Courtney Gee: More Volume and Higher Stakes in 2013

The theme of 2012 was definitely “did not play enough”. I did a rough calculation of the hours I played last year and it probably averages to 15 hours per week at the most, which is pretty sad.
The main problem I had in 2012 was not knowing which game to play. I spent the first part of the year trying to play marked cards mainly 6-max turbo SnGs, but those games got really tough.
I wanted to play an average buy-in of ~$220, but I ended up dropping down to an ABI of around $120 before I stopped playing. I just wasn’t +EV enough (if at all) with the number of regs that were in each game, so I had to stop playing.
I barely played any hours at all in the summer, pretty much taking two to three months off. I’d go to my computer, see the games were bad as usual, wait a few hours to see if they got better, then take the rest of the day off.
Some days I played 18-man SnGs, but I didn’t really enjoy playing those. I even played some PLO cash, but that didn’t last long.
I started playing HU hypers at the end of August, and I really think it revitalized my poker career. I had dreaded playing poker every day in the spring and the summer; it was a lot of waiting around, it was boring, and my expectation wasn’t that good.
But now that I’m playing HU, I feel motivated to play almost every day. I also feel more motivated to get in hours.
My lack of income last year caused my savings and bankroll to suffer slightly, unfortunately. In 2012 I ended up spending around $20k more than I made playing poker.
I had a lot of things to pay for, so it certainly wasn’t a good year to take so much time off. The one positive is that I made the same amount of money last year as I did in 2011 except I played fewer hours, so at least my hourly went up.

New Resolutions for a New Year

Most people are optimistic when starting a new year, and I am no exception. I made only a small profit playing HU hypers last year, but I improved quite a bit as a player. As long as I keep working on my game and putting in hours, I think this year will be a lot better.
Once again, my main goal for 2013 is to put in a suitable number of hours (which I clearly failed at doing in 2012). I’ll be aiming for 30 hours of playing a week and then a few extra hours per week for review.
Realistically, I’ll probably end up taking around three full months off poker, so I’m planning to play infrared ink around 40 weeks.
Other than my goal for hours, my only other goal for this year is to move up to $500 hypers at some point. I’m not sure how long this will take me, but I suspect it might be a while. The reg battles can get pretty fierce at the $500 buy-in level, so I will need to increase my bankroll quite a bit if I want to move up and stay up. I definitely don’t expect to accomplish this during the first half of the year.
So that summarizes my 2012 and outlines my two goals for 2013. What are your poker goals for the New Year? Leave a comment and let me know.
I’ll be back in a couple weeks with an update on how hypers are going for the start of 2013. If you are interested in reading post session updates, please follow my other blog as I try to update every day I play. Until next time, good luck at the tables!

Matt Stout's WPT Five Diamond Day 1

I'm going to continue the epic slowroll of publishing my Foxwoods WPT final table just a little bit longer... not for dramatic effect, but to try to do nightly blogs while the Bellagio WPT event is going on.
This is always the way I'd like to be able to do it, but it's not nearly as easy when I'm on the road as when the tournament is in Vegas and we only play five levels per day.
I arrived at my starting table to find three unfamiliar faces to my left, one of whom Todd Terry told me was "the richest man in Hungary and plays every hand."
I was happy about this marked card tricks, but not to happy to see a bunch of online beasts who also happen to all be buddies of mine to varying degrees to the right. The combination gave us a table that looked like this:

• 1 - Jason "JP OSU/ouemokid" Potter
• 2 – Me
• 3 - "The Richest Man in Hungary"/DontBluffMePLZZZ
• 4 - friendly unknown older guy who I vaguely recall playing with a long time ago
• 5 – unknown
• 6 - Cory "UGOTPZD" Carroll
• 7 - Isaac "westmenloAA" Baron
• 8 - Randal "RandALLin" Flowers
• 9 - Mark "newhizzle" Newhouse

I'm going to continue the epic slowroll of publishing my Foxwoods WPT final table just a little bit longer...not for dramatic effect, but to try to do nightly blogs while the Bellagio WPT event is going on.

This is always the way I'd like to be able to do it, but it's not nearly as easy when I'm on the road as when the tournament is in Vegas and we only play five levels per day.

I arrived at my starting table to find three unfamiliar faces to my left, one of whom Todd Terry told me was "the richest man in Hungary and plays every hand."

I was happy about this, but not to happy to see a bunch of online beasts who also happen to all be buddies of mine to varying degrees to the right. The combination gave us a table that looked like this:

1 - Jason "JP OSU/ouemokid" Potter

2 - Me

3 - "The Richest Man in Hungary"/DontBluffMePLZZZ

4 - friendly unknown older guy who I vaguely recall playing with a long time ago

5 - unknown

6 - Cory "UGOTPZD" Carrol

7 - Isaac "westmenloAA" Baron 

8 - Randal "RandALLin" Flowers

9 - Mark "newhizzle" Newhouse

Half of this table could have showed up for my home game. It's not ideal to be pitted against your friends in major tournaments, but it's kind of hard not to come across each other when most of us met playing big tournaments against each other on a regular basis to begin with.
It's rare that anyone takes anything personally, and I'd much rather give my stack to someone I'd like to see win than some random.
I managed to get about 4k from the "the richest man in Hungary" in the first level when I kickered him on a jack-high board with A♥ J♥, but his unfortunate elimination came entirely too soon in the second level.
I also made a boat against Jason Potter with 3♦ 4♦, but he managed to lay down what he claimed was K-K on the river.
He also showed K♦ K♥ and folded to me on a A♦ J♥ T♥ when I had flatted his UTG raise with J♠ J♣ and we went four ways to the flop. How many times do you have to crack a friend's Kings before he pays you off!?!?!?
It doesn't help that Jason thinks I'm a complete nit, but that's beside the point...
The rest of the significant pots I played on day one all came holding A-J, coincidentally...
A-J #1: flop royal draw w A♥ J♥ and lose to Randal's flopped set/turned boat.
A-J #2: make a borderline call with A♦ J♥ after infrared contactlenses I open and a shortstack shoves, suck out vs K♥ K♠ on a J-x-x-x-J board.
A-J #3: kicker Randal with A♥ J♥ on a jack-high board.
Playing fairly small pots resulted in a pretty predictable outcome: I broke just about even for the day. I have 58,400 going to 400/800 (75) to start Day 2 tomorrow. Here's my table draw:

• 1 - Erik Cajelais 127k
• 2 - Chau Giang 45k
• 3 - Vadim Trincher 72k
• 4 - Curt Kohlberg 139k
• 5 - Matt "Poligraph" Waxman 111k
• 6 - Seth Fischer 123k
• 7 - Me 58k

Although Bellagio now allows players to register up to three levels into day two, I have no idea why we played ten-handed all day today and there are only 7 to 8 players at each table for tomorrow. I'm just going to show up and try to get the job done.
-- Matt Stout

NAPT Venetian Day 2 and Sunday Report

Day two of the Venetian was short lived for me.
In the first level of the day I 4bet jammed from the cutoff with #Ah#Qc for ~38k at 500/1000 against an aggressive young player on the button. He had completely married his #6h#6d for most of his stack, and it held up and busted me.
It could have been worse, though. At least I was able to get into the special Sunday donkaments that were running marked poker, since I busted right around 1pm Pacific time!
I rushed back to my apartment since the room I was stuck with has ridiculously spotty internet and grinded out the remainder of the session. Here are the results:
Day two of the Venetian was short lived for me.
In the first level of the day I 4bet jammed from the cutoff with A♥ Q♣ for ~38k at 500/1000 against an aggressive young player on the button. He had completely married his 6♥ 6♦ for most of his stack, and it held up and busted me.
It could have been worse, though. At least I was able to get into the special Sunday donkaments that were running, since I busted right around 1pm Pacific time!
I rushed back to easy cards tricks my apartment since the room I was stuck with has ridiculously spotty internet and grinded out the remainder of the session. Here are the results:

---

February 21, 2010
Total tournaments played: 18
Total amount of buy-ins: $5,119
Total cashes: One (is the loneliest number...)
- 75/1156 in Tilt late $163, $312.12
Total amount of cashes/bounties: $312.12
Length of session: 8:22
Net win/loss for the day: -$4806.88
Net win/loss online on Sundays since the start of the Sunday Report (February 7, 2010): +$11,749.93
As you can see I pretty much bricked out the whole session, but at least I wasn't left feeling like I'd busted short of the money in NAPT and still missed all of the online action. Strange how I feel better this way even though it results in losing more money! lol
Now this part is a little absurd...as soon as I was done with the session I stopped at Venetian to grab my stuff and hit the road back to LA. Couldn't resist since there's a $3k 6-max at the LA Poker Classic today at Commerce Casino! Tough life. =)
Since the tournament starts in a little over an hour, it's about time for me to head into the mess of LA traffic...but I'll leave you with this little gem of wisdom:
"LA traffic = the nut low." --Isaac Baron
Matt Stout

Dinner Complete: Make With the Poker

Every player left in the tournament is once again in the tournament room and it’s time to start building a stack that will get you to Day 2.
It’s now Level 6 so blinds luminous contactlenses are bumped up to 300/600 with a 50 ante.
It’s an unusual situation right now because registration is technically open for another hour but seats only become available when players bust.
As soon as someone is eliminated, another player scurries in to take their place, despite entering with a stack of about 30 big blinds.
We’re up to 468 players so we’ll see just how close we get to 500 before registration ends. Either way this year’s Battle of Malta will be massive.

Kara Scott Busts Again

You’d think hosting the entire damn thing would count for a bit more but Kara Scott has once again been rudely tossed to the rail.
Scott played on Day 1a and busted. She used infrared marked cards her re-entry today but unfortunately the result was essentially the same.
The Party Poker pro was card dead for most of the day and after getting short-stacked in the last level decided to shove her last 15 big blinds in the middle with A-6.
Her opponent called with nines and the board bricked. Back to being an awesome host.

Hall of Fame women talk poker

Until last year, no woman had ever been inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. Barbara Enright became the first to break through the barrier in 2007, making her mark in several chapters of poker history.
In addition to being the first woman to final-table the WSOP main event, she was also the first woman to win two WSOP bracelets, the first woman to win three WSOP bracelets and the first woman to win an open-field WSOP event.
In 2000, she was named Best All-Around player for her performance during the Legends of Poker festival at the Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles, an accomplishment that she lists as the greatest of her career.
Despite her accomplishments within the game, Enright's Poker Hall of Fame induction itself had more parallels with history: she was overshadowed by her male fellow inductee, Phil Hellmuth, who had recently won his record-setting 11th WSOP bracelet.
Lupe Soto, founder of the LIPS Tour of women's poker tournaments, decided it was time to give pioneering women in poker like Enright the recognition they deserved. Almost one year later Soto's idea came to fruition as the Women in Poker Hall of Fame, which inducted its first class this past Saturday.
Along with Enright, three other women were inducted: Susie Isaacs, Linda Johnson and Marsha Waggoner. Ask any one of the ladies about their fellow inductees, and you'll get a version of the same response Enright gives.
"They're all recognized women in poker history. They deserve it."

The road to acceptance

In their lifetimes, the inaugural members of the WiPHOF have seen a change in how women are treated in and around the game. Waggoner says that when she began playing 32 years ago, women were seen "as kind of a joke in poker." Only when she started taking her male opponents' chips did she get their respect.
She says those problems have mostly disappeared in today's game and that women are now an accepted part of poker.
Isaacs came along later in the game, but things hadn't changed much. "I wouldn't go near those nasty poker rooms where the men looked at you like they could eat you alive," she says.
Since that day and age, female faces have become commonplace in poker rooms everywhere. And more than ever before, women are enjoying success at the highest levels of poker.

Different criteria

The four women, all of whom consider the others friends, were finally given the spotlight thanks to selection criteria that differ significantly from the Poker Hall of Fame. That list has four criteria for induction including playing at high stakes against top competition, gaining the respect of one's peers and standing the test of time - all holdovers from a time when poker wasn't the business it has grown to be.
"They didn't go into the management side of poker and look at accomplishments as far as achievements done for the industry," says Johnson, whose industry
marked cards accomplishments include helping to develop the World Poker Tour, co-founding the Tournament Directors Association, serving on the board of the Poker Players Alliance and serving as a WPT Boot Camp instructor.
The WiPHOF criteria, by contrast, consider contributions to the world of poker from the industry side as well as at the table. Johnson says that looking at achievements in poker away from the felt will open up the door for more women to be recognized for their roles in the growth of the game.
According to Isaacs, the timing of such acknowledgments couldn't be any better.
"I personally don't have 50 years to wait for everything to catch up. If we're going to recognize (female) industry leaders, it needs to be now."

Supporting women in poker

The criterion for induction into the WiPHOF that differs most greatly from those of the Poker Hall of Fame is support for women's poker luminous contactlenses tournaments. While such tournaments have no shortage of critics, all four inductees see a place in poker for these events.
Enright, who serves as editor of Woman Poker Player magazine, says that women's tournaments have always been traditional at the WSOP. "Women are having fun, let them be," she says. "Live and let live, that's always been my theory."
For Isaacs, the former back-to-back winner of the WSOP ladies' event, support for women's tournaments runs even deeper. When she first began playing she had disposable income and poker was a social outlet.
After a divorce in 1990 she became a serious student of the game in order to improve enough to keep playing, and at that point women's tournaments gave her a comfortable environment in which to ply her new trade. She says that her eventual success made her want to give back to the game by helping other women learn to play.
"Women in tournaments is going to be nothing but good for the poker world," says Isaacs. "How could anyone be against that?"