2007 Hoy Hater of the Year Acceptance Post

It is with great honor that I accept the award for top Hoy hater in 2007. While many others were deserving of the title, my body of work in 2007 speaks for itself, and makes me very proud. I know that my time is limited for these these things, so before you start flashing the red light at me or start playing the go to commercial music, I would like to take some time to breifly review each and every one of my Hoy hater posts this year that earned me this award. I will do this in chronological order, as it helps to see how the hatred builds throughout the year to an amazing climax that sets me apart from the many other haters out there.


2/9/2007 Yes Hoy, They Are Getting Tougher. No Hoy, This Is Not A Good Thing
What a way to start the year off by challenging Hoy on how tough the games are getting as a result of the UIGEA and Neteller pullout.

3/9/2007 Art vs. Science
In this gem, I don’t mention Hoy by name, but if you read between the lines knowing he is an MTT specialist, I am calling him out for being more of an artist than a scientist. Wow, that’s got to hurt. Let the hating begin.

4/17/07 Hoy Hot Hand Redux #1 – Whats the nuts?
In this first ever Hoy Hot Hand Redux, I question Hoy’s preflop call with TT. Questioning a players preflop play is equivalent to questioning their manlyhood. Can you feel the hate building here?

5/9/07 Time to Stop Dropping the Hammer?
Now I have gone and done it. I am questioning the value of playing Hoy’s favorite hand. Not only do I hate Hoy, but I also hate the hands he plays. A double dosage of hate from the #1 hater.

5/30/07 The Perfect BBT Starting Table
In this instant classic, I claim that Hoy would be part of my perfect BBT starting table. This also implies I could get his chips and the others mentioned in the post pretty easy. He knows he is a better MTT player than me, so this one hurt him bad.

7/19/07 The Expectation Value of a Resteal
In this one, I used actual math to pick apart the first example in Hoy’s wonderful manifesto on restealing, by showing how it was actually a –EV move he was describing. I then went on to suggest in a follow-up post, that plain old stealing is a much better move at this point in an MTT. Once again using actual math to prove my point.

8/22/07 Priced in for a Hoy Rant
Here I analize a hand where I was bullying the table in a bloggament and raised into Hoy late with A6o. When he pushed all-in back with an M of 4 (he was BB and had 8% of his stack committed), I called claiming to be priced in based on his range. Of course, Hoy claimed that his range was only a big pair or big ace. My hatred for him had me questioning that claim.

8/30/07 Why your Hourly Rate Matters
In this manifesto on how poker players should be judged, I never mention Hoy by name. But, since we all know that he does not beleive that keeping records or that hourly win rates are important at all to a poker player, you can see how this was clearly directed at Hoy. It was quite a slap in the face I would imagine.

9/4/07 The Indifference Point
To get some closure on the priced in for a Hoy rant post, I used game theory to actually deduce Hoy’s optimal pushing range, as well as my optimal calling range. What Game Theory shows is that Hoy’s “optimal” pushing range was way wider than he claimed, and that my raise/call play was highly +EV. Check mate sir, the hater wins this one!

9/20/07 When it is Correct to Play Optimally
Here I challenge Hoy’s assertion that Game Theory is useless at the poker table, by claiming that it can actually be used in a limited way. God, that has got to hurt him bad. Can you feel the hatred build here with every single one of these. It’s a wonder that Hoy can still read this hate filled garbage.

10/8/07 Hoy Hot Hand Redux #2 – Preflop Actions
Here I question Hoy’s smooth call of a re-reraise from out of position with QJs in the early stages of a big MTT. I feel he should have folded. Again my hatred has led to a difference of opinion with the MTT master. Then, very out of character for me, I defend Hoy’s post flop actions in a follow-up post (Hoy was questioning his actions here a bit). But, to make me feel a bit better, I actually defend ol’little dicks post flop play, which Hoy thought was horrible.

10/20/07 Hoy Pwnership Thyme
In easily my most hate filled post of the year, I add Hoy to the term “Pwnership Thyme” that he had coined earlier in the same tourney to describe what it feels like to sucker Hoy into pushing into my rockets on the river. The loss crippled him. I figured this post would help make him feel a bit worse.

10/21/07 Bodonkey win, and no I am not Hoy
After taking down the bodonkey disguised as “What’s the Nutz”, everyone in the MTT thought that I was in fact Hoy. Since I hate Hoy, and know that this would bother him to no end, I captured the chat to prove this actually happened. To add insult to injury, I also left in the part where they thought I was Wawfuls, implying not only is my play indistinguishable from Hoy’s, but so is Wawfuls. If it was ever in doubt, this post would cinch the title of top Hoy hater for 2007.

11/27/07 The New & Expanded Definition of Lucksacery
I never mention Hoy by name here, but this post was entirely inspired by Hoy calling me out as a complete lucksac in the first hour of the MATH rebuy where I would finish third. Now he did not call me out by name in his post either, so it is kind of a compliment to use his same techniques, but this lengthy post clearly shows my hatred for him, as I actually claim that I was using skill, and was not really “lucky” at all. This is complete disagreement from what he said in his post, so my contempt for him is clear.

Its amazing that I found the time for such hatred throughout the year, concidering I barely have time for poker anymore, but hatred for Hoy makes me feel so good about myself that it is worth it. I would also like to also mention all of my hate filled comments on other peoples blogs, but I can't actually remember any. If I dropped a good hoy hater comment on your blog, please paste it into the comments here, so I can proplery acknowledge your help in inspiring addional Hoy hatred, which helped me win the award.

Lastly, I would like to mention my most hateful comment on a Hoy post for 2007. It is from just a few days ago. Hoy was describing how badly he played in the recent 1k, and this comment below completely agrees with his assessment. A non-hater would have come to his defense, and said that he played the hand perfectly, but not me.

If somebody opens first or reraises my TT, I am calling with set mining odds or reraising for information, or even folding if the odds are not there. Information just gets more expensive as the hand progresses. Since you did not get it preflop, you need to assume you are behind on that flop. If you honestly think you are ahead, you need to re-raise the flop and find out. Calling and hoping for an A or K on the turn to help you to fold is silly. Having just called the flop, and with the guy pushing the turn, you will not be able to get any info through betting now, and simply must fold. You know all this. Another huge factor is how early this is. Not a ton of naked AKs are going to push-in unimproved on the turn this early in a $1000 buy-in, as that is a total donk move. His betting pattern was entirely consistent with AA-JJ. This hand seems so straightforward that I find it difficult to understand the line you took. Just shake it off I guess, but question how you managed to misplay (three times) a pretty standard situation in an important MTT.


To finish, I feel a bit bad that I was not able to return the favor and provide Hoy with an award for 2007. So to make up for this, I would like to nominate Hoy for the "2007 Loves to Dish it Out, but Apparently Can't Take it Award". I don't see how he could possibly not win this one.

Lifesagrind Wins BFFB TOC, Jek187 Takes Down Overall Title

Lifesagrind got his seat in the Blogger Fantasy Football Battle Tournament of Champions by winning the first ever BFFB event. Tonight he used that seat to win the first ever TOC by putting up an impressive 137.7 score in a tough week 17. Congratulations to Lifesagrind for his achievement.

Jek187 has been in the overall lead in the BFFB most of the way. He is one of the best players at Fantasy Sports Live and it showed with his very consistent results. Congratulations as well to Jek187, the over all champion in the inaugural Blogger Fantasy Football Battle.

Complete results are shown below, as well as all of the added prizes. $611 in free cash overall was added to the bonus prize pools by FSL. If you won an added prize, your FSL account will be credited on the 1st. I want to thank everyone who participated and made the first ever BFFB a huge success. We will be doing another one next year, and hope to make it bigger and better. I recently came up with a work around that should allow us to run legal open ended (unlimited entry) fantasy contests in the near future. If the legality of the work around holds up, we should be able to put all entries in a single BFFB contest next year which would be a nice improvement. We will also have private contest functionality with passwords soon as well. If you guys have any other ideas to improve next years BFFB let me know. Fantasy Football season is not over at FSL as we will continue to run fantasy contests on Saturday and Sunday throughout the NFL playoffs.

I was hoping to get all 10 qualified bloggers in the same TOC contest, but we had a non qualified entry that forced an additional contest. I filled up the extra heads-up contest so that lifesagrind could get his scores counted. The TOC results for the qualified entries is shown below.

BFFB TOC Results.

1st lifesagrind 137.7 ($150)

2nd jmathewson_III 115.1 ($75)

3rd Miami Don 113.6 ($50)

4th ChipperSports107.1 ($25)

5th Jek187 105.4 ($15)

6th Zeem 103

7th bonds 101.7

8th love_elf 96.4

9th Schuabs 71.3

10th Bobby Bracelet 67.5

Highest Weekly Scores in the BFFB

1 Jek187 186.9 (Week 2) $100

2 Schaubs 172.1 (Week 11) $50

3 ChipperSports 163.7 (Week 7) $25

Final Overall BFFB Standings (all who earned points are shown)

jek187 705.65 ($100)
Blinders 570.37
bonds 553.67 ($50)
jmathewson_III 537.60 ($25)
ChipperSports 490.02
ebk03001 475.32
HermWarfare 412.43
bayne_s 407.62
love_elf 392.07
Miami Don 387.18
Joe Speaker 314.56
Zeem 307.45
Big Pirate 288.48
DonkeyPuncher 278.85
Bobby Bracelet 256.43
Alpo_Splatr 250.87
Schuabs 238.65
lifesagrind 231.51
23skidoo 205.17
Otis 200.32
Chewbot 192.32
Chico's Bail Bonds 180.58
wxmanko 160.54
Madden 158.49
scurvydog 155.03
LTLover 142.72
mclarich 132.43
Bad Ass Mofo 131.31
Smokkee 117.77
Instant Tragedy 113.78
Dr. Pauly 111.78
Canable 111.52
Mcguyver 108.28
pwnage1 71.09
DrizzDJ 65.98
StB 61.95
Metaltoad 61.26
Digger 60.32
Family Guy 59.48
funnyshoes 50.07
meansdude 45.85
wwonka 42.65
PokahDave 39.65
Bill Belicheat 38.00
RotoScoop.com 34.34
Flick 31.50
BG 31.15
Lounge9 30.71
TripJax 29.92
shnikies 29.43
Mookie 28.44

Week 17 BFFB Results

Donkey Move or Expert Play. You Need to Tell the Difference

I have been only playing MTTs throughout 2007 with the little time I have for poker. I feel my MTT game has progressed while my cash game has surely regressed during this time. The improvements to my MTT game are late game type improvements, and I still have a long way to go. What I have learned how to do is make some donkey plays late. You see experts make what look to non-experts like complete donkey moves in the latter stages of MTTs.

What am I talking about? Let me explain. Expert plays late in an MTT are pushing all-in with ATC, and calling all-ins with ATC. To the casual observer this appears to be complete donkery, and when it works complete lucksacery. But when an expert does it, it is neither. Getting it in behind (sometimes way behind) by pushing with ATC or calling pushes with ATC, is solidly profitable when done in the right situations. Solidly profitable when considering both chip equity and tournament equity. These are MTT moves. They rarely make sense in a cash game, but in an MTT make sense more often then most people realize.

What an expert is doing is deducing a hand range or hand ranges, and calculating expectation value of their hand against that range. It is not very easy to do on the fly, but those that are good at it, can donk it up and be highly successful late in MTTs. When the stacks get short, and antes are in play, you would be surprised how often ATC get priced in. Experts figure this out, and get it in behind like a total donk and profit because of it. You need to be painfully aware of whats going on late. If you make a note on what a donk a player is when they are far from a donkey you are hurting yourself. Also, if you give a donkey credit for expert play you are also making a mistake. You actually need to try to make the calculations the expert is making even when you are not in a hand, to figure out if they are expert or not. If you can figure out what is going on you can exploit it. Moves with ATC are obviously exploitable, and this is where experts can actually be exploited. Rather than give you a classic type example, I will present the hand below from a $26 45 player S&G. I was 4-tabling at the time so no huge reads, but if you follow the thought process, I think you will see what might be going on here.

Full Tilt Poker Game #4642528006: $24 + $2 Sit & Go (35207042), Table 4 - 250/500 - No Limit Hold'em - 14:31:28 ET - 2007/12/27
Seat 1: PSYCHOPARANOID (6,190)
Seat 2: Blinders (10,806)
Seat 3: LUCKY FOX (8,326)
Seat 4: tslee1004 (3,550)
Seat 5: vanstock7 (4,390)
Seat 6: captain pflanze (10,205)
Seat 7: Mozart12 (7,780)
Seat 8: ladyluck2442 (12,135)
Seat 9: Chobii83 (4,118)
LUCKY FOX posts the small blind of 250
tslee1004 posts the big blind of 500
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Blinders [Jh Qc]
vanstock7 folds
captain pflanze folds
Mozart12 calls 500
ladyluck2442 calls 500
Chobii83 folds
PSYCHOPARANOID folds

I don't have a huge hand here, but I am on the button, and have a big stack. QJo has some potential, so I limp into what may become a 5-way pot on the flop.

Blinders calls 500
LUCKY FOX calls 250

As it got to the BB who was the smallest stack at the Final Table, I realized that he was priced in to push ATC in this situation. We have 2500 dead in the pot, and 4 limpers before him. The BB has 3050 behind after posting. He can jam and assuming only one player calls he is putting 3050 in for a 8600 pot. That's contributing 35% of the pot. Since we have a bunch of limpers, there is no reason to think anyone has a big pair. You need to figure ATC has at least 40% equity against any caller. On top of that, since this is 4 limpers, he has folding equity here as well. He is also the shortest stack at the final table with top 6 paid. Stealing the limps, or getting called and winning increase his tournament equity substantially. This is actually a pretty easy push with ATC for the BB with all this considered. If he does push ATC and gets called, he will look like a total donk. If he pushes ATC here, he is an expert though and far from a donk.

tslee1004 raises to 3,550, and is all in
Mozart12 has 15 seconds left to act
Mozart12 folds
ladyluck2442 folds

So I am putting this guy on ATC, or at least potentially ATC. With the stack that I have I can afford this call. I am getting the same odds as he was for his push. If my equity in the pot is better than 35% I need to call here. My equity against ATC is well over 50%, and my hand plays very well against 22-TT, so I am good against some better hands as well. My game is just not quite there yet though.

Blinders folds
LUCKY FOX folds
Uncalled bet of 3,050 returned to tslee1004
tslee1004 mucks
tslee1004 wins the pot (2,500)

I ended up in 6th. I had no idea if this guy was really an expert or woke up with a decent hand. But, I hope you can see how an expert can be exploited here, and can also look like a complete donkey. He obviously does not want the call with ATC, but was priced in for a call anyway. Not making the call, is almost the same as not pushing ATC in the other guys position, which was a correct move. The difference is that I don't get folding equity, but I also don't have ATC. Those two things would tend to wash out. So by not making the donkey call here, I guess I am the donkey?

wxmanko Wins Week 16 of BFFB. TOC This Sunday

wxmanko won week 16 of the Blogger Fantasy Football Battle. The BFFB Tournament of Champions will be held this week. We will also have the regular weekly BFFB contest to determine the season winners, and weekly highest score winners. A huge score in week 17 could still get you the $100 bonus for highest weekly score. Results are shown below:

For the Tournament of Champions, it will go up in the lobby on Wednesday, and will be a $5 entry fee. There will be a single announced prize of $5 for the winner. This is to discourage non-qualifiers from entering. Currently, we will be adding $243 to the prize pool plus $5 for each entry (less the $5 winner payment), plus any prizes Blinders wins in week 17. Anyone who enters who is not qualified will not be eligible for any of the added prizes. Alpo_Splatr & wxmanko please reply with a link to your blog, if you want to be eligible. The BFFB added prizes are only for bloggers. Added prizes will be as follows:

$150 First Place
$75 Second Place
$50 Third Place
$25 for each following place limited by added prizes

Top of the BFFB Leaderboard (added prizes shown if it was over now)
jek187 705.65 ($100)
Blinders 539.66
bonds 500.47 ($50)
jmathewson_III 494.16 ($25)
ChipperSports 490.02
ebk03001 446.89
HermWarfare 412.43
bayne_s 407.62
love_elf 392.07
Miami Don 387.18
Joe Speaker 314.56
Zeem 307.45
Big Pirate 288.48
DonkeyPuncher 278.85
Bobby Bracelet 256.43
Alpo_Splatr 250.87
Schuabs 238.65
lifesagrind 231.51
23skidoo 205.17
Otis 200.32
Chewbot 192.32
Chico's Bail Bonds 180.58
Madden 158.49
scurvydog 155.03
LTLover 142.72
mclarich 132.43
Smokkee 117.77
Instant Tragedy 113.78
Dr. Pauly 111.78
Mcguyver 108.28

Qualified for Tournament of Champions
lifesagrind , Jek187 , love_elf , Mcguyver , jmathewson_III (2) , Zeem (2), ChipperSports (2), Bobby Bracelet, Miami Don, Schaubs, bonds, Alpo_Splatr?, wxmanko?

Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)
$243

Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 Jek187 186.9 (Week 2)
2 Schaubs 172.1 (Week 11)
3 ChipperSports 163.7 (Week 7)

BFFB Week 16 Results

bayne_s Wins Sundays with Dr. Pauly TOC

bayne_s bested all Sundays with Dr. Pauly Tournament of Champion qualifiers with a solid score of 129.5 and won the $100 bonus for 1st place. The top six in the TOC earned bonus prizes. Results are shown below. Thanks to everyone who partisipated in Sundays with Dr. Pauly. Next year will be even bigger and better!

Tournament of Champions Results

Vegas Trip Report Part Trips - "Don't you know I'm Blinders"

Now that I have bashed the fee structure of the Venetian WPBT event, it is time to write about my run through the tournament. This was my 4th blogger gathering and 4th WPBT MTT. In each of the previous three I made it through 2/3s of the field before getting eliminated out of the money. I really wanted at least a cash this time, and set that as really my only goal for the trip. When I found out the tournament would be at the Venetian I knew I would have a bit of an advantage. The structure is very deep and it is quite a marathon of a tourney. Most bloggers have not played a live MTT with this structure, and probably will not make the right kind of adjustments to their game. My game requires little adjustment to this type of structure. I figured this would go 9+ hours based on my last trip to Vegas when Joe Speaker, Drizz, Spaceman, and I played basically this same structure, and I cashed about 7 hours later.

I planned on playing my normal tight and patient MTT strategy, but also look to see some cheap flops in the first few levels with drawing type hands with the large implied odds. I drew a pretty tough starting table with ScottMC, STB, FallStaff, JJok, Vinay and others. I got in a battle of the blinds with Vinay on the first hand when it folded to the SB and he completed. I normally don't make blind moves this early, but I looked down at something like 97s and figured I would pop him back to encourage some walks later on. He called. I flopped a gutshot and just one over to my hand. When Vinay checked, I c-bet and he called. The turn paired my low card, and Vinay checked again. I checked behind this time, uncertain where I was at. A blank hit the river, and after another check I felt I was good, and made a value bet that was called. I was beat by a higher pair, but he also had an outside straight draw. So I was a little disappointed to start off like this, but having showed my hand, I think it might have been good for my image.

I would play some medium sized pots, and win with better kickers. I would river a straight after semi-bluffing the whole way and win a decent pot. I would slow play AQ against JJok by just calling from the BB, and then check calling all streets when an Ace fell on the flop. I jammed the river, and JJok was somehow able to fold with about 2500 left behind with a weaker ace. I had now chipped up to a comfortable 15k ish stack when our table would break, and I would get moved to the "Feature Table".

At the feature table I would find Gcox, Al Cant Hang, F-Train, The Rooster, Bdidde, Penner, Joe Speaker, Wawfuls, and Russ. I would steal a pot off Bdidde right after I sat down, and I showed him which was a bit of a mistake. He did not trust me after this, and since he was my BB this was not a good thing. Rooster was pushing in a bunch preflop, and I was 3 to his left. He was showing a bunch of junk after buying pots, and I was pretty excited about my prospects of getting his chips eventually. Then the key hand would happen. I pick up KK, and Al open raises on my right. I reraise, and it folds to Russ who pushes. Al overpushes. I had seen Al make some moves, so I can't really put him on AA. I call, and sure enough he has AA and Russ has QQ. I would flop a K and send them both to the rail (and win Russ's book as a bounty!). Yes, I am a lucksac.

So at this point, I would estimate we were close to three hours into the MTT, and still had at least 1/2 the field remaining. I now had 35k in chips, and most likely the overall chip lead at this point. I had a nice chip lead over the others at the table. Now some of you would go into complete maniac mode at this point and start really pushing the table around. Having played this MTT before, I realized that we were still about 5 hours from the money. I play best when I stick to my normal MTT strategy. I figured I would ratchet up the aggression a bit. Basically, committing myself to open raise from any position with any pair, any decent ace (all aces from late), all premium hands, and even medium suited connectors or two paint type hands. For the next 1/2 hour or so, I bought a few pots this way, but did not get into any big pots and never picked up much for starting hands. Another thing that was working against me was the overall aggression level of the table. Rooster was open raising a bunch, and F-Train was pushing his shortish stack in about every orbit. My opportunities for opening preflop were pretty rare, and I was not getting preflop reraise type hands. I did have position on the aggressive side of the table. There must have been at least 20 hands where Rooster or someone else committed themselves preflop, and I had not even checked my cards yet. I never woke up with a hand once when this happened.

So I was not really able to ratchet up the aggression much, but I also did not want to go to far in that direction this early. I play best with a tight or even better a weak/tight image. I don't really think I could successfully play a maniac image for several hours without busting. So I stuck with my basic MTT strategy, and kept my stack north of 30k for then next three hours without playing very many hands. Eventually the feature table would break.

I would finally pick-up a premium hand with AA UTG at a pretty aggressive and shortstacked table. I obviously limped it. LJ picked up AQ and pushed. It folded to me and I said "Don't you know I am Blinders" as I flipped over rockets. I had said that a few times during the trip when people bet big into me on the river and I had the Nutz. I thought it was pretty funny. Not sure if LJ did, but I can't fault her play as a shortish stack with AQ. Plus she has not played with me enough to know I have AA when I limp UTG. So I won a nice pot, and was back in business a bit as we moved to the final two tables an into the money.

My streak of no cards would continue at the next table, and I would fold my way down pretty low. I probably screwed up a bit at this point, as this is a weakness in my strategy. I need to get a semi-steady amount of decent cards, and two-hour cold streaks can be devastating. I would eventually pick up JJ at about 11:30PM, and open jam it. I was called by a smaller pair, and lost to a set on the flop. IGHN in 13th place. l would have been pretty short with a win there, but at least I have a fighting chance. With Pauly's and I think Joe Speaker's cash, all three members of Team Fantasy Sports Live kicked some ass in the tourney. Next Summer it's the Final Table for me.

Rooster questioned my strategy a bit afterwards, but I am not questioning it. Everyone plays their own way. He does have a ton of heart to play that aggressive for that long and survive. So he gets tons of credit in my mind for the win. It was quite a performance. Only one aggro player like that can survive, and he was the one. I was so ready to call him down a bit slim preflop and stack him, but could not get the situation I was looking for. I had a huge number of chances though. If I catch a big hand and bust him with four tables left, does he still question my strategy?

MTT ROIs & Was the Venetian MTT a Complete Rip-off?

I have read a bunch of trip reports and have heard pretty much nothing but positive reviews of the Venetian WPBT event. I have to admit that I loved the structure, and it is the best by far offered at a Casino on a regular basis. 6000 in starting chips, 30 minute levels, and all the in between levels you don't get at other locations make for a structure with tons of play. A huge advantage for me based on my MTT strategy. I figured that with a start time of 3PM this thing would run past midnight, and I was right.

What nobody has mentioned so far is what a complete rip-off the fees were for this tournament. The fees were so high that you can argue not a single one of us bloggers could beat that tournament long term for a profit. I will argue this point in a minute. When the fees are so high that a game can't be beaten, it is not a game of skill any more, or even really gambling. It is simply charity for the house. In this case the house is the Venetian, owner of the largest hotel casino in the world. A company that is building bigger and better casino's all over the world. Is this on the back of us poor poker players?

So did anyone even look at the fees? Total buy-in was $135. House entry fee was $25. Add-on/Dealer toke was $10. So this was a $100+35 structure. Don't even try to argue that the add-on $10 was not a fee. The add-on was mandatory for this tournament and not optional. The fact that the dealers get the money is of no concern. If it is a mandatory fee, it is a fee that goes to the house. If the house does not pay dealers enough that a mandatory tip are required, that is not my problem. And why the fuck do I have to mandatory tip the dealers. Traditionally this is done by people who actually win the MTT or place highly. Just let them tip out of their winnings, and the other 90% who did not cash don't need to throw down a $10 tip per person. It's like demanding all players tip a $1 in a cash game every hand win or lose. It's not how its done. The winner has the option of tipping. Losers should not be required to tip. For that matter tips should never be mandatory. Imagine that you win an MTT, and all the dealers were complete tools. They screwed you over every step of the way, but you overcame and won. So now I have to mandatory give these a-holes 10% of my winnings? Mandatory tips are complete BS.

So the question is, is it possible for a skilled player to overcome a $100+35 fee structure, for a long-term profit? The answer is pretty much no. There are probably a few high level pros who could make a very small profit in these things, but for the average blogger no way. For the best of the best MTT bloggers I think they could come close to break even, but forget about profiting. So we all came to Vegas, and played in an unbeatable (long-term) MTT. That is just the facts. Let me put some numbers behind this for some clarification.

Lets take the normal rake of an online MTT to be 10% of the money that goes in the prize pool. So for a $100+10 MTT you have a rake% of 10/110 or 9.1%. That is actually a pretty high rake level. Cash games average in the 3.0-4.5% range depending on the stakes. About 1/10 people can beat cash games long-term against that rake. For MTTs I would imagine less than 5% of players can beat the rake long term. If you pool all MTT players together the combined Return on Investment (ROI) is -9.1%. For cash games it is something like -4.0%. So the average player loses 9.1% of their buy-in on average when entering a MTT. Some players do much better, some do much worse. Profitable MTT players can overcome the -9.1% average rake and turn their ROIs positive. The rake for the Venetian WPBT event was 35/135 or 26%. If only 5% of players can overcome a 9.1% rake, how many can overcome a 26% rake. Not too many I would imagine.

So what is a typical ROI for a very good MTT player, and is it high enough to overcome a 26% MTT rake? I can't really look at myself for answers here, as I would not call myself a "very good MTT player". I would say I am OK, and am close to break even long term in these things (possibly slightly profitable). Luckily there is a website called OfficialPokerRankings.com. This site has been compiling MTT results including buy-in amounts since the last part of 2006 on various poker sites. With the buy-in information, not only can they show you who has cashed the most in MTTs, they can also calculate overall profit in MTTs and MTT ROI for all players. For those of you out there who refuse to keep records, this site has done it for you, and you can see your results over the last 14 months or so. On the player summary tab, you can see profitability by month, year, and all-time. The site tracks all MTTs held on the major poker sites. Private MTTs are not counted so no blogger tournies in the results (which is the correct approach IMO). They also count Sit and goes with 18 or more players to start in the results as well as multitable token MTTs and satellites. I think this is fair as well as multitable S&Gs are not much different than a normal MTT.

So I signed up for free and started punching in some big name bloggers to see what a typical MTT ROI would be for good MTT player (I only looked at FullTilt results). I will not name any names here, so you will need to link over and see for yourself, but what I did find out was that almost none of the big names have a positive ROI in MTTs for 2007. I have to admit that this was a bit expected. Big results can be extremely misleading, and we all tend to focus on big results. Results need to be taken in the context of all of the entry fees spent. They should be taken in the context of ROI and $/Hr which are much better measures than an isolated big result. My impression that MTT satellites are for suckers was pretty much confirmed as well. So I kept digging and finally found the data point I was looking for in KOD. This guy is an absolute stud in MTTs and his results confirm this. He has over 20k in profit (not cashes PROFIT) in 2007 on FullTilt. His ROI for 2007 is 24%. So KOD can overcome the 9.1% rake and grab an additional 24% in equity when he plays a MTT. I think I found the player who might be able to beat the Venetian fee structure long-term. He can earn a slim profit by playing it. I did not find anyone else who was even close.

For the record my MTT ROI for 2007 is 127%. I do not claim that number to be real, as my sample size is too small at less than 100 MTTs for the year. There is no way I could play the Venetian MTT for a long-term profit, even though I am 2 for 2 in cashes against that structure. It does not matter. I am no KOD, and KOD barely profits in this thing.

Is there a moral to all of this? Possibly. I have always said that cash games is where the money is made at poker. When you see a bunch of big name MTT specialist bloggers with a -12% ROI for 2007 (or worse), you need to start questioning who, if anyone, is profiting from MTTs long-term. MTTs may be funner than cash games, but there is not much money to be made in them even at a rake of 9.1%. When you sign-up for a live MTT, make sure you understand the fee structure. If the fees exceed 20%, understand that you just can't profit from this MTT long-term. Now, I have no problem tossing $35 in the garbage for the chance to play a great structure with all of my blogger friends. My point is that this is what we all did when we entered an MTT that was basically unbeatable. The big WPBT winner was the Venetian.

Vegas Trip Report Part Duece

A bunch of people want me to write my manifesto on weak/tight craps. It is coming, but I need to finish off my trip report before what little I remember is lost forever.

Friday I slept in, took care of some business, took a nap, and arrived at the MGM at around 6PM refreshed and ready for a big night. No bloggers to be found yet, so I signed up for a 1/2 NL table. I would flop a couple sets in the first few orbits and double my buy-in. Poker is so easy when you are catching cards. I tried to put my name in for the mixed games, but they did not have a list going yet so they just wrote down my name on paper.

At 7PM, the bloggers would arrive in force and I would watch two mixed tables form without them calling my name. I would get up and grab the last spot on table number two. I think I might have snagged this spot from somebody else, but tough, I was here first and they did not put me on the actual list.

We had Drizz, F-Train, Speaker, and other big names at the table. I would play for about an hour, winning at first, but eventually losing some big pots when my opponent made hands on the last card. Down $100 I would pack up and head for the blogger 1/2 NL table. Featured at the table were Otis, JJ, Miami Don, KOD, ScottMC, Zeem and more. We were all playing pretty well, but the tourists were getting it in bad a bunch against us and getting lucky. You get a much better feel for how people play live vs. online. I had not formed much of an opinion on ScottMC, but after playing live with him, I have much respect for his game. Chad as usual scares the crap out of me at the cash tables. He loves to insta-call c-bets which gives you no idea where you are at. I got into a bit of trouble when I had to fire a second $55 bullet into Chad to see where I was at. He smooth called it with a turned straight, and led out small on the river convincing me I was beat so I folded. Dropped $100 on that one hand, and other than that I would be breakeven at a very tough 1/2 NL table over several hours. At around 3AM, I would grab Shaubs and Jordan and we would head back to the IP.

One thing I should have made as a rule was "Stay away from the IP craps tables". When I got back to the IP Iggy, LJ and others were there. Iggy was going to play craps, so I almost had to. $10 a roll plus a mega cold table and I drop $95 in about 10 minutes. Rallied a few dollars back at $15 Paigow, but I prolly should have quit gambooling while even for the night. The $95 I lost at $10 IP craps would amount to 80% of what I lost gambling for the trip. Oh well.

Friday Night
1/2 NL at MGM +$100
Mixed Games at MGM -$100
IP $10 craps -$95
IP $15 Paigow $+30

Total for night -$65

ebk03001 rallys past RTrizzle in final week to win Sunday's With Dr. Pauly Series

ebk03001 put up a score of 120.4 which was enough to slip past RTrizzle for 1st place overall in the 1st annual Sunday's with Dr. Pauly on FantasySportsLive.com. The Tournament of Champions will be held this week for those who got a three win streak vs. Pauly during the season. For the TOC, FSL will be adding $150 to the prize pool. The TOC will go up in the lobby on Wednesday and will have $5 entry fee and no announced prizes in the lobby. The prizes will be $100 for first, $50 for second, and we will also pay $25 for third/forth/fifth... from the $5 entry fees (based on the number of entries). You must be qualified for the TOC to receive any of the prizes. If someone who is not qualified enters, they will just forfeit their $5 into the TOC prize pool with no chance of winning. We will send out an email to all qualifiers shortly with instructions. Final results for the season and season prizes are shown below. TOC qualifiers are shown as well. Thanks for everyone who participated in Sunday's with Dr. Pauly, good luck in the TOC, and see you next year.



Final Sunday's With Dr. Pauly Standings (Prize)


1st ebk03001 1286 ($100 cash + $50 added to FSL account)
2nd RTrizzle 1262.3 (Any football themed DVD)
3rd jek187 1236.7 (Blind Side by Michael Lewis)
4th Expensive Wino 1235.8 (Phone call from Daddy)
5th bayne_s 1219
6th bonds 1166.6
7th Dr. Pauly 1165.6
8th HermWarfare 1125.1
9th BigHeeb91 1120.6
10th Big Pirate 1115.7
Proehl 1071.2
Chewbot 1051.4
Pokerpeaker 1028.6
Mark 1026.9
Betty Underground 1026.9
jakehead 1019.1
Mattazuma 969.3
KenB525 954.8
change100 950.3
DrizzDJ 945.4
Zeem 936.6
Bobby Bracelet 878.2
DonkeyPuncher 787.4
23skidoo 662
PokahDave 633.2
VinNay 628.5
Garthmeister J. 619.4
johnnieb 613.8
Party Matt 602.6
Alpo_Splatr 590.3
mush237 525.1
belly2bar 524.7
Mookie 491.7
Troyinator69 486.5
scurvydog 424.5
Joe Speaker 408.3
Jevanstar 403.8
Lounge9 324.9
Chico's Bail Bonds 319.1
LTLover 312.2
Victory 278.9
Dart Thrower 253.4
Madden 252.8
Bill Belicheat 245.4
Bad Ass Mofo 238.5
Family Guy 232.2
dnord 222.9
GCox25 205.5
McGuyver 195.4
Digger 173.5
Otis 169.8
Al Can't Hang 164.4
Miami Don 151
Smokkee 140.2
Hunter 137.6
tynez 136.4
SCUM 127.5
iemblock 122.8
RJ 121.6
Jack D 121.1
fantasy 116.9
Jason 116.8
DontDoItPls 107.2
Chuckdnb 106.2
Lord Bodak 104.5
DirrtyDirrty 97.6
wxmanko 96.8
meansdude 93.8
spotcheck13 89.5
razrtrader 89.3
Da Bidz 88.8
Canable 86.8
Reverse Shocker 86.4
SirFWALGMan 86.1
Draft Master Mike 84
KingBack 83.4
Dart Thrower 82.6
Larry 75.8
wirenutts223 69.6
Beale 53.1



Tournament of Champion Qualifiers ($100 for 1st, $50 for second, $25 from entry fees to 3rd/4th...)

Bobby Bracelet , RTrizzle, ebk03001, Chewbot, bonds, Mattazuma, jek187, Expensive Wino, Pokerpeaker, Big Pirate, KenB25, Proehl, DrizzDJ, Mark, PokahDave, VinNay, HermWarfare, bayne_s, Zeem, Betty Underground, johnnieb, 23skidoo

Week 10 Sundays with Dr. Pauly Results

Week 15 Blogger Fantasy Football Battle Results

Results from this week are above. We have two weeks left to decide the title, and the TOC will be held in Week 17, so Week 16 is your last chance to qualify for that. Still pretty tight at the top with bonus money still in play for many. If Alpo_Splatr has a blog, please provide a link for entry in the TOC. Only bloggers are eligible for any added prizes (I am also not eligible).

Top of the BFFB Leaderboard ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
jek187 656.40
Blinders 539.66
bonds 500.47
jmathewson_III 465.73
ChipperSports 459.86
HermWarfare 412.43
ebk03001 408.74
bayne_s 407.62
Miami Don 387.18
love_elf 359.82
Zeem 307.45
Big Pirate 288.48
Joe Speaker 279.74
DonkeyPuncher 278.85
Bobby Bracelet 256.43
Alpo_Splatr 250.87
Schuabs 238.65
lifesagrind 231.51
23skidoo 205.17
Chewbot 192.32
Chico's Bail Bonds 180.58
Madden 158.49
scurvydog 155.03
LTLover 142.72
Otis 140.00
mclarich 132.43
Smokkee 117.77
Dr. Pauly 111.78
Mcguyver 108.28

Qualified for Tournament of Champions

lifesagrind , Jek187 , love_elf , Mcguyver , jmathewson_III (2) , Zeem (2), ChipperSports (2), Bobby Bracelet, Miami Don, Schaubs, bonds, Alpo_Splatr?

Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)

$243

Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)

1 Jek187 186.9 (Week 2)

2 Schaubs 172.1 (Week 11)

3 ChipperSports 163.7 (Week 7)

Winter 2007 Report - Part 1b

Lets see, where I last left off was about 15 minutes into the winter blogger gathering, so I still have a bunch to cover. By this point, I had watched Al down close to a Pint of Soco, and turned down a $100 Roshambo match. Various bloggers were now on the scene at the IP hooker bar including Fallstaff, Otis, BuddyDank, Iggy, Pauly, Astin, GCox, Zeem..... I spent a bunch of time hanging in the bar and staying away from the -EV games, but that just can't last forever with all the action so close. I played some $10 Paigow with much of the crew. We had two of the tables mostly covered with bloggers. I broke even my first session, and dropped $20 in a later session. Grabbed about 5 free beers in the process so it was +EV considering the price of beer at the hooker bar.

Al was playing GCox's stack at Paigow. Gcox was a bit concerned. He had $170 or something like that, and Al was pretty wasted. G figured Al was going to donk it off, but he is such a nice guy that he would take his chances.

I loves me some craps though, but I like it cheap so I can properly apply my system. Buddy had never played before and I offered to give him some pointers. A crew of me, Astin, Zeem, Buddy, ScottMC, and Gcox were ready to go. We just had to extract Al from the Paigow tables. We pulled it off, and much to GCox's surprise, Al had doubled his stack up to $350 though an absolute clinic of drunken Paigow, according the the crowd at the table that was in absolute awe. We made the 1/2 mile trek north to the "Casino Royal" made famous by the Bond movie. There they have the holy grail of Vegas strip craps. $3 with 20x odds. They also have $5 with 100x odds which is about 10 times better than the crappy IP craps tables. I play my craps like my poker, in an effective, but poorly understood way. While everyone else is jamming odds and placing numbers up after every point, I chose to build up my table positions slowly by religiously betting the COME every roll, and selectively getting odds up. I guess you could call this tight/aggressive craps. This tends to fight off super cold tables, and benefit nicely (though not quite as quick) when the table gets hot. So Al and Gcox set up shop at the $5 table while the rest of us jumped on the $3. I was showing my approach to Buddy, and the others were doing the typical place em out there and hope approach. The table was a bit cold early, and I was getting a bit low, while the others were keeping pretty even by hitting some of the odds I did not take. I would eventually get all my chips on the table, and then rally all the way back to even over a 1 1/2 hour session that ended a bit past 4AM in the morn. I was the only blogger who broke even. Astin doubled his $200 buy-in. ScottMC at least doubled (Scott was the hot roller for the night), and Zeem and buddy made out quite nice. I must suck at craps. As we were getting ready to split there was quite a commotion over at the $5 craps table. I guess when Al heard it was time to go he threw down $100 odds on the pass and hit immediately. He now had turned Gcox's $170 into a nice $700! Way to go Al.

Gas money to Vegas - ($45)
Corona's at the hooker Bar - ($4.50)
IP Table Games - ($20)
Casino Royal Craps - Breakeven
Lending Al your stack at Piagow and Craps - +$530
Seeing all of your virtual friends in one place - Priceless

Soco Neat and $100 RoShamBo Matches with Iggy

Al Can't Hang likes his Soco "Neat". I am not really a hard alcohol drinker, so I was unaware of the difference between a shot of Soco, and a Soco Neat. The latter means that you get a small glass full vs. just a shot. I guess somewhere around two shots total. For the connoisseurs of Soco taking it Neat is the best I guess. It is pretty mandatory to hook Al up with some Soco, and since I was there when he first arrived on Scene at the IP Hooker Bar on Thursday night I offered to buy a round. I prefer to pace myself on such occasions so it was just beer for me (I wear panties to), and Al made quick work of his Soco. As various bloggers arrived, I would witness Al down about 4 more Soco Neats in the next 15 minutes. Al is the man. I would have been dead if I tried to drink 1/2 of what he did Thursday night, let alone over a wild extended weekend.

I also found Iggy at the IP Hooker Bar. He offered up a quick $100 Rock/Paper/Scissors match. Now I am an action junkie, but with all of the available action just a few feet away at the fabulous Imperial Palace Casino (The name really does not do the place justice), I decided against it. Besides, I have a pretty major roshambo tell, and can only go to level three thinking. To beat Iggy you need to go to at least level 5. Oh, yeah and the panty thing as well. Anyway a very load and proud Asian Jew took up Iggy's offer at a reduced $20 rate and won. The following night Kat would go best of five for $100 at the MGM and also beat the master. I got a couple pics below. Both are pretty poor quality, but it is a good approximation of what it would have actually looked like assuming that anyone at this point would have had beer goggles on.

Asian Jew Vs. Iggy

Kat vs. Iggy for $100

Pauly Wins Week 9 of SWDP & TOC Update

Pauly took down the contest with his name this week. We have one week left and a pretty tight leaderboard at the top. The Tournamnent of Champions will be held in week 16. It will be a $5 buy-in with no automatic prizes (any fees collected will be added to the TOC prizes). The $5 buy-in should discourage others from entering, but if any do they will not be eligible for the added prizes. The full list of all Sunday With Dr. Pauly added prizes will be announced next week.

Results are shown below:

Top of the Leaderboard

RTrizzle 1173.5
ebk03001 1165.6
bayne_s 1129.4
Expensive Wino 1124.2
jek187 1114.9
Dr. Pauly 1096.7
Chewbot 1051.4
bonds 1050.1
HermWarfare 1046.7
Big Pirate 1016.4
BigHeeb91 1013.2
Pokerpeaker 989.9
Mark 967.6
Proehl 962.6
KenB525 954.8
Betty Underground 948.3
jakehead 940.6
Zeem 936.6
change100 903.5
Mattazuma 887.2
Bobby Bracelet 878.2
DrizzDJ 849.2
DonkeyPuncher 708.3
PokahDave 633.2
VinNay 628.5
Garthmeister J. 619.4

Tournament of Champions Field (To be held on 12/23/2007 - Week 16)

Bobby Bracelet , RTrizzle, ebk03001, Chewbot, bonds, Mattazuma, jek187, Expensive Wino, Pokerpeaker, Big Pirate, KenB25, Proehl, DrizzDJ, Mark, PokahDave, VinNay, HermWarfare, bayne_s, Zeem, Betty Underground, johnnieb, 23skidoo

SWDP Week 9 Results

ChipperSports Wins Week 14 of the BFFB and TOC Update

ChipperSports won another week on the BFFB joining the Zeem and jmathewson_III as the only others to repeat this season. Things are tightening up on the leaderboard with just three weeks to go. I am not eligible for any prizes so it appears that 4th place will get something at this point.


Originally, I was planning on having the BFFB TOC during the NFL Playoffs. Reviewing the schedule, there are only two games maximum on any given day throughout the playoffs. Since our contest structure is daily it is tough for us to span the whole weekend of the playoffs with a single contest. So we will be moving the TOC up to Week 17 of the regular season, and it will include the winners from the first 16 weeks of the BFFB. To keep out the riff-raff, the TOC will have a $5 entry fee with no prizes. The Prize pool for the TOC currently is $243 (Blinders Dead Money) + $5/entry. We will pay out the top 4 or 5 in the TOC from this prize pool, by manually adding the cash to your account. Anyone who enters without qualifying will be ineligible (but we will go ahead and throw their $5 in the prize pool anyway). hope this makes sense and let me know if you have any questions.


Week 14 and season long results are shown below.


Top of the BFFB Leaderboard ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
jek187 617.20
Blinders 539.66
jmathewson_III 465.73
bonds 438.49
ChipperSports 409.26
Miami Don 387.18
HermWarfare 384.72
bayne_s 374.49
ebk03001 364.91
love_elf 359.82
Zeem 307.45
DonkeyPuncher 278.85
Bobby Bracelet 256.43
Big Pirate 252.70
Joe Speaker 248.75
Schuabs 238.65
lifesagrind 231.51
Chewbot 192.32
Chico's Bail Bonds 180.58
23skidoo 175.96
Alpo_Splatr 163.23
Madden 158.49
scurvydog 155.03
LTLover 142.72
Otis 140.00
mclarich 132.43
Smokkee 117.77
Dr. Pauly 111.78
Mcguyver 108.28


Qualified for Tournament of Champions
lifesagrind , Jek187 , love_elf , Mcguyver , jmathewson_III (2) , Zeem (2), ChipperSports (2), Bobby Bracelet, Miami Don, Schaubs, bonds


Blinders Deadmoney in TOC Pool So Far ($150 Min)
$243



Top three fantasy scores of the season ($100/$50/$25 Bonus)
1 Jek187 186.9 (Week 2)
2 Schaubs 172.1 (Week 11)
3 ChipperSports 163.7 (Week 7)


Week 14 BFFB Points