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.
Friday, July 4, 2008
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.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Self Fullfilling Prophecy
It never seems to fail that when I do well in something I tend to do poorly in the short term right after. It is like I am allergic to money. I always have enough to do what I want and live at the status quo but never seem to build after a good win.
The day after I hit my WSOP ME score I didn't plan to play much poker. I went and got a really half assed haircut that cost me $60. $60 to use some clippers and scissors. If you are going to charge me $60 shouldn't the hairdresser be under the age of 60 and at least provide a bit of eye candy for bending me over. Anyways, I then went down to the outlet malls. I wasn't overly impressed and was even less impressed when I got home and the two pairs of shorts I bought don't even fit.
I took a walk down to the Wynn and treated myself to the Wynn buffet. It was my first buffet of the trip and my first time in a year to the Wynn. For anyone who hasn't gone it is highly recommended. Even if you aren't a huge buffet fan the quality of food is simply incredible. If you are gonna hit a buffet in Vegas shell out the extra few $$ and spend the $35 and treat yourself. I am not a huge desert fan but make sure you save a bit of room for some of their homemade ice cream that changes flavours daily.
I decided I was going to go downstairs and play some craps. In my brilliant mind I decided I was going to play a different system this time. For anyone who knows craps I am generally a 3 number player and sometimes 4 numbers if things are rolling well. I decided I was going to get my money on the table quicker by placing the 6&8 and playing 1 or 2 numbers in addition to those two. In theory I would reap the rewards of a hot shooter a lot faster. However, the flip side is I would lose a lot really quickly if the shooter was going to 7 out fast. Well, after treading water for an hour or so everyone went dead and my $500 didn't last very long. I had made sure I didn't take any more money downstairs with me as it is way too easy to keep reaching into the pocket once you are at the table and the drinks are flowing. On my way back to the room a guy steps into the elevator on the 2nd floor on my way up to the 9th floor. He looks totally distraught and immediately asks if he can ask me a question. He asks me where I am from and if I found the people here nice. I said I was Canadian and that in general I found the staff here at the Imperial Palace very nice. He goes into this story about how he is having the worst day ever, his friends left earlier in the day and accidentally flew home with his wallet so he had no ID or money. He says he has been dealing with the staff there all day and has had no help whatsoever and is just looking to get cab fare so he can get to the airport. I have a bit of a buzz on and have just won over 13k the day before so I figure I can give this dude $20. He is dressed just like a regular middle aged guy from Indiana so I think I can do a good deed here. I tell him to wait by the door, grab him $20 and he asks if I have a business card or anything so he can send me the money back 3 fold. I tell him not to worry about it and he says he will "pay it forward" Anyways, shortly after I actually start to think about the situation. How is this guy going to get on a plane with no identification? If all he wanted was to get to the airport could he not just hang out and get the airport shuttle? Could he not just go to the taxi line and ask someone if he could share a cab to the airport? So, yeah, I think I got played for $20. If I did, congrats on your creativity sir, well played indeed.
When I got back to the room I shot up some on-line and actually had a very solid 3 hour session.
On to, yesterday. The plan was to play the $200 PLO Megastack at Caesars. This tournament had a 3pm start so I put in an online session before heading across the street. Well, the session went the shits. In the span of two hours I ran into setup after setup and took some sickening beats. The worst of which was a $1300 pot that went like this. I am playing 2/4PLO8 and sitting with about $600 in front of me. There is preflop raise and I call with A4JJ suited Ace. The flop comes J27 rainbow. (rainbow simply means no cards of the same suit for you non poker people) So, I have flopped the nut set with the 2nd nut low draw on an unconnected board. Looks pretty nice so I fire out a pot sized bet, I get a caller and the button rejams pot so I instantly jam all-in. Both players instantly call and the board runs out turn 4, river 5. The worst two cards to possibly come as I know at least one of these guys will have held A3 and the nut low draw. Sure enough they both have A3 and make a running wheel to split up my money. All either of them had was a naked low draw and they backdoor into a scoop by counterfeiting my 4 and hitting the river 5. Fun times.
So, I head over to Caesars and sit in the $200 PLO. I end up sitting beside Will Clarke who is a very solid card player from Winnipeg who is now living down here in Vegas. We shoot the shit a bit and over the first couple hours of the tournament he chips up with some nice hands while my stack goes the opposite direction. I start playing too many hands as the European guy who took some of my money in the Rio PLO8 game is playing horribly and can not resist bluffing on all streets so I am looking to catch a hand. Well I don't and I piss away chips. I then proceed to try and take down a pot on the turn when I hold two pair and a gutter to the nut straight. One player calls quickly. I fire out a big river bet "hoping" he has just missed his flush draw and has to fold. He calls pretty quickly with the 2nd nut straight. This bet was horrible. I should have just shut down. I didn't really put him on a flush draw I was just simply hoping he had that. Very poor play on my part. Anyways, last hand before the break I hold ATT6 double suited and limp into the pot. The flop comes 732 with two spades and I am suited to the Ace in spades. The big blind leads out a solid bet and I decide I am willing to get it all-in here with the nut spade draw and an overpair. I pot it and a guy behind me tanks for awhile and eventually repots it. The initial bettor thinks awhile and folds. I call for all my chips and he rolls over 7654 for top pair and wrapped straight draw. The turn is an Ace giving him the wheel and the river is a 7 not of spades so I am done. When the money goes in here I am close to a 2-1 favourite to take down the hand. Oh well, a quick exit. Will went on to play a long day but busted out 40th with 27 playing. He had his aces brought down a few times by shorter stacks nearing the money and just couldn't win his key pots.
I cam home and was ready to play a long online session. Things started off right where I left them. I swear for about 3 hours it felt like every single decision I made was incorrect or if it was correct I would get punished by the deck. I lost more money in 4 hours than I have ever lost in my life on-line in one day. I started off getting beat after beat, then when I bluffed I got called, when I checked I got sucked out on, when I called I was beat. Basically was having the worst poker day of my "career". Awesome, way to go Q, hit a nice score and proceed to piss it back. Well, I got some room service, regained some composure, played better and made a bit of a comeback. It was going to be basically impossible for me to get to even on the day but I did take a good dent out of the loss. The end of the night dropped back a bit when a total maniac fish who likes to play the game came to my table. This guy is so wild and will bet anything. But, as such, he is very dangerous. Of course he stacked me twice and proceeded to piss my money away to everyone else at the table. That is so frustrating but you just can't leave when you get a guy like that on your table. All in all, I lost a good chunk of what I had won over the last few weeks online in one day excluding the WSOP win. Sigh, the volatility of cash games.
On the topic of the WSOP seat I won I have been credited with the cash in my Pokerstars account already. Due to new regulations over the past two years there is no longer an allowance for a 3rd party to register you for a WSOP event. What this means is that poker sites can not register you for WSOP events, that you have to do so yourself. With this being the case they have no choice but to just give you the cash in your account and hope that you will chose to play the WSOP and agree to their sponsorship terms and conditions. Well, odds are I am just going to take the cash. I look at it this way; If I won $12,500 in a different tournament would I roll that money into the WSOP Main Event? Quick answer would be an emphatic NO WAY! With my current bank roll $10,000 means to much to be to just be slamming it into one tournament. I can use that money on-line for cash games and many other live tournaments. I know it doesn't have the sexy appeal of playing in the WSOP event and possibly becoming a millionaire but I am realistic and do this for a living and not recreation so I have to be smart about my decisions. Now, if I happen to make over $10,000 in another tournament while I am down here. Let's say either myself or my buddy John make a big score in the $1,500 PLO8 WSOP event then I could see maybe taking a shot at the main event. Otherwise, I am going to need that money to basically pay for the trip and soak up what has so far been a disappointing run in live tournaments.
Today, I went and played the $235 Megastack NL holdem. I probably had the weakest table I have had so far. The play is quite bad. However, it is bad in a weak passive way so it is tough to extricate big pots from people. I played for 3 and a half hours with my best hand being AJ and my only pocket pair having to be laid down preflop. I pick up QQ in the sb and run smack into late postions AA and am out just like that. Blah, just not getting any breaks whatsoever live.
The balance of the day will be spent on-line. My buddy Travis Brown gets down here tomorrow and then John Angst gets here on Friday so I am looking forward to that. I am getting a little tired of hanging out by myself. I'm used to being out with friends upwards of 5 times a week. So, sitting in the room in Vegas by myself for days on end does wear on me a bit over time. I'll likely go play the Caesars again tomorrow, if not I may just change it up and go play at the Venetian. The Venetian is a bigger buy in so we'll see how I feel.
The day after I hit my WSOP ME score I didn't plan to play much poker. I went and got a really half assed haircut that cost me $60. $60 to use some clippers and scissors. If you are going to charge me $60 shouldn't the hairdresser be under the age of 60 and at least provide a bit of eye candy for bending me over. Anyways, I then went down to the outlet malls. I wasn't overly impressed and was even less impressed when I got home and the two pairs of shorts I bought don't even fit.
I took a walk down to the Wynn and treated myself to the Wynn buffet. It was my first buffet of the trip and my first time in a year to the Wynn. For anyone who hasn't gone it is highly recommended. Even if you aren't a huge buffet fan the quality of food is simply incredible. If you are gonna hit a buffet in Vegas shell out the extra few $$ and spend the $35 and treat yourself. I am not a huge desert fan but make sure you save a bit of room for some of their homemade ice cream that changes flavours daily.
I decided I was going to go downstairs and play some craps. In my brilliant mind I decided I was going to play a different system this time. For anyone who knows craps I am generally a 3 number player and sometimes 4 numbers if things are rolling well. I decided I was going to get my money on the table quicker by placing the 6&8 and playing 1 or 2 numbers in addition to those two. In theory I would reap the rewards of a hot shooter a lot faster. However, the flip side is I would lose a lot really quickly if the shooter was going to 7 out fast. Well, after treading water for an hour or so everyone went dead and my $500 didn't last very long. I had made sure I didn't take any more money downstairs with me as it is way too easy to keep reaching into the pocket once you are at the table and the drinks are flowing. On my way back to the room a guy steps into the elevator on the 2nd floor on my way up to the 9th floor. He looks totally distraught and immediately asks if he can ask me a question. He asks me where I am from and if I found the people here nice. I said I was Canadian and that in general I found the staff here at the Imperial Palace very nice. He goes into this story about how he is having the worst day ever, his friends left earlier in the day and accidentally flew home with his wallet so he had no ID or money. He says he has been dealing with the staff there all day and has had no help whatsoever and is just looking to get cab fare so he can get to the airport. I have a bit of a buzz on and have just won over 13k the day before so I figure I can give this dude $20. He is dressed just like a regular middle aged guy from Indiana so I think I can do a good deed here. I tell him to wait by the door, grab him $20 and he asks if I have a business card or anything so he can send me the money back 3 fold. I tell him not to worry about it and he says he will "pay it forward" Anyways, shortly after I actually start to think about the situation. How is this guy going to get on a plane with no identification? If all he wanted was to get to the airport could he not just hang out and get the airport shuttle? Could he not just go to the taxi line and ask someone if he could share a cab to the airport? So, yeah, I think I got played for $20. If I did, congrats on your creativity sir, well played indeed.
When I got back to the room I shot up some on-line and actually had a very solid 3 hour session.
On to, yesterday. The plan was to play the $200 PLO Megastack at Caesars. This tournament had a 3pm start so I put in an online session before heading across the street. Well, the session went the shits. In the span of two hours I ran into setup after setup and took some sickening beats. The worst of which was a $1300 pot that went like this. I am playing 2/4PLO8 and sitting with about $600 in front of me. There is preflop raise and I call with A4JJ suited Ace. The flop comes J27 rainbow. (rainbow simply means no cards of the same suit for you non poker people) So, I have flopped the nut set with the 2nd nut low draw on an unconnected board. Looks pretty nice so I fire out a pot sized bet, I get a caller and the button rejams pot so I instantly jam all-in. Both players instantly call and the board runs out turn 4, river 5. The worst two cards to possibly come as I know at least one of these guys will have held A3 and the nut low draw. Sure enough they both have A3 and make a running wheel to split up my money. All either of them had was a naked low draw and they backdoor into a scoop by counterfeiting my 4 and hitting the river 5. Fun times.
So, I head over to Caesars and sit in the $200 PLO. I end up sitting beside Will Clarke who is a very solid card player from Winnipeg who is now living down here in Vegas. We shoot the shit a bit and over the first couple hours of the tournament he chips up with some nice hands while my stack goes the opposite direction. I start playing too many hands as the European guy who took some of my money in the Rio PLO8 game is playing horribly and can not resist bluffing on all streets so I am looking to catch a hand. Well I don't and I piss away chips. I then proceed to try and take down a pot on the turn when I hold two pair and a gutter to the nut straight. One player calls quickly. I fire out a big river bet "hoping" he has just missed his flush draw and has to fold. He calls pretty quickly with the 2nd nut straight. This bet was horrible. I should have just shut down. I didn't really put him on a flush draw I was just simply hoping he had that. Very poor play on my part. Anyways, last hand before the break I hold ATT6 double suited and limp into the pot. The flop comes 732 with two spades and I am suited to the Ace in spades. The big blind leads out a solid bet and I decide I am willing to get it all-in here with the nut spade draw and an overpair. I pot it and a guy behind me tanks for awhile and eventually repots it. The initial bettor thinks awhile and folds. I call for all my chips and he rolls over 7654 for top pair and wrapped straight draw. The turn is an Ace giving him the wheel and the river is a 7 not of spades so I am done. When the money goes in here I am close to a 2-1 favourite to take down the hand. Oh well, a quick exit. Will went on to play a long day but busted out 40th with 27 playing. He had his aces brought down a few times by shorter stacks nearing the money and just couldn't win his key pots.
I cam home and was ready to play a long online session. Things started off right where I left them. I swear for about 3 hours it felt like every single decision I made was incorrect or if it was correct I would get punished by the deck. I lost more money in 4 hours than I have ever lost in my life on-line in one day. I started off getting beat after beat, then when I bluffed I got called, when I checked I got sucked out on, when I called I was beat. Basically was having the worst poker day of my "career". Awesome, way to go Q, hit a nice score and proceed to piss it back. Well, I got some room service, regained some composure, played better and made a bit of a comeback. It was going to be basically impossible for me to get to even on the day but I did take a good dent out of the loss. The end of the night dropped back a bit when a total maniac fish who likes to play the game came to my table. This guy is so wild and will bet anything. But, as such, he is very dangerous. Of course he stacked me twice and proceeded to piss my money away to everyone else at the table. That is so frustrating but you just can't leave when you get a guy like that on your table. All in all, I lost a good chunk of what I had won over the last few weeks online in one day excluding the WSOP win. Sigh, the volatility of cash games.
On the topic of the WSOP seat I won I have been credited with the cash in my Pokerstars account already. Due to new regulations over the past two years there is no longer an allowance for a 3rd party to register you for a WSOP event. What this means is that poker sites can not register you for WSOP events, that you have to do so yourself. With this being the case they have no choice but to just give you the cash in your account and hope that you will chose to play the WSOP and agree to their sponsorship terms and conditions. Well, odds are I am just going to take the cash. I look at it this way; If I won $12,500 in a different tournament would I roll that money into the WSOP Main Event? Quick answer would be an emphatic NO WAY! With my current bank roll $10,000 means to much to be to just be slamming it into one tournament. I can use that money on-line for cash games and many other live tournaments. I know it doesn't have the sexy appeal of playing in the WSOP event and possibly becoming a millionaire but I am realistic and do this for a living and not recreation so I have to be smart about my decisions. Now, if I happen to make over $10,000 in another tournament while I am down here. Let's say either myself or my buddy John make a big score in the $1,500 PLO8 WSOP event then I could see maybe taking a shot at the main event. Otherwise, I am going to need that money to basically pay for the trip and soak up what has so far been a disappointing run in live tournaments.
Today, I went and played the $235 Megastack NL holdem. I probably had the weakest table I have had so far. The play is quite bad. However, it is bad in a weak passive way so it is tough to extricate big pots from people. I played for 3 and a half hours with my best hand being AJ and my only pocket pair having to be laid down preflop. I pick up QQ in the sb and run smack into late postions AA and am out just like that. Blah, just not getting any breaks whatsoever live.
The balance of the day will be spent on-line. My buddy Travis Brown gets down here tomorrow and then John Angst gets here on Friday so I am looking forward to that. I am getting a little tired of hanging out by myself. I'm used to being out with friends upwards of 5 times a week. So, sitting in the room in Vegas by myself for days on end does wear on me a bit over time. I'll likely go play the Caesars again tomorrow, if not I may just change it up and go play at the Venetian. The Venetian is a bigger buy in so we'll see how I feel.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
WSOP Qualifiers
Well, as I said in my last post I planned to play on-line all day and was going to play a few WSOP Main Event Qualifiers. I had already won my seat into the PokerStars 200 Seat Guarantee as well as the Team Moneymaker event that guaranteed 15 spots to the main event which was also to be played on PokerStars. I started the day spending close to $600 trying to qualify for FullTilt's main event qualifier and then never even played the $500 tournament. It was an extremely frustrating morning and I was starting to tilt it up a bit and really hate hold'em.
I got off to a nice start in the Moneymaker qualifier. A guy just totally handed me 3000 chips early and I slowly chipped up for a few hours. In the mean time I busted out of the 200 seat guarantee tournament pretty early. I made a few bad plays, an untimely bluff but still had a workable stack when I jam JJ over the top of an early raise. The dude snap calls me with A8o, what the fuck are you thinking man? Well, I guess he knew the board was going to be 679K5 for a nice rivered straight. Where the hell do they find these people?
I started hitting some hands in the Moneymaker tournament and got moved to a table that had a ton of big stacks. After a few rotations it was pretty obvious that the one player was quite horrible and had a bunch of chips. He proceeded to dump 55k of a 70k stack to other players at the table. Then he went on a tear and made all the way back to 60k. I had worked my stack to a little excess of that when he makes an early position raise and I look down at AK. Most players I would reraise here but I wanted to control the pot and make if I hit and get out if I missed. The flop comes KT6 with two clubs. He leads out a solid bet and I raise him. He just calls. The turn is a complete blank, something like the 2h. He checks and I just fire all-in, I really think he has KQ here and sure enough he snap calls with KQ and my hand holds. I am now up well over 100k chips, sitting in 4th place in the tournament with about 90 players left and they will be awarding 19 seats.
I am pretty excited but there is certainly a long way to go. Over the next two hours I get my stack up to about 200k and bounce around anywhere from 2nd overall to 17th overall during that time. As we near the final 19 players things get pretty intense. Nobody wants to bust now after playing for 8 hours and nearing a package that has value in excess of $13,500. I get a couple raising hands in AQ and TT that I have to release and seriously hurt my stack.
Within a hand or two I pick up AK. Now, I don't need to get involved with hands but the super short stack remaining is at my table and I will certainly play the hand if they decide to go all-in. So, I figure my best strategy here is to limp with AK and if the shortstack, who is in the sb, decides to jam then I can call. If some bigger stack raises and the shortstack folds I can fold not having wasted much of my stack. Ok, I limp, bigger stack limps behind, and sure enough shortstack jams all-in, the bb calls, I call, and the other big stack limper calls along. The three of us all check it down as we should do basically playing the hand 3vs1. We don't care who wins the pot as long as one of us takes the all-in out we all win a seat. Well, it backfired, the shortstack had AQ and the board came Q high and she 4xed up and was now super healthy. I am starting to absolutely lose my mind. I am now right in the mix with the short stacks again, I just got three outted from what would have been a guaranteed package.
I am now sitting in 19th of 19 remaining players. I feel physically sick and think I am going to have played for 8 hours and get nothing. The blinds are now getting big and I am getting absolutely nothing I can push and blind all the way down to under 40,000 chips when the blinds are at 6k/12k. The field is basically waiting for me to bust. I find Ac3c and jam it all in and get two callers. I flop an ace but I dont know if that is good or not. The board goes running clubs and I make the nut flush, I do a nice little Tiger Woods fistpump as I am now sitting in about 14th place and should be able to cash. FYI my flopped ace was in fact leading on every street of the hand but that little club on the end to make certain sure was nice.
Shortly after that the shortest remaining stack goes all-in on another table and busts out and I win my seat. Needless to say I was incredibly excited. My head was kind of buzzing. Details on my package (WSOP package you dirty minded bastards) can be seen here http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/team-moneymaker/
While all of this was going on I was playing the weekly $200 O8 tournament on Stars. I had got cracked and my stack was all the way down to 658 chips when the blinds were 500/1k. Basically dead, right? Well, I go on a heater, build a nice stack and eventually end up finishing in 5th place. I am quite disappointed in my play at the final table and felt I should have taken minimum of 3rd. The cash was worth $1620 which I split with my buddy John as he played the tournament as well. First place was worth 6k though and really should have been in my grasp. I just became too much of a calling station and pissed away a great stack and what had been a well played tournament.
Not going to complain too much though. All in all it would certainly rank as one of my best ever days of poker and certainly one of my greatest on-line days. I may actually take a day off poker tomorrow and just wander around. Maybe go to the outlet mall and buy some clothes so I don't have to do laundry ;-). I should get more details on my WSOP package in the next day or two. If possible I wouldn't mind taking the $10,000 and not playing but I think for this event I may be forced to play. Which, who knows, could turn into the best thing ever if I actually cashed. I'll figure those things out in the next couple days and may have to make arrangements to stay in Vegas longer.
I got off to a nice start in the Moneymaker qualifier. A guy just totally handed me 3000 chips early and I slowly chipped up for a few hours. In the mean time I busted out of the 200 seat guarantee tournament pretty early. I made a few bad plays, an untimely bluff but still had a workable stack when I jam JJ over the top of an early raise. The dude snap calls me with A8o, what the fuck are you thinking man? Well, I guess he knew the board was going to be 679K5 for a nice rivered straight. Where the hell do they find these people?
I started hitting some hands in the Moneymaker tournament and got moved to a table that had a ton of big stacks. After a few rotations it was pretty obvious that the one player was quite horrible and had a bunch of chips. He proceeded to dump 55k of a 70k stack to other players at the table. Then he went on a tear and made all the way back to 60k. I had worked my stack to a little excess of that when he makes an early position raise and I look down at AK. Most players I would reraise here but I wanted to control the pot and make if I hit and get out if I missed. The flop comes KT6 with two clubs. He leads out a solid bet and I raise him. He just calls. The turn is a complete blank, something like the 2h. He checks and I just fire all-in, I really think he has KQ here and sure enough he snap calls with KQ and my hand holds. I am now up well over 100k chips, sitting in 4th place in the tournament with about 90 players left and they will be awarding 19 seats.
I am pretty excited but there is certainly a long way to go. Over the next two hours I get my stack up to about 200k and bounce around anywhere from 2nd overall to 17th overall during that time. As we near the final 19 players things get pretty intense. Nobody wants to bust now after playing for 8 hours and nearing a package that has value in excess of $13,500. I get a couple raising hands in AQ and TT that I have to release and seriously hurt my stack.
Within a hand or two I pick up AK. Now, I don't need to get involved with hands but the super short stack remaining is at my table and I will certainly play the hand if they decide to go all-in. So, I figure my best strategy here is to limp with AK and if the shortstack, who is in the sb, decides to jam then I can call. If some bigger stack raises and the shortstack folds I can fold not having wasted much of my stack. Ok, I limp, bigger stack limps behind, and sure enough shortstack jams all-in, the bb calls, I call, and the other big stack limper calls along. The three of us all check it down as we should do basically playing the hand 3vs1. We don't care who wins the pot as long as one of us takes the all-in out we all win a seat. Well, it backfired, the shortstack had AQ and the board came Q high and she 4xed up and was now super healthy. I am starting to absolutely lose my mind. I am now right in the mix with the short stacks again, I just got three outted from what would have been a guaranteed package.
I am now sitting in 19th of 19 remaining players. I feel physically sick and think I am going to have played for 8 hours and get nothing. The blinds are now getting big and I am getting absolutely nothing I can push and blind all the way down to under 40,000 chips when the blinds are at 6k/12k. The field is basically waiting for me to bust. I find Ac3c and jam it all in and get two callers. I flop an ace but I dont know if that is good or not. The board goes running clubs and I make the nut flush, I do a nice little Tiger Woods fistpump as I am now sitting in about 14th place and should be able to cash. FYI my flopped ace was in fact leading on every street of the hand but that little club on the end to make certain sure was nice.
Shortly after that the shortest remaining stack goes all-in on another table and busts out and I win my seat. Needless to say I was incredibly excited. My head was kind of buzzing. Details on my package (WSOP package you dirty minded bastards) can be seen here http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/promotions/team-moneymaker/
While all of this was going on I was playing the weekly $200 O8 tournament on Stars. I had got cracked and my stack was all the way down to 658 chips when the blinds were 500/1k. Basically dead, right? Well, I go on a heater, build a nice stack and eventually end up finishing in 5th place. I am quite disappointed in my play at the final table and felt I should have taken minimum of 3rd. The cash was worth $1620 which I split with my buddy John as he played the tournament as well. First place was worth 6k though and really should have been in my grasp. I just became too much of a calling station and pissed away a great stack and what had been a well played tournament.
Not going to complain too much though. All in all it would certainly rank as one of my best ever days of poker and certainly one of my greatest on-line days. I may actually take a day off poker tomorrow and just wander around. Maybe go to the outlet mall and buy some clothes so I don't have to do laundry ;-). I should get more details on my WSOP package in the next day or two. If possible I wouldn't mind taking the $10,000 and not playing but I think for this event I may be forced to play. Which, who knows, could turn into the best thing ever if I actually cashed. I'll figure those things out in the next couple days and may have to make arrangements to stay in Vegas longer.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Live poker is rigged
Yet another disappointing live tournament for me. Today it was the $340 Caesars Megastack.
I had a really pleasant, chatty table to start the tournament today. I really like it when the table is super friendly. Not only does it make the time more enjoyable from a social standpoint but people tend to give up a lot more information when they think you are their friend. People will show their hands a lot more often which does nothing but make it easier for a perceptive player to pigeon hole how they play. I did fine at this table increasing my starting chips from 12,500 to 19k even though I wasn't hitting all that much. I did hit a set against top pair but overplayed the hell out of it and let the guy off the hook pretty easily. I think I fastplay too much in hold'em sometimes. However, when you are running badly and think you are going to get sucked out on during all big hands you tend to try to overbet your hands and make sure you make it real expensive for people to draw to hands.
Our table broke and I moved to a table that had very little chips which should signify that it had been pretty tight for the first 3 hours of the tournament. I pick up JJ and make a standard raise to 1600. Guy to my left who just had his A high flush run into a straight flush calls me and a pretty weak passive woman calls out of the big blind. The flop comes 572 and I lead out 3600, the guy goes all in for about 5k and I call. He has KT with a flopped flush draw. I said, "don't worry sir, you might not turn your hand but you will at least river it" Turn blank 4, River K.....maybe I should start Q's psychic alliance.
I am down to about 10k when I am forced to hit two pair in the bb into a flush. Luckily the guy plays it real slow and the board 4 flushes on the end to freeze us both.
In the span of a couple rotations the only hands I show down are AK, JJ, KK, and the bb two pair. In late position I find 33 and make a raise. European dude calls out of the sb and the flop comes 27T. He checks to me and I like this board for a continuation bet and fire out a decent sized bet and get checkraised and have to fold. I am now down to 5k with blinds at 300/600 so my only move now is all in or fold.
When I am in the sb there is a middle position limper, buttom limper and I decide that if I see anything half assed I am going to push my stack here as I think these guys have absolutely zero strength with their limping positions and that with 5k left I can still get people to fold and pick up 2k uncontested money which is significant to my stack. I look down at J9 and push it all in, the bb wakes up with AQ and calls while the other two folded quickly without interest. Since J9 has taken me out twice already I wondered if it would have any magic on the flip side of the coin. Nope, Flop comes 66T, turn A and I am drawing dead and done.
I came back to the room and fired up some on-line. I had a fantastic session. I made over $1,500 playing 2/4 plo8 running very well and hitting lots of hands. I played some satellites for on-line WSOP Main Event qualifiers tomorrow. Won my way into the $370, 150 seat guarantee on Stars and won my way into some $215 Team Moneymaker tournament that awards at least 15 WSOP seats as well tomorrow. So, tomorrow is going to be an on-line day again. With some luck maybe I can make a run in a tournament and get a WSOP main event package.
Fortunately my on-line play has been running very well. Otherwise the last two weeks would be pretty hard to swallow. It is always odd that when I run badly live I seem to run really well on-line. This was often the case when I used to play at Barca. I don't know that there is anything to this other than coincidence. Over the last month and a half I have really jumped more into playing cash games. For years my primary source of income has been sit and go's, heads up sit and go's, and multi table tournaments. The sng's that I have done very well on are drying up a bit and a lot of the players are catching up a bit playwise and being a bit tougher to handle. This coupled with the fact that there is a lot more money to be made in cash has really forced my to make the move. I am still not nearly as good a cash game player as I am a tournament player but I am getting better. The biggest thing for me in cash games is to control the tilt factor. When I run well in cash I absolutely crush the game, but when I run bad I have a tendency to chase the loss and try to get even and ramp up the action in bad situations which more often than not only exacerbates the problem. With all that said the last month and a half has been very good from a cash standpoint and I think I will certainly be doing more and more of it. Another thing that makes me want to play more cash is that the guys down here I have met play a lot of cash and in general have been making a lot more money than I do on an annual basis. I really don't think these guys are all that smarter or more skilled than I am so it is just a matter of me sucking it up, getting involved, improving my game, and making money.
I had a really pleasant, chatty table to start the tournament today. I really like it when the table is super friendly. Not only does it make the time more enjoyable from a social standpoint but people tend to give up a lot more information when they think you are their friend. People will show their hands a lot more often which does nothing but make it easier for a perceptive player to pigeon hole how they play. I did fine at this table increasing my starting chips from 12,500 to 19k even though I wasn't hitting all that much. I did hit a set against top pair but overplayed the hell out of it and let the guy off the hook pretty easily. I think I fastplay too much in hold'em sometimes. However, when you are running badly and think you are going to get sucked out on during all big hands you tend to try to overbet your hands and make sure you make it real expensive for people to draw to hands.
Our table broke and I moved to a table that had very little chips which should signify that it had been pretty tight for the first 3 hours of the tournament. I pick up JJ and make a standard raise to 1600. Guy to my left who just had his A high flush run into a straight flush calls me and a pretty weak passive woman calls out of the big blind. The flop comes 572 and I lead out 3600, the guy goes all in for about 5k and I call. He has KT with a flopped flush draw. I said, "don't worry sir, you might not turn your hand but you will at least river it" Turn blank 4, River K.....maybe I should start Q's psychic alliance.
I am down to about 10k when I am forced to hit two pair in the bb into a flush. Luckily the guy plays it real slow and the board 4 flushes on the end to freeze us both.
In the span of a couple rotations the only hands I show down are AK, JJ, KK, and the bb two pair. In late position I find 33 and make a raise. European dude calls out of the sb and the flop comes 27T. He checks to me and I like this board for a continuation bet and fire out a decent sized bet and get checkraised and have to fold. I am now down to 5k with blinds at 300/600 so my only move now is all in or fold.
When I am in the sb there is a middle position limper, buttom limper and I decide that if I see anything half assed I am going to push my stack here as I think these guys have absolutely zero strength with their limping positions and that with 5k left I can still get people to fold and pick up 2k uncontested money which is significant to my stack. I look down at J9 and push it all in, the bb wakes up with AQ and calls while the other two folded quickly without interest. Since J9 has taken me out twice already I wondered if it would have any magic on the flip side of the coin. Nope, Flop comes 66T, turn A and I am drawing dead and done.
I came back to the room and fired up some on-line. I had a fantastic session. I made over $1,500 playing 2/4 plo8 running very well and hitting lots of hands. I played some satellites for on-line WSOP Main Event qualifiers tomorrow. Won my way into the $370, 150 seat guarantee on Stars and won my way into some $215 Team Moneymaker tournament that awards at least 15 WSOP seats as well tomorrow. So, tomorrow is going to be an on-line day again. With some luck maybe I can make a run in a tournament and get a WSOP main event package.
Fortunately my on-line play has been running very well. Otherwise the last two weeks would be pretty hard to swallow. It is always odd that when I run badly live I seem to run really well on-line. This was often the case when I used to play at Barca. I don't know that there is anything to this other than coincidence. Over the last month and a half I have really jumped more into playing cash games. For years my primary source of income has been sit and go's, heads up sit and go's, and multi table tournaments. The sng's that I have done very well on are drying up a bit and a lot of the players are catching up a bit playwise and being a bit tougher to handle. This coupled with the fact that there is a lot more money to be made in cash has really forced my to make the move. I am still not nearly as good a cash game player as I am a tournament player but I am getting better. The biggest thing for me in cash games is to control the tilt factor. When I run well in cash I absolutely crush the game, but when I run bad I have a tendency to chase the loss and try to get even and ramp up the action in bad situations which more often than not only exacerbates the problem. With all that said the last month and a half has been very good from a cash standpoint and I think I will certainly be doing more and more of it. Another thing that makes me want to play more cash is that the guys down here I have met play a lot of cash and in general have been making a lot more money than I do on an annual basis. I really don't think these guys are all that smarter or more skilled than I am so it is just a matter of me sucking it up, getting involved, improving my game, and making money.
Friday, June 13, 2008
A day without live poker
I spent my first day without playing any live poker since my arrival in Vegas today. I've been pounding on-line all day since I got up around 3:30 and have had some good success. I pulled another all nighter and got back to the hotel after 10am.
I had a really fun night last night. Pretty much exactly what I needed after the disappointment of the last WSOP event I played.
A Canadian, a naughty librarian, and a sexy nurse walk into a casino.........what's the punch line? Nothing but a kick ass evening. The two girls I had met playing craps a couple of nights earlier extended their stay in Vegas for a few days and were going to be flying out at 11am so wanted to pull an all night gamblefest before they headed back to Michigan. Being the true gentleman that I am *wink wink* I of course obliged and met them downstairs at the Imperial Palace for a few drinks. We played some electronic roulette and some craps without a ton of success and decided to book it downtown to old Vegas. I just absolutely love gambling down there, usually at either Binions or the Golden Nugget. We had varying degrees of success at blackjack and I think the girls made some money at craps while I seemed to press my bets at all the wrong times and lost a few dollars. Thanks Toni and Sarah you definitely made it the best night of my Vegas trip so far. Somehow, wandering around Vegas with a couple cuties just makes everything better. The electronic roulette here was pretty fun. They have what is called a "Dealertainer" pit where they have people dealing the games in costume who periodically perform songs throughout the night. It's a really fun atmosphere and certainly good for anyone who wants to gamble a bit but might be stressed out about sitting at the regular tables. They still use a real roulette wheel it is just surrounded by a bunch of touch screen machines that you sit at so everyone handles their own bets without the need for any chips. It is super fast paced and you can bet small limits and the drink service here is fast so all around win win situation....oh and I made a few $$ to boot.
Tomorrow it is back to the grind of trying to make a decent live score. I am going to play the Caesar's $340 Megastack again. It is just too good of a structure for me to think about going anywhere else. I really need to hit a nice tournament score before my buddy John gets here as we will be chopping all tournaments we play together after he arrives. The only thing better than winning a tournament is winning a tournament when John doesn't have a piece of the action. ;-) I am definitely looking forward to more people getting into town. The trip has been a lot of fun so far in spite of some real horrid luck in key hands. I've met a lot of good people so far but Vegas is always enhanced when you have some good buddies in town.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the World Series of Poker in regards to how it is run. This is THE biggest poker series in the world and yet it really disappoints me in a number of ways. If this is to be the truest test of tournament poker prowess then give the players what they want. I find it laughable that the structures at the WSOP are inferior to at least 4 other events being run in Vegas as we speak. As an example let's take the $1,500 NL Holdem event I started out with. I started with 3000 chips and the blinds increased each hour. Tomorrow, I will play a $300 NL Holdem event that gives me 12,500 starting chips and 50 minute levels. Any true card player wants a deeper structure that gives them a better chance to withstand some rough hands and facilitate more play. It seems as though the WSOP has turned into nothing but a massive corporate giant that is concerned with nothing but promoting the recognized professionals and raking in millions upon millions of dollars. Now, the attractiveness of the WSOP, I suppose is that everyone who is a somebody in the game comes to play at the WSOP and the field sizes are big so the prize pools are huge. Huge prize pools are going to draw better players, but why not give better players deeper structures? I know not everyone wants things dragged out over 3-4 or more days but mix things up a bit. At least start offering some deeper stacked tournaments and see where the players go, that will be the truest test of who actually wants what. When you see fields of 400-600 players at a Caesars $300 event and then you see fields of 150-200 players at the Rio for their evening $300 event you tell me what people want? You draw 500 people to come specifically for one tournament, whereas you have nothing but poker players filling an entire casino and it only draws 150 players with a structure that is about 25% as deep? Hmmm??? I guess the biggest thing is that I don't think Harrahs' really gives a shit about promoting poker whatsoever, they simply have the rights to a huge cash cow and are going to milk it as long as possible. Until they get some actual competition of similar sized buy in events people will forever flock to the WSOP.
I had a really fun night last night. Pretty much exactly what I needed after the disappointment of the last WSOP event I played.
A Canadian, a naughty librarian, and a sexy nurse walk into a casino.........what's the punch line? Nothing but a kick ass evening. The two girls I had met playing craps a couple of nights earlier extended their stay in Vegas for a few days and were going to be flying out at 11am so wanted to pull an all night gamblefest before they headed back to Michigan. Being the true gentleman that I am *wink wink* I of course obliged and met them downstairs at the Imperial Palace for a few drinks. We played some electronic roulette and some craps without a ton of success and decided to book it downtown to old Vegas. I just absolutely love gambling down there, usually at either Binions or the Golden Nugget. We had varying degrees of success at blackjack and I think the girls made some money at craps while I seemed to press my bets at all the wrong times and lost a few dollars. Thanks Toni and Sarah you definitely made it the best night of my Vegas trip so far. Somehow, wandering around Vegas with a couple cuties just makes everything better. The electronic roulette here was pretty fun. They have what is called a "Dealertainer" pit where they have people dealing the games in costume who periodically perform songs throughout the night. It's a really fun atmosphere and certainly good for anyone who wants to gamble a bit but might be stressed out about sitting at the regular tables. They still use a real roulette wheel it is just surrounded by a bunch of touch screen machines that you sit at so everyone handles their own bets without the need for any chips. It is super fast paced and you can bet small limits and the drink service here is fast so all around win win situation....oh and I made a few $$ to boot.
Tomorrow it is back to the grind of trying to make a decent live score. I am going to play the Caesar's $340 Megastack again. It is just too good of a structure for me to think about going anywhere else. I really need to hit a nice tournament score before my buddy John gets here as we will be chopping all tournaments we play together after he arrives. The only thing better than winning a tournament is winning a tournament when John doesn't have a piece of the action. ;-) I am definitely looking forward to more people getting into town. The trip has been a lot of fun so far in spite of some real horrid luck in key hands. I've met a lot of good people so far but Vegas is always enhanced when you have some good buddies in town.
I have been thinking a lot lately about the World Series of Poker in regards to how it is run. This is THE biggest poker series in the world and yet it really disappoints me in a number of ways. If this is to be the truest test of tournament poker prowess then give the players what they want. I find it laughable that the structures at the WSOP are inferior to at least 4 other events being run in Vegas as we speak. As an example let's take the $1,500 NL Holdem event I started out with. I started with 3000 chips and the blinds increased each hour. Tomorrow, I will play a $300 NL Holdem event that gives me 12,500 starting chips and 50 minute levels. Any true card player wants a deeper structure that gives them a better chance to withstand some rough hands and facilitate more play. It seems as though the WSOP has turned into nothing but a massive corporate giant that is concerned with nothing but promoting the recognized professionals and raking in millions upon millions of dollars. Now, the attractiveness of the WSOP, I suppose is that everyone who is a somebody in the game comes to play at the WSOP and the field sizes are big so the prize pools are huge. Huge prize pools are going to draw better players, but why not give better players deeper structures? I know not everyone wants things dragged out over 3-4 or more days but mix things up a bit. At least start offering some deeper stacked tournaments and see where the players go, that will be the truest test of who actually wants what. When you see fields of 400-600 players at a Caesars $300 event and then you see fields of 150-200 players at the Rio for their evening $300 event you tell me what people want? You draw 500 people to come specifically for one tournament, whereas you have nothing but poker players filling an entire casino and it only draws 150 players with a structure that is about 25% as deep? Hmmm??? I guess the biggest thing is that I don't think Harrahs' really gives a shit about promoting poker whatsoever, they simply have the rights to a huge cash cow and are going to milk it as long as possible. Until they get some actual competition of similar sized buy in events people will forever flock to the WSOP.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
$2,500 PLHA WSOP Event
Well, I will start by saying that PLHA is half Pot Limit Hold'em and Pot Limit Omaha. This is a new event at the World Series and it drew 457 entrants. I think they could have got a lot more players but the organizers ran it on the same day as a $2k NL Hold'em event. I didn't plan on playing this event, especially since things haven't been going all that well of late. However, I really enjoy Pot Limit games and felt I could certainly hold my own. The field was loaded with big name professionals. From my seat alone I could see, John Juanda, Joe Hachem, Eric Seidel, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and more.
My table started off a lot looser than I expected. I made a nice pot quickly with not much of a hand. Early position raises to 300ish. I call with AJo. The flop comes AKQ rainbow and he checks the action to me. I bet 400 and he calls. The turn is a 4 bringing in a heart draw and he checks to me again. At this point I don't know much about the player but do not want to release control of the hand and I bet 700. Again, he just calls so I now feel he has AJ or AT or possibly playing KQ with a flopped two pair. The river is a blank 2 and he checks the action to me again. I think about checking but really think I am ahead or tied so I bet 1500, get called and win the hand. He mucks so he must have had something like at or a9.
A few hands later this kid who seems to be playing quite aggressive makes a 1500 chip river call with AK on a board of T9865 with three clubs and wins the hand showing down AK. I am dumbfounded by the call and immediately think this kid is nuts. I build my chips up to 8k when I get involved in this hand with him. I raise AhKhKd3d to 300 preflop and everyone folds to him in the bb and he calls. The flop flop comes Th8h5d and he pots into me. I have 2nd nut flush draw and a pair of K's so I call. The turn is a 2c giving a me an added gutshot and he once again fires pot into me and I decide to call thinking I may be ahead of a fastplayed straightdraw and have a live flush draw. The river is Js and he checks to me and I check it down not ever wanting to bluff this guy with nothing. He rolls over AA with the naked Ace of hearts and takes down the pot with a pair of aces.
A couple of hands later I have AKJ6 with a flop of QT2. I turn 2nd nut flush draw and miss everything. Fortunately I miss my flush draw as the other player in the hand had the nut draw.
At the first break I was pretty disappointed to have built up to 8k and then bled back to 4k after we started with 5k in chips. But, I was resolved to play well and grind it out. The table got super super tight. We played an entire half hour level of PL holdem without seeing a single river. The next half hour of PLO8 was quite tight as well. The two players to my right were obviously starting to get a bit bored and wanted to crank up the action a bit.
I get the perfect setup with the player two to my right raising to 500 under the gun, the next player reraises to 2200 and I look down a find red aces. I just push all in for 3500 chips and he knows he is beat but feels pot committed and makes the call with JJ. Jack high flop and I don't catch up and am done just like that. Thanks again AA, really working wonders for me this trip.
I left quietly and pretty dejected. I just feel I am playing such good cards and all my key hands are going bad. I only seem to be picking up uncontested money and am losing all my all-in situations regardless of how good I get my money in during the hand.
I sold 60% of my action is this tournament though so personally I eat a $1,000 loss which I guess is a lot better than a $2,500 loss but I wanted to make money for them and myself and give us something to party about when they get down here in a week. Thanks for the support Trav and John, you guys need to learn to pick better horses. Not ones that have a broken leg.
I am going to put in a healthy on-line session tonight. So far it has started off quite well and I am up about $800 but that will undoubtedly change one way or another.
I am getting a little drained by these tournament sessions, just mentally drained by not having the results I feel I deserve. I guess that is the way most tournament players will feel a lot of the time. I am just so used to playing multiple tournaments at once on-line that when I go 10 or so tournaments without good results it is just one bad day. When that happens live it is a whole week of feeling like you are accomplishing nothing. I am not sure what is on tap next. I'll check out the schedules and probably stick to some $200-$500 buy in events.
My table started off a lot looser than I expected. I made a nice pot quickly with not much of a hand. Early position raises to 300ish. I call with AJo. The flop comes AKQ rainbow and he checks the action to me. I bet 400 and he calls. The turn is a 4 bringing in a heart draw and he checks to me again. At this point I don't know much about the player but do not want to release control of the hand and I bet 700. Again, he just calls so I now feel he has AJ or AT or possibly playing KQ with a flopped two pair. The river is a blank 2 and he checks the action to me again. I think about checking but really think I am ahead or tied so I bet 1500, get called and win the hand. He mucks so he must have had something like at or a9.
A few hands later this kid who seems to be playing quite aggressive makes a 1500 chip river call with AK on a board of T9865 with three clubs and wins the hand showing down AK. I am dumbfounded by the call and immediately think this kid is nuts. I build my chips up to 8k when I get involved in this hand with him. I raise AhKhKd3d to 300 preflop and everyone folds to him in the bb and he calls. The flop flop comes Th8h5d and he pots into me. I have 2nd nut flush draw and a pair of K's so I call. The turn is a 2c giving a me an added gutshot and he once again fires pot into me and I decide to call thinking I may be ahead of a fastplayed straightdraw and have a live flush draw. The river is Js and he checks to me and I check it down not ever wanting to bluff this guy with nothing. He rolls over AA with the naked Ace of hearts and takes down the pot with a pair of aces.
A couple of hands later I have AKJ6 with a flop of QT2. I turn 2nd nut flush draw and miss everything. Fortunately I miss my flush draw as the other player in the hand had the nut draw.
At the first break I was pretty disappointed to have built up to 8k and then bled back to 4k after we started with 5k in chips. But, I was resolved to play well and grind it out. The table got super super tight. We played an entire half hour level of PL holdem without seeing a single river. The next half hour of PLO8 was quite tight as well. The two players to my right were obviously starting to get a bit bored and wanted to crank up the action a bit.
I get the perfect setup with the player two to my right raising to 500 under the gun, the next player reraises to 2200 and I look down a find red aces. I just push all in for 3500 chips and he knows he is beat but feels pot committed and makes the call with JJ. Jack high flop and I don't catch up and am done just like that. Thanks again AA, really working wonders for me this trip.
I left quietly and pretty dejected. I just feel I am playing such good cards and all my key hands are going bad. I only seem to be picking up uncontested money and am losing all my all-in situations regardless of how good I get my money in during the hand.
I sold 60% of my action is this tournament though so personally I eat a $1,000 loss which I guess is a lot better than a $2,500 loss but I wanted to make money for them and myself and give us something to party about when they get down here in a week. Thanks for the support Trav and John, you guys need to learn to pick better horses. Not ones that have a broken leg.
I am going to put in a healthy on-line session tonight. So far it has started off quite well and I am up about $800 but that will undoubtedly change one way or another.
I am getting a little drained by these tournament sessions, just mentally drained by not having the results I feel I deserve. I guess that is the way most tournament players will feel a lot of the time. I am just so used to playing multiple tournaments at once on-line that when I go 10 or so tournaments without good results it is just one bad day. When that happens live it is a whole week of feeling like you are accomplishing nothing. I am not sure what is on tap next. I'll check out the schedules and probably stick to some $200-$500 buy in events.
Still alive
It has been a little while since my last entry and I wish it was because I was playing so deep in tournaments that I didn't have time to post but that isn't the case. But, when you don't get back to the room until after 9am, have a tournament downtown at noon the next day, and then spend all day there and get back to the hotel at 4am it doesn't leave a lot of time for blog writing.
Tuesday I played the $235 O8 and would have been better served slowly hammering a nail through my hand. Officially done playing live O8 tournaments. It just isn't a good live game and I know my limit game has plenty of holes so those two factors alone make it dumb for me to play any more of them. The real difference between playing live o8 and on-line o8 is just the number of hands per hour that you see. On-line for O8 games you average over a hand per minute in tournaments and even quite a bit quicker once the blinds get big. In live play I am seeing about 20 hands per hour at the most which just does not cut it. You can not play proper poker and keep proper hand selection when you have such a small sample of hands. So, with it not being a bluffing game it becomes a who happens to run better that day game.
After the O8 I went down to the Rio to play the $340 evening tournament. My table wasn't as weak as it was the last time I played there but it was still pretty soft. I was able to double my stack up before the first break and had a much looser image than I normally would. Which was fine with me but just meant I needed to be a little pickier with pushing people around. After the break things go downhill. Guy to my immediate right raises and I look down at QT. Normally this is an instamuck for me but I am on the button and the big blind has yet to return from break and I just have the feeling that the guy is totally trying to make a steal at the dead blind money. I decide to call in position and see how the hand plays out. The flop come T63 and he makes a continuation bet to which I jam all-in. I have him covered and he makes the call with 54. Turn 4, River 7.....and there is your straight sir. Fantastic. I then proceed to lose a race when I get it in with AQ vs JJ....there was other dead money in the pot already and I was happy to see I was racing but the guy flops a set and I lose the hand. I am now playing a short stack and find QJ in late position with only about 5x the blinds so I jam it all in and run into AJ and he holds.
After the Rio I decide I want to go play some craps so I come back to the Imperial Palace and get settled in for some play and drinks. The session is a complete roller coaster and I end up losing a few hundred but definitely have some fun. I meet these two girls from Michigan that were fairly new to playing craps and we end up hanging out for the balance of the night. Wandered down to Bally's and played a bit of blackjack, had breakfast, and called it a night before 10am as I had a tournament to play at noon.
Yesterday, I played a $330 PLO8 tournament at the Golden Nugget. I was really excited to play this event as this is definitely my bread and butter game. There were 134 entrants and probably one of the toughest fields you will ever find for a $300 tournament. The tournament was loaded with on-line pro's and experienced players. It makes sense that casual players aren't going down to the golden nugget to play plo8 and that the people there are going because they know the game. My table was pretty tough. To my immediate right was John Guth, aka sirscoopalot, who won a wsop bracelet this past year. There was another bracelet winner at my table. A Canadian named Colin who is a pro and a great plo8 player. Three local Vegas veteran's with tons of experience and a couple guys who were not that strong. I really have no trouble being on a tough table in this game. It simply means it is much easier to tell where you are at in hands. However, the flip side is that it is tougher to get paid off when you hit hands and tougher to really trap anyone in big situations. Two hands into the tournament I have to make a big laydown to the other guy with a WSOP bracelet. I play KdKhJsTd to a preflop raise. The flop comes QdQhJd and I check the action to the raiser. He leads out with a pot bet for 700 and I really feel that he has nothing but AA here and I can take it down with a check raise representing a Q so I make it 2500. He immediately jams all in and I deliberate for a bit and fold as I now think he has hit a Q or at worst he has AA with the nut diamond draw. There goes 3k of my 8k starting stack. Over the next few rotations the guy who beat me in this pot is playing every single hand it actually gets to the point that he plays every hand until the 106th minute of the tournament. If I see him play like this I probably get my money in with this big two way draw. Anyways, eventually his bubble bursts like it will with any aggressive player surrounded by guys just waiting to pick him off and I have the honour of eventually busting him out.
I play for hours and am building chips but I never am able to get a nice setup hand against the weaker players at the table. I go card dead for about two hours and am getting a bit short when I quarter Colin and am back to a below average but healthy stack. When we get down to about 40 players I get moved to another table. I had already said to Scoop earlier that when our table broke I would likely move into a weaker table and get busted up quickly. Well our table didn't break but I did get moved to level the tables. It took about 4 hands for me to go bust and this is really the only hand of the tournament that I would like to have back. The blinds are at 500/1000 and my stack is at 16k with average tournament stack nearing the 30k mark. There are two middle position limpers and the button raises it to 5k and I am in the small blind and look down at As2h3sJh which is a very premium hand in this game. The guy who raised to 5k is an asian guy with a ton of chips and I just get the sense from him that he is pretty loose and just looking to make a play at the pot in position. I think for a bit and decide to jam all in for my 16k. I think if in fact this guy is just pushing some trash I still have some fold equity and he can lay preflop or if I do get called I have a premium hand anyways and just hope to hit something. Well, he calls quickly and rolls over a2qq...not at all what I want to be up against. I would rather be against a hand like AA with a crap low or something like a278 but this is one of the few hands that has me in some trouble. The flop comes 996 and I am drawing to a backdoor low or backdoor flush. The turn brings a J and I and I am drawing completely dead and that is my tournament life. Now, a lot of people go broke on this hand. A lot of top players go broke on this hand and my play really isn't that bad for the information I had at the table. However, I am a tight tight player and I know I can come back from a short stack so with a hand like A23 I should call the 5k. If the board comes high then I can just dump the hand and live to play another day. If I flop any kind of touch or draw I can jam into the pot as first to act. The real point is that as pretty as this hand looks it still is a drawing hand and I should have left myself an escape valve in case the board came trash like it did.
Earlier in the day the tournament director announced that they were going to run a $125 plus $50 unlimited rebuys for the first hour plo8 tournament at 10pm. Awesome!!! I love it, I am definitely going to stay and play this. In the mean time I play some 2/5 plo8. I am sitting beside a guy known as "worm" who is one of the THE top players online for the game. He plays under Deady12 or Game Over 73 and will play any size of plo8 game available. He turns out to be a super nice guy and I really enjoy chatting with him for awhile. Anyways it gets close to 10pm and we are all ready to shoot it up in the rebuy but before we do someone suggests that we all toss in $100 blind and we will have an o8 roll'em hand. We get 10 guys to toss in $100 and they deal everyones cards face up. I have a4j8 and out of the 10 hands the a4 is actually the early favourite for best low draw. The flop comes 887, I hit trip 8's, awesome...oh wait Worm has flopped a full house with 87.....boom A on turn and I have the nuts and take half of a 1k pot with the other half going to a low. I am awesome, this is the only way I can win at poker when it is all left up to the cards. :-)
The rebuy starts and I am prepared to crank up the action to build a stack. The very first hand I take a guys stack and am off to a running start. Two hands later I get another guy all in on the turn in where I am scooping a 20k pot and should be huge....well boom here comes the 3 out scoop card for him. sigh...in a few mins I get another guy all in when i have a set of aces....boom running flush for him. I was wanting to ramp the action up regardless of my hands but I am getting hit in the face with the deck be dealt monster after monster but none of them are holding. I do ok though and have about 12k at the break when we started with 5k. Two hands after the break I bust out, yeah awesome......rebuy tournament and you last 2 hands past when rebuys close.
Here is the hand. I have AdAcQh2d and I pot it preflop out of the big blind and get two callers. these idiots have no clue that I only played loose during the rebuy period and that I am playing premium cards now. The flop comes QT3 with two diamonds. I lead out pot and get called. I think the guy must be on a draw with a hand like KJ9 maybe with inferior diamonds. The turn is a 2 giving me Queens up with the nut flush draw so I go all-in thinking I am winning and going to take the pot down right there. Well, the guy calls and has QT for top two pair. He is so clueless that he actually plays his hand to perfection. A good player would have repopped me on the flop but this guy just smooth called thinking his top two is a monster not realizing the vulnerability of the hand. So, that was awesome....two more tournament no shows.
I did have a nice on-line session after my Caesar's debacle. After playing for 10 hours at Caesars and netting $43 I come back and play a $110 turbo sng and net $375 in 40 mins. Hmmmmm, why do I play live poker??? Tuesday morning I had a really good online session where I made $1900 in 3 hours. I made about $1k on cash and played 5 sng's on full tilt with finishes of 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd and 8th.
Today, I am really toying with the idea of playing the $2500 Pot Limit Hold'em//Pot Limit Omaha WSOP event. I would love to play this tournament as I think it is something that would be a good structure for me. However, when I am stuck money dumping this kind of coin into a tournament is tough to do for me and my bankroll. My buddy Travis Brown has offered to buy 50% of my action if I decide to play so I may do that. I still have 5 hours to decide as it is a late afternoon start for this event. With it being an afternoon event this makes me want to play it even more as there are going to be a bunch of hold'em players that get busted out over the course of the day that decide they want to slam some money into this event. I really like pot limit games and think that over time this would certainly be a +EV tournament for myself.
Tuesday I played the $235 O8 and would have been better served slowly hammering a nail through my hand. Officially done playing live O8 tournaments. It just isn't a good live game and I know my limit game has plenty of holes so those two factors alone make it dumb for me to play any more of them. The real difference between playing live o8 and on-line o8 is just the number of hands per hour that you see. On-line for O8 games you average over a hand per minute in tournaments and even quite a bit quicker once the blinds get big. In live play I am seeing about 20 hands per hour at the most which just does not cut it. You can not play proper poker and keep proper hand selection when you have such a small sample of hands. So, with it not being a bluffing game it becomes a who happens to run better that day game.
After the O8 I went down to the Rio to play the $340 evening tournament. My table wasn't as weak as it was the last time I played there but it was still pretty soft. I was able to double my stack up before the first break and had a much looser image than I normally would. Which was fine with me but just meant I needed to be a little pickier with pushing people around. After the break things go downhill. Guy to my immediate right raises and I look down at QT. Normally this is an instamuck for me but I am on the button and the big blind has yet to return from break and I just have the feeling that the guy is totally trying to make a steal at the dead blind money. I decide to call in position and see how the hand plays out. The flop come T63 and he makes a continuation bet to which I jam all-in. I have him covered and he makes the call with 54. Turn 4, River 7.....and there is your straight sir. Fantastic. I then proceed to lose a race when I get it in with AQ vs JJ....there was other dead money in the pot already and I was happy to see I was racing but the guy flops a set and I lose the hand. I am now playing a short stack and find QJ in late position with only about 5x the blinds so I jam it all in and run into AJ and he holds.
After the Rio I decide I want to go play some craps so I come back to the Imperial Palace and get settled in for some play and drinks. The session is a complete roller coaster and I end up losing a few hundred but definitely have some fun. I meet these two girls from Michigan that were fairly new to playing craps and we end up hanging out for the balance of the night. Wandered down to Bally's and played a bit of blackjack, had breakfast, and called it a night before 10am as I had a tournament to play at noon.
Yesterday, I played a $330 PLO8 tournament at the Golden Nugget. I was really excited to play this event as this is definitely my bread and butter game. There were 134 entrants and probably one of the toughest fields you will ever find for a $300 tournament. The tournament was loaded with on-line pro's and experienced players. It makes sense that casual players aren't going down to the golden nugget to play plo8 and that the people there are going because they know the game. My table was pretty tough. To my immediate right was John Guth, aka sirscoopalot, who won a wsop bracelet this past year. There was another bracelet winner at my table. A Canadian named Colin who is a pro and a great plo8 player. Three local Vegas veteran's with tons of experience and a couple guys who were not that strong. I really have no trouble being on a tough table in this game. It simply means it is much easier to tell where you are at in hands. However, the flip side is that it is tougher to get paid off when you hit hands and tougher to really trap anyone in big situations. Two hands into the tournament I have to make a big laydown to the other guy with a WSOP bracelet. I play KdKhJsTd to a preflop raise. The flop comes QdQhJd and I check the action to the raiser. He leads out with a pot bet for 700 and I really feel that he has nothing but AA here and I can take it down with a check raise representing a Q so I make it 2500. He immediately jams all in and I deliberate for a bit and fold as I now think he has hit a Q or at worst he has AA with the nut diamond draw. There goes 3k of my 8k starting stack. Over the next few rotations the guy who beat me in this pot is playing every single hand it actually gets to the point that he plays every hand until the 106th minute of the tournament. If I see him play like this I probably get my money in with this big two way draw. Anyways, eventually his bubble bursts like it will with any aggressive player surrounded by guys just waiting to pick him off and I have the honour of eventually busting him out.
I play for hours and am building chips but I never am able to get a nice setup hand against the weaker players at the table. I go card dead for about two hours and am getting a bit short when I quarter Colin and am back to a below average but healthy stack. When we get down to about 40 players I get moved to another table. I had already said to Scoop earlier that when our table broke I would likely move into a weaker table and get busted up quickly. Well our table didn't break but I did get moved to level the tables. It took about 4 hands for me to go bust and this is really the only hand of the tournament that I would like to have back. The blinds are at 500/1000 and my stack is at 16k with average tournament stack nearing the 30k mark. There are two middle position limpers and the button raises it to 5k and I am in the small blind and look down at As2h3sJh which is a very premium hand in this game. The guy who raised to 5k is an asian guy with a ton of chips and I just get the sense from him that he is pretty loose and just looking to make a play at the pot in position. I think for a bit and decide to jam all in for my 16k. I think if in fact this guy is just pushing some trash I still have some fold equity and he can lay preflop or if I do get called I have a premium hand anyways and just hope to hit something. Well, he calls quickly and rolls over a2qq...not at all what I want to be up against. I would rather be against a hand like AA with a crap low or something like a278 but this is one of the few hands that has me in some trouble. The flop comes 996 and I am drawing to a backdoor low or backdoor flush. The turn brings a J and I and I am drawing completely dead and that is my tournament life. Now, a lot of people go broke on this hand. A lot of top players go broke on this hand and my play really isn't that bad for the information I had at the table. However, I am a tight tight player and I know I can come back from a short stack so with a hand like A23 I should call the 5k. If the board comes high then I can just dump the hand and live to play another day. If I flop any kind of touch or draw I can jam into the pot as first to act. The real point is that as pretty as this hand looks it still is a drawing hand and I should have left myself an escape valve in case the board came trash like it did.
Earlier in the day the tournament director announced that they were going to run a $125 plus $50 unlimited rebuys for the first hour plo8 tournament at 10pm. Awesome!!! I love it, I am definitely going to stay and play this. In the mean time I play some 2/5 plo8. I am sitting beside a guy known as "worm" who is one of the THE top players online for the game. He plays under Deady12 or Game Over 73 and will play any size of plo8 game available. He turns out to be a super nice guy and I really enjoy chatting with him for awhile. Anyways it gets close to 10pm and we are all ready to shoot it up in the rebuy but before we do someone suggests that we all toss in $100 blind and we will have an o8 roll'em hand. We get 10 guys to toss in $100 and they deal everyones cards face up. I have a4j8 and out of the 10 hands the a4 is actually the early favourite for best low draw. The flop comes 887, I hit trip 8's, awesome...oh wait Worm has flopped a full house with 87.....boom A on turn and I have the nuts and take half of a 1k pot with the other half going to a low. I am awesome, this is the only way I can win at poker when it is all left up to the cards. :-)
The rebuy starts and I am prepared to crank up the action to build a stack. The very first hand I take a guys stack and am off to a running start. Two hands later I get another guy all in on the turn in where I am scooping a 20k pot and should be huge....well boom here comes the 3 out scoop card for him. sigh...in a few mins I get another guy all in when i have a set of aces....boom running flush for him. I was wanting to ramp the action up regardless of my hands but I am getting hit in the face with the deck be dealt monster after monster but none of them are holding. I do ok though and have about 12k at the break when we started with 5k. Two hands after the break I bust out, yeah awesome......rebuy tournament and you last 2 hands past when rebuys close.
Here is the hand. I have AdAcQh2d and I pot it preflop out of the big blind and get two callers. these idiots have no clue that I only played loose during the rebuy period and that I am playing premium cards now. The flop comes QT3 with two diamonds. I lead out pot and get called. I think the guy must be on a draw with a hand like KJ9 maybe with inferior diamonds. The turn is a 2 giving me Queens up with the nut flush draw so I go all-in thinking I am winning and going to take the pot down right there. Well, the guy calls and has QT for top two pair. He is so clueless that he actually plays his hand to perfection. A good player would have repopped me on the flop but this guy just smooth called thinking his top two is a monster not realizing the vulnerability of the hand. So, that was awesome....two more tournament no shows.
I did have a nice on-line session after my Caesar's debacle. After playing for 10 hours at Caesars and netting $43 I come back and play a $110 turbo sng and net $375 in 40 mins. Hmmmmm, why do I play live poker??? Tuesday morning I had a really good online session where I made $1900 in 3 hours. I made about $1k on cash and played 5 sng's on full tilt with finishes of 1st, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd and 8th.
Today, I am really toying with the idea of playing the $2500 Pot Limit Hold'em//Pot Limit Omaha WSOP event. I would love to play this tournament as I think it is something that would be a good structure for me. However, when I am stuck money dumping this kind of coin into a tournament is tough to do for me and my bankroll. My buddy Travis Brown has offered to buy 50% of my action if I decide to play so I may do that. I still have 5 hours to decide as it is a late afternoon start for this event. With it being an afternoon event this makes me want to play it even more as there are going to be a bunch of hold'em players that get busted out over the course of the day that decide they want to slam some money into this event. I really like pot limit games and think that over time this would certainly be a +EV tournament for myself.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Caeser's $235 NL Hold'em Megastack
WHAT A FUCKING JOKE!!!
Yeah, so you may have guessed already that things didn't end well with this tournament. I played my best tournament poker of the trip. Played for 10 hours, got into the money, get AA cracked by a cocky little prick, and net a whopping $43 on the tournament. This is by far the angriest I have left a live tournament in ages.
The final hand of my night plays out like this. I am in early position and look down at AA. This is the 2nd time I have had Aces in a little over a rotation and I have picked up blinds twice uncontested in that time which was huge at the current limits. The current limits were 1500//3000 with 400 antes so every rotation was costing 8500 if we were full ring. So, I have about 70,000 in chips, healthy but volatile like almost anyone in the tournament. I raise to 8k, a small raise with how much the antes provide but it has been adequate to take down blinds and I know I am getting at most one caller or one raiser anyways at current level. Everyone, folds to the big blind and he asks me how much I have. I tell him I started the hand with around 70k and he deliberates the call, says "well I hope you have none at the end of the hand" and calls. The flop comes Tc 5c 2d and he checks to me. I put in 12k, he announces all-in and I call before he is even done uttering the words. He rolls over Jc9c and I am immediately angry. I know there is no chance I ever fucking hold against a flush draw even though I am over a 2-1 fav holding the Ac in my hand. Turn teases me with a little 4h and boom the river of course is a 6c and I am done. The total pot was over 150,000 and would have put me as chip leader at my table, top 10 chips in the tournament with a tournament first prize worth $27,000. Instead, I finish 42ndish for a huge pay day of $278. I'd rather take a kick in the balls from a fucking mule than have it play out like that.
I played a great tournament, I do not look back on one bad decision in 10 hours. Then the little fuckhead who has the nerve to tell me that he hopes I have no chips by the end of the hand gets rewarded for playing like a clown. As they say there is certainly no justice in poker.
I don't really even have it in me right now to go through any other hands from the day. There were some interesting hands for sure but the only focus on my mind is hoping that little prick walks out in front of a taxi cab tonight and gets smoked.
I am a going to play the $235 O8 at Caesars tomorrow. I am going to hate the structure, it is going to frustrate the hell out of me, but I know the field is going to be so blatantly awful that I feel I have to play and if I can ever get a run of cards in the middle stages I could do some serious damage.
I have to say I am generally quite happy with my hold'em tournament poker right now. I really hope I see some rewards for my solid play. I thought today was going to be the day as it was actually the first day I had some legitimate timely starting hands. Not once over 10 hours did I get my money in losing. I never even put my chips in jeopardy in anything close to a race situation. sick sick sick sickness.
I promise the next blog entry regardless of the results will not be anywhere near as whiney as this one. Thanks for letting me vent whoever reads this.
Yeah, so you may have guessed already that things didn't end well with this tournament. I played my best tournament poker of the trip. Played for 10 hours, got into the money, get AA cracked by a cocky little prick, and net a whopping $43 on the tournament. This is by far the angriest I have left a live tournament in ages.
The final hand of my night plays out like this. I am in early position and look down at AA. This is the 2nd time I have had Aces in a little over a rotation and I have picked up blinds twice uncontested in that time which was huge at the current limits. The current limits were 1500//3000 with 400 antes so every rotation was costing 8500 if we were full ring. So, I have about 70,000 in chips, healthy but volatile like almost anyone in the tournament. I raise to 8k, a small raise with how much the antes provide but it has been adequate to take down blinds and I know I am getting at most one caller or one raiser anyways at current level. Everyone, folds to the big blind and he asks me how much I have. I tell him I started the hand with around 70k and he deliberates the call, says "well I hope you have none at the end of the hand" and calls. The flop comes Tc 5c 2d and he checks to me. I put in 12k, he announces all-in and I call before he is even done uttering the words. He rolls over Jc9c and I am immediately angry. I know there is no chance I ever fucking hold against a flush draw even though I am over a 2-1 fav holding the Ac in my hand. Turn teases me with a little 4h and boom the river of course is a 6c and I am done. The total pot was over 150,000 and would have put me as chip leader at my table, top 10 chips in the tournament with a tournament first prize worth $27,000. Instead, I finish 42ndish for a huge pay day of $278. I'd rather take a kick in the balls from a fucking mule than have it play out like that.
I played a great tournament, I do not look back on one bad decision in 10 hours. Then the little fuckhead who has the nerve to tell me that he hopes I have no chips by the end of the hand gets rewarded for playing like a clown. As they say there is certainly no justice in poker.
I don't really even have it in me right now to go through any other hands from the day. There were some interesting hands for sure but the only focus on my mind is hoping that little prick walks out in front of a taxi cab tonight and gets smoked.
I am a going to play the $235 O8 at Caesars tomorrow. I am going to hate the structure, it is going to frustrate the hell out of me, but I know the field is going to be so blatantly awful that I feel I have to play and if I can ever get a run of cards in the middle stages I could do some serious damage.
I have to say I am generally quite happy with my hold'em tournament poker right now. I really hope I see some rewards for my solid play. I thought today was going to be the day as it was actually the first day I had some legitimate timely starting hands. Not once over 10 hours did I get my money in losing. I never even put my chips in jeopardy in anything close to a race situation. sick sick sick sickness.
I promise the next blog entry regardless of the results will not be anywhere near as whiney as this one. Thanks for letting me vent whoever reads this.
Long Sunday
Well, I played for about 15 hours on Sunday. Not quite how I envisioned having a long day of poker but in the end it worked out a lot better than it could have.
I went and played the $540 NL hold'em at Caesar's. 15,000 starting chips and I couldn't even make it past the 2nd level. I have this hand to take me out of the tournament. The blinds right now are only 50/100 and under the gun makes it 300 to go. I look down and find 10-10, and decide to call the 300. The button calls as well, and so does the small blind so we take the flop 4 ways. The flop comes 874 rainbow. The small blind checks, original raiser leads out 900. I am not sure if he has a big pair or is continuation betting a hand like AK or AQ and I decide to call with two more players to act behind me. The button folds and small blind calls as well. The turn is an Ace and we all check around. The river is a 10 and the small blind leads out for 1,600, original raiser folds and action is to me. At this point I think I have hit my money card and raise to to 5k. The lady who led out 1,600 now pushes all-in. I try to replay the hand in my head and decide that either she flopped the nuts with 65 and played the hand to perfection or she I have her oversetted. Now, I don't have a ton of information on this player as we haven't played all that long yet but I did just see her call down a river bet of 1,600 with Ace high so I don't have a ton of respect for her play. Anyways, after some deliberation I decide to call and she rolls over J9o for the stone cold nut straight. She nail's her two out gutter to make my set of 10's. The only cards in the deck that ever get her paid on the hand. I leave pretty steamed.
I could have played the hand quite differently and probably made out fine. 1) I could have raised the flop on an 8 high board to find out where I was at against he original raiser. If he pops me back I have a pretty easy laydown, if not I likely just take down a nice tidy little pot right there. 2) I could have bet the turn in position once the Ace drops as I really think they preflop raiser absolutely hated the card so now I am confident he had some sort of pair. 3) I could make a laydown when she rereraises me all-in on the river as I would still have close to 10k chips but I trusted my read of having her oversetted and went with that decision. So, played the hand pretty passive and weak and got punished when I nail my card.
I came back to the room and fired up some Sunday tournaments. I had zero success in any tournaments. I was deep in a $50 PLO rebuy and lost a hand that would have put me top 5 with 50 left and 27 cashing to an absolute moron so that hurt. But, the real hurt came playing cash. I was getting run down non stop for about 3 hours. I was probably rivered 15 times in that span for big all-in pots. I was stuck between 5-6 buyins on 2/4 PLO8 tables and absolutely losing my mind. About 5 hours into my session it was probably the worst on-line day I have had in years. However, I continued to play and eventually started nailing some hands and getting paid. I finally got myself unstuck which I never thought possible at the low point of the day and actually turned a profit of a couple $100 on-line for the day.
Heading out to play the Caesars tournament again today. It is a $200 hold'em event today so it should be a large field with some real bonehead plays. I better play a much stronger game than I did yesterday and actually punish the poor players instead of reward them.
I went and played the $540 NL hold'em at Caesar's. 15,000 starting chips and I couldn't even make it past the 2nd level. I have this hand to take me out of the tournament. The blinds right now are only 50/100 and under the gun makes it 300 to go. I look down and find 10-10, and decide to call the 300. The button calls as well, and so does the small blind so we take the flop 4 ways. The flop comes 874 rainbow. The small blind checks, original raiser leads out 900. I am not sure if he has a big pair or is continuation betting a hand like AK or AQ and I decide to call with two more players to act behind me. The button folds and small blind calls as well. The turn is an Ace and we all check around. The river is a 10 and the small blind leads out for 1,600, original raiser folds and action is to me. At this point I think I have hit my money card and raise to to 5k. The lady who led out 1,600 now pushes all-in. I try to replay the hand in my head and decide that either she flopped the nuts with 65 and played the hand to perfection or she I have her oversetted. Now, I don't have a ton of information on this player as we haven't played all that long yet but I did just see her call down a river bet of 1,600 with Ace high so I don't have a ton of respect for her play. Anyways, after some deliberation I decide to call and she rolls over J9o for the stone cold nut straight. She nail's her two out gutter to make my set of 10's. The only cards in the deck that ever get her paid on the hand. I leave pretty steamed.
I could have played the hand quite differently and probably made out fine. 1) I could have raised the flop on an 8 high board to find out where I was at against he original raiser. If he pops me back I have a pretty easy laydown, if not I likely just take down a nice tidy little pot right there. 2) I could have bet the turn in position once the Ace drops as I really think they preflop raiser absolutely hated the card so now I am confident he had some sort of pair. 3) I could make a laydown when she rereraises me all-in on the river as I would still have close to 10k chips but I trusted my read of having her oversetted and went with that decision. So, played the hand pretty passive and weak and got punished when I nail my card.
I came back to the room and fired up some Sunday tournaments. I had zero success in any tournaments. I was deep in a $50 PLO rebuy and lost a hand that would have put me top 5 with 50 left and 27 cashing to an absolute moron so that hurt. But, the real hurt came playing cash. I was getting run down non stop for about 3 hours. I was probably rivered 15 times in that span for big all-in pots. I was stuck between 5-6 buyins on 2/4 PLO8 tables and absolutely losing my mind. About 5 hours into my session it was probably the worst on-line day I have had in years. However, I continued to play and eventually started nailing some hands and getting paid. I finally got myself unstuck which I never thought possible at the low point of the day and actually turned a profit of a couple $100 on-line for the day.
Heading out to play the Caesars tournament again today. It is a $200 hold'em event today so it should be a large field with some real bonehead plays. I better play a much stronger game than I did yesterday and actually punish the poor players instead of reward them.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
$340 Caesars NL Holdem and $340 Rio NL Holdem
I played about 12 hours of tournament poker today to net a $20 loss. Yeah, I am awesome, good times, good times.
I played the $340 Megastack at Caesars again today as it has such a great structure. I tried to open up my game a lot for the firs two hours mixing it up and seeing a ton of flops. Well, I had lots of playable hands and didn't really hit a lot but kept my chips around starting stack. So, I hover between 10k to a high of 17k for 6 hours when a stack just a bit shorter than me decides it is now go time and make a button steal all-in raise when I am in the small blind. I look down and find a9 and as I am getting short myself make the call and he rolls over 97. Sweet, dominating hand....oh wait they don't just give you the chips for having the best preflop hand. Flop comes T62 and I say quickly, oh you picked up a couple more outs, boom 8 on the turn and he makes a straight and I am done. Lovely, another tournament ends where I get in crushing my opponent.
I decide to get over to the Rio to give the $340 evening tourney there a shot as it looked like a half assed decent tournament and I expected the play to be weak. Well, my god the play was like sitting in a $10 sit and go on party poker. Some of these people were just beyond awful at my table, I don't think the overall field was that bad but I got a great table draw. I double up real early and continue to build chips and am sitting around 21k when average is about 8k. This older guy with an "Uncle Ron" visor that is signed by tons of poker pros sits at my table. One of these old buggers that just loves poker but has no grasp for how to play it well. He is what I sometimes to refer to as a blackjack poker player, they see two cards that add up to 20 and think they have already won. Anyways, this guy just sucks out on Ak with a9 on a k92 flop when a 9 turns. He says something to the effect of, yeah if I have a hand I get it in, I don't wait I put my money in when I have hands. Next hand the blinds I believe are now 200/400 and he limps from middle/late position screaming weakness. A short stack jams all in right behind him for about $2700 and I look down and find AQ and think I am in decent shape and decide to make the call thinking Uncle Ron will fold easily. Well, Ole Unkie Ron starts counting out chips and I say what are you doing? You know you are behind why are you getting involved. He says I am winning, I call...and then proceeds to tell me that he will check. Now, he is out of position and I would be first to act so I am going to do whatever the hell I want and we are certainly not at that point in the tournament where checking down a hand to try and both knockout an all in makes sense. The flop comes AJ9 all clubs and I do not have the Qc. I check to him as I have some worry that he has a decent piece of this flop. Turn is another 9 and I decide to fire out 4k into a 9kish pot and he calls super fast. The river is a blank 4d and I check to him. He declares all in and actually has me covered in chips. I think for quite some time as it is about 14k for me to call when the blinds are still only 200/400. I finally call thinking the only hand I am scared of is Aj, he rolls over KcTs and had total air drawing at the clubs. He was no longer very talkative and no longer made any comments to the effect of "I warn you, I'll take you down if you don't check" kinda bullshit. Thanks Uncle Ron you basically handed me a cash in a tournament within the first 4 levels. I have 40k when average is under 10k. For the next 3 hours I am pretty card dead and there are so many short stacks going all in I am basically forced to sit and wait. Eventually I bleed to below average as we get into the money. The tourney paid 27 spots with bottom rung paying $660 and first over 16k. With 20 left I am about half of average but my stack is close to 10x the bb when I look down at AsQs. Under the gun player raises, now this is a guy I havent played with for more than two rotations, but we are now 6 handed and I decide it is time to make a stand and pump all-in. I am happy when there is no snap call from him and eventually he begrudgingly calls with QJ. OK, so another all where I am dominating the opponent. 50k chip pot and the flop is 982....great when is the 10 coming? Turn 9 river 10,yup there it fucking is, just like clockwork. So, instead of being average and about to be at final two tables I am out for bottom rung money. Win that hand I have a very legitimate shot at the top 3 in my mind as the overall calibre of play is quite brutal.
I would certainly recommend this as an evening tourney for people while they are in town for the WSOP. It had 227 entrants, 5k starting chips, and half hour levels. It gets fairly shooterish in the middle, but the play is so obviously bad it is well worth the investment.
As for tomorrow, I may rip up some online all day or I may go play the $500 Megastack at Caesars at noon. I am leaning towards Megastack as I really feel I am due to break through and have a day where I actually get some cards and have my hands hold. I was thinking back and I have played close to 20 hours of tournament holdem without every holding QQ or KK, now that just isn't right. So, tomorrow I will likely bust with QQ or KK and have to remember to be careful what I wish for.
On another not the Rio was able to get two 2/5 plo8 games going while I was playing the tournament but they had already broke up by 1:30am when I busted the tourney.
I played the $340 Megastack at Caesars again today as it has such a great structure. I tried to open up my game a lot for the firs two hours mixing it up and seeing a ton of flops. Well, I had lots of playable hands and didn't really hit a lot but kept my chips around starting stack. So, I hover between 10k to a high of 17k for 6 hours when a stack just a bit shorter than me decides it is now go time and make a button steal all-in raise when I am in the small blind. I look down and find a9 and as I am getting short myself make the call and he rolls over 97. Sweet, dominating hand....oh wait they don't just give you the chips for having the best preflop hand. Flop comes T62 and I say quickly, oh you picked up a couple more outs, boom 8 on the turn and he makes a straight and I am done. Lovely, another tournament ends where I get in crushing my opponent.
I decide to get over to the Rio to give the $340 evening tourney there a shot as it looked like a half assed decent tournament and I expected the play to be weak. Well, my god the play was like sitting in a $10 sit and go on party poker. Some of these people were just beyond awful at my table, I don't think the overall field was that bad but I got a great table draw. I double up real early and continue to build chips and am sitting around 21k when average is about 8k. This older guy with an "Uncle Ron" visor that is signed by tons of poker pros sits at my table. One of these old buggers that just loves poker but has no grasp for how to play it well. He is what I sometimes to refer to as a blackjack poker player, they see two cards that add up to 20 and think they have already won. Anyways, this guy just sucks out on Ak with a9 on a k92 flop when a 9 turns. He says something to the effect of, yeah if I have a hand I get it in, I don't wait I put my money in when I have hands. Next hand the blinds I believe are now 200/400 and he limps from middle/late position screaming weakness. A short stack jams all in right behind him for about $2700 and I look down and find AQ and think I am in decent shape and decide to make the call thinking Uncle Ron will fold easily. Well, Ole Unkie Ron starts counting out chips and I say what are you doing? You know you are behind why are you getting involved. He says I am winning, I call...and then proceeds to tell me that he will check. Now, he is out of position and I would be first to act so I am going to do whatever the hell I want and we are certainly not at that point in the tournament where checking down a hand to try and both knockout an all in makes sense. The flop comes AJ9 all clubs and I do not have the Qc. I check to him as I have some worry that he has a decent piece of this flop. Turn is another 9 and I decide to fire out 4k into a 9kish pot and he calls super fast. The river is a blank 4d and I check to him. He declares all in and actually has me covered in chips. I think for quite some time as it is about 14k for me to call when the blinds are still only 200/400. I finally call thinking the only hand I am scared of is Aj, he rolls over KcTs and had total air drawing at the clubs. He was no longer very talkative and no longer made any comments to the effect of "I warn you, I'll take you down if you don't check" kinda bullshit. Thanks Uncle Ron you basically handed me a cash in a tournament within the first 4 levels. I have 40k when average is under 10k. For the next 3 hours I am pretty card dead and there are so many short stacks going all in I am basically forced to sit and wait. Eventually I bleed to below average as we get into the money. The tourney paid 27 spots with bottom rung paying $660 and first over 16k. With 20 left I am about half of average but my stack is close to 10x the bb when I look down at AsQs. Under the gun player raises, now this is a guy I havent played with for more than two rotations, but we are now 6 handed and I decide it is time to make a stand and pump all-in. I am happy when there is no snap call from him and eventually he begrudgingly calls with QJ. OK, so another all where I am dominating the opponent. 50k chip pot and the flop is 982....great when is the 10 coming? Turn 9 river 10,yup there it fucking is, just like clockwork. So, instead of being average and about to be at final two tables I am out for bottom rung money. Win that hand I have a very legitimate shot at the top 3 in my mind as the overall calibre of play is quite brutal.
I would certainly recommend this as an evening tourney for people while they are in town for the WSOP. It had 227 entrants, 5k starting chips, and half hour levels. It gets fairly shooterish in the middle, but the play is so obviously bad it is well worth the investment.
As for tomorrow, I may rip up some online all day or I may go play the $500 Megastack at Caesars at noon. I am leaning towards Megastack as I really feel I am due to break through and have a day where I actually get some cards and have my hands hold. I was thinking back and I have played close to 20 hours of tournament holdem without every holding QQ or KK, now that just isn't right. So, tomorrow I will likely bust with QQ or KK and have to remember to be careful what I wish for.
On another not the Rio was able to get two 2/5 plo8 games going while I was playing the tournament but they had already broke up by 1:30am when I busted the tourney.
Rio Cash
I went over to play cash at The Rio again last night. I got there and there wasn't yet a 2/5 PLO8 game open but there was a list and a game would likely open within a couple hours. I jumped in a 10/20 O8 game for the mean time, well after a 45 minute wait for a seat. I really am just not so sure what the huge draw is for going and waiting in a loud crowded room so you can sit with some moron who is going to do nothing but yammer in your left ear all night when you could just jump in a bunch of on-line games and relax and make money. Anyways, such was my choice to go to the Rio and play a live game as there was money to be made. I piss around in the 10/20 game never really getting up much or down much when the 2/5 plo8 game opens around 9pm. I happen to be far enough down the list that they fill a table and I am first to get a seat when someone leaves. No big deal, right? Well, it takes until 2:00am by the time anyone leaves the game and I actually get a seat. Over these 5 hours I have this ADD inflicted loud mouth clown do nothing but talk 150 words a minute in my left ear while I get sleepy and bored in a 10/20 limit game. As I go over to the 2/5 plo8 game Doghouse is there playing and there is another obvious target at the table who is getting carved up pretty well. He is already down 2k in the game and I could see from 20 feet away that he really had no place being in the game. Anyways, within a rotation of sitting down Doghouse says he is tired of getting no cards all night and packs up, the fish says he isn't feeling like donating anymore and knows the game will probably break when he leaves but says he is done. So, now I am left with people who can play and above and beyond that I am left with some guys who absolutely crush this game on-line. I met about 4 more people that I play with on-line a ton. I am now sitting in a game where no-one is giving away an inch and I am probably too drained to play good poker. Well, it did not turn out well. We finally had a hyper aggressive European player sit at our table but I proceeded to give him close to 1k like an absolute moron over two hands that I played like someone just learning the game. I should mention a nice pot I won soon after I sat in the game against an ultra tight player. I have A235 and bet pot in position, this tight player reraises me to about $120 preflop and I make an easy call. At this point this guy has to have AA or A2 suited minimum. The flop comes 678 and I check the action to him. He checks as well. The turn is a blank J and I bet the pot for $250ish and he calls quickly. So, at this point I am sure he has A2 with some kinda touch and I am in line to get quartered hard unless maybe I am drawing live to a 4 for a gutter low end straight. The river is a beautiful little deuce. If he has a2 at this point it is going to be very hard for him to call a pot bet even though he knows he likely has the best high hand. I fire $500 at him and he tanks for a bit and angrily folds his hand. Later in the night he mumbles something to me about stealing his pot from him. I said, absolutely I stole your hand from you.....I guarantee you were winning the high, and if it was so obvious I stole half the pot from you maybe you should have grown a pair and made the call. Now, on to the horrible play against the weird Euro dude. He wants to pot every hand preflop in which he has good position. On the button he pots the hand and I call with Kc2c3c4h. A pretty loose call to say the least but I really think this guy is the only real way to make a big pot in this game. The flop comes AcJc9h so I flop the nut flush draw with the backdoor low draw. He pots the flop and I just call. the turn is a 3d and I now have the nut flush draw and nut low draw with touch on the deuce. He pots the turn and I make what is about a $350 call. The river is a blank Kd and I don't feel I can get him off his hand with a bluff so essentially surrender by checking to him. Now, when I look at the math in this hand I really am not too out of line at any point for playing the hand the way I did. But, I should not be allowing myself to get into pots of this size completely out of position where I am leaving all the chance of wining up to the cards. Shortly after this I made a brutal $400 bet into him when he actually had the nuts and I had to lay to a reraise. Now, he leaves, I am tired, tilting, and playing with nothing but on-line pros. I actually have enough sense to get up with my $600 and change I have sitting on the table and go home around 6am as there is no doubt I was going to piss it all away if I stayed in the game. I lost about 1k on the night....blah
Friday, June 6, 2008
Caeser's $340 NL Hold'em Megastack
I played the Caesar's Megastack tournament today and the tournament structure was great along with a relatively weak playing field of close to 600 entrants. I was basically card dead for 4 and a half hours and chipped up from starting chips of 12,500 to 15k when I bust out late in the 5th level. I have 55 on the button. Cutoff decides to raise it to 2k with the blinds at 300/600 and I call along knowing the sb is folding as he mucked out of turn. I think with position I may be able to take down the pot if the original raiser misses. Anyways, flop comes 5d6s7s and the raiser leads out for 2k, I raise it to 5k and he calls quickly. The turn is a nice 10c and I think the guy must have some sort of draw so I jam all-in for my remaining 8k. He tanks for awhile and eventually calls with A4 and spikes an 8 on the river for a straight. Well played sir, nh......when the cards come over on the turn he says something like, oh I guess I only have two outs....well I hope he meant two cards to hit and not two outs, anyways not a surprise to get it all in as an 80%+ favorite and lose to the clown. That's tournament poker, lots and lots of frustration on more days than not.
Gonna head over the Rio and jump in some cash games. I really hope the 2/5 PLO8 game gets off the ground again tonight.
Gonna head over the Rio and jump in some cash games. I really hope the 2/5 PLO8 game gets off the ground again tonight.
Multiple action continued
Alright, well I just had a nice 14 hour sleep and am ready to go again. I left things off with being stuck early in the 2/5 plo8 game with a couple of bad setup hands. When things started off the guy who hit me in the first hand was an older guy who definitely wanted to build action and said he had played all day in a 20/40 hold'em game and had done nothing but lose money. My first impression of this guy was that he was an easy mark and he had about $1600 in front of him so I topped up my stack to about $1700 in the hopes to catch him in a big hand. Well, it turns out the guy really isn't all that horrible, he may be one of the weaker players at the table but he certainly is not as bad as he looks. What I mean by that is that in spite of his very loose preflop hand selection and play he really does not give away much postflop. He bets his hands hard when they are made, tries to slow people down when he is drawing, and has the ability to fold. Anyways, from this point on I will refer to him as Doghouse which is what he said his nickname is in spite of the fact that I called him Groundhog for a lot of the evening. It is pretty obvious that almost everyone at the table is targeting Doghouse but no-one is really able to sink a big hit on him and money is just moving around the table. I am able to grind back to about even on the session when we are about 2 hours into play. The table dynamics start to change when two well know internet players jump into the game. Sircoopalot who won a WSOP bracelet last year in the 5k O8 event and CincysFinest both join the table. Scoop is drinking and ramps up the table action a bit and Cincy is quite drunk and willing to shoot it up pretty hard too. Now, when I say these guys are increasing the action I just mean that we are seeing a ton of preflop raising and building a nice pot almost every single hand. Post flop play at the table is still very solid overall at the table but the pots are big enough making the game profitable if you can play well postflop. About 4-5 hours into the session I have gone card dead beyond belief and am getting kinda frustrated as I am surrounded by action and don't have a sniff of anything I can get involved with when I play this hand. Now, I will warn anyone who knows anything about the game that this is ugly and it is pretty hard to play a hand worse than I played this hand. I have As Ks Ts 6h when a new player comes to the table and he straddles in first position to $10. I am on the button and I call and he raises to $60 preflop and I decide to call along.(small mistake #1) The flop comes 6s 9s 2h and he bets $150. I had flopped touch and nut flush draw, but with two low cards on the board I have almost no flexibility in the hand and should fold. However, I start deliberating and talking to the guy...."do you just have aces? do you just have a low wrap? etc etc" He says something of the nature like..."well I am not there yet but I have a bigger draw than you do?" I find this a pretty odd statement when I have the nut flush draw in my own hand so I take a shot thinking maybe I have some chance of making him fold here and if not I know I am at least drawing to the nut high and can could make some kinda two pair if in fact he does have AA. I raise to $600 (big mistake #2) and he immediately goes all in for a just a few hundred more and I am forced to call. He tables A93x so he has flopped top pair and the nut low draw. A definite favourite against my hand and I miss everything and he gets a nice $900 gift as soon as he sits down. If I had a low draw with my hand I don't mind the push but this was a horrible horrible play by myself simply because I was getting bored, impatient, and trying to talk myself into a way to win a hand. Anyways, in the same rotation I lose another $300 to the guy and he pulls a hit and run show by walking away with the hundreds, leaving his chips and coming back to take the chips off the table right away. Blah, so I am stuck in a game I should be beating for about $1400.
I make some back when I have about $2400 in front of me at the table and this hand comes up against Doghouse. Alright, so Cincy is at his drunkest right now and is in the bb and he announces that he will raise pot blind if everyone just limps and that he doesnt care what they have and the should feel free to reraise if they want. He just wants some action, so I look down and find AA24 about as good as it gets. I decide to call so I can reraise and isolate against Cincy and build a nice pot preflop. Well, doghouse has a different idea and raises from the button to $60, Cincy and everyone else fold to me and I reraise to $150. This raise is small but it has two purposes, keep doghouse on the line and control the pot in case I get some kind of scary flop. Flop comes A58 and I flop the nut set with 2nd nut low and lead out $300, he immediately says pot and I push him all in for about $1500 total. He rolls over 23t9 for the nut low and I immediately declare "no 4 please" but boom 4 on the turn and I lose the entire pot when the board does not pair on the river and he hits his 3 out scoop card to make the wheel and take it all. Needless to say this really sucks ass after playing with the guy who seems to be the target at the table, getting a great flop, and then getting totally screwed by a 3 outter for a $3k pot.
I am trying pretty hard not to tilt away the final $900 I have in front of me. Most of us at the table have started to drink pretty hard now and the double gins and crown royal shots have definitely started to do their work Now, generally boozing at the table isn't the brightest of ideas but when I can get most of the table drinking with me I think my drunk play is much better than their drunk play. Anyways, I get a235 and raise it preflop and get called by Scoop and another player. Flop comes 76k and player A bets, scoop raises, and I declare that I am all in having flopped the uncounterfeitable nut low draw with a gutshot straight. Both of them call and I nail the 5 to guarantee me some of the low on the turn, and the river is an A giving me Aces up and nut low draw. Both players much their hands without showing and I take down a pot just under 3k and am back in business. I make a few other pots and the game is forced to break at 11am as the Rio wants the tables for the noon WSOP event. Pretty unimpressed with them shutting down a cash game that had he staying power to play through the night. So, overall I had a roller coaster of a night and broke about even which I thought was pretty good for the early coolers, $900 terrible donation and $1500 loss in the 3k pot that I got 3 out scooped in. This game will definitely be something I play a lot over the coming weeks.
So, what do you do afer playing cards thru the night for 16 hours straight? Do you go back and sleep? No you head straight to the Venetian for the $540 O8 tournament. Yeah, that's right more limit poker......wooo fn hooooo. I go eat at noodle asia and as the tournament is about to get underway it starts to set in that I didn't sleep and I am about to fall asleep any minute. Solution, start drinking ceasars and try to perk up. I swear I almost fell asleep twice in the first level.....probably a good thing as I certainly didnt play any questionable hands. In the 2nd level I got my 2nd wind and was good to go for the balance of the tournament. By the first break I was chip leader at my table, which means nothing in a limti structure. My table was incredibly weak and I felt great about how I was playing and my chances. Over the next 3 levels I flop some big hands but am forced to fold when I don't quite get there on either end and bleed my stack down below average and below comfort. In the 8th level I am starting to get quite short when I get his hand in the bb a6jt. The button limps, sb calls, and I check. Flop is AA6 so I flop the nuts. sb checks, I bet, the button folds and the sn calls. Turn is a 5 and I still have the nuts and bet, the sb calls and says something like I just call with the best hand. I say to him, you are losing and and best probably have 3 or maybe 6 outs if you are lucky. Turn is a K and he bets into me, i think for quite a long time knowing it is quite possible he just his his AK. With so many other hands he could possibly play like this, nut low, smaller boat, etc I decide i have to make a crying call. The asshole rolls over one card at a time, 2, 5, A, and lastly K. There is nothing I hate more than fucking pricks who slowroll me but I took it well and didn't get mad at either the fact he 3 outted me or slowrolled me and continued to play well. I just could never get a decent stack and eventually busted out going with a good hand in As2stc6c. I ran into AA2 and the guys aces held.
I played this tournament almost flawlessly. The call when that guy rivers the bigger full house is my only questionable play. I really have to reevaluate playing limit o8 tournaments. It really just gets to be bingo, i played great taking down pots I know I was losing which is hard to do in this game, maximized every winning hand I had, had a weak table, didn't get coolered too much and yet still never did I have a comfortable stack when the action got big. The betting limits just catch up with the stack far too quick and the skill comes right out of the game. I am going to pass on playing anymore O8 this trip and focus on any Pot Limit games I an find or nl holdem tourneys where you can actually punish people when they make mistakes.
On tap for today, play the $300 NL Megastack at caesars. I have been hearing great things about the structure. If that doesn't go well for me then I will head to the Rio again tonight in hopes that the 2/5 plo8 game gets off the ground again.
I make some back when I have about $2400 in front of me at the table and this hand comes up against Doghouse. Alright, so Cincy is at his drunkest right now and is in the bb and he announces that he will raise pot blind if everyone just limps and that he doesnt care what they have and the should feel free to reraise if they want. He just wants some action, so I look down and find AA24 about as good as it gets. I decide to call so I can reraise and isolate against Cincy and build a nice pot preflop. Well, doghouse has a different idea and raises from the button to $60, Cincy and everyone else fold to me and I reraise to $150. This raise is small but it has two purposes, keep doghouse on the line and control the pot in case I get some kind of scary flop. Flop comes A58 and I flop the nut set with 2nd nut low and lead out $300, he immediately says pot and I push him all in for about $1500 total. He rolls over 23t9 for the nut low and I immediately declare "no 4 please" but boom 4 on the turn and I lose the entire pot when the board does not pair on the river and he hits his 3 out scoop card to make the wheel and take it all. Needless to say this really sucks ass after playing with the guy who seems to be the target at the table, getting a great flop, and then getting totally screwed by a 3 outter for a $3k pot.
I am trying pretty hard not to tilt away the final $900 I have in front of me. Most of us at the table have started to drink pretty hard now and the double gins and crown royal shots have definitely started to do their work Now, generally boozing at the table isn't the brightest of ideas but when I can get most of the table drinking with me I think my drunk play is much better than their drunk play. Anyways, I get a235 and raise it preflop and get called by Scoop and another player. Flop comes 76k and player A bets, scoop raises, and I declare that I am all in having flopped the uncounterfeitable nut low draw with a gutshot straight. Both of them call and I nail the 5 to guarantee me some of the low on the turn, and the river is an A giving me Aces up and nut low draw. Both players much their hands without showing and I take down a pot just under 3k and am back in business. I make a few other pots and the game is forced to break at 11am as the Rio wants the tables for the noon WSOP event. Pretty unimpressed with them shutting down a cash game that had he staying power to play through the night. So, overall I had a roller coaster of a night and broke about even which I thought was pretty good for the early coolers, $900 terrible donation and $1500 loss in the 3k pot that I got 3 out scooped in. This game will definitely be something I play a lot over the coming weeks.
So, what do you do afer playing cards thru the night for 16 hours straight? Do you go back and sleep? No you head straight to the Venetian for the $540 O8 tournament. Yeah, that's right more limit poker......wooo fn hooooo. I go eat at noodle asia and as the tournament is about to get underway it starts to set in that I didn't sleep and I am about to fall asleep any minute. Solution, start drinking ceasars and try to perk up. I swear I almost fell asleep twice in the first level.....probably a good thing as I certainly didnt play any questionable hands. In the 2nd level I got my 2nd wind and was good to go for the balance of the tournament. By the first break I was chip leader at my table, which means nothing in a limti structure. My table was incredibly weak and I felt great about how I was playing and my chances. Over the next 3 levels I flop some big hands but am forced to fold when I don't quite get there on either end and bleed my stack down below average and below comfort. In the 8th level I am starting to get quite short when I get his hand in the bb a6jt. The button limps, sb calls, and I check. Flop is AA6 so I flop the nuts. sb checks, I bet, the button folds and the sn calls. Turn is a 5 and I still have the nuts and bet, the sb calls and says something like I just call with the best hand. I say to him, you are losing and and best probably have 3 or maybe 6 outs if you are lucky. Turn is a K and he bets into me, i think for quite a long time knowing it is quite possible he just his his AK. With so many other hands he could possibly play like this, nut low, smaller boat, etc I decide i have to make a crying call. The asshole rolls over one card at a time, 2, 5, A, and lastly K. There is nothing I hate more than fucking pricks who slowroll me but I took it well and didn't get mad at either the fact he 3 outted me or slowrolled me and continued to play well. I just could never get a decent stack and eventually busted out going with a good hand in As2stc6c. I ran into AA2 and the guys aces held.
I played this tournament almost flawlessly. The call when that guy rivers the bigger full house is my only questionable play. I really have to reevaluate playing limit o8 tournaments. It really just gets to be bingo, i played great taking down pots I know I was losing which is hard to do in this game, maximized every winning hand I had, had a weak table, didn't get coolered too much and yet still never did I have a comfortable stack when the action got big. The betting limits just catch up with the stack far too quick and the skill comes right out of the game. I am going to pass on playing anymore O8 this trip and focus on any Pot Limit games I an find or nl holdem tourneys where you can actually punish people when they make mistakes.
On tap for today, play the $300 NL Megastack at caesars. I have been hearing great things about the structure. If that doesn't go well for me then I will head to the Rio again tonight in hopes that the 2/5 plo8 game gets off the ground again.
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