Friday Night Tournament

I played the Friday night Bounty tournament at Aliante the other night and did a video reporting on what happened, here it is:



I thought the chop negotiations (or should I say lack thereof) were interesting. We were down to 10 people. As soon as we hit the final table, someone proposed that the remaining 10 players all be able to keep their own bounty. This is a pretty standard deal in this tournament and I always say yes to that deal. We played just a few minutes 10 handed when we hit the end of a level and were on a break. I called into home to give a report and waited to get back to it. The total chips in play were t362,000 and I was at t96,000. We were coming back to blinds of t4,000 - t8,000. The next level would be t6,000 - t12,000 and I believe they would double every level after that. There were two players with stacks around t40,000 - t45,000. Everyone else had somewhere between 10k and 30k. As it stood then, the top 7 would get paid. The total prize pool was $1700 (if this seems like a small pool, remember that in this tournament half the prize money goes to bounties). The payout structure is 35% to first, 20% to second, 15% to third and then small drops down to seventh.

As the break was ending one of the players who was probably between 20k and 30k asked me if I would take $300 and have everyone else chop. I checked the actual payouts and saw that second place was scheduled to be $340. I told the person who was proposing the deal that I would take $350 and leave the rest for everyone to chop. When everyone got back he proposed that deal and to my surprise everyone said yes without any kind of debate. One of the guys with around 40k was just on my left and I could tell that he didn't like the deal. He said something along the lines of, "we really should wait till a couple of short stacks bust out," and I could tell he didn't really like the idea of giving people who were unlikely to make the money a share of his equity. He finally said that he didn't care and gave the thumbs up to the deal.

I thought the guy who was pushing the deal was pushing a bad deal for himself. If he just waits for the short people to bust then he increases his payout considerably. It's true that the blinds were high, but he should have been able to dodge the bubble, so I figured he cost himself.

I wish I could say that I picked my figure of what I offered to take on some formula taking into account my chip equity or something, but I didn't. I basically knew it was right for me to get somewhere between second and first place money. I looked at the payouts and suggested the next round number higher then second place. I actually didn't think that everyone would agree so quickly. It turns out I had 26.5% of the chips and got 20.5% of the prize money. I think that's a pretty good deal for me being made while we're still three off the money. Even though I didn't get a full payout on my chip equity stack sizes relative to the blinds make that equity pretty volatile. I think if I can lock up more then second place money while we're still not even in the money that's a good deal.

Super Sunday

Hey, it can't be all poker all the time, today's video has my thoughts on Superbowl XLIV:

A Bountiful Tournament

One of the regular tournaments I play is the Friday night Bounty Tournament at the Aliante Station Casino.  I like this room because by and large I like the people who work there and it's the closest room to where I live.  Unfortunately, the room has struggled to get consistent action during the week, but in large part due to this tournament which regularly gets upwards of 60 entrants Friday nights are good nights to go there and get some good action.  Here's the story of my latest run at their tournament:

More Tommy Angelo Thoughts

Here's another video inspired by listening to Tommy Angelo.  I talk about connecting the dots between some advise about mental state offered by Mr. Angelo and actual play at the table:



As always, this video is cross posted to my video blog thread at allvegaspoker.com.  You can view that thread here.  Check out the forums if you haven't been there before - good poker and Vegas discussions there.

Also, I'm definitely soliciting feedback and suggestions for subjects to do videos on.  If you have ideas, let me know in the comments.

You Reap What You Sow

I get a lot of good nuggets listening to poker podcasts.  This video was inspired by a comment I heard from Brandon Adams:

I'm In the Zone Man!

One of my favorite poker thinkers is Tommy Angelo.  Last week I was catching up on some podcasts and ran across two interviews with Tommy.  As I set out to go play one evening last week, I was thinking about achieving the state of mind that Tommy talks about.  This video talks about the results:

Seeing the World through Half Full Glasses

In my latest video I contemplate the difference between confidence and optimism.  These thoughts were spurred by a comment made by a local Vegas player I met through the forums at www.allvegaspoker.com.  All of my video entries are cross posted in a thread on their forums.  For those not familiar with the site I would highly encourage a visit as it is a great source for information focused on playing live poker in Vegas.  Anyway, on to the video: