Tecmo vs The World

At the end of 2010, I began playing Triple Draw online. I was tiring of NL Hold’em and quickly learned how much I enjoyed its polar opposite, 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball. For whatever reason, I instantly loved the game and began studying it. The freshness of a new game allowed my enthusiasm to flow as it had back in the early 2000s, when I was buying & reading every poker book I could get my hands on. Poker was less of a grind when playing Triple Draw and it reminded me that it was in fact still a game.

Games are supposed to be fun. I’m not a pro poker player and don’t rely on my poker income to pay the bills. It’s important to remember that when you are playing this game. Sure, my goal has always been to use my poker winnings to start my own charity, but in the words of Van Wilder, “You shouldn’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.” The same goes for poker.

So as I continued to play and learn Triple Draw, I began eyeing the Triple Draw event at the World Series of Poker. Every year for the past 3 years I’ve gone out to the WSOP to play some poker, hang out with friends from all over the world, and just have a great time. Last year I played my first ever WSOP event in a $1,000 NLHE tournament. That ended relatively quickly when KK lost to 56o on a 55x board. I quickly realized that the $1k events simply weren’t a great value. Sure, the players are horrible, but you start with so few chips that it’s hard to build a stack without running hot early. Twas a disappointing beginning to my WSOP career and I decided that my next foray would need to be in a higher buy-in event where you received more chips.

Enter the $2500 Triple Draw Event. Now, this was still a large amount of money for us “normal folk” so even though I wanted to play in it, I had to find some people to stake me in order to help cover the costs. I eventually was able to sell roughly 2/3 of my action, which allowed me to pay for the rest with a portion of my poker bankroll. In preparation, I continued to play Triple Draw cash games online, and even entered several Triple Draw tournaments, with fairly decent results. I was excited to play in a few bigger buy-in online TD tournaments in April and May to help me gain experience and also hopefully pay for the trip! Things were moving along nicely and I was learning more and more. That is…..until Black Friday.

April 15, 2011. Dubbed “Black Friday” by the poker community (not to be confused with the day of wonderous shopping deals), this was a day that will live in infamy in the poker world. The 3 major online poker sites were essentially shut down for Americans on this day by the Department of Justice as a result of bank fraud and money laundering charges, among other things. I won’t go into detail about it here, but suffice it to say that Black Friday threw a large wrench in my WSOP plans. No longer would I be able to continue improving, practicing, and studying TD online. Instead, I was forced to either cancel my plans to play the WSOP event or do the best I could with the work I had already put in. After mulling it over, I realized that even without further practice, I was still going to be one of the better TD players to sign up. Not many people have the fundamentals of TD down and the game is far less evolved than NLHE.  With that realization, I stayed the course and continued to do what I could to study the game away from the table.

Fast forward to June 27th. I fly out to Vegas and start mentally preparing myself for the next day. June 28th was the day I had been awaiting. I was both excited and a bit nervous as I slept that night. Excited for obvious reasons, knowing that I worked hard and was ready. Nervous because this was still only my 2nd WSOP event ever, and my first live TD tournament. Regardless, I actually slept pretty well and awoke early, still pretty much on east coast time. I worried that I woke up too early as the event didn’t start until 5pm and we’d be playing into the morning of the next day, but I was pretty sure adrenaline would take care of any onsetting drowsiness. I opted for room service that morning and selected one of my favorites, waffles with peanut butter! It probably sounds weird, but if you love peanut butter like me, you should definitely try it.

After a delicious meal that included strawberries and whipped cream, I called a few people to inform them the event would be starting soon, then headed over to the Rio. Soon enough, the time had come. I took my seat and didn’t know a single person at my table. I suspected this was a good thing, but you never know with Triple Draw. Many big name pros are pretty poor at this game so it would have been cool to at least play with someone famous (and subsequently take their chips). Meh, not a big deal. I whipped out the Deuces Cracked Duck in hopes that it would provide some luck and prepared to play to the best of my ability. My goal for the day – make it to day 2.

As the day went on, I was running pretty well, playing well, and spotting many, many mistakes in my opponents’ games. It was pretty clear that 4 out of the other 5 people at my table had no formal training in the game and I was obviously thrilled. The one other guy who seemed competent was directly to my right. I couldn’t have asked for a better table and was able to stay away from mistakes for the most part, make several great hands, and chip up throughout the day. At one point, I started to get low in chips, but luckily I got a rush of cards and built a big stack toward the end of the day.

An interesting side-story that developed during the latter half of the day was a back-and-forth I had with Doyle Brunson via Twitter. In order to avoid boredom during slow times and keep those interested in my progress up to date, I was constantly tweeting updates and reading the tweets of others. While reading, I saw that Doyle posted the following tweet:

To which I responded, “Don’t you mean the poker sites who broke the law?”

Turns out he wasn’t a fan of that response as he proceeded to tweet the following two messages:

I thought that blocking me for voicing an opinion was a bit of an overreaction, and it turns out many others did as well. Soon thereafter, many more people started following me on Twitter Doyle responded by tweeting the following:

So all in all, just a funny little side story to spice up my day. A few days later, I actually saw him playing in the 50k Player’s Championship Event and he was near the rail. My friend Bryce convinced me that not introducing myself would have been a mistake and I agreed eventually. When the opportunity arose, I introduced myself as TecmoSuperBowl from Twitter and he surprisingly remembered my name. He laughed, shook my hand, and just said that he was in a bad mood that day. Doyle is a living legend in the poker world, and he also seems like a cool dude.

Getting back to my Triple Draw tournament, with less than an hour of play left for the day, my table broke and I was moved to a new one. A Deuces Cracked Triple Draw coach and buddy of mine, Vincent aka soepgroente, was seated at this new table. I obviously wasn’t happy about having to play against another good player, but I had position on him, he didn’t have many chips, and the day was ending soon anyway. I managed to win a hand against him and before I knew it, we were bagging up our chips for the night! I made it to day 2!

310 people entered the tournament, 105 survived to make it to day 2. I finished the day with 39,400 chips, which was good enough to put me in 12th place. Not bad for my first TD tournament and 2nd WSOP event ever!

Shortly after day 1 ended, they posted the new table draws for day 2. The good news was that I was the clear chip leader at my table. The bad news was that I had Jason Mercier, one of the hottest players on the circuit, on my left. Jared Bleznik, a high stakes online player, was also at my table, but I was happy to see him directly on my right.

I accomplished my goal of making it to day 2. Now it was go time.

The latest Episode of Badugi All-Stars is up!

http://tinyurl.com/badugi

http://badugi.nixonthegrouch.com

Episode 6: One Night Of Pleasure – Guest: Mitch

Your hosts ramble about putting money on Merge, Hellmuth’s shot at bracelet #12, and Tecmo’s pleasure withdrawal. The guest is Mitch, the resident no content poster of Deuces Cracked.

If you’re a fan of the show, then be sure to leave us some feedback on iTunes!
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In other news, we’ve been fostering a 2 year old lab named Jake for a couple months. We’ve had a couple bites, but no takers thus far. If you or anyone you know is looking to adopt a dog, then please let me know. His previous owner in Georgia died and left him and several other dogs unattended. A great lady named Marcie in Tennessee helped him and sent him up to us in Maryland. Jake had lived outside his whole life and didn’t even understand what toys were when we gave them to him. Now he loves toys, ESPECIALLY tennis balls, and he’s perfectly house-trained and crate-trained! Here is his petfinder page:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19153283

In addition to Jake, Marcie has helped saved many, many other dogs. One dog she is currently helping is Bella, a beautiful shiba inu mix. Bella was found on the side of the road and is extremely friendly and sweet. Marcie has yet to find a foster home for her so Marcie has been boarding Bella with her local vet. Unfortunately, her husband got laid off yesterday With a baby on the way in the near future and 3 dogs of her own, in addition to boarding costs increasing soon, things are stressful to say the least for Marcie. Again, if you or anyone you know is interested in adopting her, PLEASE let me know. Here is her petfinder page:

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19788872

If you can help find homes for either of these wonderful dogs (or are interested in fostering Bella), contact me ASAP @ tecmo@deucescracked.com. At the very least, please spread the word!

 

I’m currently preparing for my Vegas trip in 10 days! Studying up on some triple draw as best I can, hosting my mixed game tomorrow night, and trying to decide my rough itinerary. I’m going out from June 27th until July 8th, with my girlfriend meeting me out there on July 4th. I’m playing the WSOP Triple Draw event on the 28th and plan on crushing that for a few days. Final table will be streamed on the interwebz so I’ll be sure to let you know when that airs Also, if you’re in Vegas, stop by the Rio and say hello. I’ll likely be rockin’ some DeucesCracked gear or my QB Bills NFL jersey.

I’m staying at the Gold Coast for the first week, then the Palazzo for the 2nd week. I haven’t fully decided my plans, but they are sure to include relaxing poolside w/ my girlfriend, eating tons of good food (pictures to come obv), the WSOP event, the DC Home Game @ the Aria, grinding some NLHE and mixed cash games, maybe trying 1 of the Rio deepstack tournies, hopefully seeing O @ the Bellagio, and possibly playing the Venetian deep stack on July 1st. Hopefully I can make a deep run in at least one event and hit a big score. If you’re interested in a small piece of my action in the $550 Venetian NLHE event, let me know. I’m not entirely sure I’m going to sell pieces for it, but I might if someone really wants a sweat. My buddy just got back from Vegas and I knew he’d be playing several $200-$300 NLHE tournaments so I booked 10% of all his action. He cashed twice and I made the easiest $100 ever

So yea, excited for two weeks off from work, dreams of big $ big $, and hopefully no whammies.

And just in case I do encounter some whammies, I’ll be sure to follow this kid’s lead:

A great song for your listening pleasure whilst you read this blog -

 

 
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Part 2 of the Tommy Angelo interview is now up on our latest podcast! As always, be sure to subscribe on iTunes or download directly via the links below. Feedback is also greatly appreciated

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/badugi-all-stars/id433967767

http://badugi.nixonthegrouch.com/

For those of you who listen, this picture will make sense.

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In other news, the website that I’ve been working on, www.OwnIvey.com, is coming along. We recently starting tracking some of the big name fantasy leagues, such as Daniel Negreanu’s 25k league and ESPN’s league. In addition, we are offering to track WSOP prop bets for all you degens out there. Next on our list of priorities is the overall look and feel of the site. Due to our first web guy being a thief who bailed on us, we had ~2 weeks to put the whole site together. Functionality was key at the beginning, but we are now hoping to give it a nice “45 year old lady trying to look 18 again” facelift. Who knows, we might even get bigger….buttons.

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On top of all of that, my other website, www.BuyIntoGiving.org, is also surviving. Black Friday (the day that the DOJ shut down the biggest online poker sites, effectively killing online poker in the U.S. for the time being) caused a great deal of the momentum BI2G was gaining to come to a screeching halt. I’m now picking up the pieces and doing what I can to ensure people continue to help others. I’ve got a great team of 46 people already, and I’ll be looking to spread the word when I get to Vegas. I ordered 250 business cards and hope to dispense them to various people in Vegas. Also, I’ve talked with Annie Duke and I’m hoping she joins our team in the near future! We’ve topped 500 loans and $15,000 raised so I’m really happy, but never satisfied

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And finally, on a more personal note, I’ve continued my foray into rock climbing. I started a “5.8 challenge” and am happy to report that I only have one route left to climb to complete that challenge. For those unfamiliar with rock climbing, they rank the difficulty of climbs from 5.4 up to 5.12 (it can go higher, barely does). 5.8s are categorized in the intermediate category so I’m slowly inching my way toward 5.10s, which is where the advanced level begins. Those rankings are for rope climbing, as opposed to bouldering, which use a V0 to V12 type system. I’ve been beating a fair amount of V3s lately and hope to continue to work my way up there as well. At this point, I may need to incorporate some core workouts to improve my core strength and overall climbing ability and I’m looking forward to crushing harder climbs!

Oh, and one more thing. My girlfriend and I have been fostering a 2 year old black lab named Jake for the last 2 months. If you or anyone you know is interested, please share the following link with them! He is an energetic, smart boy who just loves everything, especially tennis balls. He had previously never been inside a house and likely didn’t receive much personal attention. Now that he knows what it’s like living with a family, you can tell he absolutely adores every minute of it! Once he learned what toys were, he was like, “you mean I get to play with this and it’s mine?!”

http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/19153283

So again, be sure to share that link with anyone who you think would be interested in adopting a great friend! Here’s Jake with my pit bull Kali enjoying the “now owned by dogs” couch

Howdy Gents/Ladies,

A myriad of exciting happenings to report so I shall waste no time!  Whilst reading, enjoy some classic tunage.

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First, a new episode of Badugi All-Stars is out!

Episode 4: We Have A Lot of Podcasts – Guest: Tommy Angelo (Part 1)

“Topics include Tecmo’s most photogenic desserts, fantasy poker site OwnIvey.com, the Boom! trailer, Erik Seidel, Subject: Poker, and Full Tilt rakeback payments.  In the first part of a two part interview, Tommy Angelo stops by to discuss his new book “A Rubber Band Story And Other Poker Tales”, advice for internet players transitioning to live play, and to offer a million dollar prop bet.”

You can find the podcast at either of the links below.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/badugi-all-stars/id433967767

http://badugi.nixonthegrouch.com/

In other news, a few friends and I recently launched a fantasy poker site!  You can check it out at OwnIvey.com.  At OwnIvey.com, you’ll be able to draft a team of poker players to compete against other teams in the World Series of Poker. It’s simple – the team that wins the most money wins.  You are given $1,000 to spend on exactly 10 players. Once you’ve created a team, then you can enter that team in one of our many leagues! Check out the Leagues page to see a breakdown of the prize structure and formats. We do allow registration after the WSOP has started, but you won’t receive credit for any results that your players have until after your league has started.  Once you’ve entered a team into a league, then you can make more teams, enter more leagues, or just sit back and enjoy sweating your players in each WSOP event!

So check out the latest Ep of Badugi Allstars and head over to OwnIvey.com to draft your fantasy poker team!

I had some big plans in mind to start a website where poker players could easily donate money to various top charities. That plan isn’t dead, but it has run into some issues so I’m going to start small and see if I can build up my Kiva team first. If you’re saying, “heck yea I want to join your Kiva team! Just..umm…right after I find out wtf Kiva is….,” then you’re in luck!

Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending. You can find out more at www.kiva.org or by watching the video below.

If you’d like to join my Kiva Team, all you have to do is go to the link below and sign up! Once you’ve signed up, you can get your loan on whenever you’d like

http://www.kiva.org/team/buyintogiving

And remember, these are LOANS, not donations. You will get your money back! Then you can lend it out again or withdrawal it! Just think about how much money you probably have sitting in a poker account doing nothing. Why not take a small part of that amount and lend it to someone who really needs it? As my man Nike says…

Ok, I’m going to stop being lazy and finally write this trip report. This one will detail the non-poker stuff.

Vegas was filled with activities this time. My gf got to come so we planned some events as opposed to me just grinding poker or railing peeps as per my usual schedule in Vegas. I found a great website that had sweet discounts on Cirque de Soleil shows so we booked tickets to Ka and Love (the Beatles one).

We went to Ka with two other couples and even though I didn’t follow the story completely, it was still a fantastic show and I highly recommend it. The presentation and special effects were phenomenal. The seats we had were also great. They were $150 seats that I managed to get for $62.50 and they were in the section right in front of the stage. It was my first Cirque show so I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but it was WELL worth $62.50.

The gf and I also attended Love with my friend’s wife and PygmyHero. Lysistrata (Pygmy’s wife) was supposed to come too, but she didn’t end up making it out to Vegas because she STILL hadn’t finished her wedding scrapbook and I wouldn’t let her come without finishing it. Again, I struggled following the “story” of Love. Unbeknownst to me, Love takes you on a chronological journey from something like the 1950s to 1970s, utilizing various Beatles songs to narrate the time period. This show was decent, and everyone else seemed to really enjoy it. My inability to follow the “story” made it less enjoyable for me. Also, this show was more about dancing around rather than impressive feats or amazing effects. It was also very weird at times (I’m guessing during the Beatles more ‘experimental’ phase.) I’m sure most people would still enjoy it, but it paled in comparison to Ka for me.

Before hitting up Love, the gf, my friend’s wife, and I all decided to check out Onda Ristorante, an italian restaurant in the Mirage. The atmosphere was great and it felt quite fancy, but I felt the food was very underwhelming.

Onda Ristorante

We stayed at Bally’s for the whole trip except the last night. My friend was able to get us a free room at The Palazzo so we decided to try that out for our final night. Because we had to pack up our stuff, check out of Bally’s, and catch a taxi to The Palazzo, we almost didn’t even worry about going, fearing it wasn’t worth the hassle. Boy were we glad we decided to go through with it! The room, as you can see below, was AMAZING. There was a sunken living room area, 3 flat TVs (1 in the bathroom), an incredible bathroom, and a sick view from the window overlooking the giant Palazzo pool and the strip.

During the final night, the gf and I met up with various DC peeps, including DeathDonkey, RiverBoatKing, DJ Sensei, Soepgroente(pronounced Vincent), FoxwoodsFiend, and WhiteLime, at the very fancy steakhouse named Cut at The Palazzo. The steaks were around $80 at this place and I’m sure they were delicious, but ultimately, the gf and I decided to head over to the Grand Lux Cafe (also located in The Palazzo) to partake in a slightly more affordable meal. RBK ended up losing credit card roulette that night and got stuck with a $1200 bill. The Grand Lux turned out to be a fantastic restaurant. The owners of the Cheesecake Factory also own this place and the food was very, very good. We obviously got dessert and because we couldn’t take anything with us, struggled to stuff down as much as possible.

A good review of the Grand Lux Cafe can be found here.

All in all, it was a lot of fun getting to experience the non-poker side of Vegas, especially with the gf. The only downside is she now refuses to stay anywhere but The Palazzo if she ever comes back!

I’ll detail the poker stuff in my next blog