So, I flew down to Vegas to play the $5,000 PLO8 event last weekend. This would be the biggest tournament that I have ever played, aside from the WSOP Main Event that I played a number of years ago after winning my seat. This is the first time a $5k PLO8 event had ever been offered. In the previous two years there was only one $1,500 PLO8 so this was a brand new addition. I really didn't know what to expect for number of entrants but I was guessing in the 250 range. It turns out we had 198 players. The field was absolutely loaded with all the big name pro's. There weren't a lot of other major events right around this event so it drew a good chunk of top tier talent. If this were a hold'em tournament the field would have probably been pretty intimidating. But, for me, I know I have put in a lot more hours of PLO8 than any of these guys I watch on TV so I felt quite comfortable.
My initial table started out well. I picked up some early pots while being able to watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final on a nearby TV in the tournament room. Before the series had started I tossed some coin on Pens in 7 so needless to say I was quite happy with the result. My table had a few obvious weak players that overplayed hands but for the most part it was what I expected. I had Layne "back to back" Flack three seats to my right and Chris Reslock to my immediate right. Flack busted out quite early after he took a nasty beat for half his stack and then proceeded to try and force the action and win it all back which didn't work for him at all. I was lucky enough to have a big hand hold just before the first break and more than double up. I couldn't have asked for a better first two hours of play.
Over the next 6 hours of play I wasn't able to get much rolling. I held steady with my stack as the field caught up to me average chipwise. I had a number of table moves at the end of the night and played with guys like Erik Lindgren, Scott Clements and Daniel Negreanu for short sessions. The day of play ended at 3am with 59 of the 198 entrants remaining. We would resume play at 2pm the next day with 18 people making the money.
On day 2 I drew a table with Andy Bloch, Mike Sexton, and Jason Mercier. I was quite happy with my table draw because everyone was relatively short stacked which made it less likely that someone was going to just run over the table. About 10 minutes into play Andy Bloch took over 10 minutes on a single hand. It was absolutely beyond ridiculous. If it wasn't such a well known pro people would have called the clock on him 5-6 minutes earlier. I swear he just sat there knowing he was going to fold but didn't do it just to piss off the entire table. Eventually a tournament director was called to give him one more minute to act. Then the tournament director disappears to break another table so we again must wait for the director to come back to force Bloch to act. All this time Bloch just sits there like an absolute douche bag, taking a sip on his Arizona Green Tea bottle periodically. Finally, Bloch folds which I knew he was going to do at least 8 minutes ago.
Anyways, I am not getting much for cards at all and what I do get aren't connecting with flops. I make a raise with a very suspect hand in AQQJ and end up busting out Mike Baxter and his AAxx. Roland De Wolfe gets moved into his spot. This completely changes the table dynamics. De Wolfe comes in with a stack at least double anyone else at the table and is ready to force the action. I don't think he has a lot of PLO8 experience but he certainly has played his share of Omaha and was very dangerous. He took control of the table and was involved in most pots. Mike Matasow got moved immediately to my right and De Wolfe busted him fairly quickly.
I am unable to hit anything worthy of getting my chips in for a couple of hours and have dwindled to a stack of a little over 25,000 chips with blinds at 1,000/2,000. Anytime you are getting to near or less than 10x the big blind you are really getting in danger and need to find a hand to go with. I decided to limp on the button with A478. The flop comes 256rainbow and immediately fall in love with the flop. I have flopped 2nd nut low and a wrap straight draw. Andy Bloch leads out at the pot, a shorter stack deliberates and pushes all in. At this point I should have taken some more time and thought about the hand. It is most likely that both of these guys have a 3 in their hand, either a3 or 34 which means it is really unlikely for me to take the whole pot. It also means that if either of them have a3 I am drawing to 2 or 3 outs for the low and trailing the high unless I hit a straight. I should have just got out of the way but I decided to push my chips in a 3 way pot. Andy Bloch turned over A3K6 and the short stack turned over A387. So, not only am I down to 2 scoop outs but the short stack has a number of the same cards I need to complete my straight and will make the same straight as me when I do a number of times. So, I got my money in poorly and the turn and river didn't bring any help and that was the end of my day busting out around 40th.
Overall my tournament experience was actually enjoyable. It is very weird to think that I played a big buyin event and didn't cash and actually enjoyed myself but I did. I got to play with the best players in the world, both the recognizeable tv pros and the internet guys I have played for years at this very game. I would say on the whole I played my B game. I was a little too impatient with preflop hand selection and the last hand I just didn't take enough time to analyze the situation. However, it is nice to have the feeling that if I had my A game going I can certainly compete with any of these guys at this game. Tournament poker is going to be mostly disappointments so I just need to try and play my best possible game and let the chips fall where they may.
The rest of my trip was quite succesful. I played a good cash session at the Rio where we ended up changing the game from PLO8 to 5 card PLO8. What this means is we dealt everyone at the table an extra card to play with. This completely jacked up the action in the game and really made it a ton of fun to play. Maybe I enjoyed it a little more because I was making plenty of cash once we switched it to 5 card.
My next tournament will be June 22nd. John and I will be playing the $200 PLO8 event at Binions. Next update will be from Vegas.
Friday, June 19, 2009
2009 - Revive the Blog
I have had some requests to fire up the blog again for this year's Vegas adventure. I'll do my best to post regularly while I am away. I will also be twittering some updates while I am in tournaments for anyone who is interested in updates as they happen. My twitter ID is QqJjKk. Last year's blog was quite poker heavy so I will try to keep the twitter account more poker driven and the blog as more of an overall wrap-up for all my Vegas happenings.
I have had a great year of poker over the last 12 months. By far my best year as a "professional". Over the past year I have really become a cash game player. Last year at this time I was still making the transition from playing mostly multi-table tournaments and sit 'n go tournaments to getting involved in ring games. I have had a real mindset change insomuch as it is tournaments that frustrate me now and cash is my comfort zone. There has always been more money to be made in cash games but with more money comes more volatility. I just think I finally got to the point where I had myself properly bankrolled to handle the swings and from that point on I just continues to excel. Most of my play has been on Party Poker. The site doesn't get nearly as much traffic as Poker Stars or Full Tilt but the games are softer and I seem to fair extremely well there. Instead of butting heads against the regulars on Stars and FTP I have been doing nothing but putting in hours and hours on Party and reaping the rewards.
I just recently went to Vegas for a weekend to play in the largest Pot Limit Omaha HI/LO (PLO8) tournament that has ever been offered. I will make another post to sum up my experiences for that weekend. This Sunday the 21st I am headed back to Vegas with my buddy John and we will be staying until July 5th. John and I will be targetting a bunch of tournaments over the course of our stay with our main focus on the $1,500 PLO8 WSOP event that starts June 25th.
If anyone has any requests for the blog please feel free to comment. Hopefully this year's blog will be a little better spirited and have a lot more success sprinkled into the recaps. Appreciate those who read the blog and hopefully this year's shorter trip will be a little sweeter.
I have had a great year of poker over the last 12 months. By far my best year as a "professional". Over the past year I have really become a cash game player. Last year at this time I was still making the transition from playing mostly multi-table tournaments and sit 'n go tournaments to getting involved in ring games. I have had a real mindset change insomuch as it is tournaments that frustrate me now and cash is my comfort zone. There has always been more money to be made in cash games but with more money comes more volatility. I just think I finally got to the point where I had myself properly bankrolled to handle the swings and from that point on I just continues to excel. Most of my play has been on Party Poker. The site doesn't get nearly as much traffic as Poker Stars or Full Tilt but the games are softer and I seem to fair extremely well there. Instead of butting heads against the regulars on Stars and FTP I have been doing nothing but putting in hours and hours on Party and reaping the rewards.
I just recently went to Vegas for a weekend to play in the largest Pot Limit Omaha HI/LO (PLO8) tournament that has ever been offered. I will make another post to sum up my experiences for that weekend. This Sunday the 21st I am headed back to Vegas with my buddy John and we will be staying until July 5th. John and I will be targetting a bunch of tournaments over the course of our stay with our main focus on the $1,500 PLO8 WSOP event that starts June 25th.
If anyone has any requests for the blog please feel free to comment. Hopefully this year's blog will be a little better spirited and have a lot more success sprinkled into the recaps. Appreciate those who read the blog and hopefully this year's shorter trip will be a little sweeter.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Wrapping up the trip.
Well, the last week has been a lot more fun than the prior week. I basically abandoned playing anymore serious live poker for the trip and have lived like a tourist. Today is my last full day in Vegas and I am not sure exactly what is on tap. I am looking forward to getting back to Winnipeg to see everyone. People often ask me why I live in Winnipeg when I can play on-line poker basically anywhere in the world. It all boils down to friends, I miss hanging out with buddies on a weekly basis and especially just being able to enjoy our short summer with everyone.
I'll give a little synopsis of the last week as best I remember.
Saturday, a big group of us Winnipegger's decide to descend on old Vegas to do some gambling and drinking. We plunk down at a craps table at Binion's and I am the first in the group to get to roll. I probably have my best roll of the trip and turn my $300 into $800ish very quickly. Everyone is having a blast, the drinks are flowing, and money is being made. The next roller is also a guy from Winnipeg who most of us didn't know. Long story short we call the guy "Brad" and that isn't his name but Brad rolls really well. Well, enough that we pass the dice around to him two more times so he can have 3 straight shoots. Something that you never see at a full table of people. Anyways, the table is chanting Brad and "BMC", his new made up initials, and just having a great time. Things cool off shortly thereafter and we decide to leave the table. A few guys were playing some poker so we checked in on them. Played some blackjack, walked over and lost a few $$ playing roulette at the Golden Nugget. A group of us headed to the Glitter Gulch for a little nostalgia while downtown. We left there pretty quickly and a group of us headed to one of the bigger strip clubs in Vegas called the Spearmint Rhino. I have since learned that the Rhino is a chain, I always thought it was just a stand alone Vegas thing. Anyways, a bunch of us go there and the place is absolutely packed. There are probably 200+ women walking around. Some of the buddies I was with decided they wanted to make it rain. This was a new term that I learned earlier in the trip. Basically, making it rain means pouring down money over a crowd or throwing bills in the air. Yeah, so these degenerate, gambler, drunken maniacs that I am partying with get about $300 in singles and fistfulls of cash rain down periodically through the night. The night wraps up around 8am and we all had a blast. Needless to say any winnings from downtown were not taken home that night.
Sunday, I wanted to play a bunch of on-line tournaments. I set my phone for what would have given me about a 3 hour sleep to get up but when it rang I was in no shape to get up and play poker so I missed some of the early tournaments I wanted to play. I still played a bunch on-line that day. I had very frustrating runs in tournaments including a true bubble in a $50 PLO rebuy in which I was stuck in the tournament for $450. I ran well in cash for the day and basically paid for my $1200 in tournament entries and had a break even day. That evening a group of guys were going down to the Golden Nugget to play the 10pm tournament. I decided to grab a meal at an italian restaurant in the Stratosphere and head down there to meet everyone. My meal was awesome, I had something called Veal Chop Valdostana. Basically, a breaded Veal Chop stuffed with Prosciutto and Fontina cheese. On to the Nugget. I meet up with my buddy John and his good friends Jono and Brad who I also know very well. They are there with 3 other good buddies who are down from Thompson so the 7 of us descend on this little tournament. We each toss in $20 for a last longer pool and start play. My table is full of passive fish until this lady sits to my left. Now, I will say this....as a poker player you become very stereotypical in sizing up an opponent at first glance. We are playing a small buy-in tournament at the Golden Nugget on a Sunday night and a somewhat elderly woman sits to your left I immediately assume she will be a passive player that I can probably run over like the rest of the table. Well, within a few rotations it became evident that this woman knew how to play. She played strong in position, made strong pot sized bets, and basically just completely dominated the table. At break I learned that this woman was Barbara Enright. The only woman to date to make the final table of the WSOP Main Event and a winner of 3 WSOP bracelets. http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/36925/barbara-enright.htm
Anyways, we move tables but Barbara is still on my left. We chat quite a bit and she turns out to be a really nice lady. She completely cripples me in a hand where I decide to push a flush draw into her KK (no lies the 8th time she had KK in the tournament, it was unbelievable). I am knocked down to 200 chips with blinds 200/400 and 50 ante. I am forced all-in for the small blind and over the next rotation I go on a tear and build my 200 chips all the way to 8k at the break. I keep rolling at my table to get to over 25k. I then proceed to get two out rivered for what would have been the tournament chip lead at the time in about a 37k pot. I keep on battling though and when we get to the final table I am probably in 3rd place overall. There is a complete moron to my immediate right who had taken out my buddies John and Brad. This guy played so incredibly strange that it was very tough to ever tell what the hell he was doing. Long story short he accidentally plays his A6 perfectly against my QQ in a blind vs blind situation to absolute perfection and ends up taking me out on the true bubble. Wow, five hours for a small tournament to bubble to an absolute fish. Oh well, as a group we had a lot of fun. Lots of drinks and I did get to win the last longer bet so that is almost better than a cash. ;-)
Monday, the girls arrive. John's wife and her sister Carly arrived Monday night. During the day John and I decided to bet on the ponies all afternoon at Monte Carlo. The drink service was awesome and it was a nice relaxing way to kill an afternoon. I thought we had made some money when I nailed a $4 exta bet and an $11 daily double bet on the last race of the day for us but the horses were big favourites so we netted down on not only the race but overall on the day. Once the girls arrived we decided to take in the Comedy Stop at the Tropicana for the 10:30pm show. It is usually something we do every year as it is cheap and entertaining. Unfortunately, this was probably the worst show I have seen there. The intro guy was decent, the first comic was pretty solid, but the female comic was brutal. I guess she had a number of women in the crowd laughing but the general consensus from our group was that she sucked. Oh well, tough to complain for $22 and free drink. We wandered down the strip and eventually settled in on this little spot just off the sidewalk. It was a little open air karaoke bar so we stayed and drank and relaxed. Later when most people had headed back to their hotels Devon and Derek, two of the guys from Thompson, and myself decide we need to find some $5 craps. Eventually, this search takes us to the Stratosphere where we find what is called a "Crapless" craps table. Basically, it is a hybrid of regular craps where now the numbers 2-3-11-12 also become numbers on the board to be played in the same fashion as the 4-5-6-8-9-10. Now, anytime Vegas creates a hybrid game they are not doing it out of the goodness of their heart and the house edge will always be greater. I still haven't read up on the true odds differences but it didn't matter to us as we were just out to have a good time. Well, that we certainly did. We played for hour and got off to an incredible start. Chants of "Mimco, Mimco, Mimco"(Derek's last name of which I am sure I butchered the spelling) could be heard throughout the casino and numerous high fives were shared. Eventually, the table cooled off as they always do and I pocketed a small win and called it a fun night. And no, Deveon, offering to bet a $5 big red for the dealers is not a good idea ;-). That might have been one of the most hilarious calls I have ever heard, even though it might get you beaten around certain players. Super fun night.
Tuesday, wake up around 5pm and play a nice quick 1 hour session on-line before heading to the Wynn for a buffet. Perfect way to start a day. The last thing I had eaten was a horrid cold hotdog from the night before so I was up for the buffet and definitely got my money's worth. After the buffet we cabbed down to Planet Hollywood and went to a place called Trader Vic's which was an outdoor patio with live music. It was a great choice, there were 10 of us who partied there all night. The location was great with Paris' Eiffel tower in the backdrop and the Bellagio fountains across the street. We partied hard and celebrated Canada Day in style on US soil. We ended up meeting this couple from Australia who spent the end of the evening with us. I have to say that the general thinking amongst the group was that this woman was possibly the sexiest girl we had all ever seen. She was beyond incredible and actually had a kickass personality to match. Heather, or as she pronounced in her Aussi accent Heatha you definitely represented your country well. Late that night John and I wrap up the evening playing Pai Gow. Now, this is the first trip I have ever played Pai Gow. I have learned that is a good way to sit and play for hours if you have the discipline to just sit and bet small and not lose a ton of money. However, it is very easy to ramp up the bets and go on a bad run and lose too, like anything else in this town. John and I made a few $$, took it to roulette and made a few more $$ and pretty much paid for our night on the town.
Wednesday, another late afternoon wakeup after 4 of the last 5 nights had bedtimes between 8am and 9am. I headed down to Monte Carlo again for some more betting on the ponies with John. We were once again successful only in obtaining drinks and unfortunately not enough winners. We headed out for dinner and decided to try PF Changs. A well respected chinese restaurant at Planet Hollywood. The server was a bit of a tool and somehow they changed our mind from our original wine selection to something more expensive that for some reason they really really seemed to want to push on us that night. The wine was a disappointment, maybe something we just didn't appreciate but the way it was talked up and pushed on us was quite weird. Anyways, the meal itself was really good aside from the "Dan Dan Noodles" which were nasty. Afterwards we wandered over to the Bellagio to see the fountains, made a couple $$ on Deal or no Deal.....our favourite slot machine and headed over to New York, New York. I was kinda sleepy and full but we ended up in an Irish Pub called Nine Fine Irishmen. The live band was lots of fun and John and I finally found a wheat beer on top. I don't remember the name but it was great. John, Michelle, Carly and myself closed the place down and we all had a great evening together. After that we headed back to the Monte Carlo. John and I played more Pai Gow forever and as gamblers do our bets increased throughout the night until we eventually ran bad and lost what we had bought in for. Nothing major, and a fun night had by all.
Thursday, earlier in the week I had told my buddy Travis that if him and his wife Sarah wanted a night out on the town that I wouldn't mind going and hanging out at their suite as their son Owen is down with them. So, last night they took me up on the offer. Owen was already sleeping when I went over at 9pm and I put in a nice 5 hour on-line session. Something, that I was quite happy to do after the non-stop late nights over the past week. I played reasonably well and ran even better and made about $1600 on the session so it worked out well for everyone. Travis and Sarah had a nice night out, got to go have some drinks, do some gambling, and have a bite to eat.
As I write this we are approaching noon on Friday and what will be my last full day in Vegas. Plans for the day have yet to be made but I am sure it will involve hanging out with John, Michelle, Carly, et al, some drinks, some eats, and some gaming. Overall, I have to say the trip has been a success. I crunched some numbers and after all expenses it is going to be basically a break even endeavor. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, spending 35 days living in a hotel and having it not cost anything is great. On the other hand, I had probably the greatest month of my on-line poker career netting up close to $22k and I still am unable to turn a profit. I guess I have to just take it for what it is worth. June was really my first real full month of hammering PLO8 cash games hard on-line and it is very encouraging for me to see that I can make some serious money in these games. Now, I ran very well, and I am going to run into some downtimes but I am looking forward to getting home and playing some serious plo8 cash sessions online and seeing if I can continue to crush the games.
So, aside from the 72 hours or so of wishing I wasn't here anymore the trip has been a ton of fun and I really don't have much to complain about. For the future I don't see myself taking such a long Vegas vacation. In future years I think my focus will be to come down and play any PLo8 events that I can and have a quick touristy vacation around that time.
I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this blog. It really has amazed me how many people were following it regularly. I'm sorry things got off track from the daily updates but my heart just wasn't in it for awhile. I truly appreciated all the feedback and positive wishes from everyone throughout my trip. Looking forward to getting back to Winnipeg and seeing everyone soon.
I'll give a little synopsis of the last week as best I remember.
Saturday, a big group of us Winnipegger's decide to descend on old Vegas to do some gambling and drinking. We plunk down at a craps table at Binion's and I am the first in the group to get to roll. I probably have my best roll of the trip and turn my $300 into $800ish very quickly. Everyone is having a blast, the drinks are flowing, and money is being made. The next roller is also a guy from Winnipeg who most of us didn't know. Long story short we call the guy "Brad" and that isn't his name but Brad rolls really well. Well, enough that we pass the dice around to him two more times so he can have 3 straight shoots. Something that you never see at a full table of people. Anyways, the table is chanting Brad and "BMC", his new made up initials, and just having a great time. Things cool off shortly thereafter and we decide to leave the table. A few guys were playing some poker so we checked in on them. Played some blackjack, walked over and lost a few $$ playing roulette at the Golden Nugget. A group of us headed to the Glitter Gulch for a little nostalgia while downtown. We left there pretty quickly and a group of us headed to one of the bigger strip clubs in Vegas called the Spearmint Rhino. I have since learned that the Rhino is a chain, I always thought it was just a stand alone Vegas thing. Anyways, a bunch of us go there and the place is absolutely packed. There are probably 200+ women walking around. Some of the buddies I was with decided they wanted to make it rain. This was a new term that I learned earlier in the trip. Basically, making it rain means pouring down money over a crowd or throwing bills in the air. Yeah, so these degenerate, gambler, drunken maniacs that I am partying with get about $300 in singles and fistfulls of cash rain down periodically through the night. The night wraps up around 8am and we all had a blast. Needless to say any winnings from downtown were not taken home that night.
Sunday, I wanted to play a bunch of on-line tournaments. I set my phone for what would have given me about a 3 hour sleep to get up but when it rang I was in no shape to get up and play poker so I missed some of the early tournaments I wanted to play. I still played a bunch on-line that day. I had very frustrating runs in tournaments including a true bubble in a $50 PLO rebuy in which I was stuck in the tournament for $450. I ran well in cash for the day and basically paid for my $1200 in tournament entries and had a break even day. That evening a group of guys were going down to the Golden Nugget to play the 10pm tournament. I decided to grab a meal at an italian restaurant in the Stratosphere and head down there to meet everyone. My meal was awesome, I had something called Veal Chop Valdostana. Basically, a breaded Veal Chop stuffed with Prosciutto and Fontina cheese. On to the Nugget. I meet up with my buddy John and his good friends Jono and Brad who I also know very well. They are there with 3 other good buddies who are down from Thompson so the 7 of us descend on this little tournament. We each toss in $20 for a last longer pool and start play. My table is full of passive fish until this lady sits to my left. Now, I will say this....as a poker player you become very stereotypical in sizing up an opponent at first glance. We are playing a small buy-in tournament at the Golden Nugget on a Sunday night and a somewhat elderly woman sits to your left I immediately assume she will be a passive player that I can probably run over like the rest of the table. Well, within a few rotations it became evident that this woman knew how to play. She played strong in position, made strong pot sized bets, and basically just completely dominated the table. At break I learned that this woman was Barbara Enright. The only woman to date to make the final table of the WSOP Main Event and a winner of 3 WSOP bracelets. http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/36925/barbara-enright.htm
Anyways, we move tables but Barbara is still on my left. We chat quite a bit and she turns out to be a really nice lady. She completely cripples me in a hand where I decide to push a flush draw into her KK (no lies the 8th time she had KK in the tournament, it was unbelievable). I am knocked down to 200 chips with blinds 200/400 and 50 ante. I am forced all-in for the small blind and over the next rotation I go on a tear and build my 200 chips all the way to 8k at the break. I keep rolling at my table to get to over 25k. I then proceed to get two out rivered for what would have been the tournament chip lead at the time in about a 37k pot. I keep on battling though and when we get to the final table I am probably in 3rd place overall. There is a complete moron to my immediate right who had taken out my buddies John and Brad. This guy played so incredibly strange that it was very tough to ever tell what the hell he was doing. Long story short he accidentally plays his A6 perfectly against my QQ in a blind vs blind situation to absolute perfection and ends up taking me out on the true bubble. Wow, five hours for a small tournament to bubble to an absolute fish. Oh well, as a group we had a lot of fun. Lots of drinks and I did get to win the last longer bet so that is almost better than a cash. ;-)
Monday, the girls arrive. John's wife and her sister Carly arrived Monday night. During the day John and I decided to bet on the ponies all afternoon at Monte Carlo. The drink service was awesome and it was a nice relaxing way to kill an afternoon. I thought we had made some money when I nailed a $4 exta bet and an $11 daily double bet on the last race of the day for us but the horses were big favourites so we netted down on not only the race but overall on the day. Once the girls arrived we decided to take in the Comedy Stop at the Tropicana for the 10:30pm show. It is usually something we do every year as it is cheap and entertaining. Unfortunately, this was probably the worst show I have seen there. The intro guy was decent, the first comic was pretty solid, but the female comic was brutal. I guess she had a number of women in the crowd laughing but the general consensus from our group was that she sucked. Oh well, tough to complain for $22 and free drink. We wandered down the strip and eventually settled in on this little spot just off the sidewalk. It was a little open air karaoke bar so we stayed and drank and relaxed. Later when most people had headed back to their hotels Devon and Derek, two of the guys from Thompson, and myself decide we need to find some $5 craps. Eventually, this search takes us to the Stratosphere where we find what is called a "Crapless" craps table. Basically, it is a hybrid of regular craps where now the numbers 2-3-11-12 also become numbers on the board to be played in the same fashion as the 4-5-6-8-9-10. Now, anytime Vegas creates a hybrid game they are not doing it out of the goodness of their heart and the house edge will always be greater. I still haven't read up on the true odds differences but it didn't matter to us as we were just out to have a good time. Well, that we certainly did. We played for hour and got off to an incredible start. Chants of "Mimco, Mimco, Mimco"(Derek's last name of which I am sure I butchered the spelling) could be heard throughout the casino and numerous high fives were shared. Eventually, the table cooled off as they always do and I pocketed a small win and called it a fun night. And no, Deveon, offering to bet a $5 big red for the dealers is not a good idea ;-). That might have been one of the most hilarious calls I have ever heard, even though it might get you beaten around certain players. Super fun night.
Tuesday, wake up around 5pm and play a nice quick 1 hour session on-line before heading to the Wynn for a buffet. Perfect way to start a day. The last thing I had eaten was a horrid cold hotdog from the night before so I was up for the buffet and definitely got my money's worth. After the buffet we cabbed down to Planet Hollywood and went to a place called Trader Vic's which was an outdoor patio with live music. It was a great choice, there were 10 of us who partied there all night. The location was great with Paris' Eiffel tower in the backdrop and the Bellagio fountains across the street. We partied hard and celebrated Canada Day in style on US soil. We ended up meeting this couple from Australia who spent the end of the evening with us. I have to say that the general thinking amongst the group was that this woman was possibly the sexiest girl we had all ever seen. She was beyond incredible and actually had a kickass personality to match. Heather, or as she pronounced in her Aussi accent Heatha you definitely represented your country well. Late that night John and I wrap up the evening playing Pai Gow. Now, this is the first trip I have ever played Pai Gow. I have learned that is a good way to sit and play for hours if you have the discipline to just sit and bet small and not lose a ton of money. However, it is very easy to ramp up the bets and go on a bad run and lose too, like anything else in this town. John and I made a few $$, took it to roulette and made a few more $$ and pretty much paid for our night on the town.
Wednesday, another late afternoon wakeup after 4 of the last 5 nights had bedtimes between 8am and 9am. I headed down to Monte Carlo again for some more betting on the ponies with John. We were once again successful only in obtaining drinks and unfortunately not enough winners. We headed out for dinner and decided to try PF Changs. A well respected chinese restaurant at Planet Hollywood. The server was a bit of a tool and somehow they changed our mind from our original wine selection to something more expensive that for some reason they really really seemed to want to push on us that night. The wine was a disappointment, maybe something we just didn't appreciate but the way it was talked up and pushed on us was quite weird. Anyways, the meal itself was really good aside from the "Dan Dan Noodles" which were nasty. Afterwards we wandered over to the Bellagio to see the fountains, made a couple $$ on Deal or no Deal.....our favourite slot machine and headed over to New York, New York. I was kinda sleepy and full but we ended up in an Irish Pub called Nine Fine Irishmen. The live band was lots of fun and John and I finally found a wheat beer on top. I don't remember the name but it was great. John, Michelle, Carly and myself closed the place down and we all had a great evening together. After that we headed back to the Monte Carlo. John and I played more Pai Gow forever and as gamblers do our bets increased throughout the night until we eventually ran bad and lost what we had bought in for. Nothing major, and a fun night had by all.
Thursday, earlier in the week I had told my buddy Travis that if him and his wife Sarah wanted a night out on the town that I wouldn't mind going and hanging out at their suite as their son Owen is down with them. So, last night they took me up on the offer. Owen was already sleeping when I went over at 9pm and I put in a nice 5 hour on-line session. Something, that I was quite happy to do after the non-stop late nights over the past week. I played reasonably well and ran even better and made about $1600 on the session so it worked out well for everyone. Travis and Sarah had a nice night out, got to go have some drinks, do some gambling, and have a bite to eat.
As I write this we are approaching noon on Friday and what will be my last full day in Vegas. Plans for the day have yet to be made but I am sure it will involve hanging out with John, Michelle, Carly, et al, some drinks, some eats, and some gaming. Overall, I have to say the trip has been a success. I crunched some numbers and after all expenses it is going to be basically a break even endeavor. I don't know how I feel about this. On one hand, spending 35 days living in a hotel and having it not cost anything is great. On the other hand, I had probably the greatest month of my on-line poker career netting up close to $22k and I still am unable to turn a profit. I guess I have to just take it for what it is worth. June was really my first real full month of hammering PLO8 cash games hard on-line and it is very encouraging for me to see that I can make some serious money in these games. Now, I ran very well, and I am going to run into some downtimes but I am looking forward to getting home and playing some serious plo8 cash sessions online and seeing if I can continue to crush the games.
So, aside from the 72 hours or so of wishing I wasn't here anymore the trip has been a ton of fun and I really don't have much to complain about. For the future I don't see myself taking such a long Vegas vacation. In future years I think my focus will be to come down and play any PLo8 events that I can and have a quick touristy vacation around that time.
I'd like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read this blog. It really has amazed me how many people were following it regularly. I'm sorry things got off track from the daily updates but my heart just wasn't in it for awhile. I truly appreciated all the feedback and positive wishes from everyone throughout my trip. Looking forward to getting back to Winnipeg and seeing everyone soon.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Blah
Sorry for the delay in a blog update but things have been a little hectic at times over the last number of days.
Friday night was a gong show. John and I went and played some rapid roulette, and then some craps. It was a long, long night of which the details don't need to appear in this blog. Neither of us were in any shape to make the Caesars tournament on Saturday and didn't do much all day long. We decided to head down to the Golden Nugget for a low stress relaxing evening tournament. The buy in was $225 and I expected we would get at least 40-50 people to play. Unfortunately, only 17 people signed up. Well, the play was laughable. We started with 6000 chips and by the first break I had over 30,000 in chips. I was hitting hands and hands were holding against these idiots. So, basically it would have been a huge collapse if I didn't win this thing. It took a few hours and play was more solid when I got to the other table but I ended up making a deal and getting more money than anyone as I had over half the chips in play. I cashed $1450, so split with John we each net $500.
Sunday, we went and played the binions $150 PLO8 tournament. It had a nice turnout of over 300 players but neither John and I were able to build chips and both exited around the same time nowhere near the money.
Monday, we headed to the Rio to try some satellites into the WSOP $1500 PLO8 event. We each played two $325 satellites that would award 3k in tournament buyins. Well, my first one lasted a total of 3 hands when I took a sickening river in a hand where I was a huge favorite to minimum take 3/4 of the pot. My opponent had about a 9% chance of scooping the entire pot. Sigh. The satellites were getting off the ground pretty quickly but the structure was just too volatile so we decided to cut our losses and get out and come back fresh the next day to play the WSOP event.
Tuesday, $1,500 WSOP PLO8 event. Well, this is about the biggest tournament that I look forward to on an annual basis. Sadly, the structure is quite bad. In a field of just over 700 players we lost over 200 players in the first two levels. This should tell something to the organizers that pot limit games need a bigger structure. The initial start is simply too volatile. Anyways, shortly into the tournament John walks over to my table and has already busted out. He took a sickening setup in the big blind. The flop comes K72 and John has KK in the big blind. Turn is a 7 and the money goes in with John having the nut full house. Well, one player had turned quad 7's and just like that John is done. Nothing anyone can do but take it there, just a sick setup.
I made it to the break with about 2k in chips bleeding down from the 3k starting chips after being quartered twice. My table was insane. Give me the chance to sit with this table in a cash game for 24 hours and I will do nothing but make money. We busted out 6 people in the first two levels, these guys were just insane. One clown built his stack to 12k playing every hand only to see it down to 5k within half a rotation. Anyways, my final hand I get AA3Q in the sb and raise pot. I get the bb calling and the complete maniac calls of course. The flop comes 56Q rainbow and I just push all-in. The big blind thinks for a bit and decides to call, super moron actually folds a hand for once. The opponent rolls over A3JT. I am so happy to see this, he has no pair, he has no draw for the high at present, and he has the same low draw that I do. So, unless something sick happens I should get a minimum of 3/4 of the pot. Well, turn is a 9 and I immediately think gross thoughts as he can now win the whole pot with a K, and boom there is the K on the river. Like, unbelievable, running perfect to end my tournament. It seems that any major tournament I look forward to has nothing but disappointment in the form of a sick beat. It is almost impossible to get your money in any better in PLo8 than I did and I get nothing.
Today, I decided I would go play the $500 PLO at the Venetian. I was chipping up well and had a pretty good line on my table when we get involved in the largest pot of the day preflop at the table. I flop the nut flush draw with open ended and decide to make a stab at the pot. This guy who I thought was pretty weak jams pot and this solid player thinks forever and calls. I decide I have enough outs here and think they are both on sets so if I hit I will be incredibly huge. Well, the bad player has an inferior flush draw and my A high is actually beating him, the other player had flopped bottom set. With a pot and repot before he acts I am surprised he called, but he did and the board pairs on the end making him a full house and he takes down a 42k pot when average is 15k. Oh well, I guess I didn't need to push my hand but equity wise it was the right call and if I win that pot I am in great shape to do some serious damage in the tournament.
I am seriously considering not playing much more live poker for the duration of my trip. I am getting pretty down with the whole ordeal and the frustration is leading to overall unhappiness. Not to mention the fact that for some reason my debit card has stopped functioning so I don't have easy access to cash at the moment. I am also waiting for Stars to wire transfer my money to my account. They "lost" my first request. Anyways, I think I am just going to be a loser and sit in my room and try to make money online for the next few days. It sucks because everyone from Winnipeg is now in town but I am just not in the mood for going out and partying or degenerate gambling. I would like to go out and have some fun, but fun just leads to dropping a sick amount of cash in this town and I really can't afford pissing away over 1k a day simply to wake up thinking why did I do that?
So, I guess there is really nothing on tap other than playing some on-line for the balance of the week. If anything interesting pops up I will let you all know.
Friday night was a gong show. John and I went and played some rapid roulette, and then some craps. It was a long, long night of which the details don't need to appear in this blog. Neither of us were in any shape to make the Caesars tournament on Saturday and didn't do much all day long. We decided to head down to the Golden Nugget for a low stress relaxing evening tournament. The buy in was $225 and I expected we would get at least 40-50 people to play. Unfortunately, only 17 people signed up. Well, the play was laughable. We started with 6000 chips and by the first break I had over 30,000 in chips. I was hitting hands and hands were holding against these idiots. So, basically it would have been a huge collapse if I didn't win this thing. It took a few hours and play was more solid when I got to the other table but I ended up making a deal and getting more money than anyone as I had over half the chips in play. I cashed $1450, so split with John we each net $500.
Sunday, we went and played the binions $150 PLO8 tournament. It had a nice turnout of over 300 players but neither John and I were able to build chips and both exited around the same time nowhere near the money.
Monday, we headed to the Rio to try some satellites into the WSOP $1500 PLO8 event. We each played two $325 satellites that would award 3k in tournament buyins. Well, my first one lasted a total of 3 hands when I took a sickening river in a hand where I was a huge favorite to minimum take 3/4 of the pot. My opponent had about a 9% chance of scooping the entire pot. Sigh. The satellites were getting off the ground pretty quickly but the structure was just too volatile so we decided to cut our losses and get out and come back fresh the next day to play the WSOP event.
Tuesday, $1,500 WSOP PLO8 event. Well, this is about the biggest tournament that I look forward to on an annual basis. Sadly, the structure is quite bad. In a field of just over 700 players we lost over 200 players in the first two levels. This should tell something to the organizers that pot limit games need a bigger structure. The initial start is simply too volatile. Anyways, shortly into the tournament John walks over to my table and has already busted out. He took a sickening setup in the big blind. The flop comes K72 and John has KK in the big blind. Turn is a 7 and the money goes in with John having the nut full house. Well, one player had turned quad 7's and just like that John is done. Nothing anyone can do but take it there, just a sick setup.
I made it to the break with about 2k in chips bleeding down from the 3k starting chips after being quartered twice. My table was insane. Give me the chance to sit with this table in a cash game for 24 hours and I will do nothing but make money. We busted out 6 people in the first two levels, these guys were just insane. One clown built his stack to 12k playing every hand only to see it down to 5k within half a rotation. Anyways, my final hand I get AA3Q in the sb and raise pot. I get the bb calling and the complete maniac calls of course. The flop comes 56Q rainbow and I just push all-in. The big blind thinks for a bit and decides to call, super moron actually folds a hand for once. The opponent rolls over A3JT. I am so happy to see this, he has no pair, he has no draw for the high at present, and he has the same low draw that I do. So, unless something sick happens I should get a minimum of 3/4 of the pot. Well, turn is a 9 and I immediately think gross thoughts as he can now win the whole pot with a K, and boom there is the K on the river. Like, unbelievable, running perfect to end my tournament. It seems that any major tournament I look forward to has nothing but disappointment in the form of a sick beat. It is almost impossible to get your money in any better in PLo8 than I did and I get nothing.
Today, I decided I would go play the $500 PLO at the Venetian. I was chipping up well and had a pretty good line on my table when we get involved in the largest pot of the day preflop at the table. I flop the nut flush draw with open ended and decide to make a stab at the pot. This guy who I thought was pretty weak jams pot and this solid player thinks forever and calls. I decide I have enough outs here and think they are both on sets so if I hit I will be incredibly huge. Well, the bad player has an inferior flush draw and my A high is actually beating him, the other player had flopped bottom set. With a pot and repot before he acts I am surprised he called, but he did and the board pairs on the end making him a full house and he takes down a 42k pot when average is 15k. Oh well, I guess I didn't need to push my hand but equity wise it was the right call and if I win that pot I am in great shape to do some serious damage in the tournament.
I am seriously considering not playing much more live poker for the duration of my trip. I am getting pretty down with the whole ordeal and the frustration is leading to overall unhappiness. Not to mention the fact that for some reason my debit card has stopped functioning so I don't have easy access to cash at the moment. I am also waiting for Stars to wire transfer my money to my account. They "lost" my first request. Anyways, I think I am just going to be a loser and sit in my room and try to make money online for the next few days. It sucks because everyone from Winnipeg is now in town but I am just not in the mood for going out and partying or degenerate gambling. I would like to go out and have some fun, but fun just leads to dropping a sick amount of cash in this town and I really can't afford pissing away over 1k a day simply to wake up thinking why did I do that?
So, I guess there is really nothing on tap other than playing some on-line for the balance of the week. If anything interesting pops up I will let you all know.
Friday, June 20, 2008
$340 Caesars Megastack NL Hold'em
LIVE POKER IS SO MUCH FUN!! (Insert sarcastic tone now)
So, I get to Caesars a bit late for today's tournament and have to be put on the alternate list. No big deal, I miss the first two levels but the structure is so deep I don't really care. I proceed to spend the next 3 and a half hours extremely card dead but I stay right at starting chips the whole time when this comes up. I look down at KK under the gun. Now in 3.5 hours I swear we have had less than 10 hands that didn't have at least one preflop raise so I decide I am going to limp utg for 800 knowing most of these assclowns won't even notice there could be a snake in the grass. Another player limps and the lone lady at the table raises to 3,500. It gets folded around to me and I go all-in for a total stack of 11,600. The other limper folds quickly understanding that I have basically just told anyone who plays poker that I have either AA, KK or at worst AK. Anyways, this lady goes into the tank and starts thinking forever. She asks me "why so much?" I respond with, "because that is all I have". She says something to the effect that it is a very weird play. The good player to my right mumbles quietly to me, "what, there is nothing weird about the play at all" She proceeds to lift up her cards and show the guy next to her, puts them back down and says. "ok, let's gamble" She turns over 99 and I roll my KK quicly and she utters the moronic statement of "I thought that is what you had", the flop comes 3 small clubs and I have the Kc and she does not hold the 9c. So, at this point she has one card in the deck, the lonely 9h. I am only 94.65% to outright win the hand. Turn 9h, and river is a blank spade not allowing me to catch up with a flush or over set. Well played ma'am. I love these fucking idiots who make statements like "I thought that is what you had" Then great fucking call, put another 8k in the pot "thinking" you are a 4-1 dog. I guess these tools are the people who pay my bills but it is just even more frustrating in person because you have a better appreciation for exactly how stupid they are. This woman is a poker dealer, has seen thousands of hands and still does not know how to fold 99 when she knows she is beat because it looks pretty.
I was determined to play tight solid poker today because that is my game. I wanted to let the morons beat themselves and not make plays that are over their head and won't get respected. Well, I couldn't have scripted a better double up situation and I still take it in the ass. On another note if I was a complete prick looking for an angle I could have probably called the floor and had her hand considered dead. At no point during a live hand are you allowed to show your cards to another player at the table unless you do it right prior to folding in which case the cards are now public domain and can be shown under the "show one, show all" rule. But, that isn't me.....I don't angle shoot. Oh, and she let's a big scream "YES" out when the 9h comes on the turn and then has the gall to want to shake my fucking hand afterwards. Ummmm, no thanks, I will just leave quietly and laugh like a psychotic fool on my walk back to the hotel.
John gets into town in a few hours. Look out Vegas there are going to be a couple drunken maniacs on the loose.
So, I get to Caesars a bit late for today's tournament and have to be put on the alternate list. No big deal, I miss the first two levels but the structure is so deep I don't really care. I proceed to spend the next 3 and a half hours extremely card dead but I stay right at starting chips the whole time when this comes up. I look down at KK under the gun. Now in 3.5 hours I swear we have had less than 10 hands that didn't have at least one preflop raise so I decide I am going to limp utg for 800 knowing most of these assclowns won't even notice there could be a snake in the grass. Another player limps and the lone lady at the table raises to 3,500. It gets folded around to me and I go all-in for a total stack of 11,600. The other limper folds quickly understanding that I have basically just told anyone who plays poker that I have either AA, KK or at worst AK. Anyways, this lady goes into the tank and starts thinking forever. She asks me "why so much?" I respond with, "because that is all I have". She says something to the effect that it is a very weird play. The good player to my right mumbles quietly to me, "what, there is nothing weird about the play at all" She proceeds to lift up her cards and show the guy next to her, puts them back down and says. "ok, let's gamble" She turns over 99 and I roll my KK quicly and she utters the moronic statement of "I thought that is what you had", the flop comes 3 small clubs and I have the Kc and she does not hold the 9c. So, at this point she has one card in the deck, the lonely 9h. I am only 94.65% to outright win the hand. Turn 9h, and river is a blank spade not allowing me to catch up with a flush or over set. Well played ma'am. I love these fucking idiots who make statements like "I thought that is what you had" Then great fucking call, put another 8k in the pot "thinking" you are a 4-1 dog. I guess these tools are the people who pay my bills but it is just even more frustrating in person because you have a better appreciation for exactly how stupid they are. This woman is a poker dealer, has seen thousands of hands and still does not know how to fold 99 when she knows she is beat because it looks pretty.
I was determined to play tight solid poker today because that is my game. I wanted to let the morons beat themselves and not make plays that are over their head and won't get respected. Well, I couldn't have scripted a better double up situation and I still take it in the ass. On another note if I was a complete prick looking for an angle I could have probably called the floor and had her hand considered dead. At no point during a live hand are you allowed to show your cards to another player at the table unless you do it right prior to folding in which case the cards are now public domain and can be shown under the "show one, show all" rule. But, that isn't me.....I don't angle shoot. Oh, and she let's a big scream "YES" out when the 9h comes on the turn and then has the gall to want to shake my fucking hand afterwards. Ummmm, no thanks, I will just leave quietly and laugh like a psychotic fool on my walk back to the hotel.
John gets into town in a few hours. Look out Vegas there are going to be a couple drunken maniacs on the loose.
Warning, hard core plo8 speak ahead
Every night this guy named patek37 comes on to PokerStars and sits in at least one PLO8 game. This guy is close to as bad as possible. If you could design the perfect opponent he would be very close. I'll try to sum up his game. He likes to raise pot about 75% of his hands preflop. If he has big starting hands he tends to raise smaller. He makes a continuation bet on the flop about 80% of the time and this is probably closer to 100% of the time if you are heads up in the pot with him. However, if he flops a monster he may check it trying to trap you. He will shut down on the turn if you call him on the flop and he has nothing so you can take down uncontested pots either in position on the turn or on the river. He likes to make huge bluffs when scare cards come on either the turn or river. About the only thing he has going for him is that he does have the ability to fold some hands once he gets involved in a pot.
Ok, so this guy is ACTION. The table dynamics completely change when he is in the game. It basically becomes a situation of people sitting and waiting and trying to pick him off. Myself, on the other hand, I like to mix it up with him. He gives implied odds to almost any 4 cards. A guy this aggressive likes the action and has the ability to just fold if the only time you play with him you have the nuts. Over the last while he has cost me money directly and indirectly. He has been hitting against my big flops and taking my money and spreading it around to other players before eventually busting. Also, because when he is at the table I open my hand selection as wide as possible I am vulnerable to being trapped by other players at the table if I am not careful. I always try to get on his immediate left so he has to act first and there aren't other people in between us cutting off my direct action.
Last night he shows up and sure enough he hits me in a few hands. My buddy Travis landed in Vegas and wanted to head down to Noodle Asia so I just left the game and headed out. When I got back to the room patek37 was still playing, or playing again. I promptly got a seat to his left and was ready to let the fireworks begin. Ok, so not only was this guy playing like himself but he already had a few other guys at the table on crazy tilt and shooting like maniacs as well. I proceed to get involved in a large 4 way pot. I am dealt AKK7 which is barely a playable hand in full ring PLO8. Short stack maniac #1 raises, bad player calls, patek calls, and I decide I want to get this action heads up with patek as my KK will be a fav over his trash and I have position to figure out where I am at in the hand. So, I jack it to about $70 preflop. Well, all 3 clowns decide to come along for the ride. Flop comes KT3 with two hearts. Hellooooo, I flop top set and everyone checks to me. I bet pot for over $300, the shortstack tosses the rest in, bad player decides to be an ultimate loser and pulls the disconnect trick. What this means is that they forceably killed their internet connection so that they would be deemed all-in for what they have committed and don't have to spend anymore. I generally play at tables that do not enable this "all-in" protection but with patek on board that is all I needed to sit. And, patek of course goes all in too. The turn brings in hearts and the river brings in a non pairing high card so I get nothing. patek and shortstack both make a flush. The only player I could have made money on disconnected. The short stack 4xed up to over $500 and quickly leaves the table. And, patek doesn't have many chips left so everything that could have went wrong did.
I reload my stack and patek goes on a bit of a run against other players at the table. I get involved in a hand where we get almost all of it on the turn where I have a set. The river brings in a gutshot straight for him and boom there goes another $300 to patek. Blah, this really really sucks. I am determined to play as long as this clown is at the table. When I have about $600 in front of me I get forced out of a hand by one of the solid players rereraising preflop on a hand that I would have definitely scooped patek on and made a nice $1300 pot. Lovely, my timing is absolutely brutal. I stay with it and start picking him off for $50 here, $100 there until we eventually get involved in a big 3 way pot. The flop brings me bottom pair and the 2nd nut flush draw. Short stack pushes all-in, patek calls, and I call. The turn brings in my flush but pairs the board. patek shoves for $200 and against almost anyone this would be the easiest fold in the world but I snap over the top all in and he instacalls. I really am not sure if I am winning or if he just caught me, the river is a high card and all that our buddy patek had was a low draw with zero cards in the deck for him to take the whole pot. Ship it, a nice $1300 pot and patek is done for the night. So, a wild action filled hour that ends up making me close to $600.
Hope to keep seeing you around buddy. Anywho, I am off to Caesars for the $340 Megastack. I actually have a good feeling about this one today, no idea why.
Ok, so this guy is ACTION. The table dynamics completely change when he is in the game. It basically becomes a situation of people sitting and waiting and trying to pick him off. Myself, on the other hand, I like to mix it up with him. He gives implied odds to almost any 4 cards. A guy this aggressive likes the action and has the ability to just fold if the only time you play with him you have the nuts. Over the last while he has cost me money directly and indirectly. He has been hitting against my big flops and taking my money and spreading it around to other players before eventually busting. Also, because when he is at the table I open my hand selection as wide as possible I am vulnerable to being trapped by other players at the table if I am not careful. I always try to get on his immediate left so he has to act first and there aren't other people in between us cutting off my direct action.
Last night he shows up and sure enough he hits me in a few hands. My buddy Travis landed in Vegas and wanted to head down to Noodle Asia so I just left the game and headed out. When I got back to the room patek37 was still playing, or playing again. I promptly got a seat to his left and was ready to let the fireworks begin. Ok, so not only was this guy playing like himself but he already had a few other guys at the table on crazy tilt and shooting like maniacs as well. I proceed to get involved in a large 4 way pot. I am dealt AKK7 which is barely a playable hand in full ring PLO8. Short stack maniac #1 raises, bad player calls, patek calls, and I decide I want to get this action heads up with patek as my KK will be a fav over his trash and I have position to figure out where I am at in the hand. So, I jack it to about $70 preflop. Well, all 3 clowns decide to come along for the ride. Flop comes KT3 with two hearts. Hellooooo, I flop top set and everyone checks to me. I bet pot for over $300, the shortstack tosses the rest in, bad player decides to be an ultimate loser and pulls the disconnect trick. What this means is that they forceably killed their internet connection so that they would be deemed all-in for what they have committed and don't have to spend anymore. I generally play at tables that do not enable this "all-in" protection but with patek on board that is all I needed to sit. And, patek of course goes all in too. The turn brings in hearts and the river brings in a non pairing high card so I get nothing. patek and shortstack both make a flush. The only player I could have made money on disconnected. The short stack 4xed up to over $500 and quickly leaves the table. And, patek doesn't have many chips left so everything that could have went wrong did.
I reload my stack and patek goes on a bit of a run against other players at the table. I get involved in a hand where we get almost all of it on the turn where I have a set. The river brings in a gutshot straight for him and boom there goes another $300 to patek. Blah, this really really sucks. I am determined to play as long as this clown is at the table. When I have about $600 in front of me I get forced out of a hand by one of the solid players rereraising preflop on a hand that I would have definitely scooped patek on and made a nice $1300 pot. Lovely, my timing is absolutely brutal. I stay with it and start picking him off for $50 here, $100 there until we eventually get involved in a big 3 way pot. The flop brings me bottom pair and the 2nd nut flush draw. Short stack pushes all-in, patek calls, and I call. The turn brings in my flush but pairs the board. patek shoves for $200 and against almost anyone this would be the easiest fold in the world but I snap over the top all in and he instacalls. I really am not sure if I am winning or if he just caught me, the river is a high card and all that our buddy patek had was a low draw with zero cards in the deck for him to take the whole pot. Ship it, a nice $1300 pot and patek is done for the night. So, a wild action filled hour that ends up making me close to $600.
Hope to keep seeing you around buddy. Anywho, I am off to Caesars for the $340 Megastack. I actually have a good feeling about this one today, no idea why.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
$340 Golden Nugget PLO
Took a trip downtown for today's noon PLO event at the Nugget. The structure was really good, the same as the PLO8 tournament I played down there last week. I expected the field to be pretty strong and it was. I still feel a bit out of my element with PLO as I just have so little experience playing the game. For non Omaha players it is tough to quantify exactly how big a difference there is between Pot Limit Omaha, and Pot Limit Omaha with a Hi/Lo split. I just don't have a comfort zone in exactly what I should be playing preflop. However, I have enough confidence in my tournament poker and postflop understanding of where I am at in hands that I think I am a decent PLO tourney player. Anyways, my table was ok. I had two players that I knew were very good PLO players to my right that I have seen around before and played cash against the one. The one guy is an ass. One of these guys that looks for every possible angle at the table and likes to tell the dealers how to do their job every second hand. Anyways, he gets completely owned in a hand where he makes 2nd nut flush into nut flush and is out early.
In the 3rd round I get this hand against the solid player to my right. I have AKQ4 and see a flop 5 ways. The flop comes KJ3 rainbow and the solid player leads out small. 225 into a 800 pot. I call with top pair and a gutter. Turn is a K so I have trip K's with the A kicker. He checks to me and I think he probably is on some kinda wrap straight draw and bet 1k. He calls relatively quick and this sends alarm bells ringing. Why is he calling on a paired board? I now think at best we have the same hand or I am in some trouble. The river is a blank 5 and he checks again, I check as well and he tables the nuts with KJ looking to have me bet the river again. Even though I lose the pot I am happy with how I lost what I felt was the minimum to lose on the hand.
My stack bleeds to about 6k when I get this hand at the 100/200 blind level. I have AKT9 and see the flop 5 ways. The flop is QJ5 with two spades. I flop the wrap draw on the high and I hold the Ace of spades but no other spade in my hand. This is referred to as the naked ace. An player out of the blinds leads out 1k, a player who I have really come to respect over the first couple hours, calls, and I call as well. My plan is if I make my straight to bet it, if a spade falls I will represent having the nuts with a pot bet. The turn is a blank 6h so I check, next player checks, respected player now bets 3300, at this point I am confident he has a set. If I had more chips than under 5k in front of me I might call if I thought I had fold equity on the river if a spade came. So, I have to fold. The other guy calls behind me, a spade comes and he leads pot and takes it down. I would have made a straight on the end but I am sure the middle player makes spades.
A little after that Miami Jim sits at my table. He was talking to me on-line a couple days ago, and told me to look out for him while he was in town he would likely be wearing a Ferrari or Porsche ball cap. So, this guy sits down with a Porsche hat and a ring with JIM spelled out in diamonds. Hmmm, I wonder if it is him. I introduce myself and he congratulates me on my recent WSOP seat win. He makes a pot raise from early position we get two other callers and in the bb I have T876 and decide to take a flop for 500 chips. The flop comes 56K rainbow. I flop middle pair with open ended to the nut straight. I check and Jim fires out a big bet. The other two fold and I contemplate things for a bit. I decide to push all in here. If he just has AA and was firing out a continuation bet then I may be able to get him to laydown and if not I have a ton of outs to beat aces. Well, Jim calls faster than I can say all-in and has top set of K's. I don't catch up and his hand holds and I bust out. Not too disappointed to see my chips go to a good guy who will use them well.
I played about 7 hours of on-line last night, determined to play better and log a solid winning session. the first few hours were a roller coaster. Up quickly and then coolered hard in a number of big pots to be down. I fought back to about even and grinded for a few hours when I finally started hitting hands and being on the right side of some quartering pots. I ended up making about $1300 playing 3 tables of 2/4plo8 and one 3/6 plo8 table so I was quite happy with my results. I am going to play on-line this afternoon and into the evening. My buddy Travis gets here tonight so I will see what he is up to tonight. He'll probably like to get his feet wet in a big cash game somewhere so I may just rip on-line all night and go throw away money at a live tournament again tomorrow.
I'm still really not unhappy with my overall live play I just am getting frustrated with not getting deep into the money. John gets into town tomorrow and we will be playing the Caesars $340 on Saturday, $150 PLO8 binions on Sunday, $1500 PLO8 wsop on Tuesday. Hopefully, it will help me refocus with him down here. We'll be splitting our results in any tournaments we play together so hopefully the two is better than one strategy helps and one of us can hit a good score.
In the 3rd round I get this hand against the solid player to my right. I have AKQ4 and see a flop 5 ways. The flop comes KJ3 rainbow and the solid player leads out small. 225 into a 800 pot. I call with top pair and a gutter. Turn is a K so I have trip K's with the A kicker. He checks to me and I think he probably is on some kinda wrap straight draw and bet 1k. He calls relatively quick and this sends alarm bells ringing. Why is he calling on a paired board? I now think at best we have the same hand or I am in some trouble. The river is a blank 5 and he checks again, I check as well and he tables the nuts with KJ looking to have me bet the river again. Even though I lose the pot I am happy with how I lost what I felt was the minimum to lose on the hand.
My stack bleeds to about 6k when I get this hand at the 100/200 blind level. I have AKT9 and see the flop 5 ways. The flop is QJ5 with two spades. I flop the wrap draw on the high and I hold the Ace of spades but no other spade in my hand. This is referred to as the naked ace. An player out of the blinds leads out 1k, a player who I have really come to respect over the first couple hours, calls, and I call as well. My plan is if I make my straight to bet it, if a spade falls I will represent having the nuts with a pot bet. The turn is a blank 6h so I check, next player checks, respected player now bets 3300, at this point I am confident he has a set. If I had more chips than under 5k in front of me I might call if I thought I had fold equity on the river if a spade came. So, I have to fold. The other guy calls behind me, a spade comes and he leads pot and takes it down. I would have made a straight on the end but I am sure the middle player makes spades.
A little after that Miami Jim sits at my table. He was talking to me on-line a couple days ago, and told me to look out for him while he was in town he would likely be wearing a Ferrari or Porsche ball cap. So, this guy sits down with a Porsche hat and a ring with JIM spelled out in diamonds. Hmmm, I wonder if it is him. I introduce myself and he congratulates me on my recent WSOP seat win. He makes a pot raise from early position we get two other callers and in the bb I have T876 and decide to take a flop for 500 chips. The flop comes 56K rainbow. I flop middle pair with open ended to the nut straight. I check and Jim fires out a big bet. The other two fold and I contemplate things for a bit. I decide to push all in here. If he just has AA and was firing out a continuation bet then I may be able to get him to laydown and if not I have a ton of outs to beat aces. Well, Jim calls faster than I can say all-in and has top set of K's. I don't catch up and his hand holds and I bust out. Not too disappointed to see my chips go to a good guy who will use them well.
I played about 7 hours of on-line last night, determined to play better and log a solid winning session. the first few hours were a roller coaster. Up quickly and then coolered hard in a number of big pots to be down. I fought back to about even and grinded for a few hours when I finally started hitting hands and being on the right side of some quartering pots. I ended up making about $1300 playing 3 tables of 2/4plo8 and one 3/6 plo8 table so I was quite happy with my results. I am going to play on-line this afternoon and into the evening. My buddy Travis gets here tonight so I will see what he is up to tonight. He'll probably like to get his feet wet in a big cash game somewhere so I may just rip on-line all night and go throw away money at a live tournament again tomorrow.
I'm still really not unhappy with my overall live play I just am getting frustrated with not getting deep into the money. John gets into town tomorrow and we will be playing the Caesars $340 on Saturday, $150 PLO8 binions on Sunday, $1500 PLO8 wsop on Tuesday. Hopefully, it will help me refocus with him down here. We'll be splitting our results in any tournaments we play together so hopefully the two is better than one strategy helps and one of us can hit a good score.
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