Checking in from NAPT Venetian

I'm sitting here in the media room at the Venetian, after doing a few interviews over the last couple hours.
I feel like I have been really lazy lately when it comes to every aspect of my life except for poker infrared ink.
Since arriving in Vegas, I have been sleeping about 10-12 hours a night, which has been great by the way. While I was in LA I was getting some of the worst sleep ever, only sleeping 4 hours or so a night.
I played the NAPT main event on Saturday and made it to Day 2 with 41k in chips which was a little bit below average stack.
I had a really tough table on Day 1, with benba, mrsmokey, nick binger, and a few other solid players at my table. I was really looking forward to Day 2 as I figured that I couldn't have a tougher table then I did on Day 1.
Unfortunately I was wrong, my Day 2 juice cards table consisted of, BkIce, Bazeman, and like 4 young online kids that all play well. I chipped up a bit over the first couple levels only to lose a big flip AK vs JJ for my stack near the end of the 2nd level.
I went upstairs and jumped in the Sunday 500 and busted after about 3 hours. I then passed out for a nice long nap and had a really scary dream which I don't want to talk about.
After getting up from the nap, I did a few things on the computer, booking flights etc, and then went and got some food with my roommate before going back to sleep.
Today, I woke up after sleeping for 12 hours, and then made my way down to the player lounge for the interviews that I had to do.
Luckily I was able to squeeze in just enough time to write this post, before the High Roller drawing party which is in 45 minutes. At the party, I will find out my table and start time for the NAPT High Roller event tomorrow.
This event is a $25k buyin and is a shootout structure with a cap of 48 players. You have to win your 8 handed table to make the money and play the final table of 6 players on the 25th.
I'm hoping to have a good draw and look forward to playing this event tomorrow. There are 2 flights one at 11 am and one at 5 pm, I'm not sure which one I want, I think the 11 am will be better for me since I have been sleeping so much recently.
Next blogpost will hopefully be after I make the final table of this event. 
Peace

Jason Mercier VLog: WSOP Main Event Day 1

Jason Mercier is back with another exclusive video blog for PokerListings.com. The WSOP Main Event is pretty much the only marked poker tournament Jason's never gone deep in and he's looking to change that this year.
He's playing Day 1 so check out what he's got to say about playing the biggest poker tournament in the world.
Keep track of all Jason Mercier's progress right here on the PokerListings Blog.

Don't Ever Give Up

I felt like I was freerolling after that, which was good because I ended up losing a flip shortly after dinner break and busted. Then I ran A♠ A♦ into 4♠ 4♦ on a J♦ 5♣ 4♥ flop shortly before dinner break to go broke in the $5k event.

After a lot of long days of live poker, I was ready for a day of hanging out at home grinding Sunday donkaments.
Eight hours in after I'd bricked my first twenty or so tournaments for the day without a single cash, I was left with just three tables. I wasn't in the money in any of them, and didn't have any big stacks cheat poker.

Although there was definitely a part of me that wanted to just get it over with and bust my last few tournaments so I could have a Long Island fruit punch, burn one, and play some Mario Kart, the grinder in me just couldn't let that happen.
I work too hard at what I do to blow it off, and at the end of the year every score helps.

Since I stayed focused and didn't give up, I ended up cashing in all three tournaments and making the final table of the Tilt $100 cubed (one rebuy, one add-on) short-handed. I overcame a huge chip defecit three-handed and eventually got heads up with a total sicko, Stephen "stevie444" Chidwick.

After a match that probably lasted more than 100 hands, Stevie got the best of me in two key pots. After he called a three-bet in position and completely floated me on the flop, he backdoored a flush against my measly unimproved flopped trip aces marked poker.

I grinded back from a 5:1 chip lead with few showdowns other than winning one flip until we were traiding the chip lead back and forth. On the final hand of the tournament Stevie had me covered by ~280k of the ~1.5 million in play, and 4-bet jammed with Jd-4d against my 7h-7c.

Since it was the final hand I don't need to tell you who won...but I can tell you that the board was completely clean for me through fourth street...

Anyway, the next WSOP event that I've really been looking forward to is coming up tomorrow (by tomorrow I mean in 8.5 hr since it's currently 3:30am)...the $2,500 NL six-handed. Wish me luck!

--Matt Stout
All In At 420

Matt Stout's Separate Lives

I'm going to interrupt my WSOP Main Event story because there's just no need for me to write about something that sucks that much right now. I'd rather focus on the positive at moment...after just a couple more lines...

As I write this, I'm down to one table after another brutal Sunday session. I lasted a grand total of eight hands COMBINED in two of the biggest tournaments of the day: the Warm Up and the $750k guaranteed.

This was partially due to something that was such a statistical anomaly that I have to share it. I busted out of three different tournaments by running into quads, twice when I had boats...all on paired boards, not ones with open sets.

To be fair, I also flopped quads once during the session. And a note to all of the people who think juice cards all online poker is rigged for action: I've never seen quads this many times in a session (25-35 tournaments), let alone hold or be up against them that many times!

But despite being on another brutal, six-figure downswing, I've managed to remain positive and still be pretty happy overall. It's probably partially due to my move to Las Vegas, which I'm very happy about so far.
Another thing that has really helped is my conscious efforts to keep my poker and my *real* life separate. Now, this is an easy thing for most people to do...but at some point after I learned how to play hold'em, I became so engrossed in the game that I did almost nothing but grind for a couple of years.

Although this helped me cut my teeth, it was often not healthy...physically or mentally.
I lost touch with friends and some family for a while, lost track of current events and politics (partially due to the Bush Reich making me want to pull my hair out), and wasn't even watching my favorite sports team in the world, the New York Rangers.
Over the past couple of years, I've gotten back to living a relatively normal life, for a poker player.
Although I've spent most of my time living in casino towns since I was of age, I haven't played any table games at all since I turned 21 and started playing poker for a living. That's not to say I wasn't playing blackjack at the Taj when I was 19, but that's another story...

A friend was asking me about a hand right after I had just finished a particularly brutal online session on Tuesday, and I replied something to the effect of "Pleasssse don't ask me about poker right now. I'm done for the night, and trying to get back to my other life so that I won't feel like crap."

In response, he asked me to teach him how to do that. I thought he was being sarcastic, but then he said he was dead serious. It made me think of how many poker players must get stuck in the same grind and mentality that I was once in.

It's a bit of a stretch to call it a separate life, but I guess that's a good way to describe it in a sense. Many pro poker players seem almost manic-depressive based on their short-term results.
This is no way to live, especially when you play tournament poker for a living. You will be losing in the short run a vast majority of time when you play tournament poker!

I spend a lot of time going out with my girlfriend Aimee (yes, AllInAt420sGirl/AllIn420Girl is really my girlfriend. She must get that question every session she plays). We go to the movies, shows, tons of restaurants...all the normal stuff. I'm also getting back into some of my old interests, the next of which is hockey.

I played very seriously in high school and college, but basically stopped when I started grinding so much.
I recently checked out the rink that's here in Vegas, and am going to start playing some pickup games and eventually get back into leagues. I really can't wait, especially since it's the only way that I can really stick with an exercise regimen.

I've also recently begun to pursue some new hobbies, which are shooting and boating/tubing. Much thanks to Paul Wasicka for being the one to finally dragging me out to do both of these things, and training my newb arse at both.
I hadn't shot a gun since I was 8 years old and my Dad helped me hold a shotgun while we shot cans at my Dad's friend's campsite atop the Catskill Mountains in upstate NY. We went to a local firing range in Vegas and shot 9mm and .45 handguns, then decided to try out "Little Dragon."

"Little Dragon" is a FULLY automatic HANDGUN that fires off 25 rounds in under two seconds. The kick makes it very difficult to keep it under control, though. I still managed to hit the target with at least 13 of the rounds, and actually performed quite well overall despite marked cards lenses being such a rookie.

We also went down to Lake Mead with a group of people, which is 40 minutes from Vegas. It's the artificial lake that's held in by the Hoover Dam. We rented a speedboat and a "party boat." We just go out there and have a party on one boat, and use the speedboat to take two people tubing at a time.

Let me just say...trying to hold down your lunch after a few beers while friends try to fling you off the the tube at ~40-50 MPH is good times. Such good times, in fact, that I've rented the boats again for tomorrow. Hopefully I can keep up my streak of never being flung off the tubes!

I just went from ninja mode to a pretty good stack in the $215+rebuys, so I guess I should probably get back to focusing on that instead of continuing to ramble...
Editor's Note: We received word that Stout went on to finish second in this event for $28,500 and has thusly retracted his statements about the brutality of this particular Sunday.
- Matt Stout

PS - While writing this blog, my friend jfiiue4/Petit just busted deep in a $50 freezeout while across the table from me, said "good game me," and ripped his shirt in half like he was The Incredible Hulk. I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. I nearly choked!

Strategy Tip: Learn to value bet

Making the right value bets is the difference between making a little bit of money at poker, and making a lot of money at poker.
A value bet is exactly what the name implies: a bet designed to increase the value of a pot
To wield this type of bet effectively, you need to consider the following information about your opponent:
The strength of their hand. Obviously, the stronger a hand they have, the greater the chance they will feel that their hand is good; thus, they'll be willing to call for more money.
Their view of your hand. If the other player thinks you have the nuts, they aren't going to be willing to put almost any money into the pot.
But even if the other player is almost sure you have the nuts, you can still make a bet small enough to give the marked cards player the proper odds to make the call. A mathematical player will call this bet.
Their ability to fold. Some players are just not willing to fold a big hand (this reluctance is commonly referred to as getting married to the hand).
A player with this complex will call a very large value bet with a big pocket pair, even when it should be obvious that you have him beat.
On the other end of the scale, when your opponent is playing scared, he will have to be persuaded to put any money into the pot at all.
Their call amount threshold. Most poker players have a natural limit to how many chips they will call in one bet. Some players put an absolute number to that limit, others a percentage of their stack.
As a general rule assume that the threshold is half the player's stack.

Got the Info; Now How Do I Use It?

On the surface, value betting seems simple. If you have a pretty good idea of the above factors, you'll know to value bet large, or value bet small infrared contactlenses.
That much is easy; the difficult part is getting amounts as close to perfect as you can.
If your value betting amount is low, that will equate to hundreds or thousands of dollars in a month, depending how often you play at what limits. But if you're over, that will result in a significant loss every session.

Basic example:

Say the maximum value bet a player will call is $50.
If you get $40, you've lost $10 (20% of the bet).
But if you bet $60, the player will fold, losing you $50.
Money not made is money lost. A botched value bet will cost you money. Even though you won the pot, you should note it as a mistake and work at correcting it.
I'll repeat myself, because this is so crucial: properly value betting is the difference between making a little bit of money at poker and making a lot of money.
It is one of the most important aspects of poker for any player to master.
Now that you're clear on the concept, check out this more detailed article on the river value bet.

POKER STRATEGY: HOW TO WIN MONEY PLAYING POKER(2)

However, bluffing should never be a permanent poker strategy. This should only be used when the need arises. Constant and consistent bluffing may eventually lead to large losses.

A good poker strategy is also about considering the hand strength. A player must not only master the rank of hands but also their relative strength during a poker game. For example, a full house may be a good hand that will be far more likely to be the best hand compared to a 7 high or the lowest possible hand.

Consequently, certain poker strategy may vary depending on the poker variant being played.

Like in a stud poker game, it is advisable to choose a seven-card-stud poker instead of a five-card poker. Here, five-card can give you limited opportunity to use your skill as it is significant if you have a strong first hand.

In a Caribbean Stud Poker, a nice poker strategy deals with when to bet timely and appropriately. A good poker strategy will require you to maintain a pair or better. In the event that the dealer showed 10 or less and matches one of yours and you have and Ace-King or better, don't hesitate to bet. You can also bet confidently whenever the dealer's card is less than your fourth highest card and you have an Ace-King or better; or if the dealer's card is an Ace-King and you have a pair of six or better.

Bear in mind to calculate the odds against you such that if the profit is greater than the odds, make the bet. So to speak, when the odds are in your favor, bet as heavily as you can.

But the most important way to win money playing poker is to never form a pattern of play. Being able to disguise your play may be the most valuable poker strategy you could have but then you must remember to apply them as varied as possible. This way, you avoid being known to your opponents thereby lessening the chances of losing big bets.

POKER STRATEGY: HOW TO WIN MONEY PLAYING POKER(1)

Like any realistic card games in the society today, poker is indeed the most multifaceted conglomeration of skill, luck, strategy, scheme, and personality. The theories involved in the playing of the game may not be applicable to everybody. There are instances that things might have worked for a certain group of people but may have undeniably failed with the others. However, most hold em experts still contend that solid poker strategies and tips are still critical elements of winning the game. 

 Most poker players assert that they face a lot of strenuous choices on many situations. Normally, they have to deal with checking, betting, raising, or folding. Because of these, most players believe that they need to equip themselves with practical poker strategy and tips so as to establish the appropriate expectation for every probable move of the players. By doing so, they will know how to act correctly in return.

Generally, psychological poker strategy is a decisive move basically because playing poker involves more psychological activities. A player should know how to read cards of the other players and must be well adept in reading the actions and reactions of his playmates. The best poker strategy is to know how to interpret body language and talk of the players. Both of these things can divulge a lot of the strengths and weaknesses of the hands of your opponents.

A good poker strategy also requires a player to vary his poker approach. This means that there should be times that you know how to tactically bluff a game. This, in turn, will make other players have a hard time reading your cards(marked cards) or predict your next moves.