Rizen's Poker Blog

Back home/Feb recap

2007-03-01T12:39:00.000-08:00

I've been back home from LA for a few days now and settling in. It's been really nice to be home and see the family again, and get back to a normal routine. I never really like living out of a hotel, and to be quite honest I'm not a huge fan of the City of Angels either. The weather was nicer out there, but I'm not a big LA guy. February is now officially over, and the results are in. I had a reasonably profitable month in MTTs. It was below my usual expectations, but still well in the black with an ROI of 27.66% it was pretty far below what I usually accomplish, but it wasn't a bad month by any means and puts me at a 82.19% ROI for the year thus far. In cash games, I ran in the black as well with a 1.15 PTBB/100 for the month of February. This is again, below my yearly return thus far of 1.71 PTBB/100 and my lifetime return has typically run between 2 and 3 PTBB/100, but I'm also playing some slightly higher limits now than I was then, so that may have something to do with it. If you're not familiar with PTBB/100 it's bacially Poker Tracker big bets/100. Poker Tracker is based mostly around limit poker, where a big bet is twice the big blind. So if I were playing $3/$6 no limit cash, 1.15 would equate to about $13.80 per 100 hands played. I played at limits varying from 2/4 to 10/20 this month. That's a whole lot of math :) But basically February was a winning month, and not a bad month, but a below par month for me. Part of this I believe is due to a small sample size and the fact that I went to two live tournaments this month, so I only played about half of my normal tournament volume. All in all I think I did okay, but I'm hoping to do better in March. -Rizen

WPT LA Poker Classic Day 2

2007-02-26T09:39:00.000-08:00

It's the first break, day 2 at the LA Poker Classic and I'm out. I ran pocket aces into pocket queens on a queen high flop. With about 15 thousand chips in the pot there was just no way I could get away and I didn't get lucky.

I ended up getting getting short and I had a pretty tough table. Michael Mizrachi was to my right and Erik Seidel was two to my left. I got a couple of hands and picked up some chips, but there really wasn't much I could do on the aces hand.

So I'm going to catch the next flight home, spend some time with my family, and look forward to the next event.

LAPC Day 2

2007-02-25T14:33:00.000-08:00

I'm getting ready to head up to the Commerce for day 2 of the LA Poker Classic. I'm sitting on just over 22k in chips, so I pretty much just tread water yesterday. May table was okay, but my seat was terrible. Luckily day 1 doesn't mean a whole lot, so I'm looking forward to building my stack today. Still plenty of time at 300/600 blinds to make my moves, and I think I'm due for some hands. I had JJ about 6 times yesterday, but had AK only once and AA once, didn't get KK/QQ at all. I'm not necessarily looking to gamble, but before the day is over I'm most likely going to have to be all in at some point, something I avoided yesterday. Days 2 and 3 are where we start to see a lot of separation though, and as long as I have some fighting chips I think I'm dangerous. -Rizen

WPT LA Poker Classic (4th break)

2007-02-24T23:23:00.001-08:00

Not too eventful in the last 90 minutes. I’m at about 31,000 chips now. I did pick off a small stack that moved in with pocket 8’s when I had pocket 10’s. My tens held and that’s how I got most of my chips this hour. As far as table dynamics, they really haven’t changed with the antes. For the most part just playing solid has been working well for me. As long as the table dynamics don’t change and I continue to play strong, then hopefully I should have a good chip stack for day two.

WPT LA Poker Classic Update (3rd break)

2007-02-24T23:23:00.000-08:00

We’re on the third break getting ready for 100/200 blinds and 25 antes. Really haven’t had anything too eventful happen. I’m up to about 25,000-26,000 chips. I’ve had a couple of hands that haven’t paid off. I’ve managed to avoid losing a lot of chips. I’ve had my jacks run into aces twice, but the flops were bad. Fortunately, I managed to get away cheaply and both showed me their aces. MattG1983 busted out in pot with Barry Greenstein. So Barry has 45,000 to 50,000 chips now, but he’s across the table. The gentleman who replaced MattG seems like a pretty weak player so that’s actually a good thing. Nothing really eventful, I’ve been playing pretty straightforward and slowly chipping up.

WPT LA Poker Classic Update (first 90 minutes)

2007-02-24T22:55:00.001-08:00

I’m at the first break after the first 90 minutes. My starting table is pretty tough.Two my right is John Gale, MattG1983 from online, Berry Greenstein, and two to my left I have Jimmy Tran. We’re playing 9 handed. The other 4 on the table seem to be pretty weak players and we’ve all been taking turns chipping up on them. Haven’t really had any eventful hands the first hour. On one hand I played 7c 9c from late position and ended up getting min raised, went ahead and called and the flop was 6c 8c and something like a deuce. Eventually, the other guy had pocket tens that he played fairly strong and I hit my flush on the river. So I’m up to 22,300 chips. I’m in good position and so far no one is getting too out of hand at my table.

Pre main event thoughts

2007-02-24T12:35:00.000-08:00

It's about 3 hrs before the start of the LA Poker Classic main event. I thought some of you might be interested in the kinds of things that go through a person's mind before such an event if you've never had a chance to experience it. I often get asked if I'm excited or nervous. The truth is yes and yes. I get a little of both, but it's not too bad. Before I played my first really big live event I had trouble sleeping, but that's long gone. I got about 10.5 hrs of sleep last night and am well rested for an event today that will probably be playing until 3:30am or so. Honestly, while I hate to compare what I do to athletes of this calibre, what I go through is a lot like what boxers and UFC fighters talk about before they go do their thing. I get a little nervous, a little excited. I can feel it a bit in my stomach and get a little antsy the last hour or so before it starts. When that first card hits the table though, I'm at home and it all goes away, just like most fighters say it all just washes away with that first punch. Anymore, it's more the anticipation than the event itself that gets me. I'm a poker player, this is what I do, and once the cards fly I feel I do it as well as anyone else, if not better. I'm as relaxed as can be at the table, although that wasn't necessarily true in the first event or two I played. To contrast it to my past career as a software engineer, I used to get a little nervous on the eve of big site/product launches. Just like in that career though, I know I've put in all the proper time and preparation in prior to the event, and as long as I do everything I need to do to be prepared then there is nothing to be nervous about. Do my best, and let the rest fall into place. So, what do I do to prepare? Well, it all starts with a good night's sleep. The night before an event, as long as it's possible, I make sure I go to bed a little early. I'll even drink a warm glass of milk or take another sleep aid if necessary. Poker events are 12+ hour grinds a lot of times, and I've seen LOTS of mistakes made in that last hour as people get tired. I'm also very careful about what I eat on days that I'm going to be playing long live sessions. I try to eat a moderate sized, balanced meal. You don't want to be hungry at the tables, but it's even worse to eat too much or eat the types of foods that may give you indigestion or heartburn. Basically your brain is your biggest asset at the table, and you need to take care of it. Make sure you have slept and eaten properly, drink water throughout at the day at the tables, but not so much you can't make it to the breaks every 2 hours. Most of this is really common sense though. Anyone who has seen pictures of me knows I'm not a health nut, although I do try and take care of myself as well as I can. One thing I didn't mention was exercise, if I can I try and get out and do at least a short walk prior to an event. Sitting for that long can often make your muscles tighten up a little, especially if you're 10 handed with a bunch of other out of shape poker players taking up a lot of space, having gotten a little exercise helps some. Speaking of which, I'm about to go for a short walk now before the event. -Rizen

LAPC $1500 results/recap

2007-02-23T12:48:00.000-08:00

As some of you probably already know, I ended up finishing 10th last night in the $1500 event at the LA Poker Classic. I'm a mixture of disappointed I wasn't able to finish higher and pleased because I really think I played perfectly yesterday, it just wasn't meant to be. I started the day pretty short at around 30k in chips with 800/1600 blinds with a 200 ante. We redrew for tables, and I ended up sitting to the left of the chip leader, James Van Alstyne to start off the day. About 75% of the chips in play were on my table. This actually made me pretty happy because the payout structure was VERY top heavy ($180k of the $500k prize pool went to first), so having all those chips meant an opportunity to build a big stack early. I spent the first bit getting a handle on the new table. I had an akward stack for raising and a great stack for re-raising, I just needed some opportunities and to figure out which players would be best to do it on. Van Alstyne came out of the gate very aggressive and I figured my best bet would be to come over the top of him. A little later, after a player at our table busted they moved over a player who I had noted the day before was weak. Limped a lot of suited connectors and weak aces from any position. With that in mind, the following hand came up. Weak limper limps from UTG+1, Van Alstyne from middle position raises it to $8k (was still 800/1600 blinds). At this point I really thought Van Alstyne had the same read that I did. That the limper was weak and he was raising to isolate him and take down the pot. I decided before looking at my cards that this might be a good spot to push if I had a decent all in hand. I looked down to see 77. I would have preferred something like AQ or even AJ to be honest, but 77 was good enough. I pushed for about $28k total, figuring if Van Alstyne was raising a lot, he could fold a lot of his holdings here. Well, my read on him being weak was correct, my read on him folding because he was weak was not. He thought for a while,a nd put 20k more into the pot with QTo and I was in a classic race situation. The flop was AKT, which was not good for me, but for added dramatic effect in the end I suppose as I rivered my 7 to get up to a 60k stack. That really didn't dent Van Alstyne's stack too badly, and he continued being really aggressive at the table, so I got blinded down to roughly 54k when the following hand came up: I had J9o in the big blind, and UTG+1, a weak player (but not THE weak player) limps. I'd seen him do this twice before from early position, and the one time he showed down a hand it was 33, so i was fairly confident he had a similar holding this time. The CO and button both call the limp (still 1600 at this point), Van Alstyne completes in the SB and I check. Flop is J64 two hearts. Van Alstyne leads at the pot for 6k. I considered a couple of different options here, but with my read on the UTG+1 player having some sort of small pair and not a monster I felt like he probably either hit his set or he would fold if I called. I felt like raising left me way too vulnerable with my hand, and Van Alstyne was playing enough pots I felt like I was probably ahead of him, but not ahead if he or anyone else could call a raise. I decided to call, and everyone else folded. The turn was either the best or the worst card in the world for me, the Jd which made two diamonds and two hearts on the board. Van Alstyne checked to me, and I felt that he could have two hearts, 35, or 57 there often enough I had to bet. So I made it $14k, and Van Alstyne almost immediately raised to $28k, just the minimum. I thought for a minute or so, but against this player I was going broke here. So I pushed the last of my chips into the pot, or $14.5k more for him to call. He thought about it for 2-3 minutes, finally made the call, and when I flipped up J9o he mucked his hand, even with one card to come (so I didn't see his cards at all). I have to assume he had a 6, but I don't know for sure. After that hand, I was up to $100k or so and pretty much coasted to the final table picking up some blinds and not doing much of anything interesting. Once we got to the final table I had about $90k left, which was good for 4th place in chips. The final table pretty much immediately started off with a bang. After about 1 orbit of mostly blind steals, I got AQo in the big blind. It was folded to the button who had $75k in chips who raised to $10k with 1500/3000 blinds with a 500 ante. With that much money in the pot i re-raised to $40k, he pushed and with only having to call $35k more I made the call. He had AK and despite the board being 5452 on the turn, I missed my chop and win outs and was down to $15k. I got all my chips in later with AJo and spiked a J vs AQ and AK to triple up, and then had to push AQs and ran into KK with about 4M or so in my stack and that was it. This all happened in the span of like 12 hands and I really feel I played them all correctly and just didn't run well. Overall I'm very happy with my play, just disappointed in the result. I think I'm playing really well right now though and hopefully that will transfer over to the main event starting tomorrow. -Rizen

2007 WPT LA Poker Classic, Event 28, Day 1

2007-02-22T02:41:00.000-08:00

I’m in the $1500 buy in preliminary event at the LA Poker Classic. I have about 25,000 chips at the dinner break. We’ve played the first four levels of the blinds. We started with 3000 chips, so I’m in great shape. If I’m not the chip leader, I’ve gotta be pretty close to it.

I worked my way up to about 7000 chips playing mostly straightforward stuff just playing good poker. A couple of key hands.

I was under the gun and picked up pocket kings. At 50/100 blinds I raised to 300. Player 2 to my left who had been playing fairly tight raises it up to 950. Max Pescatori who’s in middle position with about 3000 chips total just flat calls the 950 which kind of worried me. It folds around to John-Robert Bellande in the small blind and he goes ahead and puts his last 900 chips in. The big blind folds. Player 2 has about 2500 chips and I decide the best move with my kings is to go ahead and push. To my surprise everyone calls. When we flipped up the hands, I’ve got KK, Player 2 has QQ, Max Pescatori has AA, and John-Robert Bellande has TT. The flop came A/Q/T which gave all of them sets. It also gives me four outs with a Jack for a straight. Sure enough, Jack comes on the turn giving me a Broadway straight. I also have 3 to a royal flush, so if John-Robert Bellande hits his T of hearts on the river, I would have hit a royal flush. After the jack I just needed to avoid the jack pairing or the other players hitting quads. The river was an off suit 5, I win a huge pot and I have 15000 chips.

Another key hand was just before the dinner break. The player to my left was being really aggressive, just hyperagressive. He has about 10,000 chips, I had about 15,000 and the blinds are 75/150. He had been playing all kinds of hands. One thing that I had noticed earlier in a small blind, big blind battle when he flopped a big hand he kind of shook his hand a little bit as he put his chips in the pot. Eventually he showed down a big hand and I made a mental note. Fast forward back to this hand, he limps under the gun for 150. The under the gun plus one has about 4000 total chips and raised to 700. It’s folded to me in the small blind with AK. Well, I really thought the under the gun plus one player was really pretty tight. I thought that a reraise would isolate him and I’d be in a coin flip situation with a guy who probably had a pretty big hand. I decided rather then do that, I would go ahead and smooth call, see if I get an A or K and get the rest of his chips. The under the gun player comes along and calls after I call him. So we get about 2200 in the pot. The flop comes K 9 T with two hearts which is one of the worst possible flops that can hit my hand probably. Under the gun player leads for 1400 in the pot. Under the gun plus one folds. I go ahead and call. I figure the board is very draw heavy. This player has been very aggressive and I think he has some sort of draw. So, I just call with position and will make a decision on the turn. The turn is a brick. He bets 3400 into the 5000 pot.

When I watched both times he bet, he was steady, his hands were fine, and he acted really relaxed. Which is what he did earlier when he didn’t have a big hand. The other times when he did have a big hand his hand was shaking just a little. After thinking it over I thought I probably had the best hand, so I decide and I just put him all in. He deliberates for about 3-4 minutes. The best part, it was priceless the look on his face when I said, “all in”. Just absolutely went into the tank. He couldn’t believe I said it. He mulls it over talking to himself. “You know I have a big draw”, “Do I want to play with a medium stack or do I want to call and get a big stack?” Eventually, he talks himself into calling. He turns over A 3 of hearts on a heart draw. He misses.

Kind of illustrates the power paying attention at the table and getting a solid read on player.

So I’m in great shape after 4 levels with 25,000 chips. No one else at my table is close. The second biggest stack at my table has maybe 12,000 chips. Providing I don’t get cold decked or some sort of bad beat I think I’m going to be in tremendous shape the rest of the night.

I'm not dead, I promise

2007-02-17T10:59:00.000-08:00

Hey, I know I haven't been updating as much. I'm actually working on fixing that permanently. I can't say a whole lot, but basically I'm working right now on getting a new site that's not associated with blogger on my own domain and getting some people to help me manage it, that way we have regularl updates, real content from myself and other top players, and a few other things. Like I said, I can't talk about it a lot right now. I'll try and keep updating here as much as I can in the meantime, but hopefully before too long I'll have something a lot better in place. As far as poker goes, in the last week I have a win in the $50 1 rebuy 1 add on, and 5 or so other final tables. I'm also currently in first place in the Internet Player of the Year Race on Internet Texas Hold Em, which features a scoring system based on all the biggest tournaments on the internet. -Rizen

Council Bluffs

2007-02-06T14:16:00.000-08:00

I'm home now, Council Bluffs didn't go so well. I think I played mostly fine, I just never really did get anything going and finally had to take a stand with top pair no kicker and ran into a slow-played KK. The experience itself was pretty fun though. My whole family has been passing around a cold/flu bug the week before the tournament though, and of course I started feeling bad about a day before I was going to leave. I still don't feel that bad, but I've definitely got a little bug. The tournament only got 140ish players, and I expected more like 2-300, but I guess this is the first time there's been an event like this in IA and not a whole lot of people came. Phil Gordon, Chris Ferguson, and TJ Cloutier were all there signing autographs beforehand. I had a couple of people recognize me and talk with me, and I even got asked for 3 autographs. It was the first time I've ever been asked for my autograph (at least where I wasn't giving a credit card first). I feel kind of bad, as I should have put 'Rizen' somewhere in the signature but didn't. Guess I'll know better next time. The actual play started at noon on the 5th, and the structure was decent. 75 min levels, 10k in starting chips, 25/50 starting blinds. I started off really well beginning with JJ under the gun and seeing a cheap flop in middle position with T9s and turning a straight. I was up close to 11k in chips very early, but I never won another sizeable pot the rest of the tournament. I got QQ and AA after that, but both times just won the blinds, and I didn't connect with my AK/AQ/AJ a single time, and none of my continuation bets were getting anyone to leave the pot. Had I actually hit a flop, I think I would have been paid off big time, but I never really did until the last hand, and it was a pretty weak hit at that. I wish there were more worth writing about. My table was very friendly and I had an overall good time, it just wasn't working for me that day. I couldn't hit anything and couldn't manufacture anything and found myself on the rail shortly before dinner after about 5 hrs of play out about 90th out of the 140 players. -Rizen

January was a solid month

2007-02-03T13:26:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in a while. Just so everyone knows, no I'm not dead. I'm still alive and kicking and January was a great month. For the month I had 4 first place finishes and 2 second place finishes. I also had 13 total final tables. I managed to have a 153.66% ROI for the month, which is fairly solid, but pretty close to the normal range for me. I also climbed from the mid 40s to 31st place on Pocket Fives rankings, and finished the month at the #5 spot in the Internet Player of the Year race. Starting this month, my play will probably drop off some as I'm going to make more of a commitment to live play now that my family life is getting into a normal routine. I'll try and post regular updates here on how I'm doing in events, but you can always follow along at CardPlayer, PokerWire, or Pocket Fives Live for coverage. I'll be in Council Bluffs for the WSOP Circuit Event next week and P5s live is not covering that, but PokerWire and CardPlayer should be. Also, if anyone has read the latest Card Player magazine I have my second article in there now, and the first one you all haven't read titled 'Image is Everything'. I always welcome feedback on those, so if you want to let me know what you thought of it either as a comment or via e-mail, feel free. -Rizen

Mixed Tuesday

2007-01-17T13:40:00.001-08:00

Most of my results Tuesday were mixed. I cashed 3 times, but nothing significant. I ran into a lot of cold decks yesterday with stuff like running into AA from a button raiser with QQ in the blinds a few times and things like that. No big deal given the recent run especially, and I realize that things like that are going to happen and there really isn't a whole lot you can do about it. Tonight is my last night of play before I take two days off. Starting next week I'm probably going to switch up my days off a little bit, although we'll see. My wife has requested I stagger them instead of putting them right in a row so I can watch the baby those nights and she can get some extra sleep. I think that's fair so after this week we're going to probably change it. I'm going to try and crack the cover of one of the poker books I got for Christmas this week, we'll see which one, but once I do I'll let you all know what I think of it. -Rizen

I love Sundays

2007-01-16T15:05:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the late post. I've been trying to update this thing most weekdays and once on weekends, but I ran so good this weekend that I was up pretty late most nights and trying to catch up on sleep while still doing my family duties the following days. For those of you that don't already know, in addition to the first place finish Saturday night in the UB $30 rebuy I took 2nd in the Stars $200 rebuy on Sunday night, 1st in the UB $100 freezeout on Sunday night, and won the Stars $50 1 rebuy/1 add on last night. It's been quite a run that has done good things for my confidence as well as made a nice start to my 2007 bankroll. Both the UB $100 freezeout and Stars $50 felt great, because I pretty much dominated both final tables from start to finish with very little doubt I was in control. The Stars $200 rebuy was a bit more choppy waters, and in the end I was one card away from first but lost to a player I highly respect, PokerJoe9, who goes by big egypt on Stars. That gives me three wins and a second in 3 days. If I can win a tournament on Full Tilt or Bodog before Saturday I can win my second Triple Crown. I'm not sure how much time I'll really dedicate to that having one already, and going after it would likely mean not playing some more lucrative tournaments. If it happens that's great, but I'm not going to give it an all out try right now. As a side note, those of you that don't already know I won a 'Presto' (Pocket Fives yearly awards) for the column I wrote for them that you all helped me come up with the idea for, Spotting and Attacking Weakness in Online Poker. In addition, that same article is my lead column in the latest issue of Card Player, with some slight edits and an introduction. There will be all new material in future issues of Card Player that hasn't appeared anywhere else. I also have an article that ran in this month's Bluff magazine I wrote back in November. Due to my column in Card Player I'll no longer be providing them with any new material, but it's a decent read that deals with playing the structure in both online and live poker. Whew, that's all for now. I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the column ideas contest as well, without you all I likely don't write that article that wins the Presto and played at least a part in my landing the Card Player gig. -Rizen

A Home Run

2007-01-14T11:33:00.000-08:00

Took down the UB $30r last night for 1st place. I really thought I was going to get denied again when I got 3 handed with a massive chip lead and lost AK vs AT and 99 vs QQ very close together to have a very short stack. I came back and won though, and it feels very nice to close one out. I'm about to start the Sunday majors so I'll keep this one kind of short and sweet. Don't forget that if you aren't currently getting rakeback you can click here and sign up with Rake Aid, or e-mail me if you want more information. -Rizen

Rake Aid

2007-01-12T14:40:00.000-08:00

I have a new banner up on the blog that should show up under the old banner under the title. This is a permanent advertisement/link for Rake Aid. Rake Aid is a rakeback site that you can earn to get percentages of the rake you play at various poker rooms back. If you're not aware, rakeback programs allow you to get a percentage of your rakeback for your account. For instance, using Rake Aid you can get 30% of your rake back from Absolute Poker. So if you win a pot and paid $1.50 in rake, you can get $.45 of that back by using a rakeback program. This can add up to a lot of money for people who play a lot. If you don't already have rakeback and are interested, feel free to use the banner (it's the one on the bottom under the title) to Rake Aid. The top banner is on a rotation and occasionally Rake Aid comes up, but be sure to use the bottom one as it will identify me as the referrer. Rake Aid covers most poker sites, includeing Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet, and Absolute Poker among others. Most of the site will even allow you to convert existing accounts over to rakeback without creating a new one. If you're not sure feel free to send me an e-mail and I'll see what I can do. There are a lot of things that can be done I can't mention here, so feel free to e-mail with questions. And in the interest of full disclosure, yes I get paid for referring people for this. That being said, rakeback really is a good thing and if you're playing poker anyway there really isn't any reason to not get a portion of your rake back. -Rizen

Nothing much happening

2007-01-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

Thurs/Fri are my days off so not much going on. I've been playing some more cash games lately and doing pretty well in those. I also did make the final table of the $30r on UltimateBet on Wednesday but finished 10th quickly as a pretty short stack. Overall still not much going on. Still playing well and going deep, but not a whole lot to show for it. -Rizen

Regarding PCA

2007-01-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

I've been asked quite a few times if I was in Atlantis at the PCA. No, I'm not this year. I probably could have stated this somewhere, but with the birth of my daughter there was no way I was traveling out of the country just a few weeks afterwards. Again, I'll probably look to hit live tournaments for the first time at the Council Bluffs circuit event in Feb, then hit more major events in March, provided that everything both at home and poker related is going fine. -Rizen

Solid weekend

2007-01-08T13:05:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I final tabled both the $22 rebuy on PokerStars and the late $109 on Ultimate Bet. I took 6th and 5th respectively. I feel I played both very well though and that if I keep attacking and hitting the final tables I'll hit a 1st very soon. That made 4 final tables last week, with 3 5ths and a 6th. I also cashed twice yesterday in Sunday tournaments, although neither cash was super significant. I'll be hitting the tables again tonight through Wednesday, but overall it's a solid, but not spectacular start to the year. On a side note, the Chiefs looked miserable in their playoff game. I almost wish they hadn't even made the playoffs so we could be spared that embarassment of a game. I don't mind the loss, and the defense played very admirably, but the game plan and the execution of it on offense was terrible. I also played some Gears of War with my brothers in law over the weekend. Still a very fun game to play multiplayer. I'm enjoying it and maybe one of these days I'll finish the single player to increase my pathetic gamerscore. -Rizen

Hitting it hard

2007-01-04T12:14:00.000-08:00

Another final table last night in another UB tournament, taking 5th in the UB $109. Again, if I'd had a few hands hold at the final table I'd have been a monster, but it didn't happen. I was very pleased with my play and 2 final tables in 3 days back is not bad. I'm taking my usual Thurs/Fri off so no poker again until Saturday. Speaking of Saturday, my beloved Chiefs made the playoffs this year, so I'll be watching that closely hoping they can go into Indy and steal a win. I didn't even expect them to make the playoffs, so just getting to watch meaningful football in Jan is a bit of a bonus this year. I've also been playing some Madden 07 on the 360 lately, and so far in my first franchise season as Kansas City (yes, I'm a homer) I'm 4-1 after just dropping a close one against Pittsburgh in the rain on the road. I was always a much bigger fan of the NFL 2k series, but now that EA has the exclusive license I've gone back to Madden and it's better than I remember it, although I still wish the NFL 2k brand was around, or better yet for older school gamers, the Tecmo Bowl or even excellent Front Page Sports series for the PC. -Rizen

Tasted some moderate success yesterday

2007-01-03T12:24:00.000-08:00

I final tabled the UB $215 $25k guaranteed yesterday taking 5th. If it weren't for my KK losing to 44 on a Q73 flop where we got it all in, I probably finish in the top 3. That's not to complain, just to state that I played very well and got unlucky. It happens, and it was nice to post a final table on only my second day back, as well as get myself into the black early in 2007. Aside from that, not much happened for me in tournaments. I bubbled the $100k on both Mansion and Stars. I played well in both though, and don't regret my actions one bit that put me out on the bubble in each. I also played some cash games for a bit yesterday, and pretty much crushed for the 60 minutes or so I played. I managed to go up a buy in and a half at 5/10 in about an hour. Lots of good hands and tough decisions, I wish I'd been recording, but there was a lot of background noise at the time I was afraid would come through the mic. All in all not an explosive start to 2007, but a solid one. I can deal with that, hitting line drives thus far, it's just a matter of time before I hit one out. I was thinking of what Kansas City Royal great George Brett used to say about his hitting philosophy after I made my baseball analogy yesterday. He said (paraphrasing) 'Don't try and hit it far, try and hit it hard.' I think he was basically saying to just concentrate on making good, solid contact, and the rest will work itself out. So I'm going to keep hitting it hard tonight and we'll see what happens before I take my regular Thurs/Fri off this week. -Rizen

Back in the Saddle

2007-01-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

I officially went 'back to work' and kicked off 2007 last night. While I didn't have great results (1 cash in about 8-9 tournaments), I think the time off in December helped a lot. I felt WAY more relaxed at the table than I had in a long time. I really think towards the end of the year last year I was putting pressure on myself to do better and it was hurting my game. While I say the rankings don't matter, going from #2 to #20ish when the new rankings came out was a bit of a blow to the poker ego, and I felt (and still feel) I belong near the top. To use a sports analogy, I think I was trying to constantly hit a home run to get myself back up there, and most hitters will say that if you're trying to hit home runs you won't get them. If you just try and hit consistent line drives the home runs come on their own. Well, after taking December off that dropped me way down to #33 or so. It's almost like a fresh start, and I'm hungry to prove I'm still one of the best and that my great 2006 was no fluke. I'm going to try and keep hitting line drives and slowly build my way back up. The way I could tell I was way more relaxed is I never really felt any pressure last night to force anything. My patience was there real well, as was my focus. I didn't make any huge cashes, but I made lots of good decisions and can't honestly think of a single mistake I made other than one misclick. I hate misclicks, but at least that was just an accident and not a mental mistake. I can handle that. Looking back at 2006, I was trying to find my 'looking back' post from the end of 2005/beginning of 2006. I'll look back through more carefully later. I do distinctly remember saying two things at the beginning of 2006 though. 1) I remember saying I wasn't sure I could duplicate my last half of 2005 success in 2006. To say the least this wasn't a concern. My period from August of 2005 to about June of 2006 might be one of the single greatest stretches of online tournament poker anyone has ever had. I'm not trying to brag or build myself up, but I won pretty much every major tournament during that period, some multiple times. I don't really want to post results here, but it was an amazing run, one I'm not sure I'll ever be able to duplicate. Maybe it's good news though that I'm skeptical I can have a 2007 that is better than 2006 was. I was skeptical about 2006 and that outperformed 2005 by 6-7 times the amount. I also think the skills I gained in cash games during 2006 as well as the additional opportunities provided by working with PokerXFactor.com and Card Player magazine will help provide some stability. The main obstacle to having another year like 2007 will be the closing of Party Poker and Paradise Poker to US customers. Both of those sites were huge sources of revenue for me in 2006, although PokerStars, Ultimate Bet, and Full Tilt have done admirable jobs adding tournaments and picking up the slack when those two sites shut their doors to US customers. 2) I remember saying I wanted to play more live tournaments and have some degree of success in them. Needless to say I surpassed my expectations on this one as well. I never really dreamed I'd cash for $600k at the WSOP or that I'd make at least 2 television appearances. I played in 4 events at this year's WSOP as well as 2 WPT events. I want to expand on that a little this year and try and carry over some of that live success. I don't really like to set specific goals for myself, because I believe that can often be limiting, but I want to continue my online success, hopefully parlaying that into another trip into the top 10 in both the Pocket Fives rankings and the Internet Player of the Year standings, as well as some significant live play, although I still plan on that being somewhat limited since my family is still young and I enjoy my time at home with them too much. At any rate, it feels good to be playing again, I feel great at the tables, and am looking forward to a good 2007. -Rizen

Good news

2006-12-29T18:36:00.000-08:00

Obviously no news is as good as the last post, but in terms of poker I'm now a regular columnist for CardPlayer magazine. Starting with the first issue of 2007 (which I believe is the very next one) you'll see a column written by yours truly in every issue. Since the deadline for the first column came on almost the same day as my wife was due, my first column is a slightly edited re-print of my 'Spotting and Attacking Weakness' article that's probably already familiar to most of you. The following issue is the start of brand new material and I look forward to getting feedback from everyone here. I also have a few ideas of how to facilitate some discussion and interactivity based on the articles, but until that's finalized I'd rather not talk about it. With that out of the way, I'd like to say that I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas (or a Happy Holiday for people of other faiths) and will have a Happy New Year. I've been using my time off to have a lot of fun with my family, and after they go to bed I've been playing a lot of Gears of War for the XBox 360 with my brother in law and some other friends. It's been a lot of fun and a great way to relieve some stress every night. I've been playing a little Madden 07 as well, as I've always been a sports game junkie. I also got about 5 poker books I'd been wanting for Christmas, so as I read those I'll post some mini-reviews to let you all know what I think. It ranges from some new titles like Harrington on Hold Em 3 and No Limit Hold Em: Theory and Practice to some older stuff I've been meaning to read like Caro's Book of Tells. I'm also thinking of heading up to Council Bluffs for the February WSOP Circuit event. It's actually only a 3-4 hr drive from my house, so the proximity makes it a great way for me to break back into live play without feeling like I'm too far from home yet. After that, I'm going to try and hit a live event every 4-6 weeks or so after that leading up to the WSOP, where I'll probably play a lot more than the 4 events I did this year. I'm hoping I'll have a sponsorship deal nailed down before then too to offset a lot of the expenses that go with that sort of thing, but if worse comes to worse I'll finance it all myself. I'm feeling truly refreshed and focused for the first time in a while. While 'normal' is quite a bit different than it was a year ago for me, having a new regular schedule and routine has really helped me feel better, and I think that's going to spell trouble for anyone who happens to get stuck at a table with me in 2007. -Rizen

I'm a Dad (again)!

2006-12-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

I'm sure most of the readers here already know this from other places it was posted, but on December 19th at 9:52am I became a father for the second time to a beautiful baby girl. She was 8lbs 7 oz and 19.5" long. The transition from 1 kid to 2 hasn't been NEAR as stressful or difficult as the switch from 0 kids to 1 was. Mom and baby are both doing great, and I'm settling into a pretty nice routine. I'm going to start playing poker again regular starting Monday January 1. The time off in December has really helped me get refreshed and ready to play again. Not to mention I really didn't know how much having a VERY pregnant wife and a (nearly) 2 year old son was really dragging on me and impacting my game. I don't think I was playing worse per se, but so much was getting drained out of me every day that my heart wasn't completely in it every night. I've worked out a new schedule that actually works pretty well for me. I've been staying up til about 2am and sleeping until about 7:30 when my son wakes up, then taking a nap with him every day from about 2 to 4:30. The nap has been a huge help rather than my old schedule where my wife and I took turns sleeping in, so I was getting 5 hrs of sleep one night and then 10 the next, which I really think was messing with my body. Having a more routine schedule I think will help me be more focused, although if it impacts my results has yet to be seen. I'll probably ease back in slowly. My wife had a c-section, so she can't fully take care of my son until mid-January, so I'll have to do a somewhat abbreviated schedule that takes place mostly after he goes to bed until then. Bottom line is I'm itching to play again and get 2007 kicked off right. I had a very good both 2005 and 2006, and I have no plans of slowing down just yet. -Rizen

Link up for finance blog

2006-12-12T17:19:00.000-08:00

This will be the last self-promoting I do for this, but I added a permanent link to my finance blog where I discuss the stock market and investing overall on the right hand side of the screen. For now, I'm keeping it separate from this blog. I haven't played any poker since my last post, but I'll probably get in a few cash sessions before this weekend. I'll take some notes and post anything interesting. -Rizen

Shutting it down for a bit

2006-12-11T07:12:00.000-08:00

With the baby getting super close now, I've more or less shutdown playing tournaments for a while. We've had a few scares already and my wife is having a hard enough time around the house coupled with the possibility of having to drop everything and leave at any given moment that the 'can't get up and leave' nature of tournaments just doesn't fit right now. I'm playing some cash games though and I'll try and keep posting some key thoughts from those. I anticipate that once the baby is born I'll continue the 'cash game only' routine for a bit until things stabilize at home, then I'll probably slowly add back in the bigger nightly tournaments but not go into a full blown schedule until sometime in 2007. In addition to cash games, I'm really going to focus on finishing up a few videos I've been doing for PXF and maybe doing some videos of my cash games. I'm honestly also going to use it as an opportunity to just spend some time away from poker and do other things for a bit. It's never good to play when you're tired or pre-occupied, and for the next month or two I will easily be both, so I think short bursts are the best for me, and I can do that with cash games and PXF videos fairly easily. Once things are settled down in 07 I'll start to get some plans to do some live events this year too, but I probably won't want to try to go anywhere until AT LEAST Feb and more likely March. Just wanted to give a quick update and explain why you haven't seen me at the tables. No baby yet, but soon. -Rizen

Just finished some cash

2006-12-06T13:59:00.000-08:00

After beating it into my brain to stop making loose river calls I just finished up a short afternoon cash session while everyone was taking a nap. The results were good. I finished up a buy in and played pretty well. I did make one loose call that cost me some money, but I feel like the leak is mostly plugged. The big problem is that I started as a limit cash game player, and in limit since the betting is fixed it is almost always correct to call a bet on the river with any sort of hand in limit because the odds you get are so great. That's not the case in no limit, and it's probably one of the few things I still struggle with to this day. In tournaments it doesn't kill me near as much because typically the stacks are shallower, but in deep stacked cash play loose river calls will cost you a lot. -Rizen

Old Man River

2006-12-06T00:19:00.000-08:00

No, this is not a bad beat post. This is a post scolding myself for playing badly on the river tonight. Overall, I played decent tonight, but I made about 4 calls on the river I really shouldn't have, and they cost me big time. 4 mistakes is 4 too many as far as I'm concerned. Part of the problem is that instinctively people want to be the sheriff. You WANT to catch people bluffing and make the great call. Quite honestly, making a great call against someone is just as exhilirating as making a big bluff and getting away with it. That being said, I called too much tonight. I would rate my overall play tonight a C-. I did a good job of putting myself in a lot of good situations, but I could have had a few more shots at a big cash tonight if I hadn't made a few of those calls. I didn't save any hand histories in particular so you'll have to take my word for it, but I figured I'd make a post while it was on my mind, and post a reminder to myself not to call so much on the river! -Rizen

New Finance Blog

2006-12-05T17:53:00.000-08:00

This is probably temporary until I can work out something better to combine everything, but I started a blog where I share my thoughts on the stock market here. -Rizen

A rare update

2006-12-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

I realize (from both feedback and just looking at things) that I'm not updating this near as much as I used to. When it gets down to it, I think that I don't update the blog as much as I used to because my life overall has changed in such a way since I started this blog that poker is a much smaller part of my life than it used to be. I know that may seem counter-intuitive considering I was a working professional then and a professional poker player now. Back when I started this, I had a lot more idle time than I do now, and I spent virtually all of that idle time thinking about poker. Either situations I had come across or how to improve my game, etc. I still love poker, but now as my son has gotten older and my daughter is closer to arriving, family is taking up a lot more of my time than it used to. Add on to that the fact that I've taken up managing my own money in the stock market as well as spending more of my free time doing some leisure activities (gaming, watching TV) as well as health related activities (more going to the gym, more walks with the family, more cooking at home, etc) my free time, as well as the amount that I dedicate to poker has shrunk. What I find is that most of the things I want to write most about aren't poker related at all, but I feel bad if I fill this blog (which is a poker blog) with mostly non poker related things. I really enjoy writing (and blogging) though. I think it keeps my game sharp as well as complimenting the other things I do well. I want to write here more, so I've been trying to think of a way to fix that. I think what I'm going to do is find a way to incorporate other passions into my blogging. With my wife's due date 2 weeks away I'm not sure how quickly it will happen. My main concern is I want to make it so that the people who care about only poker don't have to read tons of other stuff to see poker related posts, same with other aspects of my life. I'm not sure if blogger supports this sort of thing or not, but the easiest way to accomplish this would be to categorize topics and let users filter by what they want to read. I doubt it does, the quick fix may be that I start 1-2 other separate blogs and link them all together. It's clumsy, but that may be the fastest way to get it up and running. At the end of the day I really need to come up with ways to make the extra things I do (like this blog) exciting for me. That keeps me updating, interested, and ultimately putting out better work that will keep you all more interested in what's to come. Don't read into this the wrong way, I'm going to keep updating this blog, and I think the end result is going to be more frequent updates than even before since my interest in writing/blogging will be renewed. In the end this is kind of a rant in general so that everyone knows where I'm coming from. -Rizen

More Final Tables

2006-11-14T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm loving Stars new tournament schedule. There was a void between 11pm and 1am ET of decent tournaments to play in, and now there are 3-4 good ones to get into once I bust out of some of my early ones. Last night I final tabled both the 11pm UB $100 freezeout and the 1am Stars $100 freezeout. I took 2nd on UB and 8th on Stars. In addition I made the final two tables in both the early UB $100 freezeout and the 12:15 Stars $50 1 rebuy/1 add on tournament. Overall it was a pretty profitable night. I'm feeling pretty good about my play lately, and more invigorated than I have in a while about poker in general. I think I'm going to have a pretty strong push until the baby is born at which time I'll get a much needed break for at least a few weeks and perhaps longer. If Full Tilt ever finishes their software upgrade to allow rebuy tournaments, I may stop missing Party and Paradise altogether. Things are definitely looking up, and the impact of the legislation really seems to be minimal as the remaining sites seem to be trying really hard to pick up the slack and attract new customers who need new places to play. -Rizen

Will disappear from Mid-December through Jan 1

2006-11-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

I've posted this a few times, but whenever my daughter is born I'll probably take the rest of the year off from poker from that point on. I might pop in here or there to update my blog or play some cash games or something, but I pretty much plan on being non-existent in the tournament scene for at least a few weeks until I get some idea of what kind of schedule/routine we'll have. We were very fortunate that our son was very good straight out of the womb and had pretty good sleep cycles and was good natured so it didn't impact us too much sleep wise. It definitely DID impact us, my wife more than me since she was feeding and I was working, but it could have been much worse. Depending on how the daughter behaves I may find that I get back into things in a few weeks, or I could easily also disappear for the most part from the tournament scene for a month or more. All of you that know me know that family comes first, and I'll just have to see how things fit in. Tournaments require a large time committment and keep me up pretty late, so if I feel I'm too tired to play my best at 2am I'll probably stick to shorter sessions of cash games or maybe even take a break altogether. I'll try and keep everyone updated here though. -Rizen

Misc stuff

2006-11-13T13:02:00.000-08:00

A lot of this won't be poker related, so if you don't want to hear non-poker things then please ignore this post and read the previous two. A lot of people have been asking what I decided to do with the extra cash I had around my birthday. The answer is for the most part I've held onto a lot of it. I received some great ideas from people, part of the problem was most of the ideas I received I already had. I DID end up buying an XBox 360 and a few games. I've actually spent a little time playing it, so I don't really regret it. I picked up Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and Chromehounds. I also have Gears of War in the mail right now, should arrive tomorrow. If anyone else has XBox live you can feel free to add me, I'm Snkybluffalo on XBL. One of the things I did get for my birthday from my wife was this really cool bathroom scale that monitors body fat %, metabolic rate, and all kinds of crazy stuff. While I've continued some with trying to be healthier, I had been slipping a bit, and while I don't really measure the success by weight, this scale gives me a lot of measures that aren't weight related that I can use to guage my progress. I don't think I'm going to post numbers on here anymore for a few reasons I'd rather not get into, but I am measuring my progress. The only major concern I have is how 'convenient' many unhealthy options are going to be in 5-6 weeks when my daughter is born. That's mainly what's going on with me, to get back to the video game front I've been playing mostly Spliter Cell on the co-op mode on XBox Live, but I'm also playing through the original Splinter Cell single player on the PC to try and catch up on the storyline before I play the single player on the 360. While there are certainly better things I could be doing with my time than playing video games, I have found that sneaking in 45-60 minutes a day has been helpful overall in just getting some personal time away from everything to relax and enjoy myself, and I think it's actually been a positive for me so far. -Rizen

FTOPS

2006-11-13T12:59:00.000-08:00

As most of you know, the Full Tilt Online Poker Series kicked off in earnest Saturday. I plan on doing my best to play all of the events, including the main event next Sunday. So far I cashed in event #2, but whiffed in Event #1. I always look forward to these series, even though my results so far haven't been that great, having big series of online tournaments with big guarantees every few months is a good thing, and I especially like the fact that it often allows me to flex my skill in games other than Hold Em. Tonight is a standard double stack hold em with 200k guaranteed that should be nice. -Rizen

New PokerStars tournament schedule!

2006-11-13T12:55:00.000-08:00

Tonight is the first night of the new and improved PokerStars tournament schedule. I'm actually really excited about this. First off, they've made the schedule the same every night, so I no longer have to remember which nights run what tournaments. Secondly, they added satellites for the nightly 150+12, which will be great. They now have a $109 rebuy at 8pm every night, and the $100 freezeout at 11pm is every night. The tournament I might be most excited about is the $50 1 rebuy/1 add on every night at 12:15 too, which is kind of like a deep stacked $150 freezeout. It'll take a little adjusting, but I definitely like the new schedule on the surface, and look forward to having some new good tournaments to play in every night. I'm also most likely changing my 'days off' during the week to Thurs/Fri now instead of Wed/Thurs that way I can play the $300 tournament on Wednesday nights. It will also give me a weekend night off to spend with my family, something I didn't like to do when Party was offering the weekend special tournaments, but now is much easier to do since there are no special tournaments on Fridays. -Rizen

2006-11-08T09:46:00.000-08:00

It's been a fairly good week for me. I made 5-6 final tables, the biggest score being a $10k cash in the Stars $100 rebuy on Saturday night. I still haven't managed to actually close a tournament out for a victory in a while, which is disappointing, but at the same time I feel my play is pretty solid, so I know it will come as long as I keep putting myself in position to win them. I just finished writing an article for Bluff magazine that should be in the upcoming issue, but I haven't received any confirmation yet that it's going to be published, but all signs are good. Some people have been asking how my tournament schedule has changed since Party Poker and Paradise shut out US users. Here is a quick breakdown of the tournaments I choose from. Keep in mind that I don't play all of these. I play no more than 6 at a time, and add more as I bust out. If I get deep in a tournament, I tend to let myself get down to 4-5 tournaments and focus more on the ones I deep in. All that being said, here are all the tournaments I play on a somewhat regular basis, usually around 9-10 on any given night, all times are EST. 7:00 UB $100 rebuy 7:30 Stars $100 rebuy 8:00 Full Tilt 35k guaranteed (150+13) 8:00 UB 40k guaranteed (100+9) 8:30 Bodog 30k guaranteed (40+4) 9:00 UB 20k guaranteed ($30 rebuy) 9:10 Stars 150+12 9:20 Stars $20/$30 rebuy (alternates on given nights) 10:15 Stars 55k guaranteed ($10 rebuy) 11:00 Stars 100+9 11:00 Full Tilt 30k guaranteed 6 max (100+9) 11:00 UB 12.5k guaranteed (100+9) 12:00 Full Tilt 16k guaranteed (69+6) If anyone has any other good ones they recommend let me know. I don't really like to start tournaments later than midnight EST though. I'll admit the tournament lineup was much nicer when we had daily 100k guaranteed on Paradise, and the 150+12 on Party that usually got around 140k or so, but these are still very profitable tournaments. -Rizen

October in mini-review

2006-11-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of updates again lately everyone. With the baby due in 8 weeks or so my household responsibilities as well as my 'honey do' list have become bigger and I'm finding less time to write here as much as I'd like. I'm also enjoying spending a lot of my free time digging into my personal investment portfolio, so that's taking some time away too. As far as poker goes, everything is going well. I'm having a decent month in terms of profit, and October was another strong month in that department. The thing that's been on my mind the most recently is closing out tournaments though. Ever since I got back from the WSOP I've been making 3-4 final tables a week, or about my usual clip, but I haven't managed to finish better than 2nd at all, and only better than 3rd once. Part of this I think is natural variance, over my lifetime I have an unreal rate of first place finishes to final tables, and an even stronger rate of top 3 finishes to final tables (in relation to what the average should be, at least). The last 5-6 final tables though, I think I've been pressing and trying to make things happen when they aren't necessarily there, and I think it's been working against me. I try really hard not to be results oriented and just look at my play. Poker can be so high variance that I can go through stretches where I play really well, but am not seeing the results I'm used to seeing. I think this is one of those stretches. I've actually been REALLY happy with my play the last few weeks in particular, and I think I'm going to break out again in a big way very soon. That being said, it's not like things have been bad. Even though I had 0 wins this was another 5 figure month, although it's below both the mean and the median for the year, it's still strong and more than I would have made at my old 'real job' and add in the investment portfolio gains and it's probably one of my top 4 months this year. All that being said I've made an internal decision to re-commit myself to poker a bit. Coming back from the WSOP I was burnt out on the game some and was probably playing at about 85% or so. Lately I've felt a lot more invigorated about the game, and in particular the last few weeks. I'm going to do my best to try and finish out the year strong (when I can play, with my daughter due in mid-December etc). I'm also going to do my best to update my blog more regularly and get some more content ready for PokerXFactor.com for you all. I'll write more later, I've got a list of topics I've been thinking some about I'd like to touch on. -Rizen

Help me spend some money

2006-10-17T10:51:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's not really as exciting as the topic sounds. Basically though, I have a birthday coming up this Friday and no one has any clue what to get me. On top of that, I've been saving all my personal spending allowance money since about June. Quick sidebar, my wife and I each get weekly allowances to spend on personal items. I basically get $50 a week and I can blow that on whatever I want that's just for me. It prevents a lot of fights, and a lot of the problems that occurred early on in our relationship when I'd go drop $50 for a video game so Shauna would go buy a bunch of new clothes or whatever in return. We each get money to spend on whatever each week (not needs, those are paid for with regular money, this is just for discretionary purposes). Anyways, to cut to the point I've got enough saved I want to treat myself, or at the very least give some people some late ideas on what I want for my birthday. Quite honestly, I don't really have many things that I want. I used to play a lot of video games before I got into poker, but quite honestly I don't really have any time for those between poker and family. I've kept buying them anyways, and I'd like an XBox 360 or a Nintendo DS, but quite honestly I know if I got either I wouldn't play them. I've found in the last few years the things I've really enjoyed the most are the things I didn't know I couldn't live without until I had them. Two things immediately spring to mind, my DVR and my iPod. The DVR really makes me use the little time I do spend watching TV MUCH more effecient (no commercials, can watch whenever I want), and the iPod has made my workouts a pleasant experience, something I actually look forward to so I can catch up on some of the daily podcasts I like to watch and/or listen to (mostly news/sports/poker related). So, all of that being said, I know a lot of poker players are gadget junkies too, and a fair amount of you who read my blog share similar issues with family time. So I'm looking for recommendations on things you have found make your life easier, or the time you spend more enjoyable. Feel free to comment here or e-mail me with ideas. I'll let everyone know if I purchase anything and how it does. I figure it's worth a shot to see if there's anything else there I'm missing out on, especially since I don't keep up with technology like I used to. If it helps, my only real interest beyond those mentioned (poker, sports, news, video games when I have time) are books. I used to read A LOT but in the last 6-9 months I've maybe finished 1 book that wasn't poker related. Looking forward to interesting suggestions. -Rizen

Update

2006-10-17T10:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, I know it's been a long time. In my last post I said I'd try and update more regularly, so I'm not going to promise that again, although I do intend to make the effort. In the poker world not much has been going on with me. I've been making it really deep in a lot of tournaments, but lately I've been bubbling the final table or getting there really short stacked. I feel I'm playing well, so I'm not too worried, and I'm still making money, but it always feels like so much money is left on the table when first is $11k and 13th is $600 and I finish 13th. Aside from that, really not much going on. I'm probably not going to Niagara as I originally planned. At this point I'm just not that comfortable leaving town with a wife that's 8-9 weeks from her due date (at the time of the tournament). She's fine with it, but I'd never forgive myself if I was out of town and she went into labor. The entire family has one of those nasty colds that seems to go around when you have kids near the beginning of every school year. Corbin goes to Gymboree twice a week, so we get exposed to a lot of that stuff. On the house front we close on the land we picked out later this month, and are looking to break ground either next Spring or next Fall, depending on how things are going, potentially even later than that, as I wouldn't mind pushing it out so that construction finishes about a year before Corbin starts Kindergarden to get comfortable in the new place that way we can take the money we've set aside for that and put it to work before then. On the fitness/health front, said cold has cut into me getting out as much as I'd like to, but I've still been working out at least 4x a week and eating better, although still not completely where I'd like to be. As far as investments go, it's been a pretty good run in the stock market (although today so far has been a little harsh). I'm sure everyone's heard about the now DOW highs, although I'm not sure how meaninful of a measure that is. I've had a good run since June though, up 8.61% since June 17th when I started managing my own money. I (marginally) outperformed the S&P 500 with a 5.81% in Q3 vs 5.17% for the S&P. I think that covers most of my bases. I'm going to make one other completely unrelated post today, so I'll do that in a few minutes and not clutter up my 'update' with that stuff. -Rizen

Update

2006-09-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

I've been yelled at by fans, family, and friends the last few days for not updating this space enough, so I suppose I should :) This is going to be more of a personal update and probably not a lot of poker substance, so just consider yourself warned. I've been very quietly having a solid September, taking 3rd in the 200k on Party and 3rd in the $100r on Stars on a Sunday for a grand total of $27k in cashes. I took 4th in the Oyster last night as well for another $3500, and have several other assorted cashes this month, including 2 in the WCOOP. Speaking of the WCOOP, I've played 9 of the events now, cashing in two, the first NL Sunday event and the Pot Limit Hold Em event (I seem to do well at Pot Limit Hold Em). Overall, I'm up a little in the WCOOP, but nothing to write home about. I'm skipping today's event and then I'll play every other event on the list, with the probably exception of the $5k HORSE event. I don't mind paying 5-10k on an event, but given the fact that the 5k HORSE is filled with almost exclusively professionals, I'm not sure my edge (if I have one) is significant enough to play in it. I prefer to only enter those big events when I feel I have an edge (and if it were hold em, I'd probably feel I did). I'm pretty good at HORSE, but I think I might skip this one. We'll see how many entrants it gets. If it breaks 150 or so, I'll be awfully tempted to play in it. As far as other stuff goes, without giving away many details, we're looking at possibly building a new house, so I've been spending a lot of time looking at land and floor plans. I've also taken over managing my own investment portfolio rather than having someone else manage it, so I've been spending a fair amount of time with that. I'm kind of anal in the fact that I don't really like to trust other people with my money, and I feel I can do just as well with it as my money manager was, if not better. Please though, don't make this an open invitation to e-mail me or comment with investment advice. I appreciate the thoughts, but I'm not interested. As far as the health goals that I set out, the exercise is going VERY well. With the exception of the WCOOP kind of cutting into it the last few weeks, I've been exercising 5 days a week with no issues, and as a lifestyle change, this one seems to have taken hold easily. A big help was ordering a video iPod from the PokerStars FPP store which really makes working out a lot more fun. If anyone has any podcast recommendations I'm all ears. Cutting out regular Coke from my diet has mostly gone well, but I'll have to admit that I've broken that one more often recently after not breaking it for 2 straight months. My diet also went downhill a little bit in Las Vegas, as it's almost impossible to maintain anything close to a healthy diet in that city. Now that I'm back home there's no excuse for the diet related changes not going back into effect though, so I'll try and get back to regular Friday updates on all that. As far as live poker goes, I think I've got my eye on the WPT Niagara event as my next 'big live event'. I would like to do the US Poker Championships, but I'm pretty sure that is coming up so soon that I just don't have time to properly plan for it. I could be wrong, I'll look into it more here soon. I really not no desire to do any more live events for a while after the World Series, and going when my heart wasn't really in it probably wouldn't be good for my results, but I've been feeling the itch to play in a big live event again, so I think I'll start looking at that more seriously very soon. That's pretty much it for now in the way of updates, I'll try and make sure the next update isn't in another 2 weeks. Things are starting to calm down more, so I think I'll be able to get back to updating 3-4x a week again. -Rizen

Getting Started

2006-09-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

Okay, first off I realize it's been a while since I posted. I've been a little sick recently and having internet connection issues, but both seem to be getting resolved now. Also, on the WSOP write up, I'll probably wait until after the last episode airs October 3rd and just do it all then. Maybe that's lazy, but everything hasn't completely sunk in yet, and I think the TV coverage will be a big part of the overall experience honestly. All that out of the way, I wanted to try and get to a few of the article ideas I didn't feel would be good for the P5s article, but thought were worth writing about. This particular one I didn't use because it's been covered somewhat in another article, and it's not really 'strategy'. I've often been quoted as saying 'I wish these sorts of materials (referring to PokerXFactor) would have been available to me when I was first starting to play, as I'm certain it would have substantially shortened my learning curve'. With that in mind, the reader went on to ask how exactly I would recommend a new player attack these materials when starting out. First off, I want to say that there are so many materials it can seem overwhelming at first. I also want to say, that not everyone learns the same way. I personally believe the best place to start is with a good fundamental book, and them supplement that with videos/forums, but I know not everyone learns well from a book. I'm kind of just pouring this out as I go, but for ease of reading, I'm going to break out materials by type. First, there are books. I'm a big book learner, so I'm a fan of books. The other good thing about books, is that as long as you pick good books written by good authors you'll get a good fundamental base. I believe that as a player you should question everything you see/read and look at it objectively, because there is a lot of flat out wrong material out there as well, but as a beginning player it will be tough to separate the good from the bad, so books are a good start. I really think EVERY poker player should read 'The Theory of Poker' by David Sklansky, but it wouldn't be the first text I would read. It's also very math/game theory heavy, so it's pretty intellectual stuff. It's not exactly easy bathroom reading, and I had to read it 3-4 times (with a lot of playing between readings) before parts of it started to really make sense to me. Aside from that, what book you want depends on what you want to learn the best. There are several books that attempt to be 'all in one' texts that teach many forms of poker. The only one I've read so far that I'd recommend anyone read is Super/System. I've only read the first one, not the second, but I've heard good things about the second. Honestly though, I prefer books that attempt to cover one topic and cover it thoroughly. For MTTs that is Harrington On Hold 'Em hands down. If you want to get good at MTTs get HoH volumes 1 and 2 and lock yourself in a room for a few days. Then go play for 2-3 weeks and go back and read them again. For what it's worth, most poker texts are this way. They are not 'read and forget' materials. You read them, you go play for a bit using the new things you've learned, then go back and read again. You'll find things make more sense the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th readings than they do before you try and use them at the tables. If you're a cash game player, it really depends on if you play limit or no limit (if you play Stud or Omaha, I'm not much help. I'm good at both games, but haven't read any good books on either). For limit, I think Hold Em Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky is the best book. Really, even if you're not a limit player I think this book is a great introductory book to Hold Em. It has a good hand rankings chart, and it does a really good job of explaining concepts like pot/implied odds, free cards, and river play. I cut my teeth on limit hold em so I'm a bit biased, but I think this book is a good read even for non-limit players (disclaimer, I haven't actually read it in over a year now since I moved to primarily no limit). For no limit I hear that No Limit Hold Em Theory and Practice, the new book by Two Plus Two Publishing is very good. It's very high on my 'need to read' list, but I haven't actually read it. I haven't read many no limit cash game texts I actually like, but of all the ones I've read the no limit section on Super/System is probably the best. Keep in mind I've probably only read 8 or 9 books though, and there are a lot of good ones out there. As long as you read reviews on site likes Amazon.com and Pocket Fives you should be fine. I really like the Two Plus Two books, but my background is more of a math/game theory one, and they often approach the game from that perspective. If you're a more visual guy, there are lots of videos out there. I'm only familiar with the internet-based subscription services. I really believe the videos should be used to supplement some kind of fundamental poker background (like you would get from books) and not on their own, but some people aren't book learners. I'm a subscriber at CardRunners and RealPokerTraining and a guest pro at PokerXFactor. I believe they are all worth the money, but when you're dealing with my levels/bankroll if I learn one thing it can literally turn into thousands of dollars. I'm obviously biased, but I think PokerXFactor is the best. It's updated the most frequently and the videos are very high quality. That being said, there is a heavy bias towards MTTs/SnGs, so if you're a cash game player or don't play Hold Em, you're left out a bit. CardRunners is updated fairly frequently, and has a lot more cash offerings. It still doesn't have much outside of Hold Em though, and really RealPokerTraining is the only site that has much outside of Hold Em. They're also the only site with significant limit Hold Em content I've seen. They're all quality products though, and which you go with is really a matter of what type of games you play and what you want to improve. Lastly, I believe there are a lot of good forums and sites with general information out there. Twoplustwo.com and pocketfives.com are the two I frequent the most. Both have regular strategy articles, and both contain strategy forums for hand and strategy discussions. I believe two plus two goes a bit more 'in depth' in the hand discussion strategy discussion (although I like a lot of the P5s articles better), but the forums can be a bit of a bear to navigate, and like any other online forum, there is a certain learning curve. That being said, on either forum the actual interaction you get with other players can almost be more valuable than the material itself. I've learned more from debates with other good players over given hands than from anything else out there. Forums have the most serious drawback though. Anyone can register and post as an 'expert', so your BS filter must be on very well or forums can hurt your game as much as they can help it. That being said, there are years worth of archives on those two sites alone, not to mention there are some decent articles on internettexasholdem.com as well. I've rambled a lot now, and I'm not sure how coherent it all is, but if I were talking to someone now who was just starting out, I would recommend they pick up a book or two, read, play some low stakes (or even free) games for a week or two, re-read the books, play some more, and then start to add in a regiment of videos and/or forums to the mix once they've established a solid fundamental poker base. Honestly (and I'm not volunteering myself for this) knowing somoene who already plays and can help keep you pointed in the right direction is a good thing too. -Rizen

Article on attacking weakness

2006-09-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's up on Pocket Fives now here. It's been there for a day or two now, and the response has been fairly positive. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out even though I wrote it fairly quickly. One thing that turned out unlike I expected is that it was REALLY hard to pack into ~2000 words any sort of in depth look at this particular topic. As a result, I didn't get to go quite as deep as I wanted to. I think I hit on a lot of important points and examples though. Maybe I'll go more in depth on it in a future blog post, but the important thing is that you will recognize many patterns in play, and as you play more, you will learn to recognize what they mean and be able to figure out ways to attack them if you put some thought into it. Pattern recognition is a really strong point of mine, so picking up on these patterns is somewhat second nature to me, but I believe everyone could do it provided they're paying attention and not surfing the web or watching TV :) Lastly, I found it somewhat humerous that on one website forum people actually were upset with me for writing the article, afraid it might make other people realize what they were doing or make them better. I think that's kind of nonsense. The people who will learn from the article are going to learn it anyways, although the article might accelerate their learning curve. I'm not particularly worried about people starting to play me differently (3 bet me more, etc) either. I have confidence that I can adapt to any situation thrown my way, and if people start to adjust they way they play me then I'll just adjust back. Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been pretty busy on the home front and probably will be for the next few weeks, but I'll try and update more as well as post on some of the article ideas that were sent in that I didn't think I could write 2000 words on easily and put them here. -Rizen

Article contest results

2006-08-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Well, it was very close between 1 and 4. With 27 votes total, #4 edged #1 11 to 10. With the results being so close, I'll likely use #1 as my article idea for next month and I'll be contacting the 3 people that submitted that idea shortly. I'll also be contacting the 2 people that submitted the spotting & attacking weakness idea for their prizes in the next 24 hrs. Thanks for all the great ideas. There were LOTS of really good ideas, many of which I'm going to try and discuss on my blog in the near future. -Rizen

Interview on Ante Up Radio

2006-08-24T13:25:00.000-07:00

I did a radio/podcast interview over at Ante UP Radio.com that is up now. It turned out pretty well. Their show is pretty cool too, definitely worth a listen. -Rizen

Article contest finalists

2006-08-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, I got TONS of submissions for these. I had to narrow it to 5 for voting purposes. If I left you out it doesn't mean I didn't like your idea. It most likely means that I felt it was a hard idea to write ~2000 words about and will look to make it a future blog post. I also took some of the ideas and either lumped them together or summarized them a bit if they were very similar. I also excluded some topics that were very good but were already touched on in other Pocket Fives articles, and I will look to expand on those here (or perhaps in a print magazine). Here are the 5 I would like to receive votes at. You can either comment or send an e-mail to rizen@sneakybuffalo.com, but if you leave a comment you must be logged in (anonymous comments don't count). 1) Varying your strategy based on the various buy in levels/site structures 2) Flop texture (this is a big lump of several people who asked about playing difficult hands post-flop) 3) How to recover from poor play/bad beats and still play well 4) Spotting and Attacking weakness 5) Breaking down your table/opponents I received LOTS of good ideas, and thanks for those. These 5 ideas really represent about 10 submissions, but a lot of them were close enough I lumped them together. I will allow voting until noon CT tomorrow and then I will announce the winner and complete the article for P5s. -Rizen

Article contest update

2006-08-24T06:47:00.000-07:00

I got WAY more submissions already than I ever expected. I also didn't think of what to do if multiple people submitted the same idea :) I've got a family obligation this morning so I may not post the voting choices until sometime mid this afternoon and I'll close the voting at noon CT tomorrow so I can finish the article in time. Also, some other things I forgot to put in when considering an idea. I must be able to fit it into ~2000 words, or be able to do a multi-part series of 2000 word articles. Some ideas I've gotten I could summarize in 500 words or could write whole chapters on. I'll try and consider some of those for future blog updates (the shorter ones) and the longer ones I'll file away and maybe write on when I have more time. -Rizen

Article idea contest

2006-08-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, I actually meant to put this up on Monday. I apologize for the lateness, but hopefully I'll still get good responses. A while back I had said that I wanted to take some of the site ad revenue and give it back to readers somehow. I didn't get any ideas, but I figured this would work for a first one. I have a written article due to Pocket Fives on the 25th of every month. I'm at a loss for a good topic. With that in mind, I would like to hold a contest with user submitted topics on what you would like me to write about. There are a few restrictions. It has to be a strategy article of some kind. I promise I'll be writing about the WSOP experience soon enough, but I can't use that for this article. So, it has to be strategy related in some way. I plan on doing it like this. I will be accepting submissions until noon CT tomorrow, at which point I will take the 4-5 ideas I like the most and post them here. At that point I will take a user vote either through comments or e-mail (rizen@sneakybuffalo.com). If you use a comment it must not be anonymously (sorry). The winner will receive $20 transferred to them on the eligible site of their choice that qualifies (for instance Party only allows $50 transfers, so not there). I would send via neteller or paypal as well, as long as the winning party is responsible for any fees. $20 isn't a lot, but I don't make a ton with the ads you see on the site. You also get the benefit of a free article on P5s about a strategy topic you want to learn about, which should be worth well more than that. Obviously, to receive credit ideas must be submitted to me via e-mail (rizen@sneakybuffalo.com) so I have a way to write you back. I'd prefer the subject line 'article idea contest' so I can easily filter them into the appropriate inbox as well. As a side note, I'm no lawyer, but to protect myself all ideas that are submitted for this contest may be used in a future article with or without compensation. I will try and save all the 'non-winning' ideas I like, and should I use them for a future article I will try and get in touch with the person to at the very least get permission, but by submitting an idea for this contest, you are in essence giving me the right to use it for a future article. If any of my lawyer friends that read this want to give me better wording feel free :) As always, I welcome more ideas like this for future contests/giveaways. I do this blog primarily for myself and am not really looking to turn a huge profit off it or anything, and giving back to the people that read it is something I would like to do, as long as it is done in such a way that it promotes interactivity with the people who come here and read and not just 'hey I'm going to give someone money!'. -Rizen

Blog links

2006-08-18T10:08:00.000-07:00

Someone mentioned in a comment that my blog linked to a cheating website and asked if I used their product. I neither use those products nor endorse them. The links/ads you see at the top of the page are generated by an ad service that has a program that reads the content of my blog then puts what it thinks are appropriate ads up. I can exclude certain sites from this though, and in the past have asked if you see any of these to PLEASE contact me and let me know what link it was so I can go back and find it and make sure it doesn't get included in the future. So far the ads have been pretty good, but if I find too many 'unsavory' ads are making it through, I'll pull them completely. -Rizen

Hand of the day revisited

2006-08-17T14:12:00.000-07:00

Just a follow up since I got lots of feedback on this hand, and honestly the opinions were so varied I thought I'd revisit a little. There were a fair amount of people that argued for a call saying this was most likely AdKd and AdQd. While I think this is certainly in the range, I think it's the hand we WANT them to have, so we give it the most weight. Given that there are exactly 2 combinations of cards that make up those 2 hands, while there are 6 combinations each for QQ/KK/AA an overpair is actually more likely than precisely AdKd or AdQd. I see a lot of players get themselves into trouble (including myself) by talking yourself into thinking that a player is on the exact hand you need them on in order to make a call. I certainly think these hands are in his range, but if his range is AdKd/AdQd/QQ/KK/AA then there are 2 combinations of hands we are a 4:1 favorite over and 18 combinations of hands we are a 20:1 dog against. That's not a favorable situation unless we can widen the villian's range a bit. Others argued that I should fold pre-flop. I actually think that is a fine line, and it's very low variance. I think we might be sacrificing a little value there given we're very close to deep enough to play the hand for set value and we may have the best hand. But it can be so tough to play this post flop that it isn't a bad line at all. The final feedback I got and actually line I like the most is to just smooth call the flop and let him tell us more about his hand on the turn. This does give him a chance to catch up when you're ahead, but you lose a lot less chips when you're behind. If the villian here suddenly has the guts to fire twice with AKo as well then we could sacrifice some value, but I think I like it the best. I also had a few people ask if 100 hands was really a big enough sample size. It's definitely not, but when we have extreme numbers like this, we can definitely make some conclusions on even 100 hands. There aren't many samples of 100 hands from me where I only raise once pre-flop while playing 25% of my hands, if any. Add into it the fact that he did this from early position and I think it's reasonable to infer a few things about him, although there is definitely some degree of error when we assign a range to someone with only 100 hands worth of knowledge. It's a tricky hand, that's for sure. One person did ask about the program I use to overlay my poker tracker stats on the screen, and I use Poker Ace HUD to overlay the stats from PT onto my screen. I think that covers most of my feedback, and I'm still not 100% sure we have any definitive conclusion on how to play this hand best. -Rizen

Hand of the Day updated

2006-08-16T14:05:00.000-07:00

The turn action was incorrect. UTG+1 pushed all in and I folded. Action is now correct in the post below. Thanks to MiamiHawk99 for pointing this out. -Rizen

Hand of the day - 8/16

2006-08-16T12:32:00.000-07:00

Been a while since I did one of these, and I've been wanting to get back to more poker content. Here is a hand I thought was interesting from last night's Party Super for a few reasons. I'm not even positive I played it correctly. The read in this hand is on the UTG+1, and the read is that after almost 100 hands with him he's seen 25% of flops on only raised 1% of hands, so a very loose/passive type. Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t300 (10 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.comFlopTurnRiver.com (Format: Plain Text) CO (t7654) Hero (t7220) SB (t9148) BB (t9060) UTG (t9478) UTG+1 (t8020) UTG+2 (t15220) MP1 (t3578) MP2 (t8060) MP3 (t13436) Preflop: Hero is Button with Jh, Js. 1 fold, UTG+1 raises to t920, 5 folds, Hero calls t920, 2 folds. I feel this decision can actually go any way. I feel that raising for information is fine here, calling is fine here, and even folding here is okay IMO. Given our read on the UTG+1 player, I seriously doubt he ever has TT here. So his range is probably JJ+ and maybe AQ+. Pushing against this range is a mistake. And honestly even re-raising pre-flop for information may be marginal since he may very well push that entire range except perhaps AQ and JJ over the top of you anyways. Flop: (t2290) 9d, 2d, 3c (2 players) UTG+1 bets t1100, Hero raises to t2800, UTG+1 calls t1700. Typically this is a very good flop for JJ. I really felt I had to raise here to see if he was on two overcards or an overpair. In hindsight I actually think a smaller raise (perhaps even a min-raise to 2200) accomplishes the same thing here. When he flat calls I really think his range is pretty close to the same but if he has AK or AQ, it's probably AdKd or AdQd. Turn: (t7890) 5s (2 players) UTG+1 is all in for 4300, Hero folds. Given my reads I'm not sure I can call here. Against most player I think this call is automatic, but given our reads I just don't think we're ahead very often. Final Pot: t7890 Results below: No showdown. UTG+1 wins t7890. I'd be happy to get feedback on this hand. Quite honestly I feel you could do just about any play on any street, as long as you don't push all in pre, and it's not bad. This is one of those hands where I don't think there are many 'wrong' decisions since they're all so close, just slightly varying degrees of good decisions. He didn't show me my hand, so I'll never know if I made a good laydown or not. I'll try and start saving more hands from my nightly sessions. I don't play tonight, so definitely nothing tomorrow. I know I've had a lot more 'non strategy' related posts on here lately, and I want to get back to doing a few of these a week. As always, feel free to send in your own 'hands of the day' to me, as I get tired of always posting mine :) -Rizen

Random live stuff

2006-08-16T12:27:00.000-07:00

I was browing The Hendon Mob a bit today just for kicks, and decided to look up the top WSOP money winners and yearly money winners on the live circuit. Much to my surprise I actually am 34th on the 2006 WSOP money list, which I actually feel is pretty impressive given I played a total of 4 events (although it is obviously skewed by the ME cash). I'm also 82nd on the 2006 'all tournaments' money list, having played a grand total of 6 qualifying events. Like I said, the ME cash kind of skews everything, but I did think it was kind of cool to see my name up there, especially two spots above TJ Cloutier. -Rizen

It's a girl!

2006-08-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

We went to the doctor's office yesterday and found out that our upcoming child is XX and not XY like the first one. In other words, we're going to have a little girl and our son is going to be a big brother. That's what my wife and I were hoping for, so we're very excited. No names picked out yet, and I probably won't share a name here once we've picked it out until after she's born. -Rizen

Phil Laak

2006-08-14T11:19:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post really quick and say that Phil Laak is a pretty cool guy. 'The Unabomber' was at the cashier's window when I was getting my WSOP main event payout. He was kind enough to strike up a conversation with me to try and cheer me up a little. Obviously he didn't have to do this, but he talked to me for a while and was a very nice guy. He did say 'sick' a lot, but aside from that from our brief meeting he's one of the nicer guys I've met in poker. -Rizen

MySpace profile

2006-08-14T11:13:00.001-07:00

I finally let some friends talk me into a myspace profile. I have no idea what I'm doing on the thing, but I did create a profile you can find at http://www.myspace.com/rizenpoker. Feel free to add me as a friend so I don't feel like a loser with only 5 friends :) I'm not going to put much of anything poker related there though, just some pictures of me playing and my family. -Rizen

Settling back in

2006-08-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

Finally starting to get back into a routine again. I really didn't want to play much poker after I returned. I played the big weekend tournaments this weekend and did okay, but I'm not sure my heart was really in it yesterday. I still love poker, but after 2 weeks straight of virtually nothing but poker, it's been tough to get back into a groove. I'm probably going to limit my play some this week so that I don't burn myself out and play poorly. -Rizen

Home Safe

2006-08-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

I'll post some more later, with some quick WSOP thoughts on the final day. Sometime in the next few weeks I'll try and give a full report. For now I just wanted to let everyone know I arrived in Kansas City today safely and hopefully my life will return to some degree of normalcy now. I also wanted to take a minute and thank everyone for all their support and positive wishes/vibes, and give a very special thanks to the Pocket Fives Live team. They did a stellar job with their coverage of online players despite many obstacles and this being the first big event they did any coverage of this type on. I'll definitely be working with them in future events I play, and not only is their coverage top notch, but they're a great group of guys too. It was a pleasure to meet everyone I ran into in Vegas, and I'll post more later. -Rizen

WSOP Day 4

2006-08-06T03:02:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to write a lot here, but it's about 3am Vegas time and I'm back at the hotel getting ready to go to bed and thought I would make a quick update. The short and sweet part first. I'm sitting with 1,085,000 in chips right now with 135 left. When I went to my new table for tomorrow, I should be the chip leader there, which will be nice, although I'm not ahead of a few of the stacks by all that much. I'm going to cut out a lot of the strategy/insider info in the ME until it's over just in case as we get deeper people start to dig and read this stuff. I'm just going to bring my 'A' game and let the rest just happen. -Rizen

WSOP Day 2

2006-08-02T14:38:00.000-07:00

Day 2 is now over (for me at least, Day 2B is today). I finished with 194.5k in chips which was good for 27th out of 561. I felt really good about my table yesterday, and with one possible exception I feel pretty good about my table for Friday. I'll be the chip leader there, and the guy two to my left is SUPER aggressive. He was responsible for about 130k of my 194.5k yesterday as he would just constantly bet my hands for me when I hit them. With him two to my left thoug I'll have to be somewhat careful how I play. He's got 85kish, so he can put a big dent in my stack, and he loves to re-raise. As much as I really don't want to gamble for that much of my stack, I may look to put him to the test early if I get a solid hand. -Rizen

Day 1 complete

2006-07-30T14:51:00.000-07:00

Well, we're through day 1, and I finished with ~23k in chips. Average is about 28k with a median stack of around 24k. At one point I was up to my high water mark of about 38k shortly after dinner, but in the last two levels I could get absolutely nothing going and my tables got really aggressive. I play day 2 on Tuesday, and 23k is plenty of chips with 250/500 blinds with 50 ante. A few key hands from day 1 withouth too much of an explanation for now: Early on I took a flop in a raised pot with KQo in the SB. flop was QQA and the player I was involved with was very aggressive when you showed weakness, so I check/called, check/raised and then the river was an A so I checked and he bet 500ish into a 3k pot so I called and he tabled ATo putting me down to about 7500 chips early in the tournament. I slowly chipped back up to about 10k, which made me feel better, and in no time I was at 16k with very few showdowns when the following hand came up. UTG raised to 600 (at 100/200), I re-raised to 1800 with AdKd, Button flat called, UTG called. Pot was about 5900 and the Button had ~6k while UTG had ~4k left. Flop was TdQd7c giving me 12 outs to the nuts (9 diamonds and 3 Jacks that aren't a diamond) so I just shoved all in. Button asked me how much that was, I said 'more than you have' and he said 'well then, I call'. UTG says he mucked AQo, and Button flipped up AQo. I think I'm actually a slight favorate here, but the turn was an 8h and river a 4h to put me back around 10k. About 2 rounds later, I raised from 3 off the button with A6o. The BB flat called and the flop was A62. This was another player that had been wildly aggressive, and when players showed weakness he once went all in with 74s on a 678Q board. He checked, I bet, he called. Turn was a beautiful 6, he checked, I checked. River was a J, and he shoved, I called and tabled my 6s full, he mucked in disgust and started to walk away thinking he was out, but he actually had me covered by about 800 chips. 5-6 hands later I raised pocket 6s from MP and got 2 callers, one from LP and one from the blinds. Flop was K76 with two clubs. I bet the flop, LP called, BB folded. Turn was an off suit 9 and I bet about the pot, LP called. River was a 6 giving me quads and I bet 4k and he called. I showed and he mucked, and I was at about 28k there, where I would stay until about dinner time. After dinner I went to 38k more or less just playing well and seeing very few showdowns. Shortly after I hit 38k though an aggressive European player was moved to my right who would raise just about every unopened pot. I want him on my right, but I didn't pick up a hand better than AQo the entire last 4 hrs of play, and while I manuevered and picked up some pots, I also got re-raised a few times when I tried to pick up the blinds. Without much of anything eventful I went from 38k to 23k by the end of the night when I was at super aggressive tables (I got moved with about 2 hrs left in the day) and just got nothing. If I catch any cards thost last 4 hours I either get sucked out on and go home, or I'm probably sitting at 50kish going into day 2. All that being said, 23k is just fine chips-wise. In events like these I tend to go up and down in chips a fair amount, but I usually exercise really good patience and pick some great spots. I've got enough chips that I have plenty of time to pick some spots on Tuesday, and I plan on doing just that, depending on how my table plays. -Rizen

Comment moderation enabled

2006-07-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a lot of ad/spam comments, so I enabled comment moderation. This just means that those of you that leave comments (which I appreciate, so please keep them coming) will have to wait a bit to have them show up. While I'm in Vegas I may be a bit slow approving them, but normally I'm near enough to my PC to approve them several times a day. If this is too annoying for anyone feel free to contact me, but I was getting tired of going in and cleaning up some 10 spam comments a day. -Rizen

WSOP start day

2006-07-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

I don't know if I ever posted it or not, but I start tomorrow (Saturday, day 1B), so don't look for any updates on me until then. Your best bet to catch updates on me is probably at Pocket Fives Live, a new site set up to track online players at live events, check it out. -Rizen

Safely in Las Vegas

2006-07-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know I landed safely in Vegas. I don't play until Saturday the 29th, so it's doubtful I'll post much before that. Also, I didn't update this, but Tuesday night I won the Party 2k added for $12.5k. Two wins in two nights is hopefully a good primer for the WSOP main event. -Rizen

Big Monday

2006-07-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

Well, just as I complained about making it oh so close 3 times on Sunday, I made two final tables last night. First, I won the Oyster on Paradise for just over $11k, and then I took 7th in the late UB 100+9 for just under $1k. Everything went my way on Paradise though. I took a huge chip lead into the final table, and while none of these losses would have been crippling (none were for more than half my stack) I won QQ vs KK, 25 vs AK, and closed it out when my KT was better than J9 heads up on a 9JQ flop. Needless to say, things went very well for me in that tournament, and I did get lucky. Although IMO it just makes up for all the times I've been unlucky as well. Tonight will be my last night of online play before the World Series of Poker main event, so hopefully I can go out with a bang. -Rizen

Interview on Fox Sports

2006-07-24T13:00:00.000-07:00

I did a recent interview for Fox Sports you can see here. It turned out decent. I'll keep everyone updated on others. I have an interview I'll be completing shortly for pokerworks.com as well, and I may be doing a few when I go back up to Vegas for the main event. -Rizen

Close but no cigar

2006-07-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

I had finishes of 11th, 13th, and 14th yesterday in the Dise 'Playa', UB 200k, and Dise 100k respectively. I've been making it deep a lot lately and bubbling the final table. It's a bit frustrating for me since I'm used to making 3-4 final tables a week, but I still feel like I'm on the top of my game and playing very well, so I trust it will work itself out. I've seen a lot of comments on me not updating as much as I used to. Truth is, I still update more than most other poker blogs ;) That being said though, I wouldn't expect me to start updating more until I get to Vegas and start the WSOP main event. I've been busy these last few weeks with some freelance work, and taking care of some last minute things before I leave for the WSOP. Once I get back and settled in I'll go back to my regular updating routine (3-4x a week is 'regular' for me). Truth is, it's been a pretty uneventful week for me. I also really haven't had many interesting hands to talk about either. I'll look for a few tonight and try and save them for tomorrow. -Rizen

Focus

2006-07-18T06:14:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot about focus this week, and what it means for your poker game. I've always thought that my ability to focus and concentrate for 7-8 straight hours has been one of my greatest assets as a player. Earlier this week, however, I hadn't been 100% focused, and it showed in my game. Poker is one of those games where if you're not giving 100% effort at all times you're costing yourself money. If you're making money, you could be making more. If you're losing money, you may be making it if you were giving 100% effort. We should really strive to give 100% effort to everything in our lives, but at the poker table, anything less than 100% comes directly out of your pocketbook. Let's do a simple math problem. Let's say that by giving 90-95% effort every day I play that I cost myself one tournament buy in a day in potential winnings, or roughly $100 for simplicity's sake. I don't think that's an unreasonable estimate at all considering a lot of tournaments can hinge on one hand, especially late (in fact, I think the $100 estimate may be a bit low). So if I cost myself $100 a day 5 days a week that I play, that's $500/week. 52 weeks in a year, and you get a grand total of $26k out of my pocketbook by year's end. Now obviously some days the slightly less than maximum effort costs me nothing, since I bust in tournaments that I may not cash in even with 100% effort etc. But some days it's the difference between finishing 15th and finishing 1st since one mistake in a tournament can put you on the rail. I've cut back on distractions while I play, and I really feel that while I haven't had my best results this week, the last few days since I really have re-focused on making sure I always give 100% I've seen a lot of improvements. I can't stress enough that while you're playing if you're serious about your game you shouldn't be watching TV, reading a magazine, surfing the web, or anything else that distracts from your focus. I know it's tempting, but that small lapse in focus translates into real world $$$. -Rizen

Not much happening lately

2006-07-13T13:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a few days, but there really hasn't been much going on. I've had some narrow misses making the final 2 tables in 3 tournaments since Sunday, but every time I failed to make the final table for various reasons, so there hasn't been a lot to talk about. I've also been fielding a lot of interview requests lately so I've been kept fairly busy with that. I'll try and post them here as they go up, but while I was in Vegas there was an interview posted on pokertips.org. That was done pre-WSOP and went up on 6/25. In other news I want to give a quick shout out to my friend steely, who took down the PartyPoker Super Tuesday this week for $38k. He's had a bit of a bad run lately, cashing often but never being able to get deep (mostly due to beats), so it was nice to see him close one out, especially after his AA lost to AJ at the final table. He managed to recover nicely and take home a great pay, congrats bud. -Rizen

Sunday success continues

2006-07-10T13:04:00.000-07:00

I didn't cash in any of the majors yesterday, but I did manage to win the 'Playa' on Paradise (a $100 rebuy tournament) for just under $12k. Sundays have been very good to me this year and this one was no exception. Obviously I was disappointed with the fact that I was unable to cash in any of the Sunday tournaments (especially since sunday is so huge for the Internet Player of the Year standings on ITH. So far since I've returned home from Vegas it's been smooth sailing. I've played a total of 3 days since my return, and I have 3 final tables. Definitely feels good to pick up where I left off, and I feel like between the WSOP and how things are going right now I'm playing some of the best poker of my life. -Rizen

Weekly weigh in

2006-07-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

I really thought Vegas was going to do me in, but in terms of weight I'm actually down from my last weigh in two weeks ago before I left, weighing in at 234, down 2.5 lbs from 2 weeks ago, and down 1 lb from my all time low since keeping track the week before that. Now that I'm back in town, I'm REALLY going to focus on my 3 goals these next 3 weeks before I leave town this week: 1) Virtually ZERO calories from drinking (ie all Coke Zero and Water except the occasional sports drink on days I work out) 2) NO fast food of any kind 3) Make it to the gym at least 4x a week for a full workout There are other things I want to do, but those are the 3 big ones, and what I'll be measuring myself against in the upcoming weeks. Once I've integrated those 3 things into my life I've had MANY people who happen to read the blog who are nutritionalists or personal trainers offer to help, and I will likely be taking them up for advice on next steps. -Rizen

Back in the online groove

2006-07-07T12:16:00.000-07:00

In my first night playing online in about 12 days last night I picked up more or less where I left off. I finished 11th in the Stars $150, and 4th in the Stars $100, along with cashing in two other tournaments. I felt really good about my game, although in both tournaments I made it deep in last night I got a little TOO aggressive in the end. That often happens when you're running well, since sometimes you feel kind of invulnerable. If I'd slowed down just a little at the end of both events I probably place a little higher in each. I played well though, and hopefully I can continue to have some success tonight. -Rizen

New site links etc

2006-07-05T14:13:00.001-07:00

I still haven't played any poker since returning home (and probably won't until tomorrow night). I did, however, update some of my links on the right hand side of the page. Notably I put up the PokerXFactor link, which I should have done some time ago, and I also put a link up to contact me about things. It should open up your e-mail client and pre-populate my e-mail address. If you have any questions about the site or just want to contact me, feel free to use it. It can take me a few days to reply, but I usually reply to everyone. As a note on the site ads, they're fully functional now. I did see one person wrote in a comment that the new ads were distracting. If you agree, please contact me so I know if you guys find the ads distracting. Just as a note though, I'm going to try and use some of the ad revenue to do some things with the site, or giveaway some things to the users. The new ads pay much better than the old ones (although obv I can't discuss details), so as long as they're not distracting users too much I'd like to leave them up. I'd also be happy to hear ideas on giveaways/things I can do for the users. I'd like to do some things to make the site more 'interactive' between myself and the users, and perhaps award prizes or something like that, but the idea is still in its infancy, so I'm still fleshing it out. -Rizen

New ads messing up google ads, etc

2006-07-04T12:57:00.000-07:00

I have some new ads on my page from rakereport.net They seem to be clashing with my google ads right now though so if you click on any of the google ads it takes you to the rakereport.net ad link. I'm working on fixing this right now, but if you see something funny, that's what's happening. At any rate, I know something is happening, working on fixing it now. Apologize if anyone misses something they'd like to see because of it, hopefully the downtime will be minimal. -rizen

Back home safe and free PXF Video through today

2006-07-04T12:29:00.000-07:00

First, just so anyone who is reading this knows, we're back in Kansas City safely. The drive home was a bit more adventurous than I would have liked, but all in all it went safely (but took FOREVER). It feels good to be back home, but a part of me definitely would have liked to stay for the rest of the series to see if I could make a run in a few more events. It does feel good to be home though. In other news, PokerXFactor.com is giving away my first training video on their site for free until the end of today (it actually started Friday or Saturday I believe, but I didn't have time to update my blog until now). If you get a chance, it's worth checking out. It's only about 50ish hands long, but you'll get to see/hear my thought process. Of course, if you like it you can sign up for the site and see the rest of my videos as well as great videos by JohnnyBax, Sheets, and BrSavage. It's free until the end of the day today I believe, and to see it you simply need to register with a free account (just e-mail + password I think) and then click the link on the front page that points to it, or just click on the free content areas. There are a few other samples up there right now too. -Rizen

Heading back home soon

2006-07-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be heading back home tomorrow, so probably not blog updates until Tuesday. At that point everything will probably be close to in perspective and I can really make a decent post about the WSOP and especially the rollercoaster that was Event #3 that I took 3rd place in. I did want to thank everyone for the support though. From all the positive comments/feedback I got here on my blog to the people in the live stands I had never met in person before the taping, the support was awesome, and much appreciated. I'll post more later, but just know all those positive vibes everyone sent DID help. -Rizen

WSOP Event #3

2006-06-29T01:46:00.000-07:00

So far so good. With 71 players left I'm above average in chips with $35k with an avg of about $24k I believe. I start again at 2pm PT tomorrow. 99 paid, so we're already in the money, and we're playing down to the final table tomorrow! Should be fun, it's been a pretty wild ride so far, looking forward to tomorrow, but going to try and get some sleep for now. -Rizen

WSOP: Event #3

2006-06-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

My seating assignment is table 153 seat 9. It looks like Stars is getting me registered pretty late for these things as they seem to be filling tables as people sign up. When I tried to pick up my card yesterday after I busted they didn't even have my event 3 registration in yet (although they said they were still processing many). At any rate, this is good and bad. The bad thing is I don't get to play with many of the online satellite qualifiers as most of them get registered early. The good news is that means I play with A LOT of the live single table satellite qualifiers. Most of my table yesterday was people who qualified in live satellites in the previous few days. Their play was pretty bad which was nice. I'm hoping for a similarly weak/tight table today but hopefully when I do get good hands they'll win coin flips/showdowns. -Rizen

WSOP: Day 1 report

2006-06-27T20:40:00.000-07:00

I'll start off with the bad news first, I'm out of the tournament. I busted about half way through level 4 (100/200). I'll elaborate more, but basically I didn't win a single showdown, and the stacks were so shallow to start with I was forced into push/fold mode by level 3, which is kind of rediculous. First, I'd like to talk about the experience a bit. The atmosphere was pretty amazing. I've never personally seen so many poker players packed into one area before. The room was filled with close to 3000 poker players. It made the rooms in my experience at both the PCA and LA Poker Classic seem super small by comparison. Everyone was upbeat to begin the day, and it was definitely a very cool vibe. The staff overall did pretty well. The dealers were a mixed bag. We had a few AWESOME dealers that dealt fast, kept track of the action, and kept things moving. We had other dealers that seemed like their mind was somewhere else. They literally weren't paying attention at the table at all, and it lead to some pretty bad things. Turn cards being dealt when dealer missed last person to act who wanted to bet, dealers grabbing cards into the muck when players were all in (and didn't bring a card protector to cap their cards). Dealers missing peope announcing raises when putting in oversized chips etc. This was not the norm, but I did see all of the above, the dealers were definitely a mixed bag of excellent to poor, with most being somewhere in the middle. Some of the dealers were slow too, I wouldn't be surprised if we only got in around 35 hands/hr. They did some things REALLY well though. There are extra bathrooms and an entire area set up out back for the players that includes a close by place to get snacks/food that isn't HORRIBLY priced, and they staggered the breaks allowing half the field to break for 15 then the other half to break after they came back. The two things combined meant using the bathroom during break was actually kind of possible if you hurried to get there. The structure, however, was awful. First, it's WAY too shallow. 1500 starting chips at 25/25 blinds, level 2 is 25/50 and level 3 is 50/100. That basically meant if you didn't do anything by level 3 you had an M of 10 and 15 big blinds after only 70-80 hands with the speed the dealers were going. To me it was close to the equivalent of playing an online turbo tournament. By level 3 at my table there was at least 1 all in 75% of the hands because 3-4 people at the table had less than 1000 chips. Maybe that was unique to my table, I dunno. After the first 2 hours though, at my table what we were playing didn't resemble poker, it was more a sit n go once you get 5-6 handed with short stacks (and strategically I played it like one). Unfortunately, tomorrow's structure is the same with 1500 chips, although it is pot limit, so no one can REALLY go all in until 100/200 or so with short stacks, but it will be the same. Really fast poker and you'll have to hope all your good hands hold up (or all your bad ones suck out). The other thing that sucked about the structure is that we were 11 handed until close to the end of the 50/100 level (3rd hour). They did this to fit players in, but the more players that sit at each table, the more dependant on cards you are. If it were up to me, all events would start 9 handed. I actually can't wait for the 6 max event now because we'll start with more chips (the buy in is higher) and 6 max should allow for more skillful play. As far as how my play went? My starting table was REDICULOUS tight. I built myself up to almost 2k during 25/25 and 25/50 just stealing blinds whenever it was folded to me in late position with any 2 cards. I got re-popped once but that was it. Normally that's not my style, but it was way too easy to pick up the blinds. At 50/100 I had about 2000 in chips, didn't get to show down any hands, didn't rake any pots. EVERY time I raised pre-flop they all folded. I kinda wished I'd gotten to play a few flops and raked some decent pots, but it wasn't horrible. At 50/100 we had about 4 people at the table in push/fold mode. That pretty much put an end to me picking up a lot of pots. I had the huge stacks that doubled early to my left and all the shorties to my right. It was almost always pushed in front of me before I acted. I was also super card dead, so I didn't do much for a while but stay even. I was getting the blinds often enough to not drop, but not so much I could chip up. I eventually got AKo and popped the pot to 400 after one limper. Flop was J72, he checked to me, I made a 600 c-bet and he pushed all in for my last 1300. I folded figuring I could find a better spot. He was also a super tight European player who had been pretty much a rock. I don't think there was any way it was a pure bluff and there were practically no draws. A few hands later in my BB a short stack shoved from LP and I looked down at AKs. I called another 600 and he flipped 66 and I lost the race when a 6 flopped. After that I had about 600 chips left and was in short stack ninja mode. I did okay at 50/100 since the table was tight I was able to pick up a lot of chips just pushing my stack around, sometimes with marginal holdings. It was enough I got back up to around 1000 and the blinds went up to 100/200. We played our 15 minutes (my group was in the second break group) and then took a break. After my break I was UTG+1 and knew I was going all in either that hand or the next one rather than let me lose 300 chips in the blinds. I got K6s UTG+1 and decided that was good enough. The tightest player at the table called me with TT and I didn't hit, game over. It was fun, great atmosphere and experience, and even though it sounds like I'm complaining, everyone had the same structure to deal with. I couldn't win my key hands when I needed to. Maybe tomorrow in the PL event I'll win at least 1 showdown ;) Final thought, live tells. I did feel pretty good about myself that very early on I was able to do a lot of steals because I had some really good tells on the two players immediately to my left. The player immediately to my left was left handed (or at least I assume he was based on what he did at the table). He would always put his left hand on his cards, but the positioning of his right hand gave away his move. If it was off the table, he ALWAYS folded. If it was on his cards along with his left, he ALWAYS raised. If it was on or near his chips, he was always calling. He looked at his cards immediately when they were dealt too so I always knew what he was doing before I even looked at my cards. Guy to his left looked at his cards immediately too, and would always cap them if he was going to play, would not if he wasn't. Between those two players I almost always had the advantage of knowing what two other players wanted to do with their cards before I ever acted, very nice, and when I knew they were going to fold it made it MUCH easier to steal in the early levels. There were some other, smaller things that went on, but most of it was straightforward. Hands are the most reliable tells, for those of you that care :) Also, shows why you should be ALWAYS paying attention at the table!!! I'm out, hopefully tomorrow goes better, but even though I didn't go super far today I was pretty happy with the way I played and have a good feeling about the rest of the week, especially events 5 and 6 where we'll get more starting chips, and one of them is a 6 max event so no 11 handed tables (which make for slow deals and too many players to make skill win out over cards consistently). -Rizen

WSOP Seating assignment

2006-06-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be on table 115 seat 4 to start with. I can't find seating assignments anywhere online or posted at the Rio so I have no idea who I'm sitting with, but if they do updates based on tables or anything, that's where I'm at. -Rizen

Safely in Vegas

2006-06-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

Not much else to say. I'll elbaorate more later but I'm SUPER tired right now. I gotta head to the Rio tomorrow at 8 to pick up my WSOP player's card and sign my waiver for Stars (and pick up a t-shirt or whatever we get). I'll talk more about the trip later, for now I just wanted to make sure I had something up saying 'we made it' so that anyone I didn't call isn't worried. I'll have more updates after tomorrow's playing. -Rizen

WSOP bound

2006-06-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow morning I leave for Vegas to play in WSOP events 2, 3, 5, and 6 before coming back to Kansas for a few weeks then heading back out of the main event. I'm pretty excited about getting to go out and see the atmosphere and play some poker before the main event. I'll try and update my progress nightly here on my blog, but you'll be able to get updates on sites like cardplayer.com and pokerwire.com I believe. I'll be listed as Eric 'Rizen' Lynch on most of the sites most likely. In online poker news I finished things out with a bit of a bang last night as my last night of poker before heading out to the WSOP (taking tonight off to get ready for the trip). I took 2nd in the Stars $100 rebuy for just over $9k. I've also got a NL cash game video up on PokerXFactor. It turned out really well I think and hopefully those of you that are subscribers there enjoy it. -Rizen

Hands

2006-06-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I hate the converter I have to use for Paradise hands. Here were the results: UTG+1 had QQ MP2 had KK MP2 won a nice pot. -Rizen

Hand of the day - 6/20

2006-06-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

This is a bit of a change from usual. This is a hand where hero actually makes a good fold. This is actually a situation that comes up a lot that I see people misplay, and that's when they have 88/99/TT and they hit an overpair and end up getting all in behind a lot of action. Paradise Poker No Limit Holdem Tournament Blinds: t50/t100 8 players Stack sizes: Hero: t6870 UTG+1: t2930 MP1: t3585 MP2: t4730 CO: t6340 Button: t4055 SB: t2680 BB: t2775 Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is UTG with Ts Th Hero raises to t280, UTG+1 calls t280 (pot was t430), MP1 folds, MP2 calls t280 (pot was t710), 4 folds. TT is a strong hand, certainly a hand worth raising with. Getting two callers isn't necessarily something you like, but you've got a strong hand. Flop: 3s 2s 7c (t990, 3 players) Hero bets t550, UTG+1 calls t550 (pot was t1540), MP2 raises all-in t4450, Hero folds, UTG+1 calls all-in t2100. Uncalled bets: t1800 returned to MP2. This is the key decision, you bet 1/2 pot, UTG+1 calls, and MP2 pushes. You have to call off most of your stack in a situation where you could be behind a set, an overpair, two pair, or a flip with something like KsQs here. With your stack, your hand, and the current blind level, and that board you're only significantly ahead of 88/99 that might play this way, and you may be drawing to as little as 2 outs. If the stacks where shorter I'd call here, but here it makes sense to find a better spot. Turn: 9h (t6840, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t6840) River: 9c (t6840, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: t6840) Results: Final pot: t6840 So we made a good laydown. I think this hand is a good way to show that typically you don't want to be calling huge bets in any form of NL poker when your stacks are deep without a premium hand, and here TT just doesn't do it. -Rizen

Poker, WSOP schedule, etc

2006-06-20T12:57:00.000-07:00

Last night was pretty uneventful. I cashed in a few events but nothing significant. For the most part I made good decisions, I just didn't end up coming out on the right side of those decisions. It happens, no big deal. Many people have asked me what events in the WSOP I'm playing this year. I plan on playing events 2, 3, 5, 6, and the main event this year. That'll keep me pretty busy and also hopefully not put too much of a burden on my family since I'll be down for a week for 2-6 then back home for 3 weeks before going to the main event. And on a completely unrelated to poker note, I got my iPod in the mail that I bought with my PokerStars FPP points the other day, and I gotta say that Apple set up the iPod and iTunes pretty slick. It's incredibally easy to use both, and buying music/videos is almost TOO easy. If their 'recommendations' feature was better I'd probably be in real trouble. As it is I spend too much time browsing music and checking out podcasts since I've gotten it (and probably not enough time updating this blog) -Rizen

Weekly weigh in

2006-06-19T06:03:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to post this last Friday but never did. I weighed in at 236.5 on Friday. That's actually up from 235 two weeks ago but down from 238 a week ago (that I didn't post). I think the reason we saw that shift was because the week I weighed in at 235 I was SUPER sick for about 5 days before that weigh in. I had been sleeping almost non stop that week and didn't eat much of anything, and probably wasn't drinking enough either. I fully anticipated that I'd gain a bit of that back (I weighed in at 240 the week before the 235) just due to eating and drinking again. The overall trend is still a downward one, which is good, and unless I get sick again I anticipate a more normal slow downward trend. That being said, I have to call myself out on a few things. I had 3 big goals that I set out to do to have a more healthful lifestyle. One was to cut calories out of my beverages by no longer drinking non-diet soft drinks. Second was to exercise by hitting the gym no less than 4x/week (except during my excursions to Vegas this next month or two, when a gym may not be available). Third was to cut fast food such as McDonald's and Taco Bell, or at the very least to order salads or other healthful options when I go (it's kind of tough to completely avoid McD's/BK play places with a child sometimes). On #1 I'm batting 1.000. I've cut out all regular soft drinks, and am just drinking Coke Zero, Water, and sometimes a sports drink. I've found this transition to be a little easier than I thought, although a regular Coke still sounds really good sometimes. I've only been hitting the gym about twice a week though since I got feeling better, half as much as I wanted too. Time seems to be the issue there (although you'd think I'd have plenty of time). I'm thinking I need to instead of just trying to hit it 4x a week actually scheduling the times and making sure I go, and making it a part of my daily routine. And unfortunately, although I was doing REALLY good avoiding the fast food I've given in a few times the last week or so when it was easy. So overall while I am losing weight, I'm not hitting all my goals the way I'd like to. I'm trying to hold myself accountable in this space hoping that knowing I'll have to fess up to everyone when I don't do the things I want will be an extra source of motivation. I really need to make sure I'm hitting the gym more often, even on days when I do things like mowing the lawn (my excuse to myself for missing two days last week was mowing the lawn twice, which while better than nothing, is not a substitute for a real workout). This week I really want to focus and make sure I hit all my goals since next week will be in Vegas and may make it difficult. -Rizen

Weekend poker

2006-06-19T05:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't end up going to Tulsa this weekend. I had something come up at the last minute and decided not to go. That left the door open to play some online this weekend. I ended up cashing in several of the Sunday Majors, but no huge finishes this weekend. I did make it to the final table of the Treasure Chest on Paradise for the second straight week and got heads up again before eventually finishing second for just under $9k. That will be my last online Sunday for a little bit as next weekend I'm going to be heading up to Vegas to play in some of the WSOP prelim events for a bit before eventually heading back home then going back up in late July for the main event. I apologize for the lack of updates lately, it's been a hectic last 4-5 days around here with a few things. Nothing major, but enough to keep me busy :) -Rizen

Stars runnin replay with commentary by moi

2006-06-16T02:43:00.000-07:00

Starting at 10am ET today they're going to be replaying the final table I did commentary on. I think it's going to run repeatedly, but I'm not sure, it may only run once. I'll try and keep everyone posted. -Rizen

Write Your Congressman Day

2006-06-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

I encourage everyone who plays poker online or just feels that the government legislating your choice to play poker online to participate in Write Your Congressman Day over at Pocket Fives. For anyone that doesn't know, there is legislation in the House of Representatives next week that could potentially ban online poker. Obviously I'm not a big fan of this legislation, but there are a lot of other flaws in it in my opinion, not the least of which is the fact that they are outlawing online poker, which is a game of skill, but allowing provisions for both playing the lottery and betting on horses online. Obviously there are special interests at work here, and we need to make our voice heard. Write Your Congressman Day is a good start. Help keep our ability to play poker online legal, and let our congressman and senators know that we won't stand for legislation that attempts to outlaw poker, a true game of skill, while allowing lotteries which might as well be state sponsored robbery. I could go on and on about this issue. It's really a complete violation of our civil liberties and ability to make choices as an adult. -Rizen

Update

2006-06-15T01:08:00.000-07:00

A couple of quick updates. I've had a busy few days as I prepare to leave for Tulsa this weekend for the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge. I plan on playing the final two events (a freezeout and the two day main event). I still have a bunch of 'hands of the day' I want to get to actually, but between this weekend and the World Series we'll see how many I can get to. If I bust out early in Tulsa I may very well get some 'real updates' on here from my hotel room though. I talked a little about another thing I was working on a few days ago. I guess I misunderstood exactly what was going on. At 3pm ET on Tuesday PokerStars replayed the final table of my 1st place finish in their $1 million guaranteed. The cool thing about it though was they actually gave me special permissions on the site (temporarily) to add typed commentary throughout the whole final table, and the ability to pause the tournament in progress as I commentated on it. It was a pretty fun experience, and they recorded the whole thing to replay later. Once I find out when it will be on again I'll let everyone know. For some reason I really thought that they were going to just record it and not show it live, so I didn't announc it to everyone ahead of time so they could see it live. My fault for sure, I should have made a better effort to understand how it worked. It was a fun experience though, and if you either did see it or get a chance to see it I hope you find it insightful. -Rizen

Article on pokerplayernewspaper.com with a blurb about me

2006-06-13T00:48:00.000-07:00

The article is here. It's a WSOP preview and it discusses various places that the next $10 million dollar WSOP winner may come from. I'm mentioned in the 'Online Players' part of the category. Here's the blurb if you don't want to (or can't if you're at work) go to the site: Eric "Rizen" Lynch quit his job as a software engineer to focus on poker full time. He recently won the $1 Million Guaranteed Sunday tournament on Poker Stars for a cool $156K. He might be one of the best NL tournament players you never heard of. I'm one of 4 online players mentioned in the article as potential 'all the way' candidates. -Rizen

A chest full of treasure

2006-06-12T12:51:00.000-07:00

Very cheesy title, but I'm not feeling creative today. Over the weekend I actually took 1st in two tournaments, winning the UB $15k guaranteed for ~$4200 and winning the Paradise Sunday 'Treasure Chest' for ~$22k. I felt I played very well in both, and while I did get lucky a couple of times, felt I earned both wins. That also gives me until this Friday at 7pm ET to start a tournament on a third site and win it for my 2nd Triple Crown. I'm not sure how much of a priority I'll make that, but it would be nice to win crown #2. I'm trying to get the entire HH from Paradise (no instant hand history there) and if I do I'll see if I can share a few key hands. I've been pretty busy doing some videos for PokerXFactor and some other things I'm not sure I can talk about just yet but should come out shortly. I'm getting ready to leave again and pick up some new glasses. I don't normally wear glasses but apparently these years of staring at the screen have made me a bit near sighted. It's a VERY mild prescription and my eye doctor says that it may not even be worth filling, but I've been having some troubles seeing well at night when I drive, and he seems to think this will help me there. I have some hands to share for hand of the day and still need to share the results of my Friday weigh in. Hopefully I'll get to one or both of those later tonight. If not, definitely tomorrow. I did want to make an update since it's been a few days though, I'll try and add more later. -Rizen

Hand of the day - 6/7

2006-06-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting one from my Full Tilt tournament last night:

Full Tilt PokerNo Limit Holdem Ring game

Blinds: $25/$50

9 players

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is MP3 with qs qh UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to $150, 2 folds, Hero raises to $450, 4 folds, UTG+1 calls.

Pre-flop I really don't think this hand is all that interesting. UTG+1 makes a standard raise, with QQ I make a pretty standard 3x his raise re-raise, and he flat calls. Sometimes people slowplay AA/KK this way, but it could easily be something like 88-JJ trying to flop a set, or a big Ace hoping to hit a flop (although I think this is a poor way to play a big ace, either push to see all 5 cards or fold here IMO)

Flop: 5c kd 2h ($975, 2 players)UTG+1 is all-in $2300, Hero calls all-in $1475.Uncalled bets: $825 returned to UTG+1.

This is the interesting street. UTG+1 open pushes a VERY uncoordinated flop for WELL over the size of the pot. Well, what does this mean?? This is a VERY good flop for AA/KK, and a good player would certainly check to the raiser here to extract more. There are virtually no draws here. I believe AK also checks. Perhaps if he made a VERY loose call with KQ it might play this way. So we've pretty much decided every hand that checks here beats us? So, what does he bet here with?? I felt REALLY strongly that he had either JJ or TT here (or even the other QQ). Those hands make sense since it's a very good flop for them in terms of one overcard that's not an Ace and no coordinated flop. I even typed into chat at this point (Full Tilt lets you do this) 'JJ huh?' as I was thinking. I eventually decided that if he was willing to play a hand that beat me this way, I was willing to donate all my chips to him and called.

Turn: jc ($3925, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $3925)

River: 8d ($3925, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $3925)

Results:Final pot: $3925UTG+1 showed As QdHero showed Qs Qh

I honestly never figured him to do this with AQ. I usually like to use hands with multi-street action for hands of the day as they tend to involve more interesting decisions, but this is something I've seen a lot more of lately. It's sort of a weird stop n go. The lesson here is to use common sense, try and get in the mind of your opponent and what it makes sense for him to have. Every fiber in my body told me that this is not the way any sane person would play AK/AA/KK, which meant the only logical alternative was I was ahead. -Rizen

PokerXFactor.com New Guest Pro: Rizen

2006-06-06T13:41:00.000-07:00

I've got to leave here soon, but I wanted to copy and paste the press release from this onto my blog, I'm pretty excited to have the opportunity to reach a lot of people with a minimal time committment: Hey, We have another exciting addition to the PokerXFactor.com Team -- Rizen has agreed to be a guest pro for us. As everyone here knows, he's one of the hottest players in 2006 with his PokerStars $1 Million win being just one of his big successes. The first video he'll be working on will be (obv.) on his big PokerStars win. As you could probably tell in his review of PokerXFactor, Rizen is becoming an expert at using the PXF Hand History Analyzer to review his play and to help his students. We think this will be a great added benefit to his videos, and we may have him go through one of his students videos from a coaches perspective. So that video will act as kind of training tool on how to use the Analyzer. We're trying to figure out the best way to do this now. Much more to come! Welcome Rizen!

Hand of the day - 6/5

2006-06-05T12:56:00.000-07:00

This hand of the day comes courtesy of a top player and good friend of mine, and illustrates the value of a good semi-bluff. I wasn't given any table reads or anything, but this is from the Salt Water on Paradise, a nightly $250 tournament with a lot of pretty crazy play. The stacks aren't shown using this converter, but hero has 5775 and main villian has 7555. Paradise PokerNo Limit Holdem TournamentBlinds: t75/t150 8 players Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is UTG with Kh Jh Hero calls t150 (pot was t225), 2 folds, MP2 calls t150 (pot was t375), CO calls t150 (pot was t525), Button folds, SB calls t75 (pot was t675), BB checks. I'm not wild about playing KJs UTG, but I wasn't given any reads and if the table isn't getting raised a lot it's a fine play. The stacks are certainly deep enough for it, but typically I toss KJs UTG (even 8 handed). Flop: 8h 7c qh (t750, 5 players)SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks, MP2 bets t300, 3 folds, Hero calls t300 (pot was t1050). This flop is pretty good for hero. He's got second nut flush draw plus an overcard. The board is somewhat coordinated so it's likely 5 handed that someone else has some sort of made or drawing hand too. I like the check here with the hopes of getting a free card, when MP2 bets less than half the pot and it's folded to us I think we have a pretty easy call here. I could make a case for raising right here too, but honestly on this board I think you just create a big pot out of position with an unmade hand, I like the call. Turn: Ad (t1350, 2 players)Hero checks, MP2 bets t500, Hero raises to t1500, MP2 folds.Uncalled bets: t1000 returned to Hero. This is the interesting street. The A falls, which gives us a gut-shot now for 3 additional outs in addition to our 9 heart outs. It does something else though as well. We limped UTG, which can look very dangerous. There were also no raisers pre-flop, and typically hands with a big Ace will raise pre-flop. That gives us the perfect situation for a semi-bluff. Our opponent may fear we have a made hand, our opponent likely doesn't have a hand as good as even top pair now, and if we end up getting our semi-bluff called we still have 12 cards that give us a VERY strong hand (some of which give us the nuts). You could come straight out betting here, but the check-raise looks more like you just hit your big hand, and maximizes your fold equity since your semi-bluff becomes more believable. It also makes you more money when it works (although perhaps you lose more when it doesn't), and if MP2 check behind and gives you a free card you have a whole range of options on the river. Results:Final pot: t2350 I liked this hand a lot since it's really the perfect recipe for a good semi-bluff. You have a hand with lots of outs that all figure to make it the best hand, and an opponent who based on his behavior so far is likely to have some sort of weak, made hand. While the hero here certainly would have been justified to call this turn, the situation made it so a raise could take the pot down 2 ways rather than 1 (you improve or your opponent folds). These sorts of situations add up to lots of pots in the long run, and in a game where not all of your strong draws come through taking pots down without having to take them to showdown is always a plus. -Rizen

HU Match with Tom McEvoy

2006-06-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

I couldn't stand another weekend without drama, so I created some of my own Sunday for my HU match with Tom McEvoy for $4k. For those of you that don't know, for winning the PokerStars tournament leaderboard two weeks ago (the week I won the 1 million guaranteed) I get to play a member of Team PokerStars (in this case, former WSOP winner Tom McEvoy) heads up for $4k. Normally it's just $1k, but if the pro wins, the $1k carries over to the next week. Fortunately for me, the pro won 3 weeks in a row. Anyways, my wife was sick yesterday, and I was in the process of trying to let her get settled into bed and get my son downstairs with me and settled so I could play. I ended up showing up about 7 minutes late for the match and Tom had blinded me down to 750 chips or something like that. I guess the rail really let him have it for not waiting a little bit for me or at least slowing down a bit. I guess he was just hammering my blinds as fast as he could. So when I did finally sit down, I was down 3:1 in chips and had a toddler on my lap who wasn't too happy to be there and really wanted to push buttons while I played, not optimum playing conditions to say the least. I fought back a little though, and finally I doubled back up to even when I got AK vs A3. Tom claims he called my AK flop push with A3 to get things 'back to even' and start over. I'm not going to agree or disagree with that assessment. A high is a pretty good hand heads up. It was my fault for being late so I didn't expect any pity. At that point we fought back and forth a little more until eventually my A6 ran into his A5 on a T56 flop. I had made a healthy pre-flop raise and a healthy flop bet, so when Tom pushed I felt obligated to call. I did, and my A6 held and Tom was WAY down to about 300ish chips or so. He fought back though, and eventually pulled even when he pushed a flush draw into my top pair/top kicker and he got his flush. Eventually he actually had me down some and I pulled back even when I hit quad 2s with K2 vs his AJ. I whittled him down some more, and eventually finished the deal when he shoved J8 into my T6 on a T84 flop and I held. I won't speculate as to if Tom should have waited for me or not. I'm sure Tom has better things to do on Sundays than wait for some internet poker player to show up for a match where he stands to win absolutely nothing. I don't know if he called with A3 to even things up or because he thought it might be the best hand. I do know that regardless I came back to win and can now add 'defeated former WSOP champ heads up' to my poker resume. A free $4k is never a bad thing either. -Rizen

PokerXFactor: A review

2006-06-03T15:27:00.000-07:00

As promised I have a review of PokerXFactor ready. This should also be getting posted on Pocket Fives in a condensed format (it's 2300+ words) sometime shortly. I was going to post it here at the same time but I've pushed it back far enough, here it is:

When I first decided to start reviewing some of the training sites, I really wasn't sure what to expect. I decided the first site I was going to review would be PokerXFactor. It was a new site, and with Bax and Sheets at the helm there was a lot of buzz surrounding the site. At the time, I was mentoring some students, and a lot of people were asking me if sites like PXF were worth it, and some who were already subscribers were telling me 'but sheets said' during our sessions.

Honestly, when I signed up for the site my biggest concern was how much content they would have. I figured being a young site, and with the effort it can take to get GOOD training materials up, they would have a hard time keeping up with demand for new content. Boy was I wrong. When I first signed up about a month ago there were already a good 25-30 pieces of content posted, and content is being added at the average rate of about 1 item per day, which is a great value, especially considering that all the materials I've viewed so far were top notch.

Training materials come in three flavors. There are hand histories, which are really just as they sound. They're raw hand histories from various tournaments loaded into the PXF replayer (more on the replayer later). There are videos, which for the most part are hand histories with commentary. For me, these were the materials I found most helpful. Bax and Sheets share their thoughts and thought processes as they go through their hand histories. Hearing the things they think about as they progress through a tournament is incredible. I considered myself a very good MTT player before ever visiting the site, but hearing their thought processes validated a lot of things I instinctively thought were correct, but had never been able to put into words before. It also increased my confidence personally seeing and hearing top players going through similar processes to mine. Videos also come in a second flavor, and that's the 'Ask Sheets/Bax' flavor. These are basically hands submitted by PXF subscribers where they have 'asked Bax/Sheets' for their opinions on the situation. These are usually short and revolve around one key decision in a tournament, but they're nice in the fact that since it's just one key decision usually Bax/Sheets go into great detail on that decision, more so than if it was buried in a huge hand history.

The last type of training material are quizzes. The quizzes are an interesting concept that may need some fine tuning. A quiz is essentially a HH replayer that pauses at every decision the 'Hero' makes and asks you what you would do. You're then scored based on if you choose the same action the instructor did. This is GREAT in the fact that it makes you think for yourself. It forces you to think about the situation and not just listen to someone else talk about it. The downside is that you really don't get much feedback on why decisions are being made. I took parts of a few of the quizzes, and I scored ~50% on most of them, and I believe this was due more to stylistic differences in the early tournament phases than any of my answers being 'incorrect'. The other thing I disliked about the quizzes is that there is no way to save your progress, and since most of them are full HHs in tournaments where players placed very high, they can be 400+ hands long. Add in the fact that there is a minimum of 1 decision per hand and often more than that, and that's can be A LOT of questions for one sitting. I really like the quiz concept though and the idea of really engaging the user. PXF has really shown a commitment to improving their product (more on that later), and I expect we'll see these quizzes evolve over time. I hope they do, because I think the idea of a quiz done right could be really beneficial.

Next, I'd like to talk some about the PXF Hand History Replayer/Analyzer. I'm going to talk about the Replayer first, as that's what most of the current videos/HHs are done in. The replayer is exactly what it sounds like. Your hand histories get plugged into it, and through a flash graphical interface they are 'replayed'. It sounds simple, and my first impression when I heard about it way back in the day on extremetilt.com was 'big deal'. I was used to going through hand histories in their raw format or using something like Poker Tracker's replayer, and I guess I just didn't see any need for the improvement on that. All I have to say there is I was very, VERY wrong. For me, personally, the Hand History Replayer (and now the Analyzer) is the most used feature of the PXF site. When I was mentoring rather than looking at raw HHs I would plug them into the replayer. It was WAY easier that way, and it may seem like a little thing, but when you see a hand replayed visually you can focus on big picture things when evaluating your play rather than always trying to calculate pot sizes, stack sizes, Ms, or anything else that's a pain when you've just got raw text for your HH.

The analyzer is sort of the next step in this PXF Hand History evolution. From talking with Mindwise (who owns and operates Mindwise Media, LLC, the company who brings us PXF), this is actually just 'Phase II' along the way of a multi-phased approach to eventually develop a tool that will not only replay but analyze your hands in a multi-street format that should really help players improve their game. I absolutely love the analyzer, but I probably like it for reasons other than some people will. The feature I love the most is the ability to sort and organize your hands in the analyzer. For example, you can click one button in the analyzer and it will show you every hand you won more than the big blind in, and eliminate all the rest. Same for your losing hands. I'm a big believer in self-review, and I review my own hand histories often in an attempt to both improve my game and make sure I'm not introducing any leaks. When going through a huge hand history, that can be quite challenging, but by sorting in this manner I can usually find key hands for review quickly. In addition to sorting by winning and losing hands, you can also sort by premium, strong, moderate, and borderline pre-flop hands under the luck tab (more on the tabs later). I personally find this very helpful for doing things like looking back and making sure I'm maximizing the value on my premiums and strongs, and that I'm keeping myself out of tricky situations with marginal hands pre-flop. Used correctly for self-evaluation, I really think the analyzer is worth the price of admission all by itself for serious players.

In addition to the things already discussed added by the analyzer there are new tabs in the lower right hand corner of the analyzer. Most of the tabs display statistics, things like hands played, hands won, etc. It even breaks out preflop, turn, and river statistics separately. It's very nice to have all that information handy in one place, especially if you're looking to analyze your results for play on a particular street. For instance, if I was worried I was making mistakes on the river I can go to the river tab, click 'saw river in other position' on the analyzer, and instantly every hand I played to the river will be sorted in the replayer. I can then pick out those hands and replay them and look for mistakes. If you're worried you're betting the turn too often, go to the turn tab, click on turn bets, and every hand you bet the turn on will become available. As I said in the previous paragraph, the amount of different things you can sort your hand histories on is impressive. You will obviously only get out of the tool what you put into it, but Mindwise and his crew have done a really good job of taking hand histories, which can be a very large and cumbersome data set, and making it easy to find the data you're looking for.

Of special interest among the tabs is the 'Luck' tab. A lot of players will probably find this part interesting, although I'm really not sure how helpful it is to improving your game, it's definitely 'fun' from a novelty perspective. The luck tab basically lets you know how many premium, strong, moderate, borderline, and garbage pre-flop hands you've been dealt throughout the hand history. Now it doesn't take into account things like position or prior action yet, but it does give you a good indication as to how 'lucky' you've been with the cards you've been receiving as well as how lucky you should be at this point. With this in mind, the Analyzer introduces a new acronym, PUFF™. PUFF™ stands for pre-flop unadjusted fortune factor. It's pretty much what it says. How good of cards have you been dealt in relation to an average distribution. It's unadjusted because it doesn't take position or prior action into account. It goes on a scale from 1 to 100 with 50 being 'average luck'. It's more of a novelty than anything, but it is kind of fun to go back and see if you really were 'unlucky' with your starting hands or if you're just using selective memory.

Just added was a user forum, which was one thing I thought was lacking in my initial look over the site. Each video has a place for comments, which is nice, and helped keep feedback with the video/quiz/HH it belonged with, but there was a certain lack of 'community feel' with the site. The forum is very new so I have no idea how it will be utilized at this point, but I think it's a step in the right direction to have a place for members to post, and get a bit of a community feeling around PXF. One of the things I've been very impressed with so far in the month+ I've been a member is the entire PXF crew's openness to feedback and seemingly genuine desire to make PXF the best training site available. Between seeing materials virtually daily on the site to the amazing jump between the Hand History Replayer to the Hand History Analyzer it's clear that Mindwise and crew are not just resting on their laurels.

So, I've had virtually nothing but positives to say about the site so far, there HAS to be some negatives right?? Sure, there are some things I think need some improvement. I already mentioned that I think the quizzes, while a great idea, are a bit lacking in implementation right now. At the very least there needs to be a way to save your progress. There are so many cool things you could do with the quizzes as well. You could make a quiz that instead of being about one tournament HH could be 10 hands that are based around the same concept (as an example, we could say playing premium pocket pairs from various positions). This sort of thing would hammer home key concepts and could keep the quizzes more manageable and in my opinion more helpful as a learning tool. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg too, once you start creating tools that your users interact with, the possibilities are limitless. The other semi-gripe I have with the materials is that, while it's VERY easy to sort materials on the training center home page (it's very easy to sort by author, type, etc) I wish there was some sort of 'recommended order' or at the very least for some videos there was a 'you may want to watch this first' section on the video. All of the videos do a great job on their own, there is still kind of a natural order ot them. This really applies to Sheet's sit n go videos than anything else, as he kind of progresses in concepts as the videos go along, and while it's not necessary to watch previous videos to get value out of the others, I felt it was usually helpful.

All in all the negative things are nitpicking. I honestly expected the PXF site to 'feel' a lot younger than it did. Even though it's only been around since March, there is a lot of material available and the site is constantly improving. The Hand History Analyzer tool is simply awesome and I can't wait to see future iterations of the tool. For those of you who'd like to see the tool in action, you can upload one hand history into the analyzer throughout the month of June for free as part of a PXF promotion.

When I first signed up for the site to do this review, I really wasn't sure what to expect. I considered myself a very good MTT player already, but I'm always open to anything that might help me improve. I was very pleasantly surprised by both the quantity and quality of content available on the site. Sheets and Bax both communicate very clearly, and don't seem to pull any punches when discussing strategy. I believe there are things to help players of all skill levels available at PXF, but like anything else, you're only going to get out of the site what you put into it. Fortunately for PXF subscribers, there is a wealth of quality options to spend time using to improve your game. I wish these sorts of materials would have been available to me when I was first learning how to play, as I'm certain it would have substantially shortened my learning curve.

-Rizen

Weekly weigh in

2006-06-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

I actually did this yesterday afternoon (I always do on Fri afternoons for consistency), but I never got a chance to put it up here. This week's is probably a little skewed since I was sick most of the week. I weighed in at 235, 5 lbs down from last week, but I actually anticipate I might go up a little this week (or at least not lose anything) since I'm feeling better and on a more regular diet again. Also, I didn't get to fully start my workout program this week so I'll kick that into high gear next week. So far I'm down 6.5 lbs since starting, although like I said I'm really not measuring my progress that way, but more by how I feel and how my lifestyle changes progress. -Rizen

Quick update

2006-06-01T22:15:00.000-07:00

I've been pretty sick this week since about Monday (Memorial Day). Not really sure what I caught, but it was pretty nasty so I really haven't played much this week. I'm feeling a bit better tonight and I anticipate I'll get some time to do another REAL update tomorrow. Just wanted to drop a quick line and say I haven't dropped off the face of the earth. I've got a few announcements hopefully I'll get to make soon, and I have a finished review of PokerXFactor.com for everyone that I'll probably put up here tomorrow after I run it through spell/grammar check. I also have a backlog of hands of the day to get to, so there definitely isn't any shortage of things to discuss, just been resting so I can feel better! -Rizen

Weekly weigh in

2006-05-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

I actually weighed in Friday afternoon but never posted it. I weighed in at 240 this week, down 1.5 lbs from last week. I'm still not measuring my progress in weight loss necessarily, and I met with me PT yesterday to finalize a workout plan. It does feel good to be able to report some weight lost though, and I'm looking forward to being able to make more good reports in the upcoming weeks. With any bit of luck I'll be in the 220-225 range before the WSOP. -Rizen

Rizen's Poker Blog

Back home/Feb recap

WPT LA Poker Classic Day 2

LAPC Day 2

WPT LA Poker Classic (4th break)

WPT LA Poker Classic Update (3rd break)

WPT LA Poker Classic Update (first 90 minutes)

Pre main event thoughts

More post LAPC $1500 stuff

LAPC $1500 results/recap

2007 WPT LA Poker Classic, Event 28, Day 1

I'm not dead, I promise

Council Bluffs

January was a solid month

Mixed Tuesday

I love Sundays

A Home Run

Rake Aid

Nothing much happening

Regarding PCA

Solid weekend

Hitting it hard

Tasted some moderate success yesterday

Back in the Saddle

Good news

I'm a Dad (again)!

Link up for finance blog

Shutting it down for a bit

Just finished some cash

Old Man River

New Finance Blog

A rare update

More Final Tables

Will disappear from Mid-December through Jan 1

Misc stuff

FTOPS

New PokerStars tournament schedule!

October in mini-review

Help me spend some money

Update

Update

Getting Started

Article on attacking weakness

Article contest results

Interview on Ante Up Radio

Article contest finalists

Article contest update

Article idea contest

Blog links

Hand of the day revisited

Hand of the Day updated

Hand of the day - 8/16

Random live stuff

It's a girl!

Phil Laak

MySpace profile

Settling back in

Home Safe

WSOP Day 4

WSOP Day 2

Day 1 complete

Comment moderation enabled

WSOP start day

Safely in Las Vegas

Big Monday

Interview on Fox Sports

Close but no cigar

Focus

Not much happening lately

Sunday success continues

Weekly weigh in

Back in the online groove

New site links etc

New ads messing up google ads, etc

Back home safe and free PXF Video through today

Heading back home soon

WSOP Event #3

WSOP: Event #3

WSOP: Day 1 report

WSOP Seating assignment