Sunday, November 30, 2008

World Cup 2008 Philippines Round 1 Qualifiers

The World Cup is an annual tournament where countries play poker against each other. Countries will be represented by a team who have either won the freeroll qualifiers or have the highest ranking in PokerStars' Tournament Leader Board.

The World Cup is on its 5th year but this is only the 2nd time the Philippines is included. Last year, the Philippine team was composed of ak97b, winroy, iko1688 and LSDUDE. They played against Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, South Africa and Venezuela. In this division, Mexico won and advanced to the main event in Barcelona, Spain.

This year, the World Cup of Poker is well underway. The freeroll qualifiers are just about done and the national Finals are about to begin.

The Philippines Final is scheduled for Dec 1, 3pm. This 18-player tournament will determine the 2 players who will play for the Philippine team. Tournament ID 121300365

1st freeroll winners, bmumali, CONQUEROR888, denim_ong, monpablo, MotoLGXDA, peke2008, POWERDMT, shioti and ZenidineZero
(Off-topic: I finished somewhere in the 50's out of 100+. My AK vs villain's KQ)

2nd freeroll winners, arieljohn, DylanHunter, eugynco, gumasta, isterwin, lelaks, Lilibeth1974, pinay_playah and vicpena
(Off-topic: I didn't play this freeroll because I woke up 4 minutes late!!! My laptop is at the foot of my bed and I still didn't make it in time.)

Good Luck all.

Friday, November 28, 2008

PokerStars Cash Game Rake

In the long run, a mediocre player will eventually lose to the house's rake. The poker room takes a percentage of every pot in a cash game. This is how they get the money to keep operating. This is also why poker is slightly pro-player. The house doesn't benefit off of the players' lost. They just care that there are as many players as possible.

I tried to research on how much the rake is in PokerStars and I found this rake page. It says that the rake for a No Limit Cash Table with blinds at $50 or less is 5% of the pot with a corresponding maximum limit depending on the number of players.

I never realized how much this is until I checked my hand history. I looked at the longest time I've played in a cash table which was 1 hour 52 minutes. It was a $0.10/$0.25 NLHE table. The total rake for that table at that time was $15.75. I bought in for $15 for that table and in less than 2 hours, PokerStars have earned what I bought in for.

Metro Team Poker

The Metro plans to hold the 2nd Team Poker event this December 2008. The date has yet to be announced but I heard they're choosing between December 19 to 21. Details will be announced soon.

This time, I hope Team King Jack Call gets better results.

Monday, November 24, 2008

PokerStars Admin Credit - Revisited

Here's an update on my previous post about the PokerStars Admin Credit. My friend was able to get the 1 FPP required to get the credit. However because it was only $5, she ended up losing everything.

I guess PokerStars got what they wanted. That's 1 more player who will want to try to play real money again and they got their investment back.

Saturday, November 22, 2008

My 99th Post

When I started this blog, it was with the intention of just being an outlet for writing. I wanted to keep writing and I chose to write about poker as it was what occupied my time most. For the first few months, I didn't even show this blog to friends. I didn't want anyone to read it at first. The downside to that was I also didn't get motivated enough to continue writing. Besides, most of the tournaments I've played then were illegal and I didn't want people to get in trouble. Add to that, the fact that there were a number of local poker blogs that were active at that time and I wouldn't want to compete with them.

And then the more popular local poker blogs stopped updating. And I was added in PokerManila's blog list. And more people are starting to play poker. All these made me start writing again. It didn't matter that I seldom won anything in live or online play. I get high with just playing and writing about it.

Now I'm on my 99th post. I originally planned to celebrate by getting my own Final Table Donkey domain registered. But that has to wait. I'm going to get a domain for my other blog instead, Ang Tanging Ama. I still have some plans for the Final Table Donkey. But everyone will just have to wait.

Lastly, I'd like to thank all my readers. This blog has had significant increase in visitors especially in the last 4 months. I'm hoping it's because of what I write and how I write. For non-bloggers, you won't know how great it feels to see the number of visitors increase. I enjoy reading comments, be it positive or negative, because it tells me that what I write made a sort of impact. I enjoy seeing followers added to the blog. Here's to the next 99 posts.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Ramil Tandoc finishes 5th at APPT Manila Main Event

Congratulations to Ramil Tandoc for finishing fifth in the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour Manila Main Event. This 5th place finish by a Filipino is to date the best finish by a Filipino-based player in an international tournament.

Photo courtesy of Metro Card Club website

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Official Poker Ranking

I've always liked looking at how I fared in tournaments through the Oficial Poker Rankings(OPR) website. I don't use any of the poker software other online players use so this site sort of makes up for my want for finding out how I'm doing.

Unfortunately, it also tells me that I'm not doing very well right now.  These are what I've learned so far. I'll be throwing a lot of numbers so try to keep up. Here we go...

  • I'm currently rated 38.38% for the year 2008. Yes it's a little on the low side but this includes tournaments I've played when I was just trying out online poker. And it includes tournaments I've played when I was drunk. Keep this in mind when reading the rest of this post. The rating is a little low but my ranking is somewhat average. 
  • I'm ranked 578,425th out of 938,718 players tracked. I'm not sure which players are included in the rankings and which are disregarded.
  • I've played 112 tournaments tracked by OPR. 105 are NLHE tournaments, the rest varies.
  • I've never finished ITM in any non-NLHE tournament. I know how to play these games but it looks like I'm not meant to win any of them. I'll stop playing them altogether.
  • My average finish in NLHE: 9% in bottom 10%, 26% in next 20%, 38% in middle 40%, 25% in next 20%, and only 3% in the top 10%. What I understand in this is that I usually end up near the middle. Most of the time I'd finish near when half of the players have busted or a reasonable time after half of them are gone. But I don't often finish in the top 10%.
  • I've finished a total of 9 times in the top 10 players. All 9 times were in 36 tournaments played with exactly 45 players. I finish ITM 1 of 4 times. Buy-in averages at $4.
  • In these 9 tournaments where I've fnished in the top 10 players, I've finished 1st once. It was a $1.20 buy-in tournament and I won $14 gross. I've never finished 2nd. I've finished 3rd once. It was the same type of tournament and I won $7 gross.
  • I've never finished ITM in the 15 tournaments played with 46-180 players. Not once. Average buy-in is $4. I'll stop playing those as well.
  • For the 54 NLHE torunaments with more than 180 players, I've finished ITM 8 times. Average buy-in is also $4 but my ROI is not as good as the 45-player tournaments. I keep playing them because the returns is potentially bigger except that the field size is a lot bigger as well. An average of 2006 players to be exact.
  • The most I've won in a single tournament was in a $3 multi-rebuy tournament with a guarantee of $40,000. I had 1 buy-in and 1 add-on. There were a total of 3501 players and I finished 448th. I won $22 gross.
  • The least I've won was in a $0.10 buy-in tournament. I finished 36th out of 360 players and I won $0.20 gross.
  • The biggest buy-in I've invested was $27 in a 45-player tournament. I played it twice but I've never finished ITM.
  • The biggest buy-in I've played where I've got ITM was in a $7 buy-in 45-player tournament. I played it 3 times but I only finished once and I got $18 gross.
  • I've played the $1.20 buy-in tournament a total of 16 times. This is the type of tournament I've won most often and won most amount. It may serve well to play this instead as it yields the most results for me.
I think with these details, I pretty much know what to do. The real problem is actually doing them. But, that's really the problem for every other poker player, live or online.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

PokerStars Admin Credits

About a month ago I convinced a friend to try playing poker. At the time, she didn't know a straight from a flush but she tried poker through play money games in PokerStars. After a few days, she already knew the basics. She's even thinking of depositing to play real money.

As luck would have it, a couple of days ago, PokerStars lent her $5 with their Admin Credit promo. Some PokerStars accounts have been credited $5 with 1 condition. These players have to earn 1 FPP in 10 days else the credit will be taken back. It's a pretty good deal for them. Earning 1 FPP is easy and they get free starting bankroll. My friend has been playing play money tables and freerolls the whole time so a $5 gift is a lot.

Good Luck Kuh! Hope you get that 1 FPP soon.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

APPT Manila 2008

Here's the list of events for the APPT Manila 2008 as listed in the official website www.appt.com. I won't be able to play any of the events and I'll forego watching them because it'll just be too sad.

Tue 11-Nov
16:00
Mega Satellite to Main Event
11,000

Tue 11-Nov
19:00
Manila Cup (2 day if required)
5,000

Wed 12- Nov
12:30
Mega Satellite to Main Event
11,000

Wed 12- Nov
16:00
Mega Satellite to Main Event
11,000

Wed 12-Nov
18:30
Celebrity/Media Event
Invitation

Wed 12-Nov
21:00
Welcome Party at Hyatt Hotel

Thu 13-Nov
12:30
APPT Main Event Day 1A
100,000

Thu 13-Nov
15:00
No Limit Holdem
20,000

Fri 14-Nov
12:30
APPT Main Event Day 1B
100,000

Fri 14-Nov
15:00
No Limit Holdem
20,000

Sat 15-Nov
12:30
APPT Main Event Day 2

Sat 15-Nov
15:00
No Limit Holdem
10,000

Sat 15-Nov
18:00
No Limit Holdem 7 Handed Day 1
40,000

Sat 15-Nov
20:00
High Rollers Event
250,000

Sun 16-Nov
12:30
APPT Main Event Day 3

Sun 16-Nov
13:00
No Limit Holdem 7 Handed Day 2

Sun 16-Nov
13:00
APPT Grand Final Satellite
5000 Rebuys

Sun 16-Nov
16:00
Teams Event No Limit Holdem (2 per team)
20,000 per team

Friday, November 7, 2008

APPT Manila 2008 - pretournament update

The biggest poker event in the Philippines is just a few nights away. The Manila leg of the Asia-Pacific Poker Tournament is scheduled for November 13-16, 2008 at the Hyatt Hotel and Casino, Manila. The buy-in for the main event is Php 100,000 (approx $2,350).

Satellites for this event have been on-going in both live and online card rooms. But I haven't been able to play much of theses satellites. I was given a graveyar schedule recently and it caused me to miss a lot of the good tournaments. I'm still hoping to somehow get to participate in a mega-satellite right before the main event.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

My Next Interview

It's been a while since I've interviewed someone on this blog. And since I'm losing online, I might as well plan my next interview.

All right. So these are the people I plan to ask for an interview. In alphabetical order:
  • Nick Galan - To talk about the history of poker in the Philippines. (I may reserve this interview for an actual on-cam or audio interview.)
  • Christine Gambito (Happy Slip) - I don't know if she plays poker but it's would be nice to have something different once in a while.
  • Cass Gonzales - Poker is so much different from her perspective as a dealer.
  • Bryan Malantic - I would ask him about the TDA rules and stuff.
  • Joshua Rivera - He won the FPT5 and I'm sure he have some nice insights.

I haven't asked all of these people yet but at least I have a plan.

BTW, I may be getting my own domain, I'll just update everyone on when I'm moving to http://www.finaltabledonkey.com