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Changing Your Behaviour When Re-Stealing

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 01:07:04 +0100

After reading Marcus Bateman's excellent piece about when you should be re-stealing, I thought I'd look at the situations where you should be looking to change your own behavior depending on the stack sizes around you.

Some tournament players are just not capable of thinking about making re-steals with marginal hands. These players if they do make these sorts of shoves on you will nearly always have a very strong hand.

Conversely, there are players who seem to make these sort of plays with reckless abandonment - happily re-shoving into even very tight players who are only opening a hand every two or three orbits.

Finally you have players who make these sort of plays in a balanced and considered manner, happily re-raising quite light against loose openers, yet forgetting these plays against the rocks of the table.

Working out which group of players is to your left is critical late on in tournaments when considering what hands you should be opening. If you seem to have a lot of players on your left who are happy to re-raise incredibly light, you should drastically tighten your opening range.

Conversely, if the players to your left just seem to be waiting for hands, you can start opening basically any playable hand, as you know that mostly they will be folding, and if they do make a play you will know exactly where you are.

This effect can be so pronounced that an astute player will actually play two polar opposite styles in these two different situations. It is areas like this where very good players show why they are better than much of the opposition.

Through careful observation of the players that they need to focus on at these stages, good players can drastically change how they play to adjust to the conditions around them.

Keep a close eye on what your opponents are capable of, open your hands accordingly and let their unbalanced play pay you off.

**A quick heads-up to any Canadian-based players...checkout the Betfair WSOPE Freerolls in the tournament lobby. These games are not filling up meaning most players get a walk to the weekly final;)**

-- Sorel Mizzi

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Attacking the Big Stack with Sorel Mizzi

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:49:08 +0100

Most players in tournaments try and avoid the big stack at the table.

This is mainly because they can bust you, whereas you can't bust them - which gives them a sizable psychological and practical edge over you.

They also effectively have more than one bullet in the chamber, and the fact that you can't knock them out enables them to open their game up, safe in the knowledge that even if they get in a tricky spot, it won't cost them everything.

Although this is for the most part correct, often big stacks throw up a range of opportunities to accumulate chips if you can identify their mood and tendencies.

The key thing to remember about big stacks is that often they are either looking to protect their chips at all costs, or start playing far too loose. Most players with a big stack either seem to open their game up too much, or tighten up by too great a margin.

Loose big stacks provide great opportunities to re-steal from, as they are generally looking to just accumulate chips without showdown, and can be stolen from quite easily if identified.

Tight big stacks (particularly tight passive big stacks) also provide excellent opportunities to attack. As most players will tend to leave a big stack's blind alone, it will get folded to you first much more often on a big stacks blind, which leaves you able to open more frequently.

Against passive big stacks, who regularly defend their blinds, you will often end up playing nice size pots, against a bad player, all with position - clearly a good situation.

There are actually very few players who can play a big stack well. Most tend to either speed up or slow down far too much, and this throws up great opportunities for skilled players to attack.

This effect is amplified by the fact that your hands always seem to be much stronger to the opposition when you open into big stacks - they feel that you simply would not do that without a big hand and behave accordingly.

This means that other players will hardly ever re-steal from you when you open on big stacks' big blinds, leaving you free to go for the big stack.

Winning tournaments requires a player to look for every available spot to accumulate chips. Big stacks provide numerous spots to win pots, and it is important that you don't miss these moments just because you are intimidated by them having more chips than you.

Identify how they play and go after them relentlessly - it may well be that they are not going to be a big stack for very long.

-- Sorel Mizzi

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Position in Heads-Up SNGs with Sorel Mizzi

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:59:22 +0100

The single most important concept to understand when playing heads-up is position.

If you do not understand the importance of position and how to use it to your advantage you will be an easy target in any heads-up game.

Conversely, positional mistakes are the most commonly seen and easy of mistakes to take advantage of when playing heads-up, and at the lowest stakes exploiting a player's positional mistakes is the fastest way to profit.

The long and short of position when playing heads-up is that you cannot win consistently playing large pots out of position.

The most common mistake you will see low stakes players make is simply defending their big blind far too much. It is a constant uphill struggle for these players, as they are consistently putting in more money, in worse spots than their opponent - clearly a recipe for disaster over the long run.

The reason low stakes players make such an elementary mistake is simple - they are there to gamble and see flops - folding is a boring thing to do compared to getting involved in a hand.

Do not fall into this trap of mindless curiosity.

The range of hands you consider playing out of position should be radically different from those you play from the button, even if it feels boring having to chuck a larger percentage of hands away than you do on the button.

The next key point about position that has to be understood is that positional advantage shrinks as the stacks get shorter.

Position is only relevant if the player out of position has to make numerous decisions out of position - clearly if they have enough chips for an all in on the flop position is no way near as important.

You have to adjust your style when the stacks get short to a less position based one, looking instead at the dynamics of each hand in terms of history and your specific holding.

This stage of the game is much more about re-stealing and bravery. The player willing to gamble and attack as hard as possible will usually triumph if the game is still going on when the blinds get very high.

Focus on consistently staying in position until the blinds get high in heads-up sit and goes. The simple fact that your opponent is overly curious will usually give you the vast majority of their chips long before the nature of position starts to change with the shortening stacks.

-- Sorel Mizzi

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A Quick Review of 2008

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:12:56 +0100

By Sorel Mizzi -- Passing the million-dollar mark in live tournament earnings, winning my first major live event and being just one river card away from winning a WSOP bracelet all meant 2008 was a pretty special year for me at the poker tables.

The improvement in my live game can be put down partly to cutting down on mistakes, which I talked about in November.

* * * * * * * * * * *

When I was in my online poker prime and was learning key fundamentals of NLHE I'd always look to find what I was doing wrong and correct it. I would get well respected pro players on AIM and every time I felt that I played a hand in a sloppy way I would message 8-10 people on my AIM and ask them how they would play it.

After about two months of playing nothing but tournaments I felt that I made an average of two or three mistakes per tournament.

These weren't mistakes that everyone would recognize as mistakes either, these were any way that I played the hand that WASN'T perfect. If I didn't play the hand as best as I knew how then as far as I was concerned I had made a mistake.

Mistakes had nothing to do with results either, one thing that was pushed on me really early in my poker career was not to be results oriented.

Just as an extreme example if I have 2-3o and decided that after being reraised preflop a shove is the most profitable play, it's not a mistake to me even if he wakes up with kings, as long as I was doing it for the right reasons.

After about 2 months of playing tournaments for up to 20 hours a day, I finally came to a point where instead of averaging three mistakes per tournament I would only average one or two mistakes per three tournaments and eventually I would be playing almost exactly perfect, in my mind.

I'm still in the stage of my live tournament career where I am on average making three mistakes per tournament. You may be wondering, wait a minute Sorel, online tournaments are obviously tougher than live tournaments, how can you possibly be making more mistakes in live tournaments than you do online?

Well, the answer is that there are so many more options in live play that should affect every one of your decisions.

* * * * * * * * * * *

With dynamics of live player being so different to online, I know that as well as cutting down on mistakes, I also have to learn to extract tells from players by engaging them in some sort of way.

* * * * * * * * * * *

My ultimate goal in live poker is not only to play every hand correctly but to also engage my opponents in a manner that gives me as much information as possible. Since I'm inexperienced in knowing which of my actions render which reactions, it's something that I will get better with, with experience.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I wrote that post about the WPT in Niagra where I was pleased with a cash after an up-and-down tournament. Perhaps that post ultimately proved cathartic as not long after I landed my first live event at Bellagio in December.

As said above I'm not that results oriented but it was still a good feeling to take down a major live tournament and made up slightly for the disappointment of not winning my first WSOP bracelet at Betfair's own World Series of Poker Europe tournament in the PLO event. It would have been great to repay Betfair for the faith they had shown in me and the atmosphere that night at the Empire was electric.

Random Thoughts Throughout the Year

In June I won my weight-loss prop bet with Roland De Wolfe but more importantly I realized the importance of a healthy lifestyle to my poker game.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I feel incredible. My mind is as clear and focused as I can ever remember it being and I can only credit this to regular exercise and a healthy diet. As a poker player, having a healthy lifestyle will do wonders for your game. Decisions will become a lot more clear and it will help bring your game to the next level.

It's just so much easier to play when you're not constantly in a state of fatigue. I never even realized I was in a constant state of fatigue until I started exercising again.

After exercising I'd have an abundance of energy and my focus and concentration would improve drastically. I think this and several other obvious reasons are much more of a reason to stay in shape then any direct monetary gain.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Hopefully 2009 can prove as interesting and as successful as 2008 and best of luck to all my readers and special wishes to the other Betfair pros John and Annette.

-- Sorel Mizzi

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Collusion and Soft-Playing in Italy

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:45:25 +0100

So I'm in Italy to do an interview on an Italian poker television show called Poker Sportivo in Bologna and there just so happens to be a €2,200 event 200 km away in Venice.

How can I pass this up?

Of course, I decided to play the event. I could have easily been the only non-Italian in the approximately 300-player field, and was definitely the only non-European.

I got off to a great start after nearly doubling up with A 6. I'm particularly proud of this hand since I called out exactly what my opponent had and was right :)

Here's how the hand went:

100/200 blinds
Me: 20k
Villain: 11k

I open from early/mid to 600 and get called by cut-off and BB. Flop comes: 7x-8d-9d.

I bet 1250 and guy shoves in for approximately 10,500 more. I think about it for a while. Even though I have a monster draw I don't have the odds to call unless he has a draw as well.

There was so much value in this tournament that if I felt he had a made hand I simply would have folded. I thought about it for about a minute, engaging him and telling him that I thought he had Q T.

Eventually I made the call and to the table's amazement he tabled Q T :). Somehow I managed to hold and quickly found my stack at about 37k which was my high point for the entire tournament.

I dwindled down to about 30k and then lost a 25k coinflip with QQ vs AK at 200/400. This brought me back down to around 20k.

Bustout Hand with Controversy

At 300/600, 75 ante, I raise 85o to 1600 from middle position. I get called by a lady in the BB.
Flop comes down: 6x-7x-Jx

*From experience from playing with this player, I know that she leads out almost always when she hits a piece of the board.

She's first to act and bets out 1600.

I meant to just call but instead put in 2500 by accident and am forced to minimum raise. I act as if I meant to raise and nothing is wrong (minimum raise is actually a pretty good line in this spot anyway :-)).

She mulls it over and calls. Turn is a 6.

Again she leads out. This time for 4200. I have about 15k behind and decide that she's not very strong and there's no reason for her not to put me on a big hand here so I shove all-in.

At this point there is a crowd of media surrounding the table. She thinks about it for a long time and out loud goes over the possible hands I could have (in Italian) "AA? KK? QQ? AJ?"

At this point I'm pretty confident she's going to fold but to my amazement ends up calling with 7-8. Her hand holds and I congratulate her and wish her the best of luck.

As I'm heading out, an Italian blogger comes up to me and says that during the hand the guy sitting next to her said, and I quote, "Call him; I had J-6." Not once, but twice.

At this point, I'm severely tilted and infuriated that this level of explicit collusion can go on and was determined not to let this go unpunished.

The blogger and I talk to the Tournament Director (TD) and tell him what happened. I state my case and tell him that this guy should be pulled from the tournament since he likely cost me mine. The TD decides to give him an eight-hand penalty temporarily until he talks to the dealer.

I watch as the TD tells the guy that he has to sit out for eight hands and it's OBVIOUS the guy knows that he's done something wrong as he gets up off the table with no argument and no hesitation, probably relieved about only getting an eight-hand penalty.

In the meantime I'm talking to the TD, asking him what difference it makes if the dealer didn't hear it or heard something else. The people who heard him say this are completely impartial - if anything they would more likely be on the Italian player's side more than mine; why would anyone make this up???

The dealer a) might not have heard it b) doesn't want to "rat out" a fellow Italian c) they could have easily been friends.

Sure enough, the TD talked to the dealer and the dealer alleged that he heard nothing; therefore, the eight-hand penalty stood and this clown got away with a slap on the wrist for the worst kind of collusion that ended up more than likely costing me my tournament life.

Obviously I'm very disappointed at the TD's decision. I think I should have either got my buy-in back or the TD should have removed the player from the tournament.

I would have honestly preferred the latter. The whole situation just left a really sour taste in my mouth about poker in Italy.

The Italian poker community is very small and pretty much everyone knows everyone and it appears collusion and softplaying happens regularly in Italy. People seem to show each other their cards and everyone at my table looked like they knew each other and were friends.

Despite all of this, I still think I'll play EPT San Remo. Playing poker in Italy kind of reminds me of playing poker on Party Poker a few years ago, the software sucked but you can't afford not playing because the players are so awful.

On the whole, in Italy's case the players are awful - in comparison to Party Poker having crappy software, you just have to deal with all the collusion and softplaying that constantly goes on.

To be honest, it doesn't really bother me when two Italian friends are heads-up in the pot and tell each other their cards or check down the nuts/bet really small (this happened a few times).

When two players are heads-up I think that you should be able to do or say anything within reason since it doesn't really effect anyone else at the table and puts more emphasis on the psychological aspect of the game which I like.

But what happened to me was just flat-out wrong and should never happen to anyone.

--Sorel Mizzi

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Day 3 Niagara: Ups and Downs and Pleased with Cash

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:17:37 +0100

I start off on a decent table with one good online player and Gavin Smith. I lose the first three pots I play and get down to about 170k.

Then I make a really good value bet against Gavin with 88 on a 392T3 board and get paid off bringing me back up to around 220k.

To my disappointment I get moved to another table which is obviously the toughest table in the tournament. Vivek Rajkumar, Steve Paul Ambrose, Erik Seidel etc etc. All with MASSIVE chips distributed to them after the chip leader from day 2 went from half a mil to bust in 1 level :O.

I quickly make my table presence known by doubling up Steve Paul Ambrose after he raised to 8k from early/mid at 1500/3000 and I shoved 60k more effective with AQ and lost to his AK. K dry dry on the flop too, give me a good sweat at least ;(.

I'm left with 120k, which is only 20 BBs, and have some serious work to do. For the next couple hours I try my best in maintaining a 15+ BB sweat so that I could continuously have a stack appropriate for restealing.

I fluctuated between 10-25 BBs for the next 3 hours and really couldn't get much going.

I finally ended up getting moved to a really soft table. Only recognizable player was Kathy Liebert and she was on my right.

It looked like I would have plenty of spots to accumulate on this table, but with my stack I really had to be careful about raising with hands I wasn't committing with as I didn't want my perfect re-steal stack to turn into a vulnerable push/fold stack.

I ended up accumulating just enough to continue keeping me at the 15-20BB stack as the blinds increased.

My bust-out hand came when an older guy who had been quite active raised UTG to 58k at 4000/8000 with about 140k behind, CLEARLY making a mistake and meaning to only put in 24k. Kathy Liebert from 3rd position reraised to 120k and I shoved in 4th position with QQ ...

I didn't even think about it at the time. In fact, I was happy to get my chips in. But maybe it's not as easy of a spot as I think? I don't know, maybe I'm just being results-oriented, because Kathy ended up having aces. She held and I came 33rd for about 30k CAD.

Overall it was a great tournament and I'm really glad I came back to my home and native land for it :) It's the one tournament I really want to do well in since it's on Canadian soil.

The last 2 years I was out midway through day 1, so I'm happy that my 30k cash ended up making me a break even player in this specific tournament =)

I'm off to EPT Budapest, Amsterdam and EPT Warsaw next.

--Sorel Mizzi

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Day 2 Niagara: Short Stack to Top 10 Stack

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:29:51 +0100

After ending Day 1 with just $9,100 chips, I had a lot of work to do. With the blinds being $400/$800 with antes, realistically, I have low expectations.

But it is a fun stack to play, and I never give up!

I was at a great table, with the only recognizable player being Joe Sebok who I had on my right. I got off to a great start when I shoved in position and in a few limped pots and immediately increased my stack to $12,000.

Sebok gave me a courtesy double-up after I shoved my A7 vs. his 77 to his late-position raise with two weak players on the blinds and the board paired with QQ and 88 making my ace high play.

After that, I was up to $22,000 and unstoppable.

I stole blinds up to about $35,000 and then doubled-up in a semi-amusing hand. Four people limp in at $400/$800 and I make it $5,200 from the SB with 99. The second limper flat calls and everyone else folds.

Flop comes 8-3-3. I bet $7,200 and he puts me all-in for $28,000 more?! I don't get it? I stare him down for a while asking him what he is trying to represent and telling him that I really feel that he's not giving me credit for a hand etc

After about 3-4 minutes, I finally call and he shows the T-9o. Miraculously I hold, and now with $75,000 I'm a huge contender to make a deep run in this tournament.

I made one really good re-steal with T-9 after an active older guy, who had been reraising a lot, reraised me to $6,000 after I made it $2,200 and I shoved all in for $30,000 more. He ended up folding 99 face up.

After that, I got up to about $120,000 playing no-showdown poker and get moved to a table that appeared to be MUCH tougher. Lots of good younger internet players with a LOT of chips, including Kingdan who I reunite with after playing him on Day 1.

I decide to keep steamrolling until they give me a reason not to, and at one point raise five hands in a row and win uncontested.

At $800/$1,600 I make it $4,400 from MP with A 6. Flop comes 5-8-9 with two clubs. He checks, I fire $6,200 and he calls. The turn is an ace of diamonds and we both check.

The river is a 7x. He checks and I INSTA fire $20,000. How can he put me on a straight here? He ends up calling, with what he later admits to be king-high, and I rake in the pot.

Next orbit I get KK in mid-position after UTG, who's got about $100,000, raises to $5,500 at $1,000/$2,000. I decided to flat call, hoping that Kingdan or another one of the shortstacks squeezes.

They don't and the flop comes down J-8-6 with two hearts. He checks, I make it $7,700 to which he replies with a $22,000 raise in my face. I think about it for a minute and shove all-in for $60k more.

He calls with KK as well and I have the heart freeroll, but the turn is a blank and we chop the pot.

A couple orbits later, after stealing a few pots pre-flop, I raise with A-Ko from MP and get called by the BB, who is the same guy I had a straight on with A 6 earlier.

The flop comes down A-8-2 with two diamonds. I bet $6,800; he raises to $20,000 with $40,000 behind and folds to my shove.

I end the day with a stack of $220,000, putting me in the top 10 chip counts.

--Sorel Mizzi

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Day 1 Niagara: Should Have Shoved on the Flop

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:15:22 +0100

Day 1 was uninteresting in the early levels. I played a solid game in the beginning and got up to $40,000 within the first hour by playing very standard.

However, during the later levels of Day 1, there were some serious chip movements.

This is one of the hands that I made a fundamental mistake. At $100/$200, "TheNorfman" raised on the cut-off to $600, I called from the button with 8 9 and so did some old guy from the big blind.

Dan "Kingdan" Smith, who I had played recently in a 25,000 FPP satellite for a winner-takes-all seat to the High Rollers event in London, reraised to $3,300.

As soon as the older guy called from the small blind, I was sure that Dan was likely going to make a move from the BB with several different holdings. When I played with him in that satellite, he was the only player I have played in a long time where I really had to slow down three-handed and heads-up.

After Dan reraised to $3,300 with about $33,000 behind, I elected to call in position with my $45,000 stack and the guy in the SB decided to call as well.

The flop came down A 7-6x and Dan fired out $5,500. At this point, I should have shoved all-in and it is not even close. I put Dan on air pre-flop, there is already about $14,000 in the pot, the SB should not be a threat unless he woke up with a set (unlikely).

I was not really thinking, and instead of shoving I just called which is absolutely horrid and I am still disgusted with myself to this day.

The small blind folded and we saw an offsuit 8 on the turn. Dan checked. Now I had middle pair and a straight draw, a hand with great showdown value versus his range.

I decided to check behind which is fine after making the terrible check on the flop. The river came 9, a terrible card for me. Not only did it complete the four-card straight but it also put a flush on the board.

Dan fired $8k. Immediately I felt sick to my stomach and said, "I know you have something stupid like Q-T."

I convince myself to call, which I do not think is that bad considering I know this player is capable of making a bet that looks like a value bet on the river with air, and he flips over Q-T for the ten-high straight

So disgusting! I wish you could see the pot size in the middle of the table as you can in online poker! I would have insta-shoved that flop. Oh well! After this hand I am back down to $30k.

I maintain my stake until the blinds are $300/$600, raise A-T in middle position to $1,600, get called by three players. The flop comes down A-Q-2. BB checks to me; I fire $4,200.

The two late position players fold and the BB thinks for a very long time and shoves $12,000 total. I call and he has A-6 and we manage to chop. Ironically, the same guy ends up winning a big flip against me after that hand with my JJ vs his A-Q and he ends up crippling me to $9,100.

I end the day with a stack of $9,100 chips and have a lot of work to do on Day 2.

--Sorel Mizzi

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Cutting Down on Mistakes

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:38:25 +0100

I'd like to take this opportunity to talk about some hands from WPT Niagara while it's still fresh in my mind.

I think I played the entire tournament near perfect other than two or three mistakes I made throughout the duration.

After about two months of playing nothing but tournaments I felt that I made an average of two or three mistakes per tournament. These weren't mistakes that everyone would recognise as mistakes either, these were any way that I played the hand that WASN'T perfect.

If I didn't play the hand as best as I knew how then as far as I was concerned I had made a mistake. Mistakes had nothing to do with results either - one thing that was pushed on me really early in my poker career was not to be results oriented.

Just as an extreme example if I have 2-3o and decide that after being reraised preflop a shove is the most profitable play, it's not a mistake to me even if he wakes up with kings, as long as I am doing it for the right reason.

After about two months of playing tournaments for up to 20 hours a day, I finally came to a point where instead of averaging three mistakes per tournament I would only average one or two mistakes per three tournaments and eventually I would be playing almost exactly perfect, in my mind.

How is this relevant to WPT Niagara? Well, I'm still in the stage of my live tournament career where I am on average making three mistakes per tournament.

You may be wondering, wait a minute Sorel, online tournaments are obviously tougher than live tournaments, how can you possibly be making more mistakes in live tournaments than you do online?

Well, the answer is that there are so many more options in live play that should effect every one of your decisions.

Just to give one example, in live tournaments you have the option to stare your opponent down and verbally engage the opponent who's involved in the hand. Phil Hellmuth is an absolute genius at this, and I would say that at least 50% of his success comes from this talent alone.

With this being said, if not playing every hand perfect and not saying exactly what you should say to the opponent involved in a hand in order to render a specific action or get a tell is considered not perfect, and I consider not perfect a mistake, then I'm probably making a lot more than three mistakes per tournament!

My ultimate goal in live poker is not only to play every hand correctly but to also engage my opponents in a manner that gives me as much information as possible.

Since I'm inexperienced in knowing which of my actions render which reactions, it's something that I will get better with, with experience.

I'd rather not put up huge blog posts so I'll get onto the key hands in the next few entries listed below.

Day 1 Niagara - Should have shoved on the flop
Day 2 Niagara - Short-stack to top ten stack
Day 3 Niagara - Ups and downs and pleased with a cash.

--Sorel Mizzi

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Backkkk in Business

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 18:52:13 +0100

Back on the circuit!

After a long (2 month) break from intense poker following the WSOP, I am finally ready to start traveling the circuit again and playing in enough tournaments in enough different countries to keep me living out of hotels until at least February.

Until further notice, this is what my tournament schedule is looking like right now:

PPT Main Event - Cannes
September 3-7

EPT Barcelona
September 7-14

London
October 2-5

Toronto/Niagara Falls WPT
October 5-26

EPT Budapest
October 28-November 1

EPT Warsaw
November 1-20

APPT Sydney
December 2-31

Aussie Millions-Melbourne
January 1-26

EPT Copenhagen
February 17-21

EPT Dortmund
March 10-14

EPT San Remo
April 17-24

Monte Carlo
April 24-May 3

The tournaments don't necessarily start or end at the times I've stated but just estimates of what dates I'll be in each city for each tournament.

I'm in Cannes right now and on the way here I am proud to say that I have finally read my first poker-related book. It was written by the legend himself, Gus Hansen, and called Every Hand Revealed.

It was very well written and gave me insight into what was going on in that sick mind of his. I was definitely surprised to read that a lot of his decisions were based heavily on math and not just instinct or gut feeling alone.

This inspired me to do something I should have done a long time ago. Learn how to calculate pot odds. LOL, yes believe it or not I have gone all this time in my poker career without knowing or wanting to know how to calculate pot odds.

I used to have rules for myself when I was faced with an all-in situation after raising pre-flop. Rule 1: If he has less than 10x the BB I HAVE to call (obviously I factor in antes as well).

Rule 2: If he has more than 10x the BB I don't HAVE to call with any two cards, but if I think my opponents range is wide enough I will.

Simple, right? At one point I was afraid that if I learned how to correctly calculate pot odds it would be counterproductive. I guess I followed the old saying "If It ain't broke, don't fix it."

But I want to take my game to the next level and I think that being able to do something as simple as figuring out pot odds is essential to that.

Back to Dr. Hansen's book... Playing SNGs so regularly has slowly caused me to become less creative in my tournament game. If you're not careful, SNGs can suck the creative juices right out of you without you even noticing it.

I won't give too much away about the book, but reading it really reminded me of the optimal decisions I make when I'm on my A game. So thank you for that Dr. Hansen.

--Sorel Mizzi

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The Run Continues Part 2

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 01:14:48 +0100

Another EXTREMELY interesting hand occurred half an hour later where I successfully pulled off another bluff that ironically may have ended up costing me the tournament (it will all make sense at the end of the post).

Rami, who had gotten REAL short after losing a big pot set over set moved all-in for his last 1200 chips from UTG +1.

I made it 4400 from the cutoff with 9d9s6d5s and Nikolay Evdakov (an older russian guy that I had already played with deep in 3 events), who had just been moved to the table, made call from the big blind.

So there was 3600 in the side pot and about 6k in the main pot. The flop came 8-T-5 rainbow and Nikolay bet pot into me. I called in hopes of either hitting some outs or turning a scare card.

The turn was a Js which was a perfect card for me to represent since I had two 9s which were blockers for the straights. I also had the turned the flush draw which gave me more outs to hit my hand on the river.

He checked and I bet 15k and he calls with about 26k behind. This was a really interesting spot, especially since someone was already all-in. He knows that I'm going to have to show the hand regardless and that makes me look a lot stronger.

I was sure he had two pair or a set and I could get him off any non-pairing card on the river. The river came a red king which wasn't the best card for me since it was harder to represent the nuts, but nevertheless, I'm still value betting Q9 in that spot so I guess it was irrelevant.

Obviously having the Q and him checking again on the river also gave me more reason to believe he didn't have a strong enough hand to call. This is where it becomes very interesting. Right after the river card fell, Rami got out of his seat and left the table before Nikolay had made a decision.

I was thinking to myself, wow, if I succeed with this bluff which I think I will, it would be easy for Rami to have the best hand and triple up! (all he had to beat was 99).

A good 10 minutes went by and Nicolay was still tanking. I don't think he had a very difficult decision. I put him on TT which is a very easy fold in this spot.

I'm all for giving people ample time to make decisions in big pots and have actually only called the clock on one person in my entire poker career prior to yesterday. Enough was enough since no one called the clock on him I did it myself.

In all three tournaments I've ever played with this guy this year the clock has been called on him in every single one. He takes the longest time to make the easiest decisions.

I remember deep in the 1k rebuy the button raised, he was on the BB and he sat there for 5-6 minutes thinking about his options until someone finally called the clock on him.

Someone else who played with him also told me that someone had to call the clock on him after it was folded to him in middle position and he took five minutes to make a decision preflop. This will all become relevant later.

After 10 minutes the clock had been called and one minute was counted down and just like I've seen him do every time he's had the clock called on him, he waited until the VERY last second to muck his hand.

I quickly turned over my hand and after seeing Rami's hand told a few people to go find Rami as he was still in the tournament and would be forced to automuck his hand in the BB in two more hands.

After flipping over Rami's hand and seeing that he had the best hand there were a few people arguing that his hand should be dead since he left the table.

I was happy he won the sidepot and the floor correctly ruled in his favor saying that if a player is all-in his hand has to be turned up, so the 3600 was rewarded to him. So the very next hand I'm stalling in hopes that Rami will come back quick before he's in the BB with a dead hand.

Half the table is confused as to why I'm stalling before the flop and the other half of the table knows that I'm trying to stall so that Rami has time to return and play his BB. At this point in the tournament (800/1600) the BB would have eaten up half his stack.

I would do this for anyone, not just someone I know from online. I get away with it for about two minutes and finally one of the confused guys calls the clock on me.

I wait until the last second to fold and as if this were a movie Rami returns to play his BB within five seconds of him being dealt on the BB. The next hand there was some early position action pre-flop and Rami had moved the rest of his chips in.

He ended up hitting a straight on the river and tripling up to 9500 =) What a sick story this will make if he ends up winning the thing!

Stalling and the Clock

The guy that called the clock on me when I was stalling for Rami literally started stalling for one or two minutes every single hand.

I'm not sure if he was stalling out of spite since I did it in one hand or because we were on the money bubble, but it was very annoying, especially for a player like me who is looking to play very aggressive on the bubble and get in as many hands as possible.

Everyone at the table was looking around at each other hoping that the next guy would be the one to call the clock. Finally, after he had done it 4-5 times I had enough and started calling the clock on him after 10 seconds.

The floor came over and said that if the clock was called again, it would be reduced from one minute to 30 seconds, even though at this point there was only one person stalling and abusing the rules.

I wasn't too concerned though as there was only about 10 minutes left on the clock. The guy continued to stall every single hand and I continued to call the clock on him. I told the floor that he was intentionally stalling and asked if there was any sort of rule against this.

They ignored me and continued to give him 30 seconds to act after I called the clock on him. I was extremely upset that they were not punishing the intentional staller specifically. They were punishing the entire table by imposing a 30 second clock on anyone who was clocked at our table.

I had raised from early position, it was folded around to the staller once again and once again he acted like he had a big decision. Again I called the clock on him and this time I suggested to the floor that they look at his cards and see if he had a legitimate decision because the entire table knew he was stalling and agreed that he should be penalized.

The floor did nothing to penalize the stalling and continued to clock him for 30 seconds and then leave the table only to be called right back. This happened several times and then the following situation occurred.

The chip leader Daniel Makowsky limped UTG for 1600 and then short stack Nikolay Evdakov sat there looking at his cards for two minutes. Again, I had history with this player and anyone who's ever played with him will likely agree that he's a habitual staller.

At this point there were only two minutes left in the day and if the current pot saw a flop it would likely be the last hand of the day. After two minutes I called the clock on him thinking that he was stalling to avoid the BB.

Again, I want to reinforce the fact that I have called the clock on one person prior to this tournament and in this tournament I had to call the clock about six times on two different players within 20 minutes.

The clock ran down to about 10 seconds and Nikolay raised pot. I immediately apologized to Nikolay telling him that I thought he was intentionally stalling. I didn't need to apologize either. It was kind of like the story of the boy who cried wolf.

Every once in a while there will be a wolf attacking the boy and every once in a while one of these stallers will actually have a legitimate decision to make. Even if he did have a legitimate decision to make, it shouldn't take anyone more than two minutes to decide what they're going to do in that spot.

Nevertheless, I still respect the fact that some people are slower than others and never would have called the clock on him if I thought he had a hand. It was folded around and I decided to call on the BB with JJQc8c, knowing that Nikolay had aces and that I could push him off a lot of well textured flops.

The chip leader thought about it for a while and ended up calling as well. The flop came JQ9 with two spades and I lead out for the pot. The chip leader instantly moved all-in and Nikolay folded and instantly called the clock on me.

I wanted to throw up. Since I don't have much experience playing Omaha this was genuinely a tough decision for me. The floor came over and gave me 30 seconds to act on my hand.

I argued to the floor that I had a real decision to make while the other players had just been stalling and Hazards, Barny Boatman and even the chip leader who was involved in the hand argued against the clock being called on me.

After 20 seconds of arguing with the floor, the floor person simply said "It doesn't matter, the clock is running" and I panicked and ended up making the call.

Without being results oriented, I honestly think that if the clock wasn't called on me and I had sufficient time to think, I would have laid down the hand. I still had 80k left in chips if I folded and I was sure the chip leader had the nuts.

It was just a matter of figuring out if I had the correct odds to call and I didn't even have nearly enough time to figure that out. I'm quite disgusted by the floor's decision to impose a 30-second clock on me as soon as it was my decision to act.

The entire table tried desperately to explain the situation and plead to the floor staff but everyone was ignored. I had 30 seconds to make a decision for my tournament life and thousands of dollars in equity and made the wrong one as a result of a bad ruling that after going to my room and searching the rules online was directly against the WSOP tournament rules....

Rule 48. Calling-for-clock procedures: Once a reasonable amount of time, which is no less than three minutes, has passed and a clock is called, a player will be given one (1) minute to act. If action has not been taken by the time the minute has expired, there will be a ten (10) second countdown.

If a player has not acted on his hand by the time the countdown is over, the hand will be dead. Any player intentionally stalling the progress of the game will incur a penalty in accordance with Rule No. 51.

Rule 51. In its sole and absolute discretion, Harrah's may impose penalties that include verbal warnings and missed-hand penalties. A missed-hand penalty will be assessed as follows: The offender will miss one hand for each player at the table, including the offender, when the penalty is given, multiplied by the number of rounds specified in the penalty.

Tournament staff can assess one-, two-, three- or four-round penalties or disqualification. Players who receive a missed-hand penalty must remain outside the designated tournament areas for the length of their penalty.

The player must notify the tournament staff prior to returning to their seat. Repeat infractions are subject to escalating penalties up to disqualification.

So not only did I not get my three minutes to act on the hand before the clock was called on me, but the two players who had been intentionally stalling went unpunished despite my earlier complaints and the testimonials of everyone else at the table.

The nut straight held. I shook my opponent's hand, shook Barny Boatman's hand and verbalized to Nikolay a non-abbreviated "You can GFY" and walked off in disgust.

At such a high level of play you would think that the floor people would know the rules and be consistent in enforcing them. I feel like the Rio owes me a formal apology and some sort of financial compensation.

I'm still hopeful that my bad string of luck will turn around as there are several events coming up that I am confident in dominating. For now, I am going to regather my thoughts, and go chill at the Rio pool with the non-existent topless models.

--Sorel Mizzi

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The Run Continues Part 1

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:48:49 +0100

Boring PLO? Okay, so I get to my $1,500 PLO rebuy table, look around, and see absolutely no one I even remotely recognize.

Generally speaking, this is usually a sign of a table that isn't going to be doing much gambling during the rebuy period. Right away I'm thinking how boring this three-hour rebuy period is going to be and try thinking of ways to loosen up the table and perhaps even get some blind all-ins going.

Less than one minute after sitting down, my friend Peter Gould sits down across from me. My dull and blah mood is instantly replaced with enthusiasm and excitement. Peter, similar to me, is not afraid to gamble and not afraid to spend some money in the pursuit of building a monster stack.

Peter and I end up going all-in blind the first three hands. All three times there were one or two others who had looked at their cards and decided to join us but none of them ended up winning.

That's justice for you right there. At the end of the five-minute shove-fest I was fortunate enough to have roughly 25k in chips.

About half an hour into the rebuy period, just when I thought the table couldn't get any crazier, Eli "king of gamblers" Elezra shows up. At this point I'm up to about 35k and I'm confident there have been more rebuys on our table than any other table in the tournament.

Peter had his stack up to about 20k-30k but after getting unlucky against some other players in a few spots was back to the 6k starting stack after rebuying.

For the next two and a half hours, Peter and Eli managed to get all their chips in almost every hand and myself and the other players on the table weren't shying away from giving them action. Just like the 1k rebuy earlier in the series, I had by far the sickest table and was only in for 3k!

A few big hands:

After losing a few pots I got lucky in a hand where myself, Peter and an unknown player who had been playing relatively tight were involved in a raised pot on a flop of Ts8s8x. I had QQ8T I had bet the flop in position and got called by both of them.

On the 2s turn, the first caller moved in for about 3/4 of the pot, Peter called and I just called behind. After thinking about it I think reshoving would have been the best play, as I thought the first guy could have had TT and thought Peter might have had an 8 with high cards or the flush.

Even though I put TT well in the first guy's range the chances we had the same hand were also likely and also since I had a ten in my hand already it would have been very tough to lay down.

The river brought a beautiful Q giving me the ultimate nuts and Peter had checked in the dark. I potted the river putting myself all-in for about 12k-15k and Peter ended up tank-folding the 8 and nut flush. First guy had TT and I scooped.

The other big hand I doubled with during the rebuy period is when I had flopped middle set on a draw-y board and shoved to a pot-sized bet on a turn that gave more draw possibilities vs. Peter. I can't remember the exact hand we both had but I had him drawing very slim.

At the end of the rebuy period I had roughly 72k. I went around the room asking people if I should addon for $3k to get 6k more chips and almost everyone said I shouldn't so I elected not to.

I think the average stack on our table was about 40k compared to the average in the tournament which was probably about 12-15k

Post-Rebuy Period

The rebuy period was really crazy but the later stages of the tournament would prove to be even crazier.

I haven't been playing PLO for long. Having only played 4 or 5 PLO tournaments I'm far from experienced and often times don't know what play is most optimal in different situations. However, I think I have a natural ability for the game and my playing style caters very well to it.

I had been playing PLO cash games for the last 3 or 4 days in preparation for the event and had very lucrative results. Even though playing PLO puts me out of my comfort zone, I think most people are far worse than me and I still have a lot of room for improvement.

PLO is really fun and gives bad players chances to make more mistakes and good players the opportunity to be far more creative with thin value bets and complete bluffs than you can ever be in holdem.

After break things started off pretty slow at our table but quickly excelled. I had been raising a lot of playable hands on the button when people had been limping in hopes to hit a big flop and double up.

Most people are more content with limping behind, but I figured since the blinds were so low relative to our stacks, this was the easiest way for me to double up if I hit a big hand. Plus a lot of the time I would get 1 caller, fire the flop and take down the pot uncontested.

There was one hand where I had 4589ds at 200/400 and raised to 1700 on the button when a middle position player and Eli had limped preflop. First player folded and Eli called. Flop was Ax2x2x.

He checked, I bet 2450 and he instantly raised to around 7k total. My first instinct was to call and float since his line didn't make much sense but I decided that Eli was too much of a sicko and I didn't really feel like getting owned by a 2 barrel on the turn.

He showed Q10J7 and scooped the pot. Great value raise by him! :D

A few minutes later Eli and I got involved in another big pot where there was 5500 in the middle pre-flop, 4-way action, and I was on the SB with Qx8h6xAh. The flop came QQ8 with two diamonds and I checked, next guy checked, next guy checked and Eli bet 4800.

I potted it, it folded around and he thought about it for a few minutes and pushed all-in with something like QJ37 and I held.

At this point I was at about 100k and our table had broke. We played a few hands on my new table consisting of Rami Boukai (Arbianight), Dario Alioto, Mark Vos and Hazards and then went on break.

I ended up spewing down to about 80k and a really interesting hand emerged against Rami who's an extremely good PLO player but a little bit on the tight side.

I took this information into the following hand. Rami limped under the gun. Hazards raised on the hijack to 2800. I called from the SB with Ah5h7d9x and Rami called from the big blind. The flop came down Kh 6h 5x.

So I have the nut flush draw, a pair of 5s and a gut-shot nut straight draw. Hazards bets 5500. I call and so does Rami. The turn card is 7x. Rami leads for 18500, Hazards folds.

At this point I'm 100% confident that Rami has the nut straight (8, 9) from playing with him as often as I have online, I know he's very solid and usually has it when he bets.

There's no way he has a set here because he would have raised the flop and if he decided not to raise the flop he would have checked the turn to draw for a paired board. Obviously he doesn't have the nut flush draw because I have it so the only thing he can really have here is a straight.

So I decide to call the turn and shove any river that pairs the board or brings the flush. The river comes a 6. As I promised myself, I pot the river and Rami thinks for a good 10 minutes and finally mucks. I let out a sigh of relief.. what a great sweat he gave me!

Continue on to Part 2 for an extremely interesting hand that may have ended up costing me the tournament.

--Sorel Mizzi

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WSOP Events 1 and 2 + Weight-Loss Bet Results

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:24:07 +0100

The first two WSOP events have been quite disappointing. In the $10k Pot-Limit Hold'em event I got off to a really good start by winning big pots in situations where I had my opponents drawing to very few outs.

I accumulated very well and at dinner break I found myself sitting with a healthy 80k stack. Immediately after dinner break, I lost half my stack after getting my Kings cracked by Q9s.

Not a problem though, 40k was still a reasonable stack to work with at 600/1200. Our table finally broke and looking around my new table I saw that there were 3 players that I recognized. Exitonly4, Noraflum (Marco Johnson) and Sowers (Mike Sowers).

Within the first five minutes I had managed to double up with a turned straight vs. a turned two pair. The VERY next hand I get dealt AKo on the button. It's folded around to me and I make a raise of 4400 (800/1600 blinds).

The small blind who I have no information on other than what I can see (young, russian?) makes it 14k. I have 82k and he covers me by very little. I decide to re-raise again to 42k and he instantly shoves all in with a huge smile on his face.

I'm thinking wow, sick cooler, he's got to have Queens or better in this spot... but with HALF my stack in the pot pre-flop I'm not folding any hand. I sigh and call and he turns over J-10o. So in summary some idiot just shipped J-10o with zero fold equity in a 100 BB pot deep in a 10k event (80 people left).

I'm sure you can figure out the rest of the story... 2, 3, 3, 8, J... gg me.

I elected to take the next day off for a few reasons:

a) Still felt sick about how I busted in PLH
b) Saturday's event had two Day 1s
c) Sundays usually have a lot softer fields because a lot of good players play online on Sunday
d) Was closing in on weight-loss bet and had to make sure I was at my goal.

By the way, I did win the weight-loss bet. SHIP IT!

For the last week and a half of the bet when I realized how close I was, all I ate were egg whites in the morning and green vegetables during the day (broccoli, celery, asparagus).

In terms of exercise, doing hour long sessions of light cardio in the morning and evening while wearing layered clothing gave me great results. I ended up closing in on 84.4 Kilos, 2 Kilos (over 4 pounds) under the goal =).

I feel incredible... my mind is as clear and focussed as I can ever remember it being and I can only credit this to regular exercise and a healthy diet. As a poker player, having a healthy lifestyle will do wonders for your game... decisions will become a lot more clear and it will help bring your game to the next level.

It's just so much easier to play when you're not constantly in a state of fatigue. I never even realized I was in a constant state of fatigue until I started exercising again. After exercising I'd have an abundance of energy and my focus and concentration would improve drastically.

I think this and several other obvious reasons are much more of a reason to stay in shape then any direct monetary gain.

Event #2 $1500 NLH... what a heartbreaker. I was up to 8k within the first few hours and then lost a huge pot to the only person on the table who could bust me.

I had 33 and raised in early position to 600. She called from middle position and everyone else folded. Flop came A-J-3 with two spades. I bet 850; she called. Turn came an offsuit King.

I fired 1700 this time and she moved me all in. I called and she had KK. Not too upset. These things happen in poker and there's nothing you can do about them. I just have to keep a positive mental attitude and keep playing in the zone and I will eventually take a big live tournament down :).

I think I have moved up a level in my game and I'm excited about playing this entire series "in the zone."

-- Sorel Mizzi

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EPT Monte Carlo Part 2: Deeb-owned

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Fri, 23 May 2008 01:58:56 +0100

The EPT Grand Final had a structure similar to the WSOP which meant tons of play throughout the entire tournament.

At my table I recognized three players, Greg Raymer, who was to my immediate right, David Peters (dpeters online) to my immediate left and Maxime Villemure (eventual 3rd-place winner) a few seats to my left.

Just like every other EPT I've played this year, I had a very rocky start. I managed to chip down from 15,000 to 2,500 by first dinner break. The worst thing is there wasn't a single significant hand I played to get down that low.

Most of the pots I lost were simply spots where I would raise pre-flop, get called, make continuation bets and have to fold to raises. I was raising a fairly tight range early in the tournament as well, I just wasn't connecting with any flops and my opponents were either outplaying me or hitting big hands... I prefer to assume the latter.

First hand after dinner, I rush to my table barely in time to grab my hand before its taken away. At this point I have 2,600 at 100/200 blinds with 25 ante. Normally I would just fold in this spot on a 10-handed table, but I noticed that four people including the small blind hadn't returned from dinner so we were playing six-handed.

I decided to get creative and limp utg. The button, Maxime Villemure, who at this point I'm very impressed with and classify as a tricky/good player, made it 700 and when it came back to me I re-shoved.

This is another example of creating fold equity while representing a big hand. If I had just raised anything but all-in pre-flop, I would have had to fold to a shove which basically turns my KQ into 2-3o with the stack I had.

So I shoved and unfortunately ran into aces. Fortunately, I hit two pair on the flop and held which doubled me up to 5k and created the momentum that would eventually allow me to win a big pot against Raymer and get me up to 50k after Day 1.

The Greg Raymer bustout hand happened like this; The previous hand right before busting out Raymer, Mel Judah opened for 600 in late position, button called and Raymer in the small blind called as well. I feigned looking at my cards but I had already decided I was going to reraise and I made it 3300.

They all folded and Raymer playfully slapped me on the wrist as a sign of frustration. The very next hand I get aces! I love when this happens :) I was pretty sure I was going to play a big pot with my hand.

Blinds still 100/200 with a $25 ante, five people limp. I make it 1700 from the small blind and get called in four spots including the big blind. Flop J-7-2 rainbow. I bet 4300, everyone folds to Raymer, and he calls with 12k behind.

Turn is a 4. I decide that shoving all-in on the turn would look like the weakest line and he'd have to call me with anything he calls the flop with. He thinks about it for a couple minutes and eventually calls with 6-7o and I scoop the 40k pot =).

The VERY last hand before the tournament ended for the day I was faced with a decision for my entire stack. Just when I thought I was finally going to make Day 2 of an EPT. Before the hand I had 25k and this guy had me covered. I had A7o on the button and the cutoff had limped in for 400.

I made it 1600 and he called. The flop was T-5-2 two spades. He checked after a long pause and I bet 2650. After examining my stack for 15-20 seconds, he called. The turn brought an ace of diamonds and at this point he bet out 5k.

I was pretty confused about his line, since I was the person representing the ace, took a moment and made the call. The river brought a non-spade 4 making the board (Ts-5s-2-A-4) and the player bet 15000 - leaving me with 500 if I made the call and was wrong.

I thought about it for a good five minutes and finally decided that because I couldn't put him on a hand he probably didn't have one. I made the call and he tabled 8-8, . That brought me up to 50k which wasn't a bad stack to end the day with.

Day 2

I'm happy with my table draw. I have two good players on my table but Antonio Esfandiari is on my right and Barry Greenstein is shortstacked.

Antonio has been raising a LOT in position and I have been letting him do so without confrontation every time. Finally, I make a stand in the small blind with J 9. He raises to 1600, I make it 4800, he reraises to 11000, and I consider my options and shove my remaining 30k stack.

Antonio looks disgusted and folds. I know everyone says don't show your cards, you're just giving away info. But I just had to do it! The looks on everyone's faces were priceless.

I managed to end the day with 203k without very many showdowns which obviously I was extremely happy with.

Day 3

I had an explosive start on Day 3. Within an hour I was up to about 400k. Unfortunately, I lost them almost as fast as I got them. There was one interesting hand where I had literally been raising 90% of hands and someone who hadn't been involved in many pots decided to call my early position 5500 raise at 1k/2k, with roughly 50k behind, which was obviously a little bit alarming to me.

I was holding A9 and decided that I would check fold if I missed the flop. The flop came down 6-8-2 rainbow so I checked with the intention of folding to any bet. He quickly checked behind. The turn brought a 9, I took a stab of 6500.

He instantly moved all-in for about 45k more. I thought about this for a while. Pre-flop, I thought he might be slowplaying a big pair but when he checked the flop I didn't think he was sophisticated or ballsy enough to check an overpair.

So when I bet the turn and he shoved it didn't really make sense for him to have me beat - the only hand that made sense would be some sort of draw or complete air. I made the call and he flipped over J T and spiked the 10 on the river. That was a minor setback, nothing big.

I had another interesting hand with James Campbell (aka PokerPro33) where he had raised me from the SB to 6000 and I called on the BB with A5. The flop came A-5-2 all clubs. He bet 8000. I made the terrible mistake of making it 24k and not long after, he re-raised me to 80k.

I really should have just called. There's no point in me three-betting in that spot when I know I'm not going to call this particular player if he goes over the top. It's like turning my hand into air.

There are a lot of cards that would slow him down on the turn if he had a medium flush and it's also possible that he could have a hand like AK with the king of clubs, and by raising the flop I open myself up to the opportunity of getting outplayed.

Deeb Owns My Soul

One thing I'm good at doing is not giving my opponents a chance to outplay me, but that's exactly what I did in this hand. Shortly after, the table broke to my disappointment and I was sat to the left of Freddy Deeb.

For the first 45 minutes on the table, Freddy and I were pretty much taking turns stealing blinds and I occasionally re-popped him when I felt that he wasn't letting me open as much as I wanted to.

Freddy Deeb is an amazing tournament player. Often you see all these guys on TV that are really blown up to look a lot better than they are but Freddy Deeb is not one of them. He's very solid and plays the situation very well. Unfortunately, I didn't know that until after he owned my soul :(.

Or maybe I owned my own soul? I don't know, you be the judge. At 1500/3000 on the EXACT bubble (one more till the money) I made it 7700 from UTG with T 7. It's folded all the way around to Freddy Deeb in the BB and he makes it 38k to go with about 130k behind.

I have about 400k at this point and decide to ship it in and he insta-calls me with aces. Now, before you make judgments on how bad of a play this is, there are a couple of things to consider.

First of all, I remember thinking in my head that this is the spot where Freddy Deeb is going to repop me. I envisioned that had it been folded around to Freddy Deeb he would reraise me with any two cards.

Also his reraise amount kind of said "NO, you're not the table captain, I'm the table captain, don't raise MY blinds. Please fold." Obviously I know that Freddy Deeb doesn't care about the bubble but he might think that I do.

Sometimes I think about things way too deep and eventually sway away from my initial read (and it's usually when I think I should fold and then convince myself to call). This wasn't one of those situations, I was actually pretty confident he would fold.

In my head, shoving seemed like the best play, and there was nothing I could do to change that, I was already decided. Also I should say that I had been raising in early position a lot so he probably correctly gave my UTG raise as much value as a button raise.

Had I thought about the situation on a simple and more practical level that a guy who likes to see a lot of flops is re-raising my UTG raise from the BB nine-handed, I might have released my ten high. After this hand, my image was crushed and I was getting repopped almost half the time I opened.

I finally took a stand with AJ suited and ran into AK and that was it for me. Finished 55th :(. Overall obviously I'm quite disappointed. At least I was smart enough to swap some % with Isaac Baron (westmenloaa). He's an amazing player and one of the few players I would ever swap % with.

Post-Tourney Prop Betting

The next day after the tournament was over we all got really drunk and Antonio Esfandiari and I started making ridiculous/random prop bets. Anything from roshambo, to me betting that his friend couldn't get 10 people to lay on the ground within two minutes.

It was all just for fun. I think he ended up winning a few hundred Euros overall. Then we made a much more serious bet, for considerably more money. The whole bet started when I was talking about a story I heard where a lady made several million in Vegas throwing craps by perfecting the number she wanted to throw at a very high success rate.

Then I thought to myself, hey if a human being could roll dice with the same outcome almost every time, I bet a machine could perfect a roll or flip. So I proposed this question to the crowd:

If you could build a machine whose purpose was to flip coins and every time it flipped the coin EVERY variable including but not limited to room pressure, gravity, wind, etc etc. stayed the same, would the coin flip the same way and land on the same side every time?

Initially the crowd seemed split, half of them thinking it would, the other half thinking it wouldn't. I bet that it would.flip on the same side every time given the circumstances. Antonio bet that it wouldn't and seemed scarily confident.

Things to note:

Coin has to be flipped from at least 1 ft
The coin, machine and floor stay the same. There is no damage to either of them that would result in a slight difference in the flip NO VARIABLES
This is theoretical, the machine doesn't actually have to be built (but I still think it can be)

Originally I was going to bet 1000 Euros with Antonio but after hearing that my friends Johannes Straussman and Ryan Daut wanted to take a piece of my action on the bet, how could I not bump it up to an even 10k?

For those of you that don't know Johannes or Ryan, they both piss excellence. I've never seen either of them make a prop bet unless they were sure they were going to win or had a significant edge.

In order to conclude the bet we have to ask a physics professor at a well-respected university (Harvard, Yale, etc). I've been too lazy to actually ask but I'm sure I will get on it in the next couple of months while we're both in Vegas.

If any of my blog readers have an opinion about this, please feel free to post it in comments :) I'd love to hear your reasoning, especially if you think I'm wrong.

-- Sorel Mizzi

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EPT Monte Carlo Part 1: Sit-and-Go Success

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:06:53 +0100

When we arrived at Nice airport we had the option of taking a cab to Monte Carlo or going in style and taking a helicopter over the French Riviera to MC. The interesting thing is taking the helicopter was only about €10-15 more than taking a cab, so it was a pretty easy decision.

When I arrived in Monte Carlo I decided to play a single-table qualifier to the main event. I remember that last year I did exceptionally well in SNGs so I was excited about playing them again. Each player starts with 2,500 chips and the first level begins at 25/50 blinds and increases every 20 minutes like so: 50/100, 150/300, 200/400, 400/800, 500/1,000, etc. etc.

I wasn't really thrilled about the superfast structure but when we started playing I instantly remembered why I love these sit-and-gos, and live sit-and-gos in general, SO much! Generally speaking, six to eight players in any given 10-handed SNG in Monte Carlo literally play exactly the opposite of optimal SNG strategy. It's like in their minds, instead of the goal being to win the SNG, the goal is to see who could lose the quickest in the worst possible way. They play really aggressive and spewy in the early stages and really tight/weak in the late stages.

During the first three levels it's not uncommon to see players play a lot of pots, open-raise for 10x the big blind, limp/call weak hands, call massive reraises and check-fold missed flops and bluff in obvious spots.

In the late stages of the SNG most of the players tighten up significantly and fold in spots where they're suppose to shove any two, or limp with under 10 BBs; fold to a shove; and even worse, limp with under 10 BBs; call a raise and check-fold a missed flop (this is a pretty standard play in big-buy-in SNGs in Monte Carlo).

I am seriously not surprised at anything I see in poker anymore. The way people play in these sit-and-gos you'd have to get really unlucky not to come top three. Best thing is, a lot of these guys are willing to do last-longers :)

So in the qualifier I played, I managed to get heads-up with a dominating lead against the worst player at the table. We started heads-up at 500/1,000; I had 20k, he had 5k. He managed to crack my aces with 7-10 and things went downhill from there and I ended up coming second.

Surprisingly, even though the stacks were so shallow, there was one interesting hand that I thought I'd talk about.

Blinds: 500/1,000
Hero: 9k
Villain: 16k
Hero: 6x-6
Villain limps in for 500 more.
Hero raises to 4k.
Villain calls.
Flop: A Q J
Hero goes all-in for 5k.
Villain tank-calls.
Villain has 6x-4
Turn = club
Hero wins!

The point I'm trying to make from this hand is that when you have a short stack and you're playing against bad to terrible players, you should always encourage them to see a flop without going all-in pre-flop if you have enough chips behind to create fold equity on the flop.

People love to see flops. As long as you're not all-in, bad players will find an excuse to make a mistake by calling your raise pre-flop to try and out-flop you even if half your stack is already in the pot. Mathematically, people miss a lot more flops than they hit. So next time if you're a short stack and plan on shoving, consider reraising (or raising in this case) enough to commit yourself but have enough to get them to fold if they elect to see a flop.

There is a lot of value in knowing how to create fold equity. This is one of the more advanced plays I've learned over the years. Let's say you have 9 BBs on the small blind and an aggressive late-position raiser opens for 3x the BB with what you deem as a wide opening range.

If you shove all-in he's likely to call you with any two cards since he's getting the correct odds. If you just call pre-flop and shove in regardless of the flop, he won't be able to call you unless he hits. You can pretty much justify making this play with any two cards. Obviously it will work well against some players better than others, so choose your spots carefully.

I'll be writing Part 2 in a couple of days and talk about some hands from the main event and my overall experience in Monte Carlo... OH, and another prop bet! This time with Antonio Esfandiari...

-- Sorel Mizzi

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EPT San Remo and the Future of Poker

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 02:55:23 +0100

Another EPT; another Day 1 bust-out. I was down to $3k chips in the first level after the following hand occurred:

I raised $150 from early position with AA and got called by middle position and the button. The flop came T-5-7 with one heart and I bet $400; both players called.

The turn was a 2 of hearts; again I bet, this time $1,300. MP folded and button called. River was a Jh which is a pretty bad card for me, but nevertheless, I decided to value bet $3k since I know the player and think he's calling with a lot of worse hands.

So I bet $3k (I probably should have bet a little bit less in hindsight). He just called and tabled 6 9 for the flush.

After this hand, I managed to lose even more chips by raising hands like A-Q and middle pocket pairs, getting re-raised and having to fold. I'm determined not to get my chips in bad and to take coinflips only when necessary, especially with the level of play I saw in San Remo.

I then made a few aggressive resteals, got back up to $5k at $50/$100 and then doubled with aces vs. top pair. I get to about $14k and then lose with AA vs. K-J in an uninteresting $8k all-in pre-flop pot, so now I'm down to $10k.

So I remain patient until $150/$300 where the most beautiful situation occurs: I have $10k chips on the small blind, middle position makes it $900, guy next to him calls, another caller and yet another caller. So now there's about $4,000 in the pot and I look down at A-Ko; squuuuuuueeze.

Usually in these situations when I shove everyone either folds or one person calls. And even if one person calls with a pair there's so much dead money in the pot it's definitely worth taking a flip. Everyone folded until the last guy who called with pocket nines and I lost the flip so that was GG for me.

San Remo was definitely not so good for my prop bet. It's very difficult to have any meal without pizza, spaghetti or unhealthy carbs. I've never seen so many pizza restaurants in such close proximity in my life.

I think I racked up about $6k in penalties in Italy alone. I was shocked to see that despite this I still ended up losing three kilos that week and now rest at a solid 92 kilos. So I've lost six kilos and am halfway to my goal of 86 kilos.

You know, I've never been certain about how profitable poker will be in the future (10-20 years from now) until playing some blackjack in Italy and in Europe in general. Blackjack?, you say. What does that have to do with poker?

Allow me to explain - I've always been paranoid about how in the next few years everyone will learn how to play more profitably and the skill level of players will even out and therefore make it a lot more difficult to win or at least make luck a much bigger factor.

This is no longer the case, I now think that poker will ALWAYS be profitable. I was a little bored after I busted out of San Remo and was waiting for my sit-and-go to start so I decided to kill some time and play a little blackjack.

Blackjack is one of the most simple forms of gambling there is and even if you're not familiar with the game you can easily get a strategy card that tells you when to hit, stay, double and split. If you follow this strategy the house has less than a 1% edge - 0.62% in European blackjack and 0.28% in Vegas to be exact.

Wherever I go in Europe, I'm always shocked to see how terrible people are at following basic strategy in blackjack. People do crazy things like stay with 13-16 with the dealer's 10 showing and don't make obvious doubles if "they have a feeling."

How could you possibly say you have a feeling in blackjack when there are eight decks shuffled in an automatic shuffler? Superstition is a terrible attribute to have as a poker player or a gambler. I'm not a math guy, but I think the house edge increases substantially when people play as bad as they do.

The worst thing is, when you play properly (take a card when you're supposed to take a card for instance) people are shocked and if the outcome/result changes for the worse people get genuinely angry at you.

Another thing I've noticed is that when the dealer is showing an ace everyone rushes in to pay insurance. For those of you that don't know, insurance is a sucker bet and just another way for the casino to obtain more of an edge.

Now my theory regarding the future of profitability in poker is that if the majority of people who gamble don't understand or are not willing to learn how to play a simple game like blackjack properly then how on earth will they ever understand or get good at the complex game of poker?

It's because of human nature that poker will always be profitable and destructive characteristics including ego, stubbornness, ignorance and superstition are likely to cause the downfall of any poker player.

Poker is the perfect way to legally steal from the rich and give to the poor :)

-- Sorel Mizzi

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Winter Sports, Prop Bets and Warsaw Trip Report

info@www.Pokerlistings.com — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 18:40:03 +0100

A couple weeks after Copenhagen my friend Roland De Wolfe invited me out for a one-week skiing trip with him and his parents in Zermatt, Switzerland.

I elected to go snowboarding instead of skiing as I remembered having a lot of difficulty skiing as a youngster and snowboarding came really easy to me.

For the first three days at the resort, all we did was stay in the room and play Chinese poker and online poker; sometimes both at the same time. Finally we got out and hit the slopes. The mountains were higher up than I've ever seen before - so different than the kiddy hills I used to snowboard on back in high school.

It took about 20-30 minutes by train to get up the mountain, so you can imagine how far up it was. At first, I struggled keeping my balance on the snowboard and would fall quite frequently, but eventually I got the hang of it and picked up where I left off 5-6 years ago.

After only 1-2 minutes of boarding, my legs and feet were in excruciating pain and I was out of breath to the point of wanting to stop and take the train back down. I'm not sure if I was out of breath because the air is thinner at higher altitudes, me being out of shape, or me underestimating how strenuous of an exercise boarding actually is but it was probably a combination of all three.

I felt a little bit guilty about not wanting to continue, as it interrupted Roland's ski session and I knew that Roland, being the loyal friend that he is, would want to take the train down with me instead of continuing on without me and meeting me in the room. So we went down, played some more Chinese, went to the sauna and relaxed until dinner.

Every night Roland and I had dinner with his parents at this really nice restaurant in the "Alex," a hotel owned and operated by a family and THE best hotel I've ever stayed at by far. Roland and his family had been going to this hotel in Zermatt for the last 20 years and it's no wonder why.

The whole village of Zermatt is like an undiscovered paradise, almost like a world within the world. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to go skiing or boarding. We tried boarding/skiing again the following day and I had the exact same problem after a few minutes.

This really got me disturbed. I guess punishing my body by eating junk food and not exercising for the last two years was finally catching up to me. Nevertheless, I shouldn't be out of breath from boarding at this young of an age.

I'm a firm believer that in order to make positive changes in your life, you need to get disturbed about your current situation. When I first started playing online poker, I got disturbed about not being a winning player and developed a keen and pulsating desire to become successful at online poker - and more specifically multi-table tournaments.

I know for a fact that I can use this same strategy to get back in great shape and have exercise and a balanced diet become a part of my regular lifestyle. Of course, It also helps if there's some financial reward for achieving my goal.

So I asked Roland if he'd be interested in a prop bet where each of us are required to lose a certain amount of weight by the start of the WSOP (May 31st). He agreed and we discussed the terms the following day.

These are the rules/terms:

NO eating in the three hours before going to bed.
Must work out five times per week for at least one hour.
No eating the following foods: Fast food, candy, chocolate, chips, coffee, anything fried, hot dogs, corn dogs, donuts, pizza, soft pretzels, cookies, sugary cereals, cake, cupcakes, ice cream cake, white bread, pizza, fries, pies, pop/soda, hamburgers, fattening dressings, pastries, processed foods, red meat, alcohol, potatoes, white rice, egg yolk.
Alcohol only one day out of the week.
One cheat day per week (we can eat anything).
If one of us loses the required weight and the other doesn't, the person who didn't achieve his goal owes the other $25k. If both fail or both succeed, it's a total wash.
Roland has to lose 16 kilos; Sorel has to lose 12 kilos.

Starting weights:

Sorel 98.1 kilos
Roland 102.5 kilos

We get charged $1k per rule we violate to a cap of $3k in a single day. Obviously we're not going to be able to monitor each other efficiently, so we're just going by the honor system. I've already broken one rule.

I ate a cookie knowing that it would cost me $1k. It seemed worth it at the time =(. Good news is that Roland has already racked up $4k in violations and isn't showing any sign of slowing down so I'm liking my chances.

EPT Warsaw was a little bit uneventful. I got down to $1,500 chips after three-barreling some guy who called my K-Q UTG raise with 6-2 on the button, flopped trip 2s and called my bet on every street. I raised to $275 at $50/$100.

He called the button, I bet $550 on a board of 2-2-9. He called, the turn was a J and I fired $1,400. He called, I bet $3,300 on the 5 river and again he called. I really didn't put 6-2o in his range :(. Oh well, I don't feel too bad about the hand as I would have played A-J, K-J, QQ, KK, AA the same way for value.

I managed to get back up to $10k after a few lucky double-ups - QQ vs TT against Luca Pagano and then AA vs Q-K on a K-high board against William Thorson. After recovering, I made the same mistake I've made in every single EPT tournament this year - overvaluing A-Q when I have a very loose-aggressive image.

It's always the same thing: someone at the table makes a comment about how aggressive I am, and then I think that they think I have nothing and are re-raising me light and I three-bet all-in for all my chips.

I really have to stop thinking so deep when I get re-raised by older live players. They always have it!

I've run A-Q into KK and A-K 5/5 times this year in live tournaments when I could have avoided the situation, and only sucked out once (Irish Open). A-Q is the devil.

-- Sorel Mizzi

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