Chicago Poker Classic Main Event

Best tournament for my playing style. Great Tournament structure starting with 30,000 chip stacks.

Main Event has added 60 K added to the prize pool.

As a bonus, all backers will receive a free share in my next Months Tourney King Grand Final on Merge.

If you have any questions or offers to back full event, I am open to discussions. Please email me at ltuflawless@yahoo.com.

I accept Merge, Fullt Tilt, Poker Stars or Chip me up as form of payment

More about the tournament can be found on Chicago Poker Classic official website. www.chicagopokerclassic.com

My backers will be informed about my progress during tournament via my Twitter account @ LTUFlawless.

Stakeback offered!

If anyone is interested in getting piece of the shares for Main Event, go to

http://chipmeup.pokernews.com/player/LTUFlawless

Good job Switchman12

Another student shows some promise...

We just started with switchman12, but I see he is doing pretty good himself.
I was watching the 10K GTD tonight and he was absolutely dominating the tourney up until final table.
However, there were couple questionable plays, especially one which cut his stack almost in half with overplaying AK.
But he did good job and finished 3rd cashing in 1 K. What sucks most, there were couple key hands what would of changed his payout.
One of them was when with 3 players left in the tourney both opponents went all in. The deeper stack had AQ and shorter flipped A4. It seemed switchman12 was heading to HU, until miracle river 4. What a heart breaker. That would of guaranteed 2K and shot at 1 K Extra.

And the main hand would of put him to HU again and with dominating 3-1 stack, when switchman12 raised on button and BB reshoved. Players flipped their cards and BB showed KJ against Switchmans AQ. Flop all rags didnt change situation, just got closer to heads up match, but Turn hit J. River 10 didnt help and stack was cut really bad. Last hand A10 vs AJ didnt improve and he had to take only 1K home.

Only a few tough suckouts and the 2 K difference.

Oh well, that's poker. I'm just happy the stacks were pushed in the middle with the best hand when it mattered.

Maybe next time, switchman !

Unlucky Mindukas... Ouch

Not much you can do here. 44 cant fold anyway. 9's were very short, so doesnt really matter, but from where that case 4 got there?

@LTUFlawless

Since the whole world is tweeting, I guess I will try it as well.

Mostly created this account for my Chicago Poker Classic Events to inform my backers how I am doing in the tournaments.

So, from now on, all haters can get back at me on Twitter @ LTUFlawless

I will have my Twitter on blog as well, so people would be able to see what is happening just by checking my blog.

Chicago Poker Classic

Next week most likely will be out and wont be playing much online poker. Chicago Poker Classic is in town and really would not want to miss it.

I will play most of the events. If anyone interested in staking, please email me ltuflawless@yahoo.com

And if anyone is going there too and would like to meet, let me know as well. We will have little Merge reunion ;)

Samkarmaguy

I want to congratulate one of my most promising students, samkarmaguy, who won Perth ANZPT Live event Package on PokerStars last week.

Not sure how much I helped him , but I am really happy for Sammy ;)

Good job!

Sick hand

First level of the tournament. 3 All ins preflop. Of course AA would not stand a chance...

Variance

Haven't played for a few days to reset my head a little bit, but I guess when you run bad, you can take a month off and you will still run bad.

It seems its impossible to win a flip, win any 60-40 or if I make some great call, other guy will get some runner runner anyway. It's just so sick, that it seems you dont want to look at poker any more.

However break helps a little bit. Yesterday played really solid, didnt make stupid mistakes. Ran deep in pretty much all tourneys, however it didnt turn out to be any good cash wise. Bubbled in 3 tourneys out of 8 played. Sickening feeling.

Today tried different approach. Took sick risks, flipped huge stacks. Never won a single race which would actually matter in the tournament. Made some sick calls with A high, but still got sucked out. Sometimes it just seems like nothing will ever work.

Variance is a bitch. But blaming suckouts is for noobs. Even though it seems everyone just keeps sucking out on me, gotta deal with it.

meh.

I hate poker

Poker Tips-Beginners Should Play Bigger Pots

By Daniel Negreanu

The best players in the world rely on small ball poker when playing in No Limit Hold’em tournaments. And though it is the optimal strategy, it’s not meant for players of all skill levels. You must have superior hand-reading and people-reading skills for it to be effective.

You’ll play a lot of hands in small ball poker which means you’ll often face difficult situations with marginal cards. That’s why this approach is simply too advanced for beginning players.

Here’s the first tip for beginners: Avoid playing small pots against experienced players because you’ll almost certainly be outplayed after the flop. Instead, make much larger bets before and after the flop. Also, play fewer hands, especially when out of position.

On the other hand, experienced small ball players should come in for a slightly smaller raise when they are first to enter the pot. A raise of 2 ½ times the big blind is about right.

Say you’re dealt 7c-8c with the blinds at 50-100. A skilled small-baller would raise the bet to 250. Not so for a novice player; he should avoid playing the hand altogether.

You see, experienced players can get away with playing more hands pre-flop because they are less likely to make mistakes after the flop.

A novice, though, needs to play much tighter before the flop. And when they do get a playable hand, they need to make larger raises -- as much as five times the big blind.

Large raises serve multiple purposes for the beginning player. They apply pressure on skilled opponents who like to play a wide range of funky hands. They also improve the beginner’s chances of taking down the blinds and antes without a fight. Finally, they can help novices avoid difficult decisions after the flop by inducing skilled opponents to lay down their hands.

Remember, this isn’t the optimal tournament strategy for skilled players; it risks too many chips in relation to the expected small payoff. It works for novice players, however, because their primary goal should simply be to stay out of trouble and survive.

Here’s the second tip for beginners: Use the same big betting approach through to the flop as well. For example, with 1,200 in the pot, make a large bet to apply maximum pressure on your opponents. A pot-size bet ought to do the trick.

A bet of that size, though, is clearly too steep for an accomplished small ball player. It’s too exploitable and forces skilled players to assume much more risk than is necessary. Instead, small-ballers Big bet poker is effective against small ball players because it forces the skilled player to wait patiently for trapping situations. Yes, this approach does make the beginner more susceptible to a trap. But the pro must still catch strong cards in order to even consider calling a big raise, and that’s not easy to do.

should bet around 700 chips for which they would gain virtually the same information as the beginner’s 1,200 bet – but at much lower cost.

Big raises by inexperienced players cause advanced players to operate outside of their comfort zones. That’s because skilled pros hate playing big pots unless they have the nuts, or something close to it.

Sick 3 days

3 absolutely exact days in a row.

Scenario- get deep in one of main Merge Daily tourneys, then get sucked out once or twice. And after just start going downhill. Don't even cash. Bust on or around bubble.

Gotta go to drawing board and change some things around. Obviously doing smth wrong

3 days in a row on one of Main tourneys get to HU and after putting all the chips in the middle with dominating hand, ALL 3 times got sucked out. 1K difference each time. Total 3 K in 3 days. So sick.

No more poker for tonight. F that

Fan mail

Fan mail is the best. Sometimes people are nice, sometimes they are not.

I'm happy I get more nice emails than not.

But this one is funny one:



--- On Sat, 2/12/11, telenutz@aol.com wrote:

From: telenutz@aol.com
Subject: Merge
To: ltuflawless@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, February 12, 2011, 5:27 AM

Yo--

What happened to goldenbear? He change his name or went on another merge site?

Coaching rates?

MIke


My answer:

Yeah he changed his name.

$*** an hour

--- On Sat, 2/12/11, Telenutz@aol.com wrote:

From: Telenutz@aol.com
Subject: Re: Merge
To: ltuflawless@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, February 12, 2011, 3:13 PM

then how did you know he changed it faggot?

liar kunt

die of aids

My answer:

ok, will do

What a day

Got Sucked out in HU for 1K difference ...

Bubbled in High Roller tourney after ran like god in the beginning. wasted all chips to point where had to push with crap and sucked out with runner runner. Then Won 3 flips against Abraham. After that sucked out two 3 outers. And just to bust on Bubble with QQ vs AA.

Similar With 7.5 K. For a long time was 1st in chips until flopped top pair with open ended and lost majority of the chips. then nursing short stack of course ran into Quad Aces. Bubbled.

Awesome. Need to go check my own hand history and fix some shit around.

Here we go again

Preflop AA vs K3. 85% to win. For K3 of course...

If you run version 5.0 on Merge and it crashes...

Take the screen shot and send it to me at ltuflawless@yahoo.com

I am bitching to merge about these crashes and they asked me to send them screen shots of task manager while it crashes...

here is what you have to do:

Go to task manager- View> Select Objects and tick the GDI Objects.

this will add another column to task manager.

Once it crashes again, open task manager, save print screen and send the image to me.

If we get more screens shot from different people, it will be faster to finally not to black out in middle of Final table. FFS.

How many times per day AA can lose? So far 3 out of 3

1.
$460 Sat heads up. First hand. Both MAD deep since the BB was 250 and we both had over 10K in chips since everyone else is busted.... I raise w AA, guy genius decides to shove it w Q5. The rest is history. On flop 762 he had 6%. Plenty. Turn 3 River 4.

2.
Mid tourney of $3,5 K GTD. Raise preflop, two callers.

Flop J52
Bet pretty high on flop just to get check raised all in by 66 with 14%. Of course that's a favorite to win. Turn 6. Thanks for playing.

3.
10K GTD
Raise preflop UTG w AA. BB pushes desperate all in w 57. Flop hits 5, turn 7. Who said 57 wasn't favorite preflop against AA?

I love poker

I love poker

Poker Tips- Playing King-Queen

Great article by Daniel Negreanu

The one hand that beginning and intermediate players misplay more often than others is K-Q. The hand looks powerful -- one that would seemingly rank up there with starters like A-K and A-Q -- but it isn't in the same league as those premium cards.

Novice players commonly overvalue the strength of K-Q when they flop a pair to it. Q-5-2 might look like an excellent flop for king-queen, but it can be very dangerous if an opponent has any of the following hands: 2-2, 5-5, Q-Q, A-Q, K-K or A-A.

An expert player is able to fold his king-queen on that flop if he senses that his opponent has a stronger hand. Most amateur players, however, just aren't sophisticated enough to know when to play the hand to the river and when to let it go.

You see, an unimproved K-Q rarely holds up in a race to the river. Even a weak holding like A-3 offsuit will beat it in the long run. If an ace hits, the king-queen is all but dead; if no king or queen hits, the A-3 wins by virtue of simply being higher.

King-queen play is especially important in tournament poker when you’re deciding whether to go all-in or to wait for a better situation.

If a tourney player goes all-in before you, what hands could he have that would mean your K-Q is in good shape? The only hands it dominates are K-J and K-10. It's much more likely that an all-in player has at least an ace; oftentimes he'll have A-K or A-Q, which are both monster favorites over your cards. You'd have just three outs against either hand.

Now let’s say your opponent had a hand like pocket tens. Your K-Q still loses more than 55% of the time. See what I mean by dubious?

I strongly advise players to fold king-queen in the face of an early position raise. A raise from that spot represents a strong hand; one that usually dominates K-Q. However, K-Q is a good hand to attack the blinds when you’re the first player to enter the pot from middle or late position. If that happens, make a standard-size raise. If someone reraises, fold before you get yourself into trouble.

Suited cards usually don’t make a world of difference, but with K-Q it’s often enough of an added edge to allow you to call a raise in marginal situations. Here’s why: You’re now hoping to flop a high pair or, better yet, to catch a straight or a high flush.

K-Q suited versus K-Q offsuit is a significantly better hand in a multi-way pot. The more players that enter a pot, the stronger the average winning hand will be. In a heads-up pot the average winning hand may just be a high pair. But in a five-way action pot, you just might need that flush to win.

Now that you know these facts about king-queen, you can play the hand more reasonably. Yes, it’ll score you some big pots, but don’t get fooled into thinking it’s a premium hand.

Sunday GTD on Merge

Preflop.
Yummy.

I hate poker

Sunday Millions

Once again....

Absolutely wasted day

After busting out from couple Merge tourneys, I decided to go to nearby little casinos grand opening. I was pretty happy to hear they will have Texas Holdem there and thought it would be pretty nice to change it up a little bit to play some cash games live, but I was wrong. Absolutely.

OK, I get to casino, pretty neat, everything new... single poker table. I sit down, ready for some action, and first hand pretty much get bitchslapped learning that instead of NL 2-5, this is a 5-10 Limit table. WTF. LIMIT? People still play that crap? Totally not for me.
Oh well, I suck it up and decide to play some Limit.

And then everything just went downhill. Kinda funny-sad story.
I was trying to get people to agree to play NL, but one old dude was like, oh I like Limit. He said, I don't know you and playing in Casino No Limit is dangerous against strangers. I play limit, so I would lose less. great thinking.
After a girl at the table told him maybe he shouldnt even play poker, I thought his lamp inside the head will explode. That was funny.

First- dealers. I think my dog knows more about poker just from watching me play, than these bums. For like 7 hands the guy didnt even take a rake. I was like whoa, thats awesome, playing like home game. until some bum player asked why he didnt take any rake...

One of good hands, showing how not only the dealer was stupid, but pit boss as well.

I'm on button, everybody folds, I raise w Q rag to $10. Guy on BB announces raise and puts in $20. Dealer return his $10 and says, it's $10 maximum. I was like, did this just really happen? Anyway, the guy kind confused and he is, ok, let's go.
So, he calls only.
Flop all rags. He checks, I bet. He wants to check raise to 20 again and dealer would not let him. Saying that he cant check raise. EEEEK
Turn blank. He check again, I know he must have something and pretty much give up on the hand. I check. River Q. Not too bad, top pair...
He checks again, I bet $10 and he shows JJ. Dealer just simply wrapped the pot for me in a gift bag.
Anyway, I just can't even imagine that we have such a clueless dealer, so I ask for manager. Manager comes, listens to all the story and makes a ruling. - No, you can't raise on flop turn or river. max bet is 10.
Really? Amazing. he said that's the rules here. I asked can you show me the rules where it says you cant raise in poker, he points to wall, where basic rules of poker posted. Pretty much beginners stuff, winning hands and stuff. nothing about betting. Nothing even about Limit or NL holdem.

Ok, I can't sit like this, so we get a general managers ass to poker table, since it seems nobody else understands poker at all.
He comes and it seems the guy understand poker pretty good and we finally agree on betting and etc. Finally, 2 hours into the game we can start playing Limit holdem.

Another funny thing, they had small blind and big blind buttons on the table. We asked, wtf is that we don't need them moving around, dealer said that's for him, so he would know who is big or small blind. how sick is that?

Another fluke. I am on button somebody raises, I fold. Flop.

Dealer looked at me first, like it was my turn to act. I say check. He looks at sb, he checks, BB checks, some dude in mid position checks.
Turn. He looks at me first again. Like button needs to act first. Of course without any cards I check. Everyone checks around. River. Everyone checks, mid position bets $10 and it comes back to me again. Of course my cards in the muck pre flop. I start counting the chips how much I should raise. I announce raise, dealer starts counting the chips. Guy who bet cant believe he just got raised by the guy with no cards.
Funny and sad at this same time.

Oh, there was one dude who tried to put extra cash on the table in mid hand when he had nuts and kinda threw a fit that cash plays.

Kinda new poker experience. And I'm never going back again.

Came back just in time to play in 8K GTD. Played like 6 hands max, bcs always was shortstack. I dont even know how I made to money and busted 5th.

Anyway, that's my wasted day

Nope, AA doesnt win

11 hand of high roller tourney. Got AA. And of course had to get flushed away...

I know, I know, I shouldn't play AA that early in the tourney so fast. Of course easily could of folded, but put the guy on flush draw and got a little bit greedy. I knew if I won that hand, people would of had hard time taking them away from me.

Lesson learned

Gotta post this one

Since I got one runner runner as well, I have to be fair and post that one too.
I pushed all in, closed the window, opened it up and saw that doubled up. Checked the history, holy shit...A9 vs Ak runner runner.

Nasty

These people are just too good for me

Ok, first tourney of the day. Not to mention that 2 hands before got sucked out w two pairs 94 flop K94. All in on flop vs AA. River A. At least the guy though he was ahead.

But plays like this just blow my mind.

Starting hand on BB I had 3000. SB had 16K+. Blinds 125-250. Mid position limps. SB calls, I check

Flop 53K. All diamonds. All of us check. Turn Ks. Not the worst card for me. SB bets 500. Great time to double up. Of course, can't just call. I shove almost 3 K, mid position folds, sb INSTA calls.

Flips 86. Nothing. River diamond. Monster flush.

I can do any math, count any outs, or whatever else, but I can't really understand it.

Maybe it's just me. Can somebody send me the book these guys are reading?

January's Merge Tourney King Leaderboard

Of course I will forget to register for Next weeks Grand Final tourney for the cash, like last month, so I guess it doesn't matter :)

PUKE

8K GTD
Ok, I'm really confused what people think or how they play. I guess, I need to read some new books. Called "How to fold best hand, because anyway you gonna get bitchslapped by gutter"

blinds 200-400. I'm 1st, sitting with 23 K. People around me have 7-8 K max. One guy has 16K+. And of course this happens.

Check the screens shot and there is nothing else to explain...

Great all in checkraise with gutshot on flop. After taking some time remembering all hands played against this guy, I finally grow some balls and call just to see that read was correct, but surprise surprise. Oh, you need a deuce? Here it is.

Sick stuff. If I win this hand, I can go to bed and I make the money .....Instead, next hand I lose coin flip and now for sure can go to bed.

Oh, the very same minute I bust out w AK against A7 preflop on FT 20K GTD.

I hate poker