Hey Guys,

I will be answering a ton of questions about myself, poker, and whatever, here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?t=88525

Happy Holidays.

-Phil

Here are a couple of my favorite PLO hands from the last week:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1780513

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1780511

This next one needs some intro. Based on some flow of game reads, I felt he'd be 3betting this hand light. Once he started to think a bit, I thought about how I can't repot since my Aces are too weak and we're deep enough that defining my hand will get me owned. So I decide to hover over the raise button and INSTA minraise when he 3bet, hoping I'd get him to do something spazzy. I guess it kind've worked:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1780507

This cheers me up whenever I run bad: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8VhPHtKinmA

GL

-Phil

EDIT: stuff is coming out weird, but I can't figure out how to fix it. Sorry this entry isn't pretty.

Sorry for the lack of updates, guys.

I've been playing a ton, and have been pretty focused on that. I'm getting very good at plo (for how long I've been playing) which is exciting to me. Hopefully I'll continue to improve.

The last month has been good to me, though today I tilted off a few buyins in big games. I'm still up on the week, and plenty in the last month, but I'm very dissapointed in myself for playing tilted. For me, I get much more tilted by things outside of poker.

A few things were annoying me a lot, and I should've just taken the day off and relaxed. I might do that tomorrow. We'll see how I feel when I wake up. If a juicy games starts running tonight, I'm not sure what I'll do. Hopefully I'll make a good decision.

If I could make my PT work, I'd share some interesting hands with you. I'll see if I can mess with it a little.

Good luck.

-Phil

IN SOME VIDEOS IN HERE..

HEROes hold TT or 55, and they raise pre.. and there is a guy next to after them that raises 3 times. and they fold !! I am a new player, but still i find that fold strange. I mean I would call if I get my set I know I get all their chips if I do not hit i fold. what is more easy than that?? AM I THE BIGGEST DONK??? lol, by the way I do this play in .25/.50 but still i would do it i think in any stake !

thanks phil !!!
f.

You don't always get their stack when you flop a set. The main factor is the call:stack ratio, meaning how much you have to call compared to how much is left in your stack. Then you have to look at his 3betting range (The weaker it is, the more inclined you should be to fold or 4bet, the stronger it is, the more inclined you should be to call and stack KK). As a very general rule, you want stacks to be about 15x the size of the call you have to make. If his range is very tight, maybe 11x and if it's very loose, 20x or so.

Kind of a different question.

Do you ever suffer from winners tilt? I.e. You fire up a few tables and make 3-4 buy-ins in the first few hundred hands. Are you quiting the session right here or continuing on if the fish still have money? I come across this sometimes and find myself leaving because it feels really good to hit a jackpot session in a short amount of time. Perhaps it is better for my confidence and game to quit the session and return later?

Cheers.

Personally, I don't suffer much from winners tilt, though I know people who do. Controlling tilt is all about knowing and being honest with yourself. Having your confidence high while playing is very important. Not only confidence that you'll play well, but confidence that you'll win.

Hey! Sorry about not remembering the term you used in youre last video, but there was a spot where you 4bet 2-3o.. I can understand why that can be profitable but you said something about youre opponents 3bet range was stardarised or something, why you 4bet..Can you explain this?

I don't think that happened, but I could be wrong. Maybe I said polarized?

Hi Phil,
looking at the cardrunners pro's, there are a lot of styles which can be extremely profitable. You and Brian Hastings for instance have a pretty solid style each one with their personal moves. Taylor and Cole on the other hand are extremely aggressive, while Brian and Andrew are somewhere in between both groups. But somehow, each of you are very successful. My analysis: if you develop a well balanced strategy (=near optimal)and have no apparent other leaks (eg. bad money management) your playing style does not matter. Can you please comment on my conclusion? Do you have a certai n why of improving your overal strategy?

You're analysis is dead on. There are several different playing styles that work well. I have a feeling that there is a theoretical optimal playing style for every game situation, but situations change so much and it's so complex that I don't think it's worth bothering to figure it out. As long as you understand your style and balance it well, you can be a winner with a few different styles. I've found that initial playing styles reflect a person's personality. I had a lot of trouble pushing my agression to the level that it's at now (Still not super high for highstakes HU games) because I'm a passive person by nature.

Hey Phil,

When moving up through the levels what adjustments did you need to make at each step, or was it just a case of more of the same?

Presumably things got more aggro as you moved up, so how did you combat this?

Cheers,

Mat.

Hey Mat,

It's tough to generalize about adjustments. Basically, players will play differently. Their ranges will be different. And you have to play differently as a result of that. Also, as the stakes get higher, the main difference is the lack of terrible players at the table. You'd be suprised how much you make off of those couple fish at your table and how easy it is.

Gotta go now, but I'll finish up another day. GL guys.

-Phil

Hey dude,

I haven't been playing much lately and I don't plan on playing much this month.

So, since I won't have results to talk about, why don't you just ask some questions? I'll try to feild all the quesitons I can in my next couple blog entries.

Holllller.

-Phil

Hey there,

I spent the last week in Vegas to play in the US PokerBowl.

The tournament itself was a bad structure. The blinds got huge way too fast and it was just an all-in fest. However the event was run very well from what I could see. The set was very professional and the producers were friendly and organized.

I got to hang out with some friends, including my team: Dave 'raptor' Benefield, Tom 'durrr' Dwan, Di (Z) 'Urindanger' Dang, Hac 'jinsokkp' Dang, and Alan 'The Alan Sass' Sass.

Wow, we were such a sick good team I have to say. It's too bad the structure didn't allow us more time to play. 1/5 teams advance past the first heat and we weren't that team in our heat.

I didn't really play many interesting hands at all. The blinds went up so quickly. I probably played two big pots, one time waking up with AK when Jen Harman shoved A8s and one shoving K4o with 5bbs and running into KQ and getting eliminated. Most hands just played themselves.

As a side note, Jen Harman is really, really nice. She puts up with so many annoying/obnoxious guys at the table, and I've never seen her be anything but friendly in the few times I've played with her or when I've seen her on TV. I consider myself a nice person, but I don't think I could do what she does.

Anyways, all in all, I had a good time. I'm back in Madison now and, as always, I'm happy to be back.

Talk to you soon, kids.

-Phil

Hey guys,

I was asked about my HSP experience. I wrote up a trip report soon after it happened on 2+2. I'm going to paste it here for those who missed it. Enjoy!

So I got on this next season of HSP thanks to a friend of mine putting in a good word for me.

I was 2nd alternate on day 2 and starting on day 3.

Day 2 was a 100k min buyin and day 3 was 500k min. I brought 720k with me, planning on playing with 220k max on day two if I got a seat (which the producer made to sound unlikely) and saving the last 500k for the next day, or whatever I had leftover from day 2.

I showed up for day 2 around 2pm, just after taping started. Mori, the producer, was extremely nice. He let all of my friends come on set (there were not many people on set). He made me feel very comfortable there, as did all of the other producers and everyone working on the show.

It was cool on set. Free food. Random pros walking around. I did some on camera hand analysis for a GSN.com feature, which I wasn't prepared for, but I think I did okay. I was watching the game for hours. Extremely loose action. People were calling down when someones entire range is ahead of their hand. I almost had a boner about it.

I got into the game with 2 hours left of taping on day two. I don't know if I can say exactly who was playing, but I'll say that the table was very loose and aggressive (in a good way for me) and very talkative. It was the best game I'd played in all year. I was glad I got in, but bummed that I only had two hours. Not to mention that it was live and on a TV set, so I was probably dealt 40 hands the whole time. The players were very friendly for the most part. Jamie Gold was actually a really nice guy (I say actually because I didn't expect him to be) and improved a lot since last season. Negreanu also played much much better than he had in previous years, and is a great guy from what I can tell. I'm gonna stop listing off players in case I'm not supposed to.

I had 100k on the table and 100k in my pocket and was saving the rest for day 3. 90% of hands were straddled and a few were double straddled. That left me with ~40-80bbs effective. With that, and no one folding preflop, the game got really boring for me. I basically had to play 10% of my hands if I wanted to max my EV. Phil Hellmuth called me a nit, which is probably the most embarrassing thing that I can remember happening to me in my lifetime.

I was really proud of my ability to hand read live. I was worried that I wouldn't to be able to pick up on things, but I was catching tons of timing tells and was able to put people on hands pretty well, which was what I did to keep busy while folding. There was one hand where I bet and got two really weak seeming calls on a very drawy board. I was really mad because I had the nuts (like 4th nuts, but clearly the best hand) but I couldn't check turn and let draws hit even though I was sure they were folding their midpairs with a gutter or oesd. I guess I don't know if my reads were right, but I feel good about them.

There was another hand that I wasn't a part of where one player shoved the river for about 2/5 pot after check-raising the turn. The other player tanks, saying his hand is as good as ace high. People started to chatter about what he could possibly have, which made me feel awesome since I was 90% sure he had 88-JJ with one club and was calling the turn in hopes for a club to hit or a free showdown and was folding to a river bet. After he folded, Negreanu said that he knew the one player would never bluff there, and I thought to myself how I'd always bluffshove that river. I'm looking forward to seeing that hand to check my read.

Overall though, it was a boring day for me. Lots of anticipation and only got the chance to play for 2 hours with a small roll since I was saving 500k for the big day.

Just before going to bed that night, I was informed that 3 of the TV Pros from day 2 decided last minute that they wanted to play on day 3, and that I wasn't good TV because I was so tight and didn't talk enough to the players who don't know me. So, I lost my spot on the table. To say the least, I was very mad. Had I not been saving $500k for day 3, I would've been able to play a much more open game. I guess nobody there had any idea of my reputation and playing style, because I have never been accused of being a nit before that day. Usually I get 'station' 'monkey' or 'FPS-machine'. I also had less than 50 hands to show what I had. Hellmuth spent over 15 minutes negotiating and discussing insurance deals when he was all-in.

Not to mention the fact that I had to fly halfway across the country and move $720k twice (not easy for me, and probably will get me audited) to play for 2 hours and get bumped from my guaranteed spot by people who have been on the show many times, live in Vegas, and aren't affected at all by being on the show one more day.

Another frustrating aspect of it is that I didn't get a chance to prove myself. America still thinks that my whole Day 2 table (besides me) is full of the best poker players in the world, when I would've salivated over playing any of them HU. (Maybe wouldn't have salivated over one or two but would surely be a favorite) I know that I need to get over this part. It shouldn't bother me what the public thinks, and I'm working on not caring as much.

After getting angry for a while, I looked for somewhere/someone to place my anger. That's when I realized that there was really no one to be angry at. I was lied to, in a sense, which is my number one pet peave by far. But the players we almost all extremely friendly, and I'm positive the ones who wanted to play the next day didn't consider the effects on me. Mori gave me a shot at being on one of the most watched poker shows on TV. He was nothing but nice and accommodating. While I'm sure he had a lot of say as to whether I got to keep my day 3 spot, I don't blame him much for his decision. He doesn't want to upset some of his biggest name players, and I didn't show him anything on day 2 that he could show to execs to defend his decision to keep me on the show. As far as he knows, I am a complete nit and maybe not even good at poker.

I think it's really unfortunate that America would rather watch bad, loud poker than extremely high level thinking from the true best players in the world, but I guess they don't know any better.

I would love if someone would do a show where Me, durrr, Aba, and two more (Not saying I'm necessarily one of the best 5 online players and don't wanna make a top 5 list) each play HU v Ivey, Doyle, Negreanu, etc. Like, we each pair up with a pro and play best of 3 HU 200bb freezouts. Each team puts up $2mm or whatever and whichever team wins most out of 5 splits the prize amongst themselves. Online pros v Live pros. Then maybe America would realize how it really is. Anyways, I'm ranting now.

I didn't have a good experience at HSP, but it was really nobody's fault. Mori told me he owed me and would make it up to me. My friends didn't believe him, but I do. He seems very genuine. Hopefully I'll get my chance sometime soon.

-Phil

Heyo,

Just had a really frustrating day of poker. I'm going to Vegas this Saturday for the Pokerbowl, and I've decided to not play until then. I'm gonna try to relax or something I guess.

Holler.

-Phil

Hey dudes and dudettes,

How are you doing? I'm good, thanks.

Not too much has been going on. I've been putting in a lot of hours and playing great, mostly at 25/50. I'm in a really good mood today for no reason that I'm aware of. I actually had a really frustrating day playing yesterday and I just woke up, so there's no reason I should be in a good mood.

Of all of the skills I have that lend themselves to playing poker, I think my most valuable one is the ability to stay emotionally stable. Anyone who has played professionally for over a year knows how important this is, and anyone who doesn't play seriously probably has no idea how hard this is.

I actually think the reason I get in such good moods is that I realize how bad of a mood I should be in and the fact that I'm not makes me happier.

Oh man! I gotta go right now, but I'll holler later.

Love you.

-Phil

Congratulations to my good friend Travis Rice, who just won the Aruba Poker Classic. He banked $800,000 and probably will land some sort of sponsorship deal with this win. It's gonna be a great deal for any site who signs him. Travis is an amazing player who's results speak for themself. He had two final tables at this summer's WSOP, and this isn't his first major 1st place finish in his young career.

Much more importantly, Travis is an awesome guy. With all of the annoying, arrogant personalities in the poker world, it always makes me happy when a geniune good guy lands a big score; both happy for them and happy for the impact it will have on poker.

Hopefully the media will shift towards highlighting the play of the best players and role models (who often are the same people) rather than the players with the most volatile personalities.

But this isn't about me ranting about poker. It's about Travis.

Congrats, T. I'm so happy for you. You are hands down the most laid back guy I know. I wish I was 1/2 as cool as you are, and I'm glad I can call you a friend. Hopefully there will be many more big scores to come and I'll be there to celebrate them with you. Breathe it in and enjoy it.

-Phil