My current news: I’m finishing up my internship at Neufeld, Scheck & Brustin this Thursday.  It has been a very worthwhile experience, and I’m absolutely thrilled by the subject matter and think the work they do at that firm is amazing.  I’ve worked on cases for a number of clients this summer, all of whom had been wrongfully incarcerated for 15+ years, and had been the victims of massive police and prosecutor scandals.  Today I sat in on a deposition of the lead detective whose blatant misconduct led to the 20+ year incarceration of a 16 year old kid.  I’m really happy to have been able to contribute to the firm and meet the amazing people who work there, and see the work that they do come to life.

That all being said, I don’t think I’m cut out to be a full-time litigator.  Sitting in a room doing research and writing for 8+ hours straight just isn’t for me.  I crave human contact.  I want very much to do important work in the field of police misconduct, and also to put my law degree to good use, and I’m not sure exactly how that will happen quite yet.  I’m excited to figure it out though, and thanks to poker, I have some time to do that.  My current idea is to do social entrepreneurship around the issue – basically to take money and find people with good ideas (I have some myself) of projects that will help the cause.  Then I can get together with these people at the initial steps, and work to craft the projects and the ideas… and then hopefully fund them.  That, I think, would satisfy me in the human contact, the creativity and ideas generation thing, and the creating real change aspect of my goals as well…

Of course, for that plan to come to life in the medium-long term, it means I’m going to need to make some money.  To that end, I have a packed poker schedule ahead of me in the short term.  This coming Monday, I’ll be heading off to EPT Tallinn, followed by Barcelona and a Mediterranean cruise with Miranda.  After that, she’ll be heading back home to start her next year of teaching, and I’ll be spending the week in Cannes for the PPT.  Then, home for a week to catch up with law school friends who will have just gotten back and will hopefully be ready to party hard with me for a week   After that, off to London for WSOPE and EPT.  Then probably back stateside for a while.

I am looking forward to playing more of these big buy-in, deep-stacked events.  I’ve only played NAPT Mohegan Sun and WSOP ME in the last two years, so with my results I’m obviously itching to play more ASAP.  The poker bug, I guess… nothing I’m sure a few quick bustouts won’t cure right quick

Oh yeah, I almost forgot to randomly plug my new series on DeucesCracked, tournamentality.  It’s basically a podcast, but it’s going to be in the videos section, at least for now, as we are only going to be making some of the episodes free, and some of the episodes will only be available as premium content.  Basically, each week, I bring on a new guest, either a DC coach, amateur live or online player, or random guest pro, and discuss tournament strategy.  Pretty simple, eh?  Check it out!  Great to listen to when doing other things and you don’t wanna commit to a video, IMO.

Until next time, you can check out twitter and facebook for more frequent updates.  See ya!

I’ve made some lofty bets in order to motivate myself to win the tourney… so I’ve got a bit more than first place money riding on it if I actually do take it down.  So wish me luck

I’m going to have programs available for 2-4 days (cost decreases if you go for the longer program).  The 2 day program will probably only be available for cash games, but I’ll know more for sure once I fully develop the curriculum.  In any event, I’m really excited about it, and have my first students in June at the WSOP.

For more information about this opportunity, shoot me a PM over at deucescracked or email me at vanessa@deucescracked.com.

Beat the victim and strip-search her…

Woman in drive-thru gets pepper sprayed

I’m shocked I never even heard about this one… Kathryn Johnston

Iraq vet gets beaten by cop in airport

They don’t just beat people, they steal too

Just kind of a routine day but the cop is too stupid too steal the videotape

And here is a story about wiretapping charges for someone who tried to film the police: Don’t film the police

There’s lots more good stuff in the twoplustwo thread, but I’ve got to start my day so I thought I’d leave everyone with these nice little nuggets.

The key thing is to realize that this goes on every single day – the random beatings, or sometimes just a little roughing up, that don’t get caught on tape… videotaping capabilities are still somewhat expensive, and even when you do possess them, sometimes it doesn’t matter since the cop will confiscate the device.  Public awareness is the most important thing – it’s what’s going to stop juries from automatically believing the police officer’s word and convicting innocent people (If anything actually goes to the jury, that is.  But at least if it’s thought that you have a better shot in front of a jury, fewer people might plead to begin with).  So spread the word…

Hand 1: A5s is so pretty, how could you fold?

So right now there are 12 people left in the tournament and both tables are playing 6-handed.  We have 4 more people to go until play ends for the night and things have been pretty tame.  My opponent in this hand is Alan Sternberg, who I don’t know much about except that he had amassed a very large stack of chips at the other table, which typically means he was playing a lot of hands.  So far at this table he has played a good number as well, and has never failed to fire multiple barrels.  He has been to showdown twice, once as a bluff, and once with a monster.  Basically, he reminds me a lot of me before I became a more disciplined player (i.e. not firing on every street).  So this is my read, for good or bad, after not very long with him.   Onto the hand:

With blinds at 20k/40k, Alan raises the CO to 95k, which he has done on about 70% of cutoffs that have folded to him.  I 3-bet in the small blind with A5hh to 280k.  Alan has about 1.7M total, which is 42 big blinds and right around average chips.  I have about 5M in my stack here and am the chip leader by quite a bit.  I have been 3betting a good number of pots where I think people are opening light.  Anyway, I stick out the 280k and Alan looks upset and then within 3 seconds, he announces “all-in.”  So I’m trying to figure out what he has… if he has a very big hand, I think he’s much more likely to 4bet small to induce me to shove.  So I heavily discounted big pairs and AK.  I DO think he might shove a hand like a small-medium pocket pair or AQ-AT or something, but I thought he would take a lot longer to do it.  First, you have to work up the nerve, but besides that… calling with those stacks in position was a very viable option for those hands, and I think he’d need to take the time to think about whether calling was better than shoving or not.  So based on that, I just really thought he was bluffing.  And since he reminded me of me a couple years ago, I figured it was some suited connectors thinking he DIDN’T want me to 5-bet shove on him light since he knew I was capable, and “well, if she DOES have AK or something, my suited connectors are very live.”  Plus, A5s is pretty.  So I called.  To my great delight, he turned over 65s, and I raked in a very large pot.  That hand was also a huge confidence boost for me heading into the final table, which always helps.

Hand 2: Flush draw!

Ok we’re down to 3 handed at the final table.  I’ve been hitting some pretty big hands and have managed to win most of them, and am up to about 10.5M chips.  Mike Beasley has a little over 4M in chips, maybe 4.3M, and Mike Woods has 5.5M or so.  Mike Beasley limps on the button, which is something he had not done yet, I don’t think.  Just from my limited experience seeing people limp buttons 3-handed, I find that rarely if ever is the first limp a monster.  I mean, there’s no reason to limp a monster the first time if you’ve been raising, because the first time you just rarely get played back at.  So anyway, the blinds are 50k/100k at this point, so everyone still has over 40BB. Mike Woods completes in the small blind, and I check my option with Q6hh.

The flop comes K33hh.  Mike Woods checks and I check, knowing that on this type of board texture Mike Beasley is very likely to take a stab with whatever T high he happened to limp in with.   He bets 200k into a pot of about 330k.  SB folds, and I raise to 550k.  I didn’t make a huge raise because I wanted to represent strength as I could very easily have a 3 since I checked the big blind.  Mike then 3bets me to about 1.2M.  At this point, it’s possible that he has a 3 and plays it this way, but I don’t think there are that many 3’s in his limping range – A3, Q3s, 34s, etc.  but it’s definitely a small part of that range.  I do not think he would play a K like this unless it’s a very big king like AK or KQ, and once again, I didn’t think he was limping those hands preflop right now.  Any other K, it’s better for him just to call and let me bluff, since his 4bet would often fold out all worse hands, especially bluffs, which should make up a decent part of my range on this board texture.  Like, if he has K6, then he only really beats a bluff since he loses to a 3 and most kings, so if he is going to continue, it should be by calling and letting me bluff.  So I didn’t think he had a king.  Given he knows the board texture is one which neither of us hit that often and I have been check-raising and raising at every opportunity, I thought there was a good chance he was just playing back at me.

Now, if I go all-in, I risk 4.3M and worse yet, if I lose, I’m down to about 6M and instead of having a commanding chip lead, I actually find myself in 2nd place.  I really didn’t want this to happen, but at the same time, there was 2M in the pot and I thought he would fold his hand a large percent of the time.  Basically I had to risk 3.8M to win 2M, and I thought he would fold about 3/4 of the time, making the shove itself +EV without counting my equity if called.  When you add to that the fact that when called (usually by a 3), I still have around 25% equity to win 6M (so 1.5M more), and it was a very easy shove for me.  So shove is what I did, Mike folded, and I took down another decent pot.

Hand 3: Pair mining

This last hand is more standard I guess, but I thought that it’s a good illustration of how preflop bet sizing can help make a read.  This was HU when I had a massive chip lead… I had entered HU with 18.8M to Mike’s 2.7M, and this was just after we began (I guess all the HU was just after we began, since it lasted 7 hands!).  Mike had 2.6M here.  I limped the button with K7o since I like to see a flop and make a good pair with that hand since I can value bet it and make some chips postflop, but when I get shoved on pre I can’t call 26BBs.  So I limp (still at 50k/100k).  Mike raises OOP to 450k, which was an extremely large raise for a tournament.

His large raise got me to thinking – I didn’t think he had a monster ever – HU those are too precious and you can’t risk me folding.  This was a bet that screamed “I have the best hand right now, I swear, but please don’t call me as this will be extremely tough to play OOP.”  To me, that means some sort of Ace or a small pocket pair.  With that in mind, the only hand I’m in trouble against is A7 and otherwise, making a pair will likely be very profitable, as he will c-bet the flop and I will jam and sometimes get a fold and sometimes a call depending on board texture.  Basically, I will be in a really good spot postflop except in the unlikely scenario where he hits top pair and my 7 makes middle pair (but I was folding if an A came); you have to allow for the occasional bad luck when putting yourself in certain situations.  So here, I put myself in a situation to make a pair in position and probably win the tournament right there if I did so.

Anyway, it worked out as planned – the flop came K83r and Mike bet out 1M into a pot of 900k.  I went all in pretty quickly… I was trying not to seem super strong so he might put me on an 8 and call with two overcards.  In any event, with that board texture there’s not much I could do to get a call with worse, since he couldn’t even put me on a flush draw.  He folded for 1.1M more and I took down a 3M chip pot.  At that point, I had 20M and Mike had 1M and we got it all in preflop the next hand, and I won the tournament!

Well I went back up there last Wednesday, and let’s just say I didn’t have the opportunity to play cash games.  In fact, I didn’t have the opportunity to do much of anything except play poker for 5 straight days and win $750k.  So sick… my biggest tournament score to date.  It was so incredible – and Miranda (my gf) was there sweating me for 4 whole days (god bless her soul).  And then my friends came up from law school to rail the final table… and they all made funny signs and had a great time.  Seriously, what an incredible experience.

Here’s the link to some updates

Here are some more

Pokerstars interview

Pokernews interview

Also while I’m making a post, don’t forget to vote for me in the TOC!

I will post more strategy stuff from the NAPT when the show airs on ESPN2, which will be on May 10th at 10PM.  I have too much on my plate with catching up on law school before then, and besides, we wouldn’t want any spoilers, would we?

Thanks for reading.

Vanessa

“You’re better off being rich and guilty than poor and innocent.”

From the study from McCleskey v. Kemp, defendants convicted of killing white victims were over four times more likely to receive the death penalty than defendants convicted of killing black victims.  The chances double for black defendants when compared to white defendants.

In Alabama (and other jurisdictions as well), there is no right to an attorney in a post-conviction hearing.  So capital appeals… nothing.  You can be facing the state taking your life, and you are expected to represent yourself arguing complicated points of law in front of a racist criminal justice system.  And sometimes people do have representation, and the representation is really bad, with attorneys missing deadlines, not doing research, and not showing up to court.  But then the prisoners can’t argue for ineffective assistance of counsel, because when there’s no right to counsel at all, very little and shoddy assistance isn’t considered ineffective since it’s “better than nothing at all”.

This was what Bryan Stevenson came to share with us during Reblaw.

The Innocence Project has already reversed convictions of 225 people who have served a combined total of 2,800 years in prison.  For every eight people executed in this country, one innocent person has been exonerated.  1 in 8.  And that’s with the shoddy representation, based mostly on new evidence like DNA.  1 in 8.  Imagine if more of those people actually could afford or were provided with lawyers.

Many people talk about the death penalty and the ethical quandary of whether the state has the right to take people’s lives.  What many who engage in this debate don’t realize is that the question should be whether the state has the right to take people’s lives in grossly disproportionate ways and sometimes without much regard for actual guilt or innocence.

“The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth, it’s justice.”

well anyway, i thought this would be a good time to share a hand i played last night.

some background – well… i’ve been raising like 60% of hands for the entire night.  i started out running super bad and immediately stuck 3k, then i made some hands and i was up like 3k overall… so basically +6k in a couple hours and just running over the table.  but this is my first hand at this table, which is the main game after two must moves and honestly i didn’t know what my opponent thought of me, except that here’s a hand before the one i’ll write about, just for history:

i have 7k in front of me, and i overlimp 2 people with J5dd. button makes it 75, and SB calls with about 3500.  BB calls with 400 total, then the first limper, villain in the next hand, who was UTG+1, makes it 300.  he has about 7k as well.  i decide to cold call 300 really because it was one of those nights where i felt invincible.  SB calls, and BB moves all in for 100 more.  we all call, obv, so 1200 in there with dry side pot.

flop is KJ3hh, checks to villain who bets 750.  i call hoping to peel and also bluff hearts, and thinking villain will for sure shut down with 2700 in there and my call showing strength (he isn’t as crazy as me and i don’t think he thinks J5 is in my range here )… SB folds.  turn is a 6s.  villain leads out 2200, i fold… river 6 and he shows 36dd for the boat and the scoop.  sigh.  would have been nice to check down my J and win on a different turn, but so it goes.  anyway so he obviously never sees my cards, but he knows i’m not afraid to put money in the pot.

onto the hand: i have about 6k now, maybe a bit less.  same orbit.  i raise J3dd after two limpers to 40, SB (villain) calls and two limpers call.  flop is Q65dd.  all check to me and i bet 100, and villain makes it 400 from the SB.  two others fold and i call.

turn is an offsuit 7 and he checks to me.  now sometimes i check behind here, but my thinking was if i check i expect him to look me up light on the river, but if i bet, i can barrel twice and get him off either a 56 type hand on a lot of rivers, or a better draw that makes a pair, or whatever.  i can also rep a 8 or 9 for the straight… so i bet 600, and he thinks for not very long and calls.  so the board is now: Q56dd7 and there is about 2200 in the pot.

River is an offsuit 9.  Q5679.  He very quickly leads for about 1200.  I am pretty sure he has either some weak Q like QT trying to bluff with it now, or a missed draw himself.  I guess he could have an 8, but it’s unlikely.  so i raise 2600 more.  he thinks for about maybe 2 minutes… i mean he tanked, but not even all that long… and he calls.  foxwoods has this dumb rule where you have to show your hand even if your opponent mucks, so i take full advantage, throw my cards in the pile… and he turns over… A9dd.  i got owned.

oh well, another day, another chance to bluff off 5k… or more!  hope you enjoyed that one as much as i did!

So for one, I figured out that I’m going to be able to go to the WSOP for about two weeks this summer, since the people at my summer job are super awesome and chill and are letting me take off two weeks right in the middle of the summer.

And here is what this post is about:  This year, the WSOP will be sponsoring the Tournament of Champions, which is a 27-player invitational tournament. Here is the press release.

The best part is that 20 of the spots are determined by voting, which means I need your help to get me a spot to play this!  Here is where you go to vote. (Vote for Vanessa Selbst in case that wasn’t obvious).  Please do it – it takes all of one minute (for each time you do it … j/k j/k of course).  You could get me a spot in this, which would be awesome for me and awesome for DC too.

Here is why it would be great to have me in the tourney:

1) I make for very entertaining WSOP final tables (i.e., 4betting 52s all-in preflop from UTG 7 handed against AA; drunk plo HU match against Jamie Pickering in 2008).

2) It would be great to get some more women on TV in prestigious poker tournaments

3) It would be amazing to have a representative of Deuces Cracked showing how awesome we are

4) I have not had a ton of time to play poker but when I have I have done well… this would be an amazing opportunity for me to actually prove myself (rather than the hilarious structure of the NBC HU).

Anyway, you guys rock and thanks so much for your support in everything.  I’ve done some research into getting audio tracks on my blog (which is my preferred way to talk about poker content, since my memory sucks and I am short on time, but I can do it right after the hands during the tourney).  In short, look out for more poker content soon if we can get that up and running!

Peace,

Vanessa

So I wanted to give you all a heads up on some more sweet news for Australia.  The Executive Producers, Founders, and couple other coaches from Deuces Cracked are heading down to Melbourne to play the events and have fun in the sun.  But we’re also running the Aussie Millions Academy, where you can take a seminar led by many of the DC pros.  We’re running many seminars in all sorts of disciplines, and it’s a great and relatively inexpensive way to get some of the best poker training available from some really great players.

I’m heading out of here early Tuesday morning and somehow before then I’ve got to write a couple papers, take an exam, and take care of a bunch of other loose ends (like my court appearance, among other things!).  So I’m a little bit stressed right now with all that, but in less than one week I’ll be soaking in the rays on the other side of the globe.  Let me know if you’re going to be around, especially if you want to play tennis with me (and are somewhat decent) as I’m hoping to get a lot of time in on the court!

Cheers,

Vanessa