky enough to see a Kh-Qh-7c flop. I had a flush draw along with a pair, and although I did not figure to be in the lead now, I liked my draw and knew that if I got lucky I could count on calls from the CPMR and GWCTM. The turn was another seven. I check. GWCTM bets, CPMR calls and I raise. They both call. The river is even better for me; it’s a jack. I come out betting my full house. GWCTM folds but CPMR calls and mucks when I show down my hand.

Another big pot occurred when I raised before the flop with A-Q, got a few callers and saw A-Q-6 flop. I bet and was called by a good player to my immediate left who had a few bad beats and was stuck a few stacks. Two more players daisy chained in, and the turn was a blank. I bet, the player to my left called, and so did another player. The river was another blank. I bet and the player to my immediate left raised, which caused the third player to fold. I though he made two pair on the river and reraised. Because I raised before the flop, he probably figured that I had a set of aces or queens and just called, but turned over a pocket pair of sixes and his set took a nice chunk of change from me.

Two hand later I’m in the small blind and call with a pocket pair of jacks. There are five of us in the hand, including the big blind, who then raises. Everyone calls. I’m thinking that although I may have the best hand right now, I will be out of position for the remainder of this pot. Even if I do have the best hand now, it’s about even money that at least one card bigger than my jacks will flop. If it does, I figure to lose my lead at that point. I might even be behind right now, if the raiser held pocket queens, kings, or aces he’d be a big favorite in this pot. If that were the case I’d be drawing slim.

I was very fortunate and flopped top set with a flop of J-7-4. There was no flush draw either, only a back door straight draw that looks unlikely at this juncture. I have the best hand and check, knowing that the guy to my left will bet. He doesn’t disappoint me and everyone calls him.

I decide to raise right now. I realize I could have waited until the cost of poker doubled on the turn, but I have the best hand and I want to tie as many players to this pot as I possibly can and since they are in for one bet already, I know they’ll call my raise, and they do.

The turn card is not to my liking at all. It’s a five, so a straight is now a possibility, though unlikely. What is probable, however, is that one of my opponents turned a straight draw, so now I have to worry about surviving the river. Everyone checks around to me and I bet. The original raiser who is seated to my immediate left calls me. To my relief, everyone else folds and I have no more worries about a straight. I’m sure the original raise has either big cards like A-K or A-Q or an overpair and did not raise from the big blind with any combination that could have made a straight on the turn or provided a draw to one. He called my bet on the river and mucked when I showed him my set of jacks. From the expression on his face, I’m sure he started off with a bigger pair than I did and was unwilling to release it, even when I showed strength by checkraising and then betting the entire way. I’m guessing he had kings or aces, though I’ll never know.

The only frustration of the day occurred when I was dealt a pocket pair of aces, the only pocket pair bigger than jacks I was dealt all day, but the cards came back on a misdeal. When the cards came back again, I found myself peeking at 4-2, poetic justice for something, I suppose. Oh well, perhaps I’m paying off my karmic debt hand by hand, but at least this one didn’t cost me anything. In fact, I came away nearly $700 ahead, and that’s not bad considering I probably would have fallen asleep at the table and bled off all my chips if I decided to play that limit hold’em event.

Tomorrow’s another day, and another report will follow. Stay tuned, and keep flopping aces.

More on the World Series of Poker

I decided that while I'm in Las Vegas next week playing in some WSOP events, I'll take some time to play a satellite or two for the main event, but if I don't win my way in, I'm going to skip it. I'm going to be cautious and not risk $10,000 from my own pocket for this event. However, RGP regular Bill Chen is doing just the opposite. He posted a few days ago that he plans to attend the WSOP for the next six weeks and enter as many events as he can with the $100,000 he's allotted for the trip.

That's a big investment on Bill's part -- bigger than I'm willing to make -- and it's a big risk too, but a big reward if he plays well and gets lucky at the right time.

While the possibility of risking $100,000 and no payoff at the end is not my idea of a pretty picture, neither would I relish living in a hotel and eating buffet food for six weeks straight. Amy Calistri, who's covering the WSOP for Poker Pages and partially for Bluff Magazine will be there for the entire six weeks too, but unlike Bill, she will be staying in a house so it's more in keeping with most people's regular routines.

When I was in Vegas for a month earlier this year filming "Vegas Virgins," they handed out gobs of Orleans buffet coupons to everyone associated with the production. Within a week, everyone on the show was lobbying as hard as they could for meal tickets to any other Orleans restaurant. It's not that the Orleans buffet was bad; actually it's pretty good as buffets go. It's just that the idea of eating every meal a the buffet is a bit much. Even though I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to food, I was looking to eat anywhere but the buffet too at the end of the first week.

Who knows, maybe Bill will visit the beef jerky store on the mall down near the Lady Luck and the Horseshoe, or take some fruit up to his room for some variety, but I wish him well in the events, and I hope he survives buffet living for the next six weeks.

More to come, and more reports from the World Series of Poker next week. If you see me around twon, please say hello.

Going to the WSOP

I made my reservations yesterday and will be leaving for the World Series of Poker Sunday June 5. I'm going to be staying through June 8, with plans to return at the end of the month or the beginning of July for the main event. Right now my plans are to play in the limit hold'em event on Sunday June 5, the Omaha/8 event on Monday, and depending on a gazillion other things, I may play in the Short-handed (6/table) no-limit hold'em event on Tuesday or I may skip it and take care of other business. On Wednesday I've got other things to do that include visiting with the editors of Nevada Sunday, dropping in at Gambler's Book Store, and visiting with any of the folks from Royal Vegas Poker and from Bluff Magazine who might be around.

I went round and round about where to stay, and finally opted to stay at the Horseshoe. Even though the WSOP has moved to the Rio, I like being downtown where I can walk from one casino to another. I'll have my car with me so getting back and forth to the Rio won't be a problem at all. And besides, I'm used to the Horseshoe. I've stayed there so many times it's almost like a second home. But it will be interesting to see if it still feels the same way now, one year and a few months after the new management took over. Somehow, I don't think it will, but I'm approaching it with an open mind.

If you see me around, please say "Hello." And if you're playing in any of the events, good luck to you all.....