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PCA, TCOOP and maybe a rant or two....
By goleafsgoeh, 18-Jan-2012 19:37:00
Read more...Jan 17 2012
Well I am on my way back home from my 3rd trip to PCA; I made one final table on the trip finishing 6th in the 1k + 1k bounty Turbo. It was a losing trip overall however; as I bricked the Main, 10k turbo and a few other post-lims. It’s never good to have a losing trip but at least the weather was better than the last couple years; I had a few nice days in the sun and was also awarded my 1st WCOOP bracelet at the PokerStars party. PCA is one of the more enjoyable trips of the year as it’s as much a vacation as it is a poker trip. Couple thoughts on what could make it even better, yea I have a few.....
-Why the hell do they start tournaments at Noon....It’s warm and sunny outside and we’re stuck inside playing poker. Yes I know it’s a poker series but why not start events at 2 or 3 in the afternoon so that everyone can enjoy a few hours of sun 1st. Wow imagine poker players getting outside more than once a week a crazy thought I know. Also late reg needs to be for longer allowing players the flexibility to straggle in when they want...It’s a vacation as well you know.
-Enough with the great structures, really.....I’m happy that they added more turbo’s this year but they still need more or at least quicker structures. There is no way that you should not make the $ on day 1 of a prelim or postlim....Aside from a few special events like the high-roller and designated “deep stacks” players should never come back for a day 2 not in the $.
The 2k turbo’s both drew over 200 players, the 10k turbo had its biggest field ever despite all other events being smaller...People like turbo’s especially in a destination like the Bahamas; and if it’s not a turbo, simple solution to fixing the structures: HAVE ESCALATING BLINDS!!!
There is no reason to play 1hour of 25/50 in a 1k or 2k postlim with 10,000 chips in the F’n Bahamas....Start with 30 min levels, increase to 40 mins after dinner, 50 minutes once you make the $ and 60 mins day 2. Solves EVERYTHING: You can still have all the levels, can still give lot’s of chips but you get to the meaningful stages of the tournament quicker, make the $ on day 1 and preserve a deeper average stack throughout the tournament. WSOP circuit events started doing this last season, heck even FTP introduced this (They did a few things right)....I don’t understand why more tournaments don’t try this....Please listen TDA’s and PokerStars!!!!!!!!!
On to more positive news (For non-US players): TCOOP :)
TCOOP starts on Thursday the 19th and I am very excited for it, for anyone that doesn’t know me well I love turbo’s....Win just as much $ in ¼ of the time...Ummm OK, sign me up! I wish WCOOP and SCOOP had a few more turbo’s mixed in their schedules but giving us a whole series of turbo’s is awesome. I look forward to online tournaments series’ as they give me the motivation to grind and compete with all of the best players in the world. Like I did with WCOOP I just started a TCOOP leaderboard contest on twoplustwo/pocketfives where I will take on any player in the world; of course Stars offers prizes as well to the top players of the series. Prediction: I will finish in the top 10.....
Ok so I was thinking back and kind of curious so I had to check....I have made at least 1 final table in the last 2 WCOOP’s, 2 SCOOP’s, 3 FTOPS and the last UBOC winning a wcoop, ftops and uboc title along the way....But yet I am still trying to make my 1st WSOP final table......Arrrrrg, this year!! Oh yeah but 1st let’s make a few TCOOP FT’s and win 1 or 2 :-D
A big congrats to friends who won big at PCA: Kyle Julius, Faraz Jaka and Xuan Liu all who made the final table of the main event finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th locking up between 600k and 1.5 Mill and Jon Duhamel; Wow, if there was a player of the series it wouldn’t have been close. Jon had 4 top 5 finishes including 4th in the Super High Roller, 2nd in the High Roller, 5th in the 5k turbo and shipped the 5k NLH...I think he played only 5 events overall, not bad lol.....Keep this up and you will make a name for yourself in the poker world bud! (Sarcasm)....
As always you can watch my latest training videos on Tournamentpokeredge.com and for information on private coaching visit my website: mikeleah.com
Later,
Mike
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The Blog Begins!
By rolfus, 14-Dec-2011 09:08:00
Read more...Well I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now; the launch of my website: mikeleah.com seems like the right time. My 3rd year as a full-time poker professional is coming to an end and I think it’s amazing how much I continue to learn about the game. I think back to this time last year and I am looking at situations from a much different perspective. I think my foray into coaching has helped my own game a lot; explaining theory to others has made it much clearer to me as well.
This year has been much different than my 1st two as I really cut back on my travel to focus on online, life and WSOP. I decided to take 3 months off of travel before the World Series to rest, prepare, get in shape and focus on the big online series’ in the spring. Unfortunately “Black Friday” put a damper on the online series’; FTOPS and SCOOP still went off although with smaller prize pools of course and a lot of uncertainty. I final tabled both an ftops and scoop event and It was a still a great warm-up for WSOP playing all of the mixed game events and tuning up my game. I had 6 cashes at WSOP and although I failed in my goal of winning my 1st bracelet, I had my best WSOP so far and some great chances to final table, 2012 will be my year! I took another 3 months off after WSOP to recoup, enjoy the summer and focus on WCOOP. As you probably know....That worked out pretty good for me; winning my 1st WCOOP bracelet in Badugi and chopping the Main Event for the biggest win of my career (So far): $560,000. (You can watch a hand history review of my main event run on tournamentpokeredge.com)
I took off to France and Italy shortly after for WSOP Europe where I cashed in the main event and EPT Sam Remo where I final tabled the only 2 side events I played. Although I felt I was playing the best poker of my career I decided to shut things down for the rest of the year to enjoy some time off that the big win made it easy to justify. I have kept sharp playing on Sundays and have been doing a lot of private coaching to keep busy in-between “vacationing”. I definitely have the “itch” back and can’t wait to get back to the live felt in the new-year. I will be going to PCA from Jan 6-17 and then to Borgata from Jan 17-Feb 4 for every event of both series’, I anticipate great results and expect myself to final table at least 1 event in each place. I will then head home for a couple weeks to recoup, go on a ski trip with family and then off to LAPC for the last couple weeks of February.
I am very excited about my website and will be spending a lot of time working on some cool ideas I have through my site: Poker and fantasy sports will be the theme of most of the ideas and should be fun; my website is very interactive and I look forward to talking to many of you on mikeleah.com about poker strategy and sports. I will keep this 1st post short as it is more of a review/introduction for me and I expect my future blog posts to be more current or theme based.
Until the next time,
Mike
*My latest video series begins today on tournamentpokeredge.com; it was a WCOOP session I recorded before my main event run.
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