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#280 – FTOPS Bulletin – Event #2 – If I’m Angry, This Must be Razz
I’ve done very well in tournament poker since I met Chris Ferguson in December 2005 and it’s not a coincidence. My role as editor and co-author of THE FULL TILT POKER STRATEGY GUIDE – TOURNAMENT EDITION was the perfect excuse for me to take hours and hours of Ferguson’s time to teach me the intricacies of tournament poker. I played well in tournaments on Full Tilt in 2006 and even better in 2007. I had a great World Series last summer. All the time spent talking about the game with Chris (as well as other great gaming minds like Andy Bloch and Howard Lederer) had the predictable effect on my own poker.
Still, things were so bad at one point on Thursday that I had to accuse Chris Ferguson of costing me opportunities to cash in two FTOPS events.
Thursday afternoon while driving to Tempe to pick up my daughter Ellie at school, I hatched a brilliant scheme. Chris, I had noticed, was hosting the FTOPS event next Tuesday, Pot Limit Omaha Eight-or-Better (PLOEOB). I would have Chris give me advice on how to play this event and then enter it and see how it worked out.
This would be great for the blog. PLOEOB is such a strange form of poker, barely above the radar but growing in popularity (it was even a WSOP event in 2007) and with virtually nothing written about it and with almost no known “experts”. Even though Ferguson doesn’t have much experience in the game, I thought it would be illuminating to hear what a pro and great “games thinker” does to evaluate a new form of poker. Incidentally, this would also give me an excuse to once again break my promise not to go overboard on FTOPS.
So I called Chris just as Ellie was getting into the car. He was receptive to the idea though he wanted to make it clear that he wasn’t offering the advice, either to me or the blog, as some kind of expert in the game.
“When is a good time for me to call you so we can talk about it?”
“How about now?”
I had to beg off, since I was away from my computer, my audio recorder, and even a pen and paper. I explained that I was picking up my daughter at school and asked if he was playing the Razz FTOPS event.
“Yes I am. You want to call me then?”
We agreed and I silently thanked my good fortune. Not only was I going to get to pick Chris Ferguson’s brain about PLOEOB, but while we were talking and playing the Razz event, I was going to steal some Razz tips out of him. Considering that on my own, I’m about 2-for-30 in FTOPS, it seemed like I was on the brink of a bonanza score.
I felt bad just putting him off for the four hours. This family stuff is really crimping my style. (In Ellie’s defense, based on my results in FTOPS over the last year, I should probably pay her something for saving me $216 … though I probably won’t.)
I had a bunch of kid-driving to do at the end of the day but I had already paid my entry and got home 20 minutes early just to make sure. While putting together my questions about PLOEOB, I got a call from my friend Katie L. Regular readers of the blog may remember Katie from prior adventures. She was a temporary resident at Girl Town, the chateau shared by Clonie Gowen and Shannon Elizabeth during the World Series, and was also a sufficiently degenerate gambler to wager with me (and win pretty solidly) during the NBC Heads-Up Championship. That’s her in the picture with me and Shannon on my Full Tilt bio page.
Katie was playing in the Razz event and wanted some advice. “Wow, did you ever stray far from the trail.” But I gave her the best advice I could, trying to remember what Huck Seed and Ted Forrest told me about the game. (“All the good Razz players are dead,” was the thing I remembered most, so I’m not sure whether I told her anything worthwhile.)
When Razz started, I noticed Chris Ferguson was not signed up. I dialed his cell and got his voicemail. His voicemail message is Paris Hilton telling the caller that Chris is hot, though I just realized how closely Paris’s voice sounds like Katie L’s. Maybe it was because I just finished talking with Katie. (His previous message was from Bart Simpson, though I’m pretty sure it was the actual Bart Simpson – I mean, as much as the cartoon voice is the actual Bart Simpson.)
So I left him this message, which might sound a little mean but will resonate with every desperate gambler: “Chris, where are you? I don’t see you in Razz and I thought we were going to talk about Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better. The way I see it, your not talking to me now is costing me my best chance in a year of cashing in TWO FTOPS events.”
With nothing to do but wait for cards in Razz, I signed up for a pair of additional tournaments: a satellite for the following day’s event, PLHE, and the $24 + $2 buy-in $28,000 Guarantee (which is now a double-stack tournament, though that doesn’t seem to keep the 1,100-plus from throwing their chips around like the nukes are on their way). I generally don’t multitable very well and hardly ever mix forms of poker, but there’s no sense devoting too much attention to the first few levels of a Razz tournament with big stacks and a small ante structure.
Of course, when I have three tournaments running, THAT’S when Chris decides to call me back. So now, while I’m playing PLHE, NLHE, and Razz, Chris is teaching me about how he will approach PLOEOB.
Does this story have a happy ending? Mixed.
First, quite predictably I did not cash in Razz. Out of 679 entries, I busted 344th. It was a good turnout, though. It snuck over the $200,000 guarantee, which is good considering that Razz does not exactly have a wide following (“All the good Razz players are dead.”), it was Thursday night, and the buy in was $300 + $22. 19 Full Tilt pros were in attendance, though for the second consecutive night, no Full Tilt pro cashed. That makes the pros zero-for-49 in two events. That’s more than $12,000 in buy-ins and tournament fees without a cent in return.
Take Huckleberry Seed, for example. He’s probably one of the best tournament Razz players alive, with two World Series bracelets in the event. And he’s just been KILLING in Full Tilt tournaments the last couple months. So no one can say live and online tournament success are two different things. (Well, they can but Seed has excelled at both.) Nor can you argue, with Huck’s list of online tournament achievements say that he doesn’t take these sufficiently seriously. He finished 512th.
I know this is just the variance of outcomes but it seems odd. The pros can’t even say, like they could the night before, “Mike Craig’s our secret weapon and he wasn’t here.”
I watched the progress of my pupil, Katie, with mixed emotions. It was nice to see her accumulating chips but she was doing better than me. A lot better. And we had a $20-last-longer bet.
I was down to 800 chips when the average was getting near 6,000. I needed to find the right hand to push and not get unlucky. That’s when my internet went out. I was disconnected for about 5 minutes and was down to 500 chips. I got them in pretty good but paired on 6th and 7th streets to go out.
While I was disconnected, being anted down (but not out), Katie had a horrible piece of luck and lost a big pot, getting eliminated just moments before me.
So I got 20 bucks from the deal and won’t complain about my internet connection for at least a little while.
Second, though things went awry in Razz and I messed up the PLHE satellite, I did well in the $28,000 Guarantee, despite not looking at my opponents, the board, or (usually) my cards during the first hour. I finished 16th out of 1,187 and wonder whether I stumbled on something.
Third, I got some good stuff from Chris Ferguson about PLOEOB. I think I’m going to cash in that one for sure. I’ll get that posted by Sunday night so you’ll get some time to look it over before Tuesday’s event. My sense of fair play requires that I share my advantage with you all.
