Next Event

The 2005 campaign starts off Saturday, January 15th.

The Championship ended in bitter-sweet fashion. Seeing Musky Boy win was a lot like seeing Eddy Curry actually jump for a rebound. You know he had it in him, but actually seeing it happen gives so much closure. That's the sweet part. The bitter part is me not actually winning.

Championship Recap

Well, it really wouldn't feel right to continue trash talking Musky Boy after he earned the Championship. He played his normal game even making a couple questionable calls in times against looser players when he felt he was beat. He was short stacked late (have you heard that before?). But he got his money in when he had decent hands, and when he got chips, he pushed everyone else around.

I won't do an analysis of the tournaments, becuase face it, everyone who is reading this was there. So instead I'm going to make commentary on how people won/lost. And to make it interesting, I'll compare them to Movie Characters.

Halfman/Half Amazing (Rupert Montjoy, The Mouse that Roared) - Winner of the first tournament. Made all his chips on a joke of a hand. Close to the bubble, a huge hand developed when the short stack went all in (with 55). The hand ended up with 4 players all in. On 4rth, when Halfman moved in on an inside straight draw with 1 card to come. When all the action of betting was over, with 3 suited cards on the board, the leading hand was 55. Two of the players were in with 3-9 and 3-8. More than half the chips in play were in the middle. You can guess that he hit that hand. But becuase the hand was so stupid, he got demoted to 1/4 Amazing, 3/4 man.

Musky Boy - (John Matrix from Commando) The Boy faced serious elimination in 4-5 hands. He TIED on 2 of them to keep him alive. But as it got late, and he amassed some chips, he dominated the other players and totally earned his victory. Like the character in the classic but ridiculous action movie from the 80's, bullets were flying all around him, and he never got scratched. But that's all the positive press he gets in this space until he gets his lazy ass working and contributes something.

Regulator (Frank Torrey from Shane) - Off his game all night. He had the unfortunate experience of being overly aggressive against trip 9s. He was pushy in all the wrong circumstances. Frank Torrey was the schlub who Jack Palance goaded into a gunfight. We know how that ended up too.

Squeaky (Fax Machine from Office Space)- Squeaks actually played pretty well. He was the big stack late. He was in good position. But, as so often happens to Squeaky, he got bullied when the game got short handed. I was going to call him Ned Beatty from Deliverance, but thought that would be too harsh, however appropriate. So, I'm calling him the Fax Machine from Office Space.

Dan - (Jack Killian) Dan limped onto the final table in game 1, and then made it to the last 3 in trouney 2. He called almost every bet, and I think he went the entire night without raising a single time. Weak as the reference may be, he gets the title of Jack Kilian from the short lived TV Show "Midnight Caller."

Doc - (Buck Turgidson) Doc went out FIRST in the second tourney when his 5c hit the board of 4 clubs. Not thinking that it was likely anyone else had a better club, he went all in and...got beat by a better club. Too aggressive. So, he gets the ultra-aggressive Buck Turgidson from Dr. Strangelove.

Sausage King - (Italian Mobster in Untouchables) The King again thought no hand could beat his Big Slick. So he went all in, and found his hand wanting. As Sean Connery told the mobster in the famous scene, you don't bring a knife to a gun fight.

Big Championship Tonight

The day of the championship has arrived. Unfortunately, the MPT Tour Manager has again failed to arrange for media coverage. So you won't be able to watch Mike Sexton or Vince Van Patten commenting every time Musky Boy folds, or read about aggressive pre-flop action by the defending Champion John "W" Rizzotto in the Chicago Tribune.

When asked to comment about this lack of coverage, Musky Boy mumbled something about 'real life' and then went back to playing a Turbo SNG on Stars.

We are hoping for a large crowd tonight, 12 or more possibly. When asked how that affected his chances, Magic Man Keys responded "I suck at math." He then called a raise with 1.9 - 1 chances of making his hands with only 1.63-1 Pot odds - silly boy.

Other members of the tour have been laying low, trying not to give away any secrets of their games leading up to the big night.

My money is on the Regulator and Musky Boy in the big game tonight. Actually, that's not 100% true, I just said that hoping that it would jinx them worse than a Bartman doll jinxes Moises Alou.

OK, another stupid argument

Is it ever right to lay down AA? Well, I think that's an obvious yes. Musky Boy is having a low-sleep day, becuase he's giving me grief over this following scenario:

You are in a large MT tourney. You're down to 5 players. Big Stack is $2,000,000. There are 3 players with $200,000, and you have $20,000.

The three players with $200k go all in in front of you. Now, you look down at AA. Assuming you are all even skill wise, you have 1 in 130 chance at winning the tourney. Even if that big stack isn't in the game, you're 1 in 31 to win. Assuming you win, you'd have $80K to $520K. You're now only 1 in 7.5 - to move up 1 spot. So the odds are still strongly against you moving up an extra position.

You fold AA in that hand, and now you are almost guaranteed of a 3rd place finish. You play it, and you risk losing the hand and finishing in 5th. You do not significantly increase your chances of finishing in 2nd (which is THE only reason to make this play).

So I think it's clear to any reasonable individual that the correct EV play, the correct money play is to fold any hand. But, if you want to play for that 1 in 7.5 chance - go nuts Musky Boy.

You should all shudder in fear

As mentioned earlier, I bought a new book by Dave's favorite author (that would be Sklansky). And based on reading that book, and software by DD - a name that I found misleading by the way - I'm confident that I'm taking down the MPT game on Friday.

THE Championship. Of course, we have several newbies coming, and doubtless one of them will call my trip KKK down to the river only to hit a double runner flush and take me out. But I can live with that.

Because the picture uploading software doesn't work for me yet, here's a link to a picture of the final table of the "Charity" tournament in Gurnee that Hebeda finished 9th in.

pic

Dave is the one in the back on the left, doubtless getting ready to fold.

EV & Tournaments

Following up on our discussion of EV last week, I came across an interesting concept from Sklansky. It's one of those things that I understand without ever thinking it through. Maybe this is common sense. The starting point is: "Is it always right to follow EV?"

Let's say you bet $100 to win $1,100 10% of the time. You're EV is positive ($20/play). Given the nature of tournament play (i.e. staying alive), the wise thing is probably NOT to make a positive EV play as a big dog.

More Domer Fun.

"SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The assistant to Notre Dame's president shaved her head to protest Tyrone Willingham's firing as football coach, saying she will remain bald until the Irish win a national championship."

Link

I'm wondering how she correlated cutting her hair to civil disobedience. And really, what better way to bring credibility to your side of the argument than to go bald?

Musky Boy Turns Troll

Musky Boy's Post here.


In supporting Khyle's well thought out logical ND criticism (although lets face it, any criticism of ND is considered bashing by ND Nation), Musky posted a nice little snippet including "ND would be lucky to make the 1-AA playoffs."

Well done.

EV Question

So Musky Boy and I have been having a conversation, that he - missing the crux of the argument - posted to ITH forums. Now I'm fine with ITH forums, although really, it's all about 2+2. Regardless, here's the heart of the argument.

In a SNG type game. You have 5 players left. You have average to slightly lower than average chip stack. Some of the other players at the table are very agressive, although you're better than they are overall. You figure you have about 7-10 hands before the blinds double, and start to really eat into your stack. If you double up, you are the chip leader.

Now you get into a big hand, heads up against someone with about the same, or more chips than you have. For an example, lets say you have AQo, and the flop is KQr. You bet, he raises. Now, given that this guy is aggressive, it's almost as likely that he's raising after pairing the rag with literally any kicker.

But still, you're probably a dog in this situation. The question here becomes, what is the EV of pushing all your chips in the pot? For the sake of verbosity alone, let's assume an 8 man tourney with paid finishes of $100/$40/$20 for the top 3.

By doubling up, you dramatically increase your chances of winning. If you lose, you are, for all intents and purposes, eliminated out of the money. Without actually doing the math, I think it's obvious that the EV is positive when you are the favorite. But, is the EV positive even when you are a dog?

For purposes of simplifying the math, let's assume that you effectively eliminate the other player by getting him all in. Before, your EV was $26(less than 1/5 of each position paid - $17 + $6 + $3). If you double up, your EV goes up radically $64(more than 1/4 of each $40 + $18 + $6. When you are on the bubble with a chip lead, that gives you a significant adgantage - maybe I'm overstating that a little.

Now, he could also fold, which would increase slightly your EV. But, you could also lose, which brings your EV to 0. So, at what level does your EV change from positive to negative? Let's see. Becuase I'm not smart enough to do the math, I'm going to assume the opponent never folds.

So over 100 hands, if you are 50/50, you EV would be $3,200 (50 wins @ $64). If you don't play that hand, your EV is 100 * $26 or $2,600. Clearly you should play that hand. Now, with that wide a differential, I think it's clear you should also play the hand as a dog too. How many wins (% dog) would you need to break even?

Turns out it's 40 - of course assuming that all this above math and the related assumption are correct.

Amateur Poker League Story

APL Story

I think this may have been lifted form the Daily Herald from a while ago. And I'm sure that the quality of play is low, but I still wanna go and check this out sometime in January.

Muskyby - Regulator, you up for the challenge?

Hellmuth strikes again

Hellmuth Interview

OK, I get that he was great once, and is still very good. But when did he go all Charles Barkley? You are asked a question on your most memorable hands, and respond with "I don't know if it made it into the book."

? Really Phil? First, if it was that memorable, then maybe you would have made sure to put it in the book. How disconnected from the whole 'writing' process that you don't know what's in the final book?

MuskyBoy - take notice of your idol's fall into crass commercialization of the game we love.

Topic for Discussion

How is it that you can run a large business, be a good poker player, and not be able to figure out how to respond to an email? Regulator, we're all waiting....

MPT Official Rules Link

MPT Official rules here

Sidebet to add flavor to Championship

Musky Boy and I have agreed to a bet to settle our incessant trash talking. As noted earlier, I have successfully thrown Musky Boy off his game by commenting on his style, which I refer to as Weak/Tight. During the last event, he loosened up considerably, and was unable to adjust, finishing without a victory, yet again.

So, in this event, and each event until this is settled, we have made the following bet. If the following conditions are met:

• Live tournament
• 8 players or more
• Dave and Khyle end up heads up

then the bet is on. The bet is: loser wears a tshirt provided by winner during the next poker night - over both tournaments. Assuming that Musky loses, the TShirt would say "Khyle's Poker Beyotch."

MPT Championship Reminder

The inaugural MPT Championship tournament is scheduled for 12/17/2004. The night will start out with a warm-up tournament to adjust to the new starting chip-counts and blind structure.



The winner gets the wrist-greening MPT Championship bracelet. The bracelets purchase was done in secrecy, and only our Tour Manager, Musky Boy knows exactly what it looks like.

Invitational Results (11/13/2004)

John "W" Rizzotto and Ralph "Sausage King" Bachinger get Victories

Hebeda, Regulator stunned

11/13/2005 - The McPherson Classic provided drama and excitement as Ralph Bachinger finally got his bracelet. Khyle "Magic Man" Keys, so called becuase he often disappears early, had high hopes for his performance. But he ran into two big hands and they both went against him, as he betted over two solid players, the Regulator and Musky Boy, into pocket Kings and a straight. Keys has been struggling lately as he adjusts to his new playing style, which he defines as the "Henning" style. "Once I master the new style, I will be a consistent winner on the tour. But until then, the only solace that I have is that Hebeda will never win a tournament that I enter. I have complete mastery over his psyche."

As the game progressed, the Regulator and Dave "Musky Boy" Hebeda pissed away all the chips they won from the Magic Man and gave them all to Ralph "Sausage King" Bachinger. Bachinger won key hands and raced to the victory to earn his first bracelet.

In the second tournament of the night, John "W" Rizzotto took a cue from the Regulator, and ran over the table. The Regulator was relating a story about this guy who went all in 14 times, and stormed his way to a 3rd place finish. "W" took this as advice. In the key hand of the game, "W" called the Regulator's all in bet. Regulator turned over AK and had a gleam in his eye when "W" turned over KQ. The river card was a Q and the Regulator was done.

"W" proceeded to bully the table the rest of the night. Despite being low on chips at a couple points in the tourney (and doubling up each of his opponents at least once), he rebounded to earn his second tour victory.

All in all, it was a disappointing night for "Musky boy" Dave Hebeda. In the first tournament, he changed his strategy after weeks of haranguing by the Magic Man, whose chants of "SHOOOOOOOOP" apparently took a toll on the otherwise tight player. In the second game, he was completely intimidated by "W" in the second.

When the tour started, Musky Boy was the odds on favorite to win every tournament he played. Sadly, the initial promise of his career has failed to translate into the dominance once projected for him. He is quickly becoming known as the Eddy Curry of the MPT.

Charity Event Recap

Here's a summary of the performance of MPT'ers in a local charity tourney (from the old site):

MPT Veterans Show Well in Charity Tournament

Regulator and Musky Boy Enjoy Camaraderie with local Carnies

11/21/2004 --

Three MPT players participated in the $150 buy in Rockford Charitable Games tournament held on November 21 in Gurnee. Paul "Regulator" Kravitz, Dave "Musky Boy" Hebeda and David Feltman (a previous MPT mega tourney final table participant) sat down with some of the best players Northern Illinois has to offer. Musky Boy paid most of his entry fee by chopping the winnings of a single table qualifier earlier in the evening. Over $5,000 was at stake.

The tournament started with 60 players and the Regulator was first out finishing in the middle of the pack. Both Musky Boy and Feltman made final table appearances but were unable to land in the money. Feltman rocketed to the final table by doubling up on the Musky Boy who made an ill advised attempt at a blind steal and his pocket twos met up against Feltmans pocket 7's. Hebeda had a touch of Squeaky McPherson's luck with a straight flush on the third hand of the tournament.

He was able to double up on two big pots mid way through the tournament. In one crucial hand, Hebeda was dealt pocket 10's from the button, he raised and was called by the big blind. The flop came 9 Q Q, Hebeda went all in and was called by pocket 6's. (*Editor's note: This is NOT the action of the Musky Boy we know and love! This was an aggressive play!)

A few hands later Hebeda had Q 10 of clubs. He raised and was again called by the big blind. The flop came Q J 7 with two clubs. Hebeda bet and was called the turn came an A. His opponent made a small bet that Hebeda called and the river came a K giving Musky Boy the nut straight. Hebeda Put all his chips into the middle of the table and was called, doubling up a second time.

Unfortunately with the blinds at 4,000/8,000 both Hebeda and Feltman ran into cold cards with Hebeda going out 9th when his all in with K 10 (just prior to the blinds) was called by AK, and shortly thereafter Feltman's all in with 3 3 was called and crushed by A J when an A and J can on the flop. All in all a fine showing by the MPT. In other news, the Magic Man continues to dominate the Hold 'Em game on his phone.

** Editor's note: We're not sure what charity was helped by this tournament. But based on the turn out, we're pretty sure it was for some kind of dental organization or old folks home.

MPT Championship Preview

he MPT has announced that it will hold an invitation only Champions tournament on 12/17/2004. The event will be held at the luxury estate of Tour Manager "Musky Boy" Hebeda. The rules have been slightly altered, doubling the starting chips, and speeding up the blind raises. According to inside sources, other rule changes have been considered. "I really wanted to add a bounty fee for each entrant. Each player would pay an extra $10, and whomever took them out got the money" said the source.

The evening will consist of two tournaments, the second of which will determine the "Champion" of the MPT for 2004. The winner will not only have bragging rights for a full year, but he will also take home the MPT Champion's Bracelet and Chalice.

Musky Boy personally fronted the money for the trophies. "If we were going to hold a championship, we needed something commensurate with the status of the MPT. To that end, I went to the highly regarded Dollar store in the local strip mall and bought a couple plastic trinkets to award for the winner."

The odds on favorite for the Champion is Musky Boy himself, as the most experienced player on tour. "He's definitely dangerous, if by dangerous you mean having a small stack late in the tournament" said an anonymous tour member. When asked about this common perception Musky Boy responded with a quote from one of his idols - "If it weren't for luck, I'd win every time."

Two other players carry momentum into the tournament. Both Sausage King Ralph Bachinger and John "W" Rizzotto won at the last tournament night. Rizzotto's new "walk over people like the Germans over France" style will surely be put to the test. SK, always a solid contender, has upped his game over the last several tournaments. Up until recently, his best strategy had been to buy a fifth of liquor and hope everyone else got too drunk. This strategy ran into problems when the entire fifth was consumed by one person...who promptly lost his chips to someone else.

The Regulator is also a factor. His adjustment to the MPT style of play has taken awhile, but sooner or later his superior skill and knowledge of the rules will surely lead him to a straight victory.

Squeaky McPherson might also be a factor. When asked about his chances, Squeaky sounded confident, albeit confused. "My strategy has always been to get two people all-in in front of me, while I have the nuts. I haven't been able to implement this strategy in the last several tournaments, but I think I will be able to turn it around on the 17th."

The Doc, Paul Brown is coming off a bit of a layoff, having taken time off for "family issues." Doc's game has suffered recently as his fold-out-of-turn-only-to-raise move has drawn more attention. This 'stealth move' was at the core of his game, and it's loss of effectiveness has hurt Doc.

Magic Man Keys' confidence is high after out-lasting 1,500 people in a tournament recently. "I showed a 50% ROI for my time, and earned $.60/hour, which, when you account for my commute, is actually more than I earn per hour at my straight job." Magic Man has also completed the mastering of his new "Henning" style of play.

"I plan on smiling ridiculously, speaking in a high voice with a lisp, and performing several magic acts - like making Musky Boy disappear" Magic Man said with an evil laugh.

Greetings

We're in the process of migrating our site over to this new location.

Check back for udpates!