I wasn't going to post about this until after the taping and/or when we had an air time, but since the story apparently already broke, Nat's blog pretty much covers it: we're likely (assuming they don't kill the story now!) going to be on 60 Minutes in a few weeks.

Some of you might think this is bad for online poker. I disagree. In the short term, yes, this could be a little ugly (although if the scandal itself and having people chat about it on every single table didn't drive down those AP numbers, this story, released to an audience that largely has no interest in playing poker in the first place, certainly isn't going to.) In the long run, however, stories like this, packaged properly and with an undertone of "regulation would be great for the industry", have the potential to keep the game vibrant. I, personally, do not want games full of half-baked innuendo about rigged RNG's, site owners with backdoors in the software, and the overall shadiness that comes from a marketplace that, by necessity, operates in a gray legal area; I want them full of people that, whether they win or lose, do not doubt that the operator is standing behind the integrity of the deck of cards, something that, except in one case :P, I can't physically prove at this point. Does the tennis match fixing scandal reflect badly on the integrity of Betfair? No - because it's a fully licensed European site with a reputation to uphold, stories like the one I linked have largely exculpated it from any blame and, in fact, shielded it. Compare this to the stories that have been printed about online poker and you will understand why I think we need regulation ASAP.

Do I guarantee the 60 Minutes piece will be fair? No, but I'll do my best to make it that way, and for what it's worth, everyone that I've talked to clearly understands the game. That's as much as I can ask for, and given where we are in Congress and where we will be following this election year, the need for good stories outweighs the risk of bad ones.

In the last few days, I've returned to playing more or less full time (and running terrible - I think I'm ~25% with overpairs since Sunday - but that's generally how Murphy's Law works). Aside from the runbad, life has been pretty good; whenever I'm not distracted by video games, movies, books or some other shiny thing that comes along, I've been occupied by some business idea or other, and a lot of these seem like they're going to pay off within the next year to two years. Of course, given my attention span, there are far too many shiny things in the world to keep that going for long, but hey, I try.

So, right, hey look a bike...umm...yeah, this blog. I feel like I've been writing a lot of shorter entries instead of a few big ones. There's a reason for that; when I started this project, I had half-coherent plans to use some of the strategy entries in a future book or article series. Most of that didn't go anywhere (at least for now), and instead, I've started using this page as a simple way to broadcast my results, thoughts about poker in general, the AP scandal, and other poker-related stuff that came to mind. Given that there'll be way more of that type of thing coming in the near future, I think I'm probably better off with this format than an exclusively poker strat-oriented blog, but I do occasionally wish I had a Bond18-type ability to sit down and write 3 pages on playing AK whenever I felt like it. (In fact, I've done that before - it just isn't something I could repeat for 18 entries and counting. Major props to Tony for making that work for him.) For that matter, I wish I had a Bond18-type ability to sit down and play poker, but then again, if I had that, I'd probably have the ability to sit down and work for a living/never have discovered it in the first place. It all evens out.

At any rate, today, I'm gonna take a page from Bond and write about something that's been a big deal in HSMTT the last couple of days - 3 betting light early in tourneys. If you've read my posts there, you'll know I could honestly go through a thousand tournaments without ever 3 betting a known decent player with anything but JJ+/AK, or, for that matter, without ever 3 betting period, before the antes kick in. Frankly, even vs. tourney regulars who put in a few hundred hands with you per week (or month if you're me), I don't think metagame matters nearly as much as the strength of your hand, simply because most regulars aren't opening that light from EP/MP and tend to play ABC postflop (which gets you in trouble if you're bluffing because getting an ABC player off a real hand is gonna involve putting in a huge chunk of your stack.) Once the antes kick in, it's a different story, but prior to that, the tighter opening ranges should dictate tighter 3 bets, not looser ones, and certainly not cash game-style ranges. The exception to the rule is if you (think you) play way better than everyone else, but everyone I know who plays LAG in the early stages of a tournament tends to spew off stacks on a regular basis.

This is not the case in live tourneys (where your reads are way better and you can pretty much do anything you want against the worse fields), and it's not the case in 6 max tourneys where, much like short handed cash games, you'll just get slaughtered if you give your blinds away. Early in deep stack, full ring tournaments, however, 3 betting light seems to cause more problems than it solves, especially out of position and especially vs. competent, regular players that will adjust to your perceived loose range after they see it once or twice. (Quite simply, you won't get enough big hands against them in particular to make their lighter calldowns a net plus for you, especially if their perception of you persists when the antes kick in and they call your shortstack shoves light, too.)

This brings up the question "how do I get paid off on my big hands if they know what I have when I 3 bet?" One way is simply not to 3 bet early on in HU pots vs. regulars - they aren't going to happen that often, and deception in those pots, where you can have any pair, suited connectors, AQ, etc., has a lot of value. Another is to take unorthodox lines; checking instead of cbetting some flops after you 3 bet (although this has its own problems, such as the ones in the HSMTT thread), calling preflop and then c/c, bet, bet, or just outright betting into the PFR, and the good old PF call/flop checkraise (as long as you do it with a wider range than exactly an overpair) all have merit and will all win you plenty of chips with your big hands.

Bottom line: At the end of the day, like I say in my Cardrunners vids, the important thing is that you somehow get there, and in full ring games, getting there vs. people who don't suck and have tighter opening ranges than they would in cash games isn't that simple. For that reason, I prefer to simply play a TAG game (granted, with lots of little tricks to maximize the chips I get from my monsters) until the ante rounds; it's probably not optimal, but it's also the game that gets you the closest to it with the least amount of detailed reads on your opponents, something that's a big deal in tourneys where you'll never have [insert tourney regular] on your immediate [right/left] in [insert blind level] again for a few months. It also prevents unnecessary spew, a big deal for a lot of people these days.

Of course, poker is cyclical, so a lot of the tendencies described herein and in HSMTT will be totally different a year from now. Nevertheless, unless you're literally one of the top 10 players in a given tournament, you'd probably be okay 3 betting 0% of your hands until 100/200/25.

Sort of a good news/bad news type thing. Good news: I got a NY Times interview (see last entry) that apparently got reprinted in a few places that friends of mine actually saw, and I started playing poker again. Bad news: none of the poker playing led anywhere, obv. After some initial rust wore off, I found myself making a couple of good reads for stacks at 5/10 FR NL (did I mention I'm a nit?), but I did dust off a little more than I got from the reads during the rusty phase. In addition, I seem to be on quite a decent streak of getting everything in the TPGK to set range cracked or coolered by stuff, both in FR and in tournaments. It hasn't really concerned me much, but I hope it works out better at LAPC (leaving tomorrow in the very early morning - if the flights hold up one time, getting there in time to play a cool televised SNG. More on that later.)

I'm doing quite well in a few things, though. I think my FR play is better now than it was when I was playing it full time; I'm more aggressive now and have a better grasp on what my image lets me do, which is to get away with some second barrels and to make some big (for FR) calls vs. LAG's. I'm also murdering sats, although my sample size is too small to matter these days - only a few good ones that I want to play go off every week. There are also some business ventures that I will be discussing in LA, including some with Tworags; you will likely see a lot of cool things coming up in the near future of this site.

Couple of fun hands because I haven't posted any in a while:

1)Close Sunday river decision: I raise AKo in EP and get called by MP early in the UB 200K (effective stacks 2500ish @ 15/30.) Flop A53; I lead 150 into 225 and the guy, whose stats are 13/4 over 30 hands, calls after a few seconds. Turn Q (worst card in the deck, IMO - I might not check/fold here but I think I usually should); check/check. River brick. Now what? I think all three choices (b/f, c/c, c/f) have merit, but you can't really c/f very often unless you *know* the guy can't have AJ or be floating, and 30 hands aren't enough. C/c has merit because AK is at the very top of your range here and he can mistakenly value bet (or just bluff) quite a few hands. But how much do you call? I didn't want to have to call a PSB of 525 - which happens a lot on UB because they just mash the button - so I bet 300, he shoved and I shrugfolded. Oh well.

2)Big 5/10 FR hand: There weren't enough tables running on Cake so I fired up a couple on FTP and ran into a fellow CR pro multitabling every single one of them with big stacks on each. After sitting for about an hour and getting coolered/bleeding down a bunch, I picked up red tens in the SB. With two limpers, including a weak/tight looking guy UTG, the CR pro - playing a very LAGTAG 26/20 - made it 55 in the CO, I coldcalled and UTG overcalled.

Flop 776. What now? Against a 26/20, tens in that spot, where he's isolating the limpers so wide, are probably the nuts. What I didn't want to do, though, is checkraise, because although I'd call a 3 bet it would probably make me hate life. Instead, I chose to lead out 2/3 pot - telegraphing my hand - and hope he bluff raised my nitty ass so I could shove. UTG folded, but instead of making it the 350 I kinda expected, CR guy just shoved for an effective 900 more. Umm...okay...well, you can't have AA-QQ here, so I have the second nuts/I call? He turned over T9 and I held.

This hand shows how much FR has changed from a year ago. It's still way nittier than 6 max, where I'd just 3 bet PF and feel happy about it; IMO, 3 betting here is definitely not good given that setup and sorta turns a good hand into a bluff. But postflop, the game is simply more aggro. Back during Cake's heyday, or even at the 3/6+ games on Stars/FT last year, a shove in that spot would be AA-JJ virtually every time; now, enough people have gotten the point of aggression that you actually have to think about ranges and get it in relatively thin against a lot of people. (Next time I run this play against this same guy, I'm obviously folding, though.)

Meh. I can still beat these games for a clip :)

In fact, I don't think I broke the 2 hour mark anywhere.

Good news: I made the NY Times!

NY Times article

It's not about poker, but hey, I'll take it.

Quick update:

-Played one big AC tourney, a 1K sat (too busy the next day to play the other one.) Won 0 hands in 3 hours. Highlight (also the only light): calling a 10x UTG shove with 9x and TT to see the other guy turn over Q5s. I river a boat, except I was drawing to quads on the flop. lols.

Sunday went okay, not great. Made two deep runs in both Stars and FTP. I wound up bubbling @ FTP on a reshove gone bad when someone behind me had kings, but making it to the top 300 on Stars. It's not a good result or anything, but I had built up deep stacks on both tourneys, and that's how you final table them eventually.

Making the second half of my CR vid before I go back out to AC for the 10K ME (and a couple of more prelims) on Wednesday or Thursday.