My Epic Vegas Trip - Day 5 (ESPN Appearance!)

Monday July 6 – Main Event Day 1D, ESPN Appearance, Annoying Railbird, 1/2 NL Cash

Introduction

So this was it.

The Main Event…

I rocked up to the Rio about 2 hours early and just walked around trying to take everything in. The atmosphere was buzzing...the corridors were filled with people; the rooms, though empty, were a sight in themselves, with rows upon rows of empty tables, each with a dealer awaiting their players. While waiting to take my own seat I pulled out my iPod and put Forever Young by Youth Group on repeat play - for various reasons it’s now the song I listen to in order to psyche myself up before every tournament and during each break.

Eventually, it was time to take our seats and, as is usually the case for me, at my table I was the first to take mine. I was greeted by my dealer, a beef jerky and a cushion. An odd trio I have to admit. I didn’t recognise anyone famous at my table which was probably a good thing but admittedly a bit disappointing. Right behind me though was Ivan Demidov which was pretty cool because it immediately reminded me of the magnitude of this whole thing. Last year Demidov took his seat just like me, another random in a field of thousands, yet now a year later he takes his seat as a Team PokerStars Pro with a WSOP Main Event final table and a WSOPE Main Event final table to his résumé. Completely crazy if you think about it!

Aside – My ESPN “Appearance”!

Demidov actually got knocked out later in the day and since the camera was pointing right in my direction I did my best to get on TV by pretending to be very intrigued in his knockout hand. It worked!



The Tournament

So we started with 30,000 in chips and 50/100 blinds. I still remember the very first hand of the tournament. I was dealt KTo in the hijack and it was folded to me. I looked around, sized up my opposition, got ready to put in a raise and then thought “screw it” and made a tight fold.

They say that the Main Event is the easiest tournament of the year, with expected ROI’s of around about 200% for good players. But after a couple of hours play with my Day 1 table I quickly realised that these players were anything but easy money. They weren’t “good” because they played very predictably and unbalanced and face-up and if you gave me 200 hours with them on a cash table I’d for sure send them broke. But they weren’t “bad” either because they played in a way that’s very hard to exploit in a tournament setting – very nitty and in a way that makes it very hard to prize chips off them. I went into the day thinking people would be stacking off 200bb’s with top pair, but nothing close to this happened all day. And although I thought I might have just been given a bad table draw, from reading the comments on 2+2 later that night, it seemed like a lot of people encountered the same thing. People really are getting better…damn you Taylor!

Anyway as you probably guessed I had a pretty tough day and couldn’t really get anything going. I started off alright and got up to 38K after the following hand. UTG raised, about 3 people called and I called in the small blind with 54h. The big blind squeezed and just about everyone called so I called as well and we saw a five-way, 6000 chip pot to the flop at 50/100 blinds. The flop came perfect for me…446 with a flush draw. The action was on me and I had a pretty close decision. I generally like to lead monsters in multi-way pots to avoid the situation where it’s a bet and a raise to you and anything you do looks ridiculously strong. There was however a lot of merit checking here as I had relative position on the entire field and if the big blind made a c-bet and got a few calls or raises I wouldn’t really care how strong I looked because I could just raise or shove and win a huge pot. Anyway as I’m mulling this over the big blind checks…WHAT??!! I announce that I haven’t acted yet and am now super pissed because if I lead now everyone will know I’m very strong. So I check and just hope that my check/raise plan still works but unfortunately it checks through and the river pairs the 6…Ugh. I still lead the turn hoping to get value from 77-JJ but unfortunately everyone folds. I look at the big blind and silently want to deck him. The one player (UTG) who did think for a bit before folding later told me he folded 99, which to be honest is a pretty easy fold but I wonder if he would’ve called were it not for what had happened. He said he was worried about JJ though (as opposed to a full house) so he probably does fold regardless.

Another key pot I played I opened A4h on the button and got two calls in the blinds. The flop came K73hh and I c-bet and got a call from the small blind. The turn came an offsuit 2 giving me a gutshot along with my nut flush draw and ace overcard and he led into me for 4K. A really weird line for sure and I had about 18K left. My first instinct was to call since I didn’t want to get knocked out and jamming would be a bit of an overbet. But then I realised I didn’t really feel like calling and missing and being unable to bluff the river and being left with only 15K so I just stuck it all-in there. I remember thinking “WTF, I’m all-in on Day 1, and only with a semi-bluff, how can this be!?” Fortunately he folded.

Aside – Annoying Railbird Epitomizes the Main Event

Throughout the day there was this really annoying railbird railing his friend and he spoke and laughed so deliberately loud that I wanted to put a cloth over his mouth. He wanted everyone to know he was there and that he knew someone who was playing and that he was “in” with the poker circuit. Whenever two other railbirds would talk he’d “overhear” them and throw in his own comment, pointing out where that famous person was in the room, or how many levels were still to be played in the day, or how big the field was predicted to be for this year. It was actually pretty funny because when Fraser came to watch me for a bit in the afternoon, Phil Ivey must’ve come up in conversation because this guy decided to take Fraser to a completely different room to show him where Phil Ivey was. Fraser tried to tell him that he didn’t need to and that it wasn’t that big a deal but he INSISTED - and off they went.

Anyway what I realised was that, annoying as this guy was, it was people like him who made the Main Event what it was. The Main Event truly is the tournament for everyone. Every Tom, Dick and Harry can play it, or at least they can say they know someone who has. Annoying railbird’s friend wasn’t very good at poker, and I doubt annoying railbird is himself much of a player either, but because of the Main Event, they, and other people like them, were all gathered here together.

I don’t really know why I wrote that, but I thought it was a pretty cool and humbling realisation at the time.

The Tournament (Continued)

The rest of the day I hovered around the 30K mark. Late in the day I called an all-in for about 8K with KJs in the big blind when the short-stacked small blind open-shoved. He showed 78o and the flop came like 958ss to give him a pair and a gutshot but me a flush draw. The turn paired my jack so now I was well ahead but the river paired his 7 without giving me a flush so he doubled through while I fell to around 23K. Fortunately two orbits later he open-shoved again and I woke up with AK in the big blind and held to win with A high against his Q high.

I then played another key pot which could’ve easily ended my tournament on Day 1. The hijack opened, I 3-bet KQo from the cutoff and the button flat-called. The hijack folded and the flop came as good as it could come for me: Q73r. I was a bit scared of my opponent’s flat preflop but with only 2 PSB’s left I couldn’t see how I could get away from this hand. The pot was about 6K and I had about 20K. I initially thought that bet flop, shove turn would be the best line but then I thought “what on Earth is he going to call the turn with that’s worse than my hand?” so I thought I’d go for a check-raise or a double check-call to try and open his range a bit to bluffs and whatnot. So I check and he bets and I’m deciding whether to call or shove. And then I give myself a reality check. His preflop range is JJ+ and AK – why the hell would he bet JJ here? Suddenly it seemed like a very clear fold. Yet there are a lot of spots like this in tournaments where you should probably fold but it’s like “if I fold I’m still in really bad shape, if I shove and am wrong I’m out but who cares I can go and do something else, but if I’m right… man, I’m going to be going great guns and right back in it!” This was definitely one of those spots and part of me just wanted to stick the rest in, suck out if necessary and just try to get back above average. If I got knocked out I figured I could always just soak up the Vegas sun for the rest of the week. But then I realised I’d travelled half-way around the world for this tournament, dragged five friends along with me and had honed my skills for three years for this moment. I wasn’t going to throw it all away now. So I folded and he told me he had AA. Whew!

The last hand of the day a really loose player opened UTG and it was folded to me with AQo in the SB. This is usually a fold or a call but I’d seen this player call 3-bets out of position after raising UTG with hands as weak as KJo so I thought I could definitely be ahead of his range here and even get called by worse. He did call and the flop came K84ss. I bet and he called. I thought he’d have TT-QQ here a lot so I decided to barrel the turn but it came a J which fills the JJ and I just chickened out basically. I had just gotten my stack up to about 35K and didn’t want to blow it all immediately. He checked back and the turn brought the flush. I thought about shoving here as a bluff since he should very rarely have a suited connector here that can make a flush but again I decided “meh, whatever” and gave up. I checked, he bet and I folded. He said he had A8s for the nut flush and I sat there cursing my luck at how good my preflop read was and how sickly bad I got outflopped…

So I finished Day 1 with 32800 in chips, a not-so-productive day of +2800…not exactly how I had hoped Day 1 would pan out but I was happy to at least still be in it. As they say, you can’t win the tournament on Day 1 but you can definitely lose it, and I easily could’ve been knocked out a few times throughout the day.

Bellagio 1/2 Cash

I returned to the Bellagio completely exhausted at about midnight. Fraser and Pete had played a $300 tournament at the Venetian that day and although I knew Fraser had been knocked out (since he had come to watch me in the afternoon) I was wondering how Pete had gone. When I got back he still wasn’t there so Fraser and I were imagining what we’d do if he won the $50,000 since we each had about 5% of him. Unfortunately about half an hour later Pete storms in and told us he’s only min-cashed. We heckle him that he’s just spent a day in Vegas making $12/hour, but he is over the moon that he can now call himself the second best poker player in the room having beaten Fraser in the tournament. He then promptly falls asleep.

Fraser and I then decide that we should give Bellagio’s 1/2 NL games a good shake up before we switch hotels and leave for the Mirage the next day. So we go down and find ourselves in the craziest game ever – there are 3 or 4 Europeans there who are obviously high stakes players themselves and are just messing around at 2AM in the morning like me. So we’re all playing like 99VPIP and having fun and the two older nits there look like they want to drown themselves (rather than adjust properly and give themselves a windfall). Anyway one fun hand went as follows. The older player open limps in the cutoff, I min-raise the button with 27o, the small blind bumps it up to $6, the big blind makes it $20, the straddle shoves for 200, we all fold to the big blind who snap-calls with KJ high or something similar and gets the shock of his life when the straddle slams down AA. Good times. We end up leaving at about 4AM when Fraser gets in AK preflop versus 77 for a $1000 pot and doesn’t hit. In the lift back to our rooms he’s mumbling about how good the game was and how his AK has like 100% equity against his opponent’s range. I can’t share his misery though since I made a solid $200 profit!

And so ends another day in Vegas…

Where does the EV go? To ME!!!

Since August 1st:



:D

$5200 Sydney Champs High Rollers Report

As expected the field was pretty small with only 29 people fronting up the 5K buy-in. Australia must have like some of the softest high rollers tournaments in the world because within an orbit I felt like I was sitting at a 25NL table. Limp, limp, limp; check/fold, check/fold, check/fold.

The first significant hand I played I opened KK utg 6-handed. The button called and we saw a Q83hh flop. I bet 525 into 750 and my opponent called. The turn brought an offsuit 5, I bet 1450 into 1800 and got raised to 3100. I called, the river brought another offsuit 5, I checked and he instantly bet 6K. My first instinct was to call since he’s representing pretty much nothing and would have raised a set on the flop since live players are terrified of flush draws. My second instinct was also to call because live players love putting online players in their place and run retarded bluffs as a result. My third instinct was, you guessed it, also to call because he could be completely spastic and overplaying a queen. Despite all these instincts, I decided to mull the hand over for about two minutes since chip-wise it was still a big decision. Finally, when I decided to call, I picked up a 5K and 1K chip in my hand and he instantly called time on me. LOL, now I’m definitely calling! So I called and he instantly mucked without showing. Up to 30K, not a bad start!

The next big hand was against the same opponent. I raised 78s from the cutoff and he called from the big blind. The flop came TsTc9s and he check-called my ¾ pot bet. The turn came the Js giving me the straight flush and he check-raised me all-in when I bet. I obviously snapped and he was left in shock when he discovered that his nut flush was no good. Chip count = 40K.

After this I picked up small pot after small pot and was really running over the table. It’s so ridiculously easy to steal light when you know you are never getting 3-bet unless they have AA or AK. I was also extremely fortunate because I had a dead stack to my left which meant that I had two buttons every orbit and on my ‘real’ button I only had to contend with one player in the blinds rather than two.

The next noteworthy hand I played went as follows. A player raised utg and I was the only caller on the button with AJc. The flop came AT3hh and I called his ¾ pot bet. The turn came an offsuit 8 and I called his ½ pot bet. The river came the 6h and I decided to turn my hand into a bluff when he checked to me, overbetting 15200 into the 10K pot. He thought for a bit and folded. I probably had the best hand anyway but if I folded out AK or AQ that would’ve been a great boon for me. Chip count = 47K.

The last interesting hand that I played before my bust-out went as follows. I raised AK utg and got 4 callers at the 6-handed table (as you do…). The flop came KT3ss and I had no spades. I bet 3100 into 4200 and got called by the small blind only. The turn came the 9s and my opponent checked. This was a pretty terrible turn card as it filled both the flush draw and the straight draw so I checked behind. The river brought the 8s and he checked to me again. I decided to turn my hand into a bluff again and bet 7200 into the 10K pot. I actually pondered setting him all-in since he only had 12K but I decided not to since I thought he might be more likely to call an all-in as a) he might think I’m trying to bully him around with his tournament life and b) if he’s wrong versus an all-in bet he can ‘run away’ and not have to stay around to face the humiliation that would attend an incorrect call. Anyway he thought for a brief moment and called me. Damn it! I flipped over my hand, looked away and sighed in annoyance. Then I looked back and saw the pot being shipped to me. WHAT??? He had called with KQo with no spade! SHIP!!! Chip count = 60K.

Then came my bust-out hand. I was about 4th in chips with 12 remaining and the 3rd tallest stack on my table. The tallstack at our table open-limped in MP, a midstakes FTP reg isolated on the button and I looked down to see ATc in the big blind. This is a pretty awesome spot to 3-bet as a bluff but with a hand with as much potential as ATs and a player as bad as MP in the pot I decided to just call and see a multi-way pot. As expected MP called and the flop came AT4ss. Bingo! I decided to lead out since I didn’t want to check-raise MP out of the pot should the button bet when checked to (and I didn’t want to just check-call either). So I bet 7K into 10K and with little hesitation MP min-raised to 14K; kind of scary but whatever. The button folded (later told me he had KK) and I shipped for 45K more. My opponent then sighs, asks for a count, thinks, calls, then puts on a disgusted face when I turn over my hand.

He then turns over his: 44

...

I don’t fill up and that’s the end of that; from 4th in chips and 75bb’s to out the door. Awesome.

Time for a Break, Sydney Champs, Video Requests

After my last update I won another 10K and was up 45K for the month. At this point I was starting to have visions of a 100K month but obviously these were premature. Last night I took another shot at 25/50 (who am I kidding, I’ve been playing 25/50 all this month under-rolled) and got stacked pretty early on. Whatever, still up 40K for the month right? I quit that table and continued grinding at the 5/10 and 10/20 tables. Nice and safe…

But then this voice in the back of my mind started to echo louder and louder: “damn it Joey why can’t you just stop playing 25/50 and just build your roll nice and slowly…that’s another 5K you’ve wasted!” After hearing this for ten more minutes I was officially tilted. So then I proceeded to open up a whole slather of 5/10 tables and attempted to win it all back as quickly as possible. Needless to say this never works well and I dropped another $6500. Sigh.

I have another two mid-semester exams in two weeks so this seems like a pretty good spot to take another break and step away from the game for a bit. I was planning to take a break after today anyway but after yesterday’s performance I think it’s definitely not a bad idea regardless. The last thing I want to do is repeat last month and follow a very solid upswing with another epic downswing. I’ve decided though that when I come back I want to first win 27K playing 5/10-15/30 to completely erase last month’s downswing; then I’ll discard 5/10 and go back to playing 10/20-15/30 and give high stakes another shot. If that fails again, then I’ll probably have to give some serious consideration to just grinding 5/10 forever (and play 10/20+ only when the games are good).

This week also marks the inaugural Sydney Poker Championships at Star City. I had planned to play the $1650 main event but realised that, with so much work to catch up on, allocating three valuable days to a (let’s be honest) relatively insignificant tournament was probably not the best allocation of my time. I think I will go ahead however and play the $5200 High Rollers on Saturday. It starts at 6PM and with a pretty small field expected it should be finished by 6AM the next day. That I can handle.

Finally, I’ve got mixed suggestions on what my next CardRunners video series should be. Some like the idea of a “1/2 to 2/4 transition” series, some want a hand history replayer type video, others just want another 2/4 or 3/6 live play video much like my first. I won’t be making my next video for at least another two weeks (until after those exams are done) so feel free to leave any more requests or suggestions below and I’ll weigh them up over the next fortnight.

Peace.

My Epic Vegas Trip - Day 4

Sunday July 5 – Bellagio Cash, Pool, O

I’m definitely not a morning person but it quickly became apparent that my friends were even less so. I was the first to awake on Sunday (despite being the last to bed the night before) and decided to tick off one thing on my Vegas to-do list while the others snoozed – play a cash game at the Bellagio.

Bellagio 10/20 Cash Game

So I headed downstairs and bought into the 10/20 game for $4000. As I sat down I noticed three things: the provision of really comfortable swivel chairs, Phil Laak grinding on the table next to me, and the use of orange $20 chips (which I found completely bizarre). I folded the first 15 hands and immediately knew that everyone would label me as a nit. I remember one of the first hands I played I squeezed utg+1 and two callers with KQo on the cutoff. They all folded and I patted myself on the back for using my image well. The man on my left who had just sat down then said “how can you fold that to him, such a good spot to squeeze” (or something to that effect). The utg+1 player then said “are you serious, have you seen him play so far?” and the two then conversed about the likelihood of me in fact being another one of those young, aggressive internet kids. By the end utg+1 seemed persuaded by his friend’s argument and said to me (with this twang in his accent that made it sound awesome): “right, I might’ve got you wrong the first time, but if you squeeze me again and I have AQs, you and I are playing a pot!”

This set the scene for the only really interesting hand I played. Bored out of my mind I raised 54h utg and got called by the suspicious player to my left, a player in MP and the player on the button. The flop came down 543 monotone in spades. I decided to check since I didn’t really want to get it in on this flop and a c-bet by me would basically force me to do so if I got raised. The flop checked through and my equity shot up when the turn brought the safe Kd. I led out for $220 into $270 and got raised to $600 by utg+1, the suspicious player. The others folded and I called, planning to re-evaluate on the river. The river brought the 7c and I checked. He thought for a brief moment and fired $1100. So the board was 5s4s3sKd7c and I had 54h. Hmmm!

My first thought was that his line made no sense. It’s ridiculously unlikely for him to check a flush on the flop and even more unlikely for him to raise 6x on the turn, especially if it was 6x with showdown value like 66 or 56. Literally the only hand I thought he might play like this was the flopped straight with 67 because like me he might’ve wanted to wait until his equity was a little less precarious before he put more money in. I also thought back to his suspicious perception of me and the fact that in my experience live players like to pull moves on internet kids when they come onto “their turf” to show them who’s boss. The final thing I considered was that my hand really looks like AK and it’d be a pretty safe assumption on his part to think that I’d fold one pair by the river on a four straight, three-flushed board so it’s a really good spot for him to bluff. So eventually I decided to make the call and his face immediately fell and he said “nice call”. I tabled my hand and he was shocked, saying “I didn’t expect you to have a hand as strong as that”, so it seemed that he was indeed trying to bluff me off a king and my third consideration was spot on. He had ace high in case you were wondering (not the As either).

Not long after this the others texted me to say that they were awake and beginning to get ready. Fraser went down to pick up the O tickets but then came down to inform me that the people at the O desk required me personally (since the payment was on my credit card). A little annoyed that my session was being ended prematurely, I got up, bid farewell to everyone, tipped the host $20 (I’m not sure if this was the right amount), and cashed out my $2500 profit – not bad for 1.5 hours work.

Breakfast

After we picked up the tickets we went to the breakfast buffet line to meet the others. They were meant to be reserving a spot for us but when we got to the line they had just reached the front and, evidently, had not. Julian came up to us to explain that they weren’t sure what we were doing and so didn’t reserve us a spot since we might have wanted to continue playing or something. I called BS on this explanation but appreciated the token effort. Meanwhile however, Pete, Rosie and Anna scuttled in quickly when they saw us arrive, too embarrassed to look me in the eye, and this was what really pissed me off to no end. I sent them all an expletive-laden text and may or may not have called them all c@#*s and I still don’t regret it. Wankers! I really wanted that breakfast!

So I moved to rip up their O tickets which we had generously set aside our time to get for them but Fraser stopped me, reminding me that they were in fact paid on my credit card. Lucky sobs.

Pool

Since it was already like 1PM by this time and our plan for the day was just to laze around by the pool, Fraser and I decided to head down to the pool early and just eat at the café down there. I had the tomato and mozzarella salad while Fraser had the turkey burger. Both were more delicious than anything available at the buffet. I found it amusing that Fraser’s burger was presented as an empty bun with an array of fillings on the side. I guess this is so that all the people who don’t like vegetables can simply chuck in the turkey paddy and go from there. Fraser certainly seemed to appreciate it, and I ended up having a nice dose of his avocado with my salad.

Eventually the others made their way down and spluttered their apologies. We went for a swim (which at Bellagio means standing in the pool wishing you were three times shorter or the pool was three times deeper and/or bigger), lay on the seats, had a few drinks (I had the most disgusting iced coffee ever) and generally just had a relaxing time.

O

The time went by incredibly quickly and before we knew it we had to go back to our rooms to get ready for ‘O’. I’d been really looking forward to seeing a Cirque du Soleil show ever since I decided to go to Vegas and one of my friend’s parents who had just visited Vegas in June recommended that we saw ‘O’ (the fact that it was at Bellagio where we were staying definitely didn’t hurt either). So expectations were running high and I have to say that I was very impressed. I didn’t have the faintest clue what the storyline was but the music was awesome and the use of the water setting was really impressive. The tricks they did were also awesome, especially those at a height, and although I admittedly haven’t seen any of the others I’d definitely recommend seeing ‘O’ if you get the chance.

(Photo not mine)

Table Games

After ‘O’ Fraser and I hit up the table games again while the others went to sleep (borrrrrrring!). I was keen to recoup my losses from the night before but got off to a bad start and found myself down a further $500 or so at Three Card Poker. Overall I was on a 1K downswing at it! Brutal!

I then decided to hit up video poker for the first time, explaining to Fraser that “apparently, you can actually have an edge at this if you include comps” – nevermind that I wasn’t getting comps and I didn’t even know the proper strategy… I ended up luck-boxing and won about $200. The annoying thing about video poker though is that you get a receipt when you cash out and you have to cash it in at the cage. This doesn’t require too much effort but overall it definitely made me less inclined to want to play it again in the future versus, say, three card poker or blackjack since in those you get your payout immediately. One funny thing that happened was that we heard these squeals of excitement from one of the machines behind us. There was this group of 4-5 people jumping around ecstatically and a man next to us went to check what had happened…naturally we all assumed that they’d won the jackpot. He returned with an unimpressed look on his face and said: “they won $200…”

To finish up the night we hit up blackjack again and I was martingaling myself to a nice profit. I know the theoretical failings of the system but man it seriously seemed like I couldn’t stop winning! We also ran into the dealer from Saturday who informed me that overnight she had had a vision of me on TV for the WSOP Main Event. It was this point that I realised that I had a $10,000 poker tournament the next day yet here I was betting $10 at a time at blackjack at 3AM in the morning…what was I doing here???

So with that I decided to head off to sleep, wondering whether the next day was the day my poker dream was about to come true…

CardRunners Videos, Clerkship Interviews, 35K Week

My first CardRunners video was received really well so that was a big relief. I’ve now got the go ahead to make a series at either 1/2 or 2/4 and I’m thinking that I might do both – i.e. a series on how to transition from 1/2 to 2/4 since that was a big jump for me and I had a lot of trouble with it when I was moving up. But then again I might just make a 2/4 series since technically I am supposed to be a MSNL instructor and 1/2 is only SSNL.

I’ve had a reading week this week at uni but it’s been the least relaxing reading week ever. I’ve had to go to four summer clerkship interviews and two related information sessions and I’ve had to do a bunch of background research before each interview as well. It’s been exhausting and after my last interview yesterday I’m just really glad that it’s all over now, at least for a week or two (second-round interview offers come out after then).

Finally, poker has been going a lot better this week. I’m up $35,000 so far this month and am nearly back to where I was before I had my two-day train-wreck last week. As you can imagine though I’ve been running white hot and thus will probably hit another 50K downswing next week when my luck settles down.

I’m going to take a short nap now and write up day 4 of my Vegas trip afterwards I think. Peace.

CardRunners Instructor & Interview!

So I’ve got a gig now as a CardRunners MSNL instructor! My first video went up today and it seems to have been received pretty well. Here’s an introductory interview they did with me.

* * *

CardRunners Welcomes New Instructor Joey "jcl" Lawrence

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Joey hails from Sydney, Australia and just recently moved from mid-stakes cash to 5/10 and higher. He is still in school (or as the Australians say, "uni") and studying law, among other subjects. His first video focuses on mid-stakes nlhe. You can read a lot about Joey’s rise up the cash game stakes in his blog, and learn more about him in this exclusive CardRunners interview.

How did you get into poker?

I graduated high school in November 2005 and had about 4 months off before uni started. With so much free time on my hands I was looking for something to do and, having heard of Joe Hachem’s Main Event win that year, I decided to give poker a go and bought a chip set. I got my friends together and we began playing $5 SNGs, sometimes with re-buys. Around this time pub tournaments were also really taking off in Australia (every Australian thought they could be the next Hachem) so a few of us started playing those too, two or three nights a week. Eventually I discovered online poker, deposited $100 and went from there.

Did you start at low stakes -- what was your evolution into your current stakes like?

I started in April 2006 with a $100 deposit and initially played the $6 SNGs on Party. I think I broke even at those and made the move to 25NL (the lowest level back then) cash pretty quickly. I didn’t really know what I was doing but this was pre-UIGEA and the games were super soft so I managed to run my bankroll up to like $4000, despite being oblivious to things like HUDs or concepts like isolating. Unfortunately I was also oblivious to bankroll management and busted my roll at 2/4 NL.

In 2007 I deposited another $100 and worked my way up to 50NL and had a bankroll of about $1000 when my friend introduced me to CardRunners in March. From there my game really took off and I was beating 1/2 really decently by September. I had a roll of about $13000 at this stage, not including the $9000 that I had cashed out over the course of the year. In October though I ran really bad and went on my first 20 buy-in downswing. Tilted and with $9000 left I did the only logical thing and jumped into a bunch of 5/10 PLO games. Needless to say, that didn’t end well and by the end of 2007 I was busto again.

I really didn’t want to re-deposit the money that I had cashed out in case I lost that too so I started 2008 by cashing in my PartyPoints and grinding $3 SNGs and 5NL. After one month of this I realised that something had to give so I decided to deposit $500 for one last try. Fortunately I ran well and was playing 1/2 again by March, 2/4+ by June and 3/6+ by November. In December I started to dabble in tournaments and by February had hit a 45K AUD score live and a 50K score online. This gave me enough of a bankroll to move to 5/10 permanently and I’ve been playing 5/10+ ever since.

What sorts of things do you do to improve your game?

I’ve been pretty lazy this past year but when I was moving up through the mid-stakes I tried to watch as many videos as possible and absorb as much information as I could. I signed up to basically every training site out there and looked for instructors with different approaches and styles, trying to see if there was anything new or interesting that I could implement into my own game.

I also took a lot of notes and more importantly organised them into a way that was useful to me. I like to break poker into “situations” and so, for example, I have a section in my notes entitled “as preflop raiser -> in position -> check-raised on a dry board” and then beneath that I have all the possible lines I can take and explanations for why I might take them. I also have more general sections like “when to overbet”, “backdoor aggression” or “deep-stack adjustments”. I find that organising your notes in this way is really important because otherwise you simply have pages of random thoughts that you can’t really use.

The final thing that I did (when I was feeling really keen) was review the hand histories of the big winners at 25/50. Many of them played surprisingly standard (which in itself was good to know), but some took some really weird lines and had some useful tricks that I tried to incorporate into my own game.

How do you handle the swings (i.e. losing 48k in two days)?

When I was moving up I had a lot of trouble dealing with downswings. I felt like I was destined for greater things but some stupid guy up there was holding me back, delivering me bad beat after bad beat. These days, having “made it” in some sense, I think I handle the swings a lot better since whenever I’m running bad I can just look at a photo of PCA or Vegas or something and realise that, no matter what happens, on the whole I’ve had it pretty good.

I’m also pretty lucky in that I don’t need the money to pay rent or anything. To me it’s really just a number, and when that number goes down I’m annoyed not so much because I’ve lost $X but because my journey up the stakes has been set back another month. That said, I’ve definitely noticed myself tilting a lot more these last few months (I’ve been having a pretty tough time of it at 10/20 and 25/50), so I still can’t say I’m completely immune.

Do you have any poker mentors?

For the first three years I mostly just relied on books or videos because I didn’t really know anyone in the poker community. This year I’ve gotten coaching from three different people and have been talking to a few regs on MSN, Skype or AIM and that’s definitely helped my game a lot. I still wouldn’t consider any of them my mentor though really.

Do you play tournaments also?

I actually spent a month learning basic tournament strategy last December because I was going to the PCA in January and felt that I should make some nominal effort defending my $10,000 buy-in. I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed playing tournaments and would definitely play more if I could. Unfortunately, they’re usually on at whack hours in Australia and the Sunday tournaments are on Monday here and I have uni then.

Do you play live? Where? What stakes?

I don’t really play live much at all. I find live cash really boring and the biggest game that runs at Star City is only 5/10 (which really is only 4/8 USD). Given the option of one-tabling 4/8 full ring at 30 hands/hr or six-tabling 5/10 6-max at 600 hands/hr, I’ll take the latter every time.

Funnily enough, though, I really enjoy playing live tournaments and try to play the $1000+ buy-in tournaments at Star City whenever I can. I love the sense of competition and when you are lucky enough to go deep in a live tournament the thrill is unlike anything you can achieve in a cash game.

What sort of content can CR members expect from you?

As someone who moved through the midstakes just this last year, I feel I have a very good handle on how the games play these days and am in a good position to show people how to go about beating them and how to avoid common mistakes. I probably think a lot more theoretically and analytically than a lot of players too so if I could I’d like to make some hand history review type videos that allow me to hone in on a particular leak, line or move and discuss it in detail.

Tell us about your first video?

It's really just an introduction to my style. I do focus heavily though on forming a plan for a hand - thinking about all the possible actions that you might take in response to each card that might fall or each action that might occur. I also talk about the unique nature of 3/6 as a kind of crossroads between stakes and skill levels and how your game needs to adapt to that fact.

How do you handle being in school and playing?

I don’t think I’ve had too much trouble balancing the two. I’ve never skipped class or failed an assignment or flunked an exam because of poker or anything like that. Uni is only 12-16 contact hours per week anyway so I still have a load of free time to play poker. During really intense assessment periods I might self-exclude myself to make sure that I don’t get too distracted, but in general I can grind pretty liberally.

Is poker more like a full-time job or part-time job? How many hours do you play in an average week?

I don’t really consider poker a job at all. I genuinely enjoy sitting down and loading up a bunch of tables. I’m not entirely certain but I probably average about 15-20 hours a week.

What are some hobbies?

Indoor soccer, watching movies, watching TV series (but only once they’re on DVD!), sleeping, blogging

Do you get mistaken for the ‘90s “heartthrob” with the same name?

I've had hundreds of teen girls adding me on MSN asking me whether I'm Joey Lawrence from Blossom so yeah I do get that a lot, lol. At the WSOP this year I went deep (made day 6) and the buzz around the media was that Joey Lawrence from Blossom was playing and doing well, so I got a kick out of that.