Category: sportsbetting

I officially launched the ITH People’s Champion Fund a little less than a week ago and we have raised almost $7,000 so far.  Of course, the strongest supporters joined up quickly and there will be some people who sit on the fence and sign up right at the last minute, but I think we probably are making enough progress that we will succeed in our goal.  We may have to sell shares after the fact to get there, but I remain confident that we will get there.

The sense of community at ITH is a pretty cool thing.

It looks like I should have let my bet on Miami ride, but what are you going to do?  My hedge looked pretty smart four games ago.

First of all, I wanted to talk about the ITH League season-ending freerolls.  These were great events with great prizes and great opposition.  I’ve had such a great time playing with my fellow ITHers and talking trash with them.  It seems to me that it gave me an experience akin to that of the professional tourney circuit players — I got to play a lot of the same people over and over.  Many of the ITH players are very, very good and it has been fun to learn how to adapt to each of them.  I’ve also had to figure out who had what style of play and how best to counteract that.  It has been an experience altogether unlike most online MTT play, where a significant number of the players are donkeys and I rarely see the same one twice.  There are some ITH’ers that give me fits every time they are at my table and I’ve patterned my play on things they taught me.  I’ve had a number of unhappy comments when I’m moved to a new table, so I think I’ve accomplished my goal of being someone that nobody is happy to see at their table.

I blew up in a completely disasterous start in the minor WSOP event freeroll.  I called a blind steal with 64s in the BB, along with ebo in the SB.  I check-raised a 64x flop and ebo called.  The turn was 5 and ebo bet out.  I called, because he is perfectly capable of representing the straight when he doesn’t have it.  I figured if he had it, he’d bet the river again and I’d have to let it go if I didn’t improve.  If he was making a move, he’d check the river to me.  I also thought that since I had the initiative, he might have check-raised the turn if he had a straight.  We’ve banged heads a lot of times and he had to figure I would bet there.  The river was a bullseye for me, coming a 4 and giving me 4s full of 6s.  To my astonishment, he pushed the river.  I said to myself if it was boat over boat, I was just going to have to go home and called.  I was going home.  I was the first out!

To make matters worse, SuitedPair was the second out.  She raised JJ preflop and got a pair of callers.  When the flop came J55, she was happy as can be with the nut full house.  There was a little action on the flop and the turn, but the river went bet, raise by Suited, push by DTheater.  DTheater is also quite aggressive, but he had to have a boat in order to play the river that way.  However, Suited had the nut boat so she wasn’t going anywhere.  It turns out that the nut boat is not the nuts and DTheater turned over quads.  We were 1-2, although not at the end of the leaderboard we were hoping to be at.

I played a whole lot better in the WSOP ME qualifier.  I started slowly, taking some flops but having to get away from most of them.  I drifted down in chips a bit, before I ran into a terrible stretch of hands.  I got rivered by a four outer, then a three outer, then a two outer and all the sudden I was the short stack.  I just had a few hundred chips left when the average stack was almost 3,000.  About this time Matthew dropped by to taunt me.  He pointed out that I’ve donked off my chips before, so I should be good at playing a short stack by now.  He had a point.  I do think I play the short stack pretty well, although it makes me anxious.  I found good situations to push and win good sized pots, many of them without a flop.  Both times I had to showdown I had big hands.  I battled my way back up off of life support, up near average and then all the way to among the chip leaders.  I believe I was playing some really good poker.  I was restealing from the right people and calling down with medium strength hands at the right time
and cruising along well.  Of course, with my style I was up and down a bit, but things were going well.  I made it to three tables with a heathly stack and was near the lead when it made it to two tables.  I was in healthy position when we made the final table, somewhere around the middle of the pack.  We lost a few people and were down to 6 or 7 when I took my last bad beat.  I hate bad beat stories and don’t usually tell them, but this was for a $12,000 WSOP seat, so I’m going to indulge myself.  A very active UTG player made a standad raise, which with his range could be probably top 15% of the hands or so.  Maybe AT+/44+/two face cards — he’s definately not a JJ+/AK guy in that spot.  A short stack pushes in for not much more than the original raise and I find KK in the SB.  Of course, I push, thinking I’ll probably end up heads up or maybe against an underpair or two.  UTG doesn’t think for long and calls me.  He has me covered by a bit.  UTG turns over AJ and the shorty had A7 or some such.  I’m very pleased to have them down to two outs between them (I’m about 75% to win) and am already imaginging myself back amongst the leaders.  The flop comes all babies and I’m now like 87% to win.  Of course, the Ace spikes on the turn.  It leaves me with a cruel hope because it is the third heart and I’m the only one holding a heart, so I have 9 heart outs and 2 king outs, so I’ve still got better than a 25% chance to get saved by the river.  Unfortunately, no saving card is coming for me and I join the rest of ITH on the rail.

Toronexti, who is a really nice guy, goes on to win the whole thing.  On top of that, he wound up cashing in 6th in the Stars million later that night.  That was worth 25k to him and his adhoc group of backers (arranged before the event in IRC), so he had a 37k day.  Not bad work if you can get it!

To add insult to injury, I was having a really great time playing in the ITH version of the mafia game where I was the Detective.  At literally the exact same time I busted out in the WSOP freeroll, I got the PM letting me know that I was now dead.  This is the worst possible result for the town because I had pretty much completely unravelled the mystery but hadn’t been able to explain what I knew because I was still playing the game and trying to uncover the remaining mafia players.  If the doctor got killed and I knew I had only one day to live, I could have explained everything to town and improved our chances to win a lot.  Now I have to watch from the sidelines like everyone else.

I did lay off my free bet on Miami by taking Dallas straight up.  I still think taking Dallas to win in 5 or 6 would have been a better bet, but I went with the straight up bet — locking in a small win.  I’m glad because otherwise I’d be sweating the next two games.  The way the NBA plays out, I’m pretty sure Dallas won’t sweep because Miami will make a strong effort at home if they get down 3-0 and Dallas won’t really be in that game, but you never know.

I got a real nice bet down on the Carolina/Seattle game, where I was assured of a 2.5% profit no matter who won. It involved some risk because I locked in one side of the bet way before I bet the other side and I couldn’t be sure the line would move the way I thought it would. I had some good advice and I felt pretty certain that it would, but you never know for sure. I had a brief panic when one of the books got overwhelmed in between games Sunday and I couldn’t get my offsetting bet down. They wouldn’t even take the wager on the phone. I was really afraid I was going to get burned, but I got the bet placed minutes before the game started. I was going to have to hedge on live betting with Pinnacle and I would surely have booked a loss if it worked out that way.

I also played yet another protégé event. This one was for the top 1,000 point getters over the last few months. Although 1,000 qualified, only 288 showed up. I was fairly happy with my play, but wound up bounced out again in 46th.

I drifted down to 1,275 chips in the middle of Level 2 when I couldn’t catch any flops. I intentionally decided to see more flops than usual to try to get some of the free money that the crazy players always give up early in a freeroll. There was one guy who pushed pre-flop about 20 times and I finally decided to look him up with AQs, figuring I was a coin flip at worse. I was right — he had AT and I busted him and chipped up to 2,230. A couple of hands later I flopped a set and took down a nice pot with a turn check-raise. I ended the level 38th of 252 remaining.

In level 3 I lost a big pot. A fairly bad player min-raised pre-flop and I re-raised with JJ. I flopped and overpair and bet about 3/4 of the pot. He pushed and I thought I was toast, but it wasn’t many more chips, so I had to call. He had QQ and I fell all the way to 825 chips. Ouch!

In level 4, I start pushing because I’m down to 675 chips after an orbit or two. I steal the blinds with AJ and KQ. Then I’m in the SB with J9s. The BB is away and the Button raises first-in. I decide he could have all manner of crap, so I push. He calls (uh-oh) and then reveals AQ (double uh-oh). However, I had two live cards and he didn’t have any of my suit, so I felt pretty good. I think I was about a 40/60 dog. If you throw in a 20-30% chance he folds, I think the push was OK there. I get very lucky and river a 9 and double up to 2050 and 89 of 161. I steal once or twice in the next level and end up with the same 2,050 for 81/134 at the break.

I play some real solid poker after the break. I steal in spots, resteal with TT and take pots down on the flop with and without good hands. I never have many chips at risk and steadily move up the board. By the end of Level 7, I’m sitting at 4,780 and 37th of 77.

I start Level 8 with a SB/BB confrontation that goes badly, but follow that two hands later with a nice hand where I limp with KK on the CO against an all-in BB. The SB decides to push to isolate and I quickly call. SB shows AJ and I bust them both and climb to 5,890 and 31st of 58.

Right at the end of Level 8, I go broke. I’m happy with my play, I just got unlucky. An overactive EP player raises 3x BB and I find AKs. Given that the standard 3x raise is now 1,200 chips and any reasonable re-raise will commit me to the pot, I just push my 5,000 or so chips to the middle. Unfortunately, the big stack pushes behind me (he’s been playing fairly solid) and the BB calls all-in! The big stack shows KK and the BB shows AQ, so I’m down to 2 outs for my tourney life. No miracle card arrives and I miss out on another seat.

I’m quite happy with my play, despite failing to qualify for a seat. I believe that I’m achieving my primary goal of getting more tourney experience. I’m seriously considering going up to the Borgata this weekend for some SnG action and maybe winning my way into the WPT event.

I’ve been dealing with one of those colds that isn’t really a real cold. Its been just enough to keep me feeling a bit off my game, but not enough to really bring things to a halt. It has sapped my energy a bit.

I did make a number of sports bets on the playoffs and made my second mistake. I was in a hurry to get a decent arb established and I didn’t check carefully to make sure I was getting the numbers right and I made a mistake and wound up risking $200 instead of having everything in balance. It turned out that the right team won and I won the money, but I’m mad at myself for doing something dumb like that. I’ve started a winning streak at Hollywood and losing my huge balance at CRIS. I really thought I could never lose the whole CRIS amount, but it looks like I might. The bad thing is that I am going to have cleared my wagering requirement there, so I’d really rather lose at Hollywood. Trying to get bets laid down that will move all money into one book has really slowed down my bonus hunting and my bankroll has actually drifted slightly south of its peak. I’m now up $2,800 and am resigned to losing a bit more as I work my money free so that I can add on some more bonus money.

I found what appears to be a major arb on the Candian election. It looks like -500 at CRIS (on the conservatives) and +1182 at Pinny (on the liberals). The lines are so far off I wonder if they haven’t defined their terms differently. It would work out to a sure win of about $50 on a $550 bet. They limit these types of bets to relatively small amounts. I haven’t pulled the trigger yet while I try to figure out the catch.

Poker has been good when I’ve managed to play. I’m up another $365, bringing the Party total to $722 in five days or so. I’ve not played very much, but I’m pleased with my game. I had one of those funny guys who has a VP$IP of 80%, yet he insists on berating the other players for bad play. I just felt like I really had a great read on him. This is a good example of a hand where I was pleased with the value I got from him:

Party Poker
Limit holdem Ring game
Limit: $15/$30
8 players
Converter

Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is BB with 8â?  Jâ?¦
4 folds, CO raises, Button folds, SB calls, Hero calls.

Flop: Tâ?  Aâ?¦ Jâ?  (6SB, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, CO bets, SB folds, Hero calls.

Turn: Aâ?¥ (4BB, 2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets, Hero raises, CO calls.

River: 7â?¦ (8BB, 2 players)
Hero bets, CO calls.

Results:
Final pot: 10BB
Hero shows 8s Jd
CO doesn’t show Tc Qd
I really thought he would show just a King or a Queen, but I was sure that was a good value bet on the river.
I feel much more confident about playing maniacs these days, although the swings can still be brutal. I think I used to fall back in my shell too much and missed some good chances to take them down while I waited for good hands. I’m doing a much better job of taking it to them now. I still think I’ve made a few too many “clever” folds. I was reviewing my river folds tonight and i think 2 of the 7 folds on the river in the last five days were a mistake.

It looks like I should have a few protege updates coming next week. I should have qualified for the top 100, 500 and 1,000 as well as the round 2 for Seat 1.

I have been concentrating on my sports betting action. I put a few more dollars into play and I’m currently up $3,000 exactly. This is slightly misleading because I have unmet wagering requirements at some of the sites. I had won six bets in a row into CRIS and was getting closer to meeting the wagering requirements to cashout there. Now that I’ve decided that would be a good outcome to end up with all my money in CRIS, I’ve been losing at CRIS again. Instead of busting out at Hollywood and meeting my WR at CRIS, I’m now about even at Hollywood. This is bad because my WR at Hollywood is even bigger. I joined BetWWTS and deposited the full $2,500 to max out the bonus. I bet the whole thing against CRIS on the Redskins ML and promptly doubled up at WWTS. Since I haven’t been finding that many arbs (or the arbs are on bets that limit my bet size), I haven’t been able to get all my money in play as nicely as I’d like. This is also a bit of a problem because arbs are harder to find at some books than others and so far these three haven’t given me many good plays.

I took a big risk by picking one side of a bet on Monday and waiting to close the other side until game time on Saturday. I was convinced I knew which way the line was going to move. I was correct, but it didn’t move as far as I had hoped, so when I placed the offsetting bet I took a small loss. If I had the nerve to hold on until five minutes before game time, I would have got the arbitrage, but I lost my nerve. I don’t know if I’m willing to make these kind of speculations often.

So far, I’ve joined five books and busted quickly out of two. Three of the remaining books are above what I deposited to start with. Since two of them are close in value, I’m seriously considering making one huge bet pitting them against each other. That way, I’m sure to bust one of them. Even if I lock in a small loss, I may consider the escape from the WR worth the loss.

I’ve not played much poker. Real life got in the way and I didn’t play the Weekend at Daniel’s freeroll. I played a bit of 15/30 at Party and finished up $220 on the weekend. I had a lot of fun sweating Tanya at the Stars 500K. She was in the chip lead pretty deep into the money, but she decided to take a coin flip for a huge chunk of her chips and flipped wrong. Had she won that one, she would have had such a dominating chiplead that she probably would have won the whole thing. It was fun to watch.