Recently our longtime coach Aaron “kidKash” Brown lost his wife Denise after a long battle with cancer. While I regret only having a few opportunities to chat with Denise, you could tell she was a great person who truly loved her family. I can’t even express how much she will be missed.

Denise and Aaron

Aaron’s good friend and fellow coach Grind4moniez has set up two charity tournaments this Sunday at 2pm ET:

Tournament #178898089 FTP, $5 PLO, PW: “kidkash”
Tournament #301926445 Stars, $1 NLHE, PW: “kidkash”

We’d really appreciate it if winners donated some or all of their prizes, and anything extra is very welcome too — even if you’re not able to play this Sunday. I’ll match all donations, up to $500, and all money goes directly to kidKash to help with medical expenses and taking care of his children during this difficult time.

You can send donations to Katie (“hotjenny314” on Stars or FTP) who is keeping track of everything. In my next post I’ll acknolwedge all those who gave. If you’d prefer to remain anonymous however, please add $0.01 to the transfer amount. Donations of $10.01, $18.01, etc will be listed as “anonymous.”

Thanks to everyone who plays or contributes, we really appreciate it! Plus I’m looking forward to kicking some butt in the big bet games

The subject of a lengthy NVG thread on 2+2 is what people listen to when they grind.   In my last blog I touched on some of my favorites, and got a few responses asking me more specifically what I listen to when playing.

It seems that everyone has favorites to listen to when they grind, and I am pretty funny about what goes on mine—I listen to a pretty wide range of music generally, but when I grind, I like to listen to songs that I know very well.  In fact, (thinly veiled dumb brag to follow) I think I know the all lyrics to every song on my playlist.

Some like their music quiet, but anyone who’s seen me (or heard) me grind knows that I blast my music when I play, especially when I am playing a ton of tables.  I invested in Bose speakers and am on my second set, since I blew out the first ones!

My number one most played song, which apparently I’ve listened to over 1k times is “All these things that I’ve done” by The Killers.

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that online grinders tend to be very loyal to their setup when playing, and yet always dream of a more baller setup.  One day I hope to have two 30” monitors, but for now my high resolution dual 24” monitors offer me enough space to tile 20 tables and be able to actually see all of them.  When I max out at 25 tables, that means some of the tables overlap—hence why I dream of two 30” monitors!

To my complaints I imagine someone is thinking “Why not just cascade tables or stack them on top of eachother?” While this method works well for some, I do not like it for myself.  I find that the way I remember things is spatially—i.e. I can remember that a donk just shoved 15BBs UTG and showed down 87o by remembering something like “Upper left table with eye avatar = maniac.”

While I do play with a Hold ‘em Manager HUD running, it is an advantage to recall recent hands of opponents—especially those players that I don’t have many hands with yet.  Tiling also allows me to take the occasional note on a player, as I always try to mark an opponent that I notice folding in spots where he is getting the pot odds to make it a call with any two cards.

In terms of the other aspects of what I have around me when I play, I always play with my pink TI-84 calculator right in front of me.  While I do estimate a lot of pot odds and immediate profit calculations while I play, I do use my calculator every lengthy session that I play—often to calculate the ante-adjusted big blind.  I also love having fresh flowers by me when I play—to remind me that the outdoors do exist, contrary to how I may feel after a 12 hour grind!

I also consider my music to be part of my set-up.  Crazy as it may sound I have a specific playlist for grinding, which includes an electic mix singles and The Killers, The Cure, Aerosmith, Eminem, Weezer, and Queen.  I’ve noticed a correlation between playing more tables and having my music on louder—so 25-tabling places a definite strain on not only my vision but also my hearing!

Other things in the pic:

-Collage of pictures with my sisters that my older sister Lisa gave me for high school graduation

-Money tree

-Pink heart coach mousepad

-Herman Miller chair

-Team Moshman patch

-Float the Turn patch

This tournament was a real grind, so it felt great to win!  Early in I didn’t see many hands but stayed patient (or rather I stayed very busy lol because at one point I was 25-tabling).

Lately, I have been thinking even more about shoving over limpers and how immensely profitable it can be, especially late in the game:

Absolute Poker, $3,500/7,000 No Limit Hold’em Tournament, 8 Players

Obviously an under the gun limp is a lot scarier than one in late position, but I made this play largely based on stats.  The UTG player’s stats (VPIP/PFR) after 200 hands were 45/18 (more specifically with a limp 1^st in early position % of 18), and the hijack’s stats were 22/8.

The main reason that I shoved here is because if my opponents  fold about 75% of the time, which I believe based on their stats and the fact that I had a very tight table image at the time,  then I am showing an immediate profit. I am risking about 100k to win 30k.

Immediate Profit

100k/(100k+30k)= 76%

Also, 92o is obviously a hand with very little speculative value (unless you manage to spike the only flush!) so while it may sound counterintuitive, I might actually rather shove 92o here than 98s.

The final table had more aggressive players than I usually find at an AP tournament, and as I result I had to back off my aggression a bit when I began to get three-bet every hand. Heads-up, we were about 40 blinds deep, which is a lot deeper than you get to play sometimes at the end of an MTT.  I was very happy to take it down, and to remember the inflection point that rocketed me to the final table!
Link For Jonathan Little’s Secret Site!

Whenever I go to Vegas, I never want to leave and this trip was no exception!  I clocked the least amount of sleep for any vacation, but that was by choice—there was always something fun going on worth staying up for!

Poker wise, the shots I took unfortunately didn’t pan out.  I played WSOP events #42, #45, and #49.  I felt that I played very well, picking my spots wisely and taking advantage of my table image.  Next year, my plan is to play a lot more events and be in town for the majority of the series.

I loved being in the Pavillion Room at the Rio; the sound of thousands of chips shuffling, Greenstein & Feldman playing Chinese poker HU for $500 a point, Teddy “The Iceman” Monroe hitting on girls while riding on his scooter (and then him rather randomly giving Grind4Moniez and I $40 in food vouchers), someone throwing a chair after a bad beat… there is always something exciting going on.

I started playing some live cash this trip, thanks to encouragement in part by watching Super “Hercules” Genius9 absolutely crush 2/5.  Andrew made epic call after epic call, and I railed him quite a bit.  I am interested in expanding my pretty ABC cash style and feel that I learned a ton from watching him play  and then talking about the hands (as well as sipping Johnny Walker).  But, as one player remarked to me after Andrew made a big call with ace-high “Don’t try this at 1/2, Missy!”

Some of us went ATVing one early evening in the desert through RVN4FUN.  An RV picked us all up at the hotel and drove us (and all the ATVs) to the desert to ride.  I knew that it would be somewhat dangerous, but I didn’t know quite how extreme it would be.  Amy (mdot20’s girlfriend) and I started out getting a feel for how to ride, since I literally didn’t even know how to turn the darn thing on when I started.  Soon though, I wanted to go faster, and I got my opportunity when one of the guides offered to drive us out to the sand dunes.

Considering I was a complete novice, this part of the course was kind of like playing a 1k SNG when you barely know what hand beats what!  The guide warned us about razorbacks—dunes that look soft and harmless on one side, but are a cliff on the other side.  Perhaps I should have took him a bit more seriously since I actually ended up driving off of a 6’ cliff, getting mega air and screaming even past when I landed.  Fortunately I managed to hang on, although my neck still hurts and my legs look polka-dotted with bruises!  It was an awesome time, and Grind4Moniez was the most advanced rider by a long shot.

As always, food was a very enjoyable part of the trip!  As a group, Team Moshman had a ton of fun dinners like at Craftsteak (remember: the cherries are delicious), Brio (in Old Town), and the Bellagio Buffet.  A trip to Vegas isn’t complete in my mind without heading downtown to Hugo’s—an oldschool steakhouse that never fails to make me feel like it is 1960. I had a lot of fun meeting people at a Cardrunner’s dinner at Nine steakhouse, and a great time meeting Jonathan Little (along with a couple other coaches and the FloatTheTurn.com contest winner) at the Bellagio’s Noodles.

Collin took me to Joel Robuchon for an excellent dinner.  Gold leaf seemed to be as amble as salt in some of the dishes, but my favorite part by far was the wine pairing.  It included a few white French wines that I had little experience with before this, and an amazing apple ice wine from Quebec for dessert. Wp, sommelier!

Also, Simon took me to the outlets and I went a little crazy at the Coach outlet– but don’t tell anyone, okay?  He helped me pick out a pink purse, but hopefully me writing that won’t keep him from coming with me again on the next trip!

Most of all, I really just enjoyed talking to all the intelligent poker players on this trip—to me, it seems that a professional poker player is rarely boring, often opinioned and usually fun to talk with.  In my book, a good conversation is one of the best things in life.

This was one of the funnest trips I’ve ever been on, so thanks to all the people that made it awesome! <3

Just got back from an awesome trip to Rome, Italy, with my Mom and little sister, Lee!  It was an awesome time spent hitting up all of the most exciting spots.  Seeing the Vatican museum (most notably the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine chapel) was even more overwhelming than I thought it would be.  I took a lot of Italian History and Art classes in College, but nothing can prepare you for seeing The Last Judgment in the flesh!

In what is probably the craziest (and most fun) summer of my life, I’m going to Vegas tomorrow with Collin.  I’ll be meeting up with a bunch of Team Moshman, coaches from FloatTheTurn.com, playing in the Venetian Deepstack, and for the first time, PLAYING IN THE WSOP! For now, I have pre-regged in Events #42, and #49.  I will also likely play event #45.

I’ll be updating my twitter account ‘hotjenny314’ regularly with my chip counts, hope to see some of my readers at the tables in Vegas!

I decided to have Team Moshman patches made to debut soon on our Team at the World Series of Poker, and who better to model them then our yellow lab, Wilbur.

If you see someone (or some dog) wearing one, feel free to ask them about all the perks of being on the Team!  The patches are free to Team Moshman coaches and members– please visit the private section of www.collinmoshman.com/forum and put your address to receive one.

Due to the fact that I’ll be in Italy in a few days, and then Vegas it will be about a month before you get your patch.  Team Moshman peeps that will be in Vegas will obviously get the patch there!

Recently, Annette Obrestad said:

“It’s easy money… I’ve always said that girls suck at poker. I say that because they do. Maybe they just aren’t as competitive and don’t try to learn from their mistakes.”

Someone please get this girl an interview coach!  What she should have said, and a statement I would whole-heartedly agree with is “Most women suck at poker…but so do most men!”  I don’t think that she actually meant that every girl sucks at poker, but that is one reason to be extremely careful what you say.

Stereotypes obviously hurt many people around the world every day, so it is incomprehensible that she would even include herself in the statement, since she doesn’t say “except me”… so she is saying that she sucks at poker too.

Additionally, I find it sad that Annette would be so aloof that she would insult every single female supporter hers (let alone countless males).  But if she wants to underestimate women, then I plan to take full advantage if I run into her at the WSOP.  I used to think that we had to fight the stereotype that women poker players suck just against men, but I suppose that is a stereotype in it of itself.

The funny things is that since only a small percent of poker players are women, there are almost assuredly more men (in terms of counting them individually) that are weak players than women!

In the same interview, she also delivered a blow to the biggest legend in poker, Doyle Brunson.

“Online players process information so much faster and don’t let their egos get in the way of becoming a better player. No disrespect to Doyle, but I’d rather play him.”

I strongly disagree with the implication that online players have smaller egos than live players.  Some of the most arrogant people I know are the guys that chase the monthly table leaderboard on stars—grinding online close to 18 hours a day and then bragging about it like some sort of poker martyr.  One of them in particular had a 25k game break-even stretch that certainly points to his ego getting in the way of improving.

It is a good point that our egos can get in the way of becoming a better player though.

But how could anyone knock Doyle Brunson, who has played for over 50 years, and has 10 WSOP bracelets?  He has been playing for over double the length of time she has been alive.  And is she really implying that she would rather play him over any internet poker player?  Sheesh.

The moral of the story here is that precise language is important, especially when the audience of what you’re saying is enormous, like it is for ESPN. There is the remote possibility that Annette did this for the publicity—which her statements have received, in the form of a large 2+2 thread, articles, and twitter responses. (Perhaps the most colorful one came from DougLeePoker, who tweeted “@Annette_15 You really seem like a pompous bitch. Could you be more arrogant please?”)

Most likely Annette didn’t realize exactly what she was saying, and how offensive it was.  I suggest she take her own advice and try to learn from her mistake.

The funny thing about winning this tournament is that I almost didn’t play it at all.  The buy-in is lower than I usually play.  As it happened,  I was late starting my grind on Sunday, so I missed some of the normal tournaments I play.  I like to load 18 tables as quickly as possible, so I decided to late register for this MTT.

The blinds were 50/100-20 when I was dealt my first cards, and I think that if I sat down to play five minutes later I would have missed the registration window.  Luck sure comes in many forms.

Usually when players claim that there are large differences between the level of play that occurs based on the buy-in, I am the first to disagree.  For example, a student of mine grinds the high stakes SNGS, and I’ve seen the same goofy 4-bet shoves with 75s early in his $220 tourneys that I’ve seen in low-stakes SNGs.  The fact is, that to some people $20 means what $200 means to others—poker players are perhaps even more varied in income than we are in skill level!

However, the fact is that the 1+ rebuy, and low-stakes rebuys in general, certainly play looser than higher buy-in MTTs, and it is important to adjust. Shoving over limps as a resteal is crucial, and reads (stats) are very important— like having as good of an idea as possible if the donk that limped in early position is the type that will fold when you shove. (For more info on this, see my Shark Attack! Blog)

Post-flop, during the re-buy phase, drawing hands often have a hard time folding, so make sure to extract maximum value whenever possible! Another important tip is that the bubble effect is not as strong in this type of a tournament, since the minimum cash is something like $10 (where in a $55 it would be about eight times that), so do not over-pwn (unless your table is letting you get away with it).

I was very happy with my play in the tourney, since I felt that I knew when to apply pressure, and when to back off.

Heads-up, this hand occurred:

PokerStars, $90000/180000 NO Limit Texas Holdem Tournament, 2 Players

Some would say this was an obvious hand, but I would beg to differ.  Preflop is pretty standard for me, but at the flop my opponent donk bets, which he has done several times before.  I have also raised him frequently, which is why I do so here.  Sometimes players make this mistake of acting radically different than their previous patterns when they wake up with a monster.

If I were against a reg, I would simply shove, since calling would look suspicious, and I am not leaving a ton in my stack (which would also make a good reg worried about my hand). As far as putting my opponent on a hand, with his loose-passive stats of 30/13 (VPIP/PFR) he is calling with a very wide range pre-flop.  On the flop, if he had a very strong hand, he would more than likely just check to me.  I think he would have 3-bet preflop with a lot of aces, although it is possible he holds ace-rag.  I highly doubt that he would lead into me with a made flush.

When I raised the flop, he called instantly.  In my experience, that almost always means a draw.  Here, the most obvious thing for him to hold is a single heart. Once I have deduced his range, when he checks the turn I have no other play but to shove all-in.  This is because, in the event that a heart doesn’t come on the river, there is very little chance that he will pay me off.  From his perspective it also may look a bit bluffy.

I was a bit scared when he had the king of hearts (I was hoping he held the ten of hearts instead, but in that case I may not have been paid off), but fortunately I held and won the tournament the next hand.

Woman Poker Player Magazine has announced their nominees for the 2010 Maven Awards, and I am very excited to be among the nominees for “Favorite Blogger or Author.” This means a lot to me because I try to write a blog that is interesting to poker players and include strategy, tips, and anecdotes that will resignate with those of us that love this game!

You can vote at www.mavenawards.com.

The other nominees include many of the women I admire most in poker!

Good luck everyone.