Winter 2009 WPBT Trip Report

The report is late, and will be a bit short, but here we go. I rolled into town around 8 PM Friday night, and hit the MGM poker room by around 9 PM. I found the infamous blogger heavyweight game which had a list a mile long. I watched them go nutzo playing 1/2 NL for a while, and talked to a few bloggers while waiting on the list. I was eventually called to a 1/2 NL table near by that was a lot of fun. I was catching cards like mad, and sweeping pots. A few hours later, I had downed about 8 Blue moons, and was up a nice $150 for the session. I moved over to the Blogger HORSE table for a while, but could not get anything going, so just before 2 AM I decided to shut things down. Just for fun, I decided to check out the Aria hotel in city center that I thought was opening that weekend. I wandered into a completely empty casino, except for some construction workers here and there. I gave myself a tour of the unopened Aria casino, and nobody seemed to care.

Saturday morning, I slept in till about noon, and got myself to Caesars just in time for the Blogger Tournament, but not in time to get anything to eat/drink yet for the day. So instead of pounding drinks right away, I laid low awaiting a break to grab some lunch. I had a great starting table that featured over my stay Iggy, Bayne, Pauly, Garth, Smokkee, Astin, April, and others. I had a tough time early on, gifting Bayne a few chips, but making a good fold. A couple breaks in I was still around the starting stack of $7,500 and in push or fold mode. I was executing the push or fold like a champ for a while eventually doubling through on a 40/60 all-in preflop hand. I would then get it all-in preflop with 99 against 55 for about a 30k pot (1.5x average stack), but you guys can guess what happened. I regrouped for a Saturday night session at MGM. Saturday night, I was off on my own table and winning nicely again. I caught AA and got into a 3-way All-in pre flop hand. I would catch AA again and win another nice pot. I noticed PokerPeaker, and Dr. Chaco's wife at an adjacent table, and decided to make a move off of a pretty fishy table. I had to rathole a bunch of chips to get down to $200. I stopped catching cards at the new table, but it was great to catch up with peaker, and the the others at the table were super talkative and friendly. I was going nowhere in chips though until I caught AKs around 2AM. This was a tough hand, and I probably screwed it up, but what are you going to do at 1/2 NL. So I raise it up to $10 from EP with AKs and get two callers. Flop drops 442 with two of my suit. Pretty much a jackpot flop at 1/2 NL with 15 outs. I open up to $15, get reraised to $30 by a semi-shorty, and then get popped again to $85. WTF! I tank, and really want to fold here, but it is tough. The $30 reraise does not bother me because I have odds to catch against him. The $85 re-reraise seems way out of line for a set, and it is not a good board for a set. Naked 4 out there after a $10 open? The $85 re-reraise just screams of an overpair. 99-AA probably. AA or KK don't look likely because no preflop re-raise. So all 15 outs still look good. I do the math, and I don't need much in implied odds for even the one card draw. I make the call, other guy folds. Turn is a blank. I check, and my opponent shoves all-in. I tank again. Pot-odds are good if I have 12 outs. So as long as this is not AA I am cool with a call here. I eventually make the call, and lose to 22 (a flopped boat). The $85 re-reraise preflop through me completely off. I personally think that was a bad play, because with anything less I would have folded and not paid the boat another penny, but it worked this time. In how many ways did I screw this hand up? It was around 2:30 AM so I packed things up, down about $75 for the night.

Sunday morning, I took care of some FantasySportsLive.com business, and headed over to the blogger football party. The room they had reserved was sick, with a pool table, leather couches, and a bunch of flat screen TVs. One was bigger than anything I have ever seen before (80+ inches?). I did not have any bets on the early games, but took San Diego +3 (+110) for $80, after Joe Speaker showed me his $100 moneyline bet on the same game. I booked it online with bodog. Around 3PM, I packed up and headed home. Never played any -EV games the whole trip, but won some decent cash playing NL holdem, and another $88 when the San Diego pick came in. As usual it was quite a blast, but too short for my liking.

Week 13 Fantasy Football Results - Blogger Trip Status

After my 0-5-1 performance in week 12, week 13 was an improvement. Not quite as good as things look on the leaderboard below with me tied for first in wins, and third in cash. I was 17-18 overall, with a winning weekend snatched away by a late meaningless play in the Sunday night game. That shit happens, so no complaints here. The real problem with my team was that my Quarterback, Kicker, and Defense, who were all projected to be the best by me, or one of the top three by pretty much all published projections all sucked big time. Pittsburgh giving up 3 TD passes in the 4th quarter at home to Oakland, come on? Anyway, I learned another important and inexpensive lesson in week 13. Do not over spend on your kicker. Kickers are the highest variance position by far. There is no reason to spend big and then have your kicker disappoint on Sunday. You should always select a cheap kicker who does not need to put much up to minimize your variance, and save the money for elsewhere. On site x, because they never update the player cap values, that means I will be going with either Barth or Stover from now on. Since we are running out of time this season, I plan on going much bigger this weekend , and taking over first on both cash and wins be next week.

I will be out for the Winter 09 Las Vegas festivities, but can't make it until Friday night. I will see everyone at the MGM, after I roll into town.

Week 12 Fantasy Football Results

It was an interesting week over at "site x". They decided to run thanksgiving only leagues (we are so flattered that they copy everything we do), as well as there usual assortment of offerings. Most of my solid picks for the week were playing on Thanksgiving, so I tried out a Thanksgiving only league, and found out that my perfect team was well under the generous (unadjusted for the lack of games) salary cap. This basically made the thanksgiving leagues "no cap", and with only three games on the schedule, the risk of identical fantasy teams is too high, so I decided to pass. So to get my Thursday picks in play, I would need to enter the Thu-Mon leagues. The problem with a Thursday through Monday Fantasy Football League is that there are a bunch of injury game time decisions on Sunday, and you will not have access to that info on Thursday. Also, I would be in Vegas for the Thanksgiving holiday, so I decided to skip the Sun-Mon leagues.

Ultimately, I just entered (10) $5 leagues this week. I was only matched in 6 leagues, so I guess they only ran (6) $5 leagues that included all games for the week. The risk of setting a fantasy football team too early is very real, and I paid the price when Warner did not play (I did not have him, but did have Fitz and Boldin), and the Arizona receivers had a poor week as a result. I ended up going 0-5-1 for the week which is a big disappointment, but I think I learned an inexpensive lesson. I will now only enter the Sun only leagues or possible the Sun-Mon leagues, so I can have complete injury info. I will probably go all-in in week 13, because week 16/17 are not good for fantasy football, and I have just three weeks left before I quit until next season.