Back surgery, WSOP plans, and online poker

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Quote of the day: “Poker is the only game in the world where it pays to surround yourself with the biggest morons you can find.” Phil Gordon


I’ve been busy battling back pain and have been playing mostly online since I can’t sit in a chair very long. I’m scheduled for back surgery June 28. I was hoping to play in the first preliminary event at the WSOP this year on June 27 ($1500 n/l) but that isn't going to happen. If all goes well I hope to be well enough to play the $1000 no-limit event on July 10. I also plan to play the $1000 seven-card stud h/l split event on July 24, and maybe one more of the July no-limit events that have buy-ins of $1500-$2000 (there are several). If I cash significantly in any of them I will play more events.

Last year I had some personal issues which kept me in New York during the WSOP. In 2004 I played in the $1500 stud h/l split event and went out with six tables left, missing the cash and was knocked out by Hassan Habib (who went on to win). That tournament, along with the nightly $200 "second chance" tourneys was about all the risk tolerance I could handle. Toward the end of that trip I cashed in one of the "second-chance" tourneys as well as the Mirage tournament and was able to manage a break even for the series.

I haven’t gotten involved in any of the satellites for the main event simply because I have a certain amount of risk allowable and I’d rather use it for cash-making tournaments rather than satellite seats. In other words, winning a $10,000 seat means much less to me than $10,000 in cash, which I think would be more profitable to invest into smaller buy-in tournaments. I’m sure I could win a seat, but it’s likely to cost me 2-3K to win it and I’d rather put that money into other ventures/tournaments like the WSOP preliminary events. Perhaps I’ll try a freeroll or two before they’re done but I just find them a time killer as there are so many people in them. If anybody wants to put up the $10K for me or even $1500 for one of the preliminary events, I’ll work out a good deal with you :)

So I've been playing alot online since I can lay on the couch while doing it. It’s tough to say which is more profitable; online or live. I have found them pretty close from an hourly rate standpoint. Online gets more hands, you can multi-table, no tipping etc. But I also play lower stakes online since it provides less variance and the play is generally considerably tougher online at equal stakes. For example, the $1/2 and $2/5 no-limit blind games live are full of many more recreational/tourist players without much experience, while online the average player is much more experienced at those levels. Overall the online games I play provide a similar hourly rate for me as live with less variance (which is good), but I can only play so many hours online in a day. I don’t see how some guys can play more than 30 hours a week of online play without burning out, but some players do it. Live time goes by fast, as there is lots of social interaction and the pace is slow, which makes discipline and patience a more important part of the game. Online is more like poker on steroids. If I’m not involved in other activities, 50 hours a week is easily doable live for me, while I doubt I could ever play more than 30 online in a week.

I’ve gotten a few emails about the posts I did on credit ratings. I was working on another one but it spun off on so many tangents (with a few examples) that I haven’t finished it yet. I’ll probably beak it into several more posts on credit ratings as I think it is a very important and often under-utilized concept in poker that can help many players. It will be good to post them and then later if I talk about a hand and why a certain move was made I can just reference those posts. And that’s what I think poker blogging, forums, and articles are all about; I try to share ideas of mine and get back from others by reading about their ideas.

Enjoy your day!