Monday, June 2, 2008

WSOP Event #2 - $1,500 NL Hold'em Day 2

For anyone interested in WSOP updates I have found that www.pokernews.com has the most up to date information. For my event you can check out all the tournament details at; http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2008-world-series-of-poker/event-2-1500-nlhe/
Full chip counts as well as payout structures are listed.

So, it looks like we start the day with 447 remaining players with 378 of us making the money. Hopefully, I can get a good table draw and will be able to pick up my share of blinds/antes as we near the money. The current blind level is 500/1000 with 100 antes so picking up 2500 in chips every uncontested hand becomes a huge deal. I will start the day with 41,600 in chips and average stack is about 27,000. I am sitting in the top 100 of the remaining 447. So, best case scenario is to be surrounded by stacks in the 10k-20k range. Generally these people don't want to tangle until they get into the money or have an absolute premium hand. The more I can chip up as we near the money the better off I will be when action undoubtedly ramps up as we hit the money. Once we hit the money you have to make it a lot further to make much more money so you will see all short to medium stacks prepared to get their chips in the middle. At this point it is important to gear down a bit and play more premium starters as you are going to get a lot of all ins happening.

A full report on my day #2 will follow in this thread. I hope that doesn't happen until very late tonight.

Well, here is the Day #2 report. My day started off quite well. I was sitting in 2nd place chip wise at my table and it appeared to be a relatively passive bunch from a quick glance so I was confident I would be able to chip up as we neared the money. My very first hand a guy with about 16k in chips raises to 3k in early position so I have to put him on a decent hand. I look down at 44 and decide the call is worth my while if I can spike a 4 I may be able to stack a big pair. Sure enough the flop comes 764 with two diamonds. He leads out for 5k and I contemplate smooth calling but decide if he has an overpair the raise right now is the best play to get his coin. I make the raise and he deliberates for awhile and lays down. A little unfortunate but I still pick up about 10k and am now sitting at over 50k. Within a few hands the super short stack to my immediate left busts out and a player with about 70k comes into the spot and freezes my blind stealing a little. We soon near the bubble and go hand for hand at 13 away from the money. It takes us over an hour to bust 13 people with every hand taking well in excess of 5 minutes now. This really sucked as I had hoped to have more time to pillage the medium stacks.

I bleed back to about 40k and hover there for probably an hour or so, really not being involved or feeling I have any chances to do much. The table dynamics have changed a ton over this time with a massive stack of about 180k moving into the table along with an aggressive stack of 75k both on the other side of the table. In my bb this hand comes up and I really feel it was one of my poorest plays of the tournament. The aggressive player raises from the cut off to $3600 with the blinds at 600/1200 I look down and find AsTs and decide I am going to take a flop. It comes KT9 rainbow and I check to him. He leads out for 4k and I really don't think he has much here. I know preflop he double checked his hand so I don't have him on a pair but some kind of unsuited hand with likely an Ace. I decide to raise to 11k and he very quickly announces all-in. I think a bit and decide he likely has KQ or KJ or some kind of weird flopped two pair hoping to sucker bet the flop and have me do exactly what I did. I think the biggest error I made in this hand was the call out of position in the big blind. If I don't have the player on strength and am going to get involved in the hand then I should be reraising there and taking it down or just getting out of the way. That hand hurt quite a bit and I was somewhat frusterated. I bleed down to about 20k when this action takes place. The guy that I flopped a set of 4's on the first hand of the night turns out to be quite the loose aggressive player. He has built his stack from 10k to close to 100k by making some astonishing calls that just happened for his sake to be correct. He is 3 spots to my right and raises the pot to 5k, I look down at find 88. Our blinds are now at 1k/2k so I am getting very thin with limited moves. I contemplate calling to pump the flop and hope he has missed but I decide I still have some fold equity and declare all in. He thinks for awhile (this clown had the clock called on him 3 times already because he takes so f'n long every hand) and eventually lays down to my complete surprise. Two rotations later I havent had a sniff of a hand I have the same guy raise my bb to 5k again and look down at kc9c. I feel for 3k for to see a pot worth over 9k it is worth my while against a guy who likes to call light. Flop comes KQT and I just push my 17k all in, he goes into the tank, eventually calls with AQ and I happen to hold and am back alive at about 40k with average stack around 55k. Shortly after this I find 10-10 and raise from early position to 6k. The monster stack reraises to about 16k and mr. calling station does what he does best and calls. I feel frozen in the hand to play Tens against two opponents so I have to much. The flop comes 7 high and calling station tries his hand at betting only to be slammed all in by the big stack and has to lay down. At this point I was really happy with my play thinking the big stack had QQ or better but I really think when he folded his hand I caught a glimpse of AK, I saw an A for sure so it could still been AA. We'll never know.

I get moved to another table and the blinds are starting to sting a little more. I am ping ponging around 40k with blinds at 1k/2k and make a nice uncontested reraise pickup with AQ preflop. Then just before we head to break I raise QQ from late position, the same guy who I made the move on with AQ calls and the flop comes A88. He fires out for 10k and I lay down, he shows an Ace so my laydown was correct but it is always frustrating when you see your best hand in over 5 hours and have to muck, but a good laydown is a good laydown.

When I come back from dinner break I have just over 40k and the blinds are really eating my alive now at 1500/3k with a 400 ante. It is costing me 8k to see a rotation. I think I made a mistake here, I had Ah3h in the bb and the very aggresive player on the button raises me and I decide to let it go and live another rotation. His range is wide open and I still had fold equity with my stack so I really think I should have pushed back. Anyways, I didnt and I bleed away my stack and get no cards all rotation, pay my big blind and have about 23k when I have this in the small blind. Middle position raises to $7,500 this has been his standard raise of 2.5x the bb since I came to the table. I have him on a fairly strong hand but look down and find 10-10. I decide I can't bleed to death anymore and this is the hand I have to make a stand with. I go all-in and he quickly calls with QQ and his hand holds and that is the end of my day.

So, my official finish is 130th with a payout of $4,558. And, although that does look somewhat good on paper it is always a disappointment to get that close to real money in a tournament and fall short especially when first place is worth over $850k. I felt overall I played solid poker but maybe did not take enough chances to make sure I kept my stack above average. Always easy to look back in hindsight. I did have to make some laydowns to reraises preflop and I am very confident they were all the correct decisions. One good thing was that the WSOP is not taxing on prizes of $5,001 or less so I didnt have to give 30% to Uncle Sam and got to hold on to the entire cash.

I registered for tomorrow's $1,500 O8(Omaha hi/lo) WSOP tomorrow that takes place at 5pm. So, with any luck perhaps I can parlay this cash into bigger and better things.

Once again, my room service has arrived so I am going to get into that and see where the evening takes me. I might drop a few $$ at craps tonight as I have been extremely behaved so far this trip.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Binion's $150 O8

Not a lot to report on this tournament other than it being a frustrating way to spend 3 hours. Live limit O8 tournaments can just drive me absolutely nuts. The first few levels far too many people are playing hands so you need the stone cold nuts every time to take any of the pot. Then all of the sudden the limits just totally cut into your entire stack on any hand you decide to play past the flop. So you can not withstand missed draws or bad rivers. Then the problem I have is that seeing everyone else play so horrendously I start widening my starting hand requirements and end up costing myself even more valuable chips. So, I ran badly and played badly and didn't deserve to get very far today and made an exit around the end of the 6th level. I think the biggest thing that I struggle with when playing limit is that I have no opportunities to completely punish my opponents. In pot limit I can make their draws expensive, I can make a good gain when I quarter someone, I can make high hands lay down when the board gets scary when all I hold is a low, and just general isolation moves.

Hopefully, I saved my luck for tomorrow's WSOP Day #2. I am undecided on whether or not to pound some on-line tonight or go find a live game to sit in for the evening.

I played a quick session of 2/4 plo8 on stars and made a nice little profit of $450. Wandered over to Caesars to have a tasty lobster chowder bread bowl and jump in a 2/5 PLO game. Unfortunately, there was no PLO game running and I didn't feel like heading anywhere else. So, I think I will play a little on-line, maybe order a movie and take it easy tonight and be ready for what is hopefully a very long day tomorrow.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

WSOP Event #2 - $1,500 NL Hold'em Day 1a

Well I will ruin the suspense and let everyone know that I made it through 11 hours of day 1a and will be back to resume play on Monday. I'll give a little synopsis of the day as I best remember.

The first two blind levels were pretty uneventful, I really didn't have anything for premium hands but was able to pick up some uncontested money and built my stack from 3k to just over 5k at the first break.

Over the next two blind levels I had some better starting hands but didn't build a ton of chips. I had JJ hold against a really short stacked 77. Made a tough call with 1010 against a fairly tight player who had 99 and held again all in preflop. I did have to lay 99 down preflop twice after I raised and picked up blinds a few times to get to the next break with a little over 9k which would have been about average at the time.

At the start of level 5 I had a very weak player with a boatload of chips sit immediately to my right. He took a bit of a tough setup early where he flopped top and bottom vs top two and from there on he was hemorrhaging chips hard. Unfortunately, I was never once able to catch him. Our table got moved from essentially a hallway in the Rio to the main tournament room and then broke soon after. I had built to about 13k when my table broke and I moved to a much tougher table with a lot of big stacks surrounding me. I went card dead for an hour and a half and was completely frozen by the aggressive play around me. I bled to about 8k at the dinner break and was not very healthy with the blinds about to go to 300/600 with a 50 ante.

I sustained my stack with a couple blind pickups and then had this hand. Early position player limps for 600. He has limped with nothing but weak hands but is the type of player who is in for a penny in for a pound. I look down at AQ and don't really want his call but am confident I am ahead of him as long as I don't run into anything behind me so I jack it to 3k. Flop comes A63, he bets small I jam and he instacalls with his A3 having flopped two pair. Turn is a 4 and the river is a sweet lil ole Q to give me the better two pair. I still can't believe he called preflop but I guess in the end he got what he deserved, sure we'll go with that. Over the next 40 minutes I had some bad timing and some weak plays. I raised 77 preflop and laid down to shown AA preflop reraise. I flopped 2nd pair in the bb with 3 way action that checked around on the flop, lead out on turn and guy fishy raises and I lay and he nailed a set on the turn. I failed to take advantage of picking up some chips outta my bb when sb obv had piss all too. Then after folding my sb twice in a row to the big stack to my left in a no action pot I decide I am not going to do it 3 times and raise my 84 outta the sb and run into his KK and lay preflop. So from being happy and up to 17k I am suddenly back down under 10k and a little steamed. Thankfully our table breaks. I go pretty card dead again and bleed all the way down to 6k with no opportunities whatsoever. With blinds at 400/800 I find a4 in late position and decide to jam. The sb wakes up with AJ and instacalls but the first card off the deck was a beautiful little 4 of diamonds and it holds. The very next hand I pick up QQ and am first into the pot with a raise. The same player obviously tilting goes all in and I instacall. He has JT and the flop is AKx. Fortunately, the QQ holds and suddenly I am close to 30k and take that to the break.

At this point we have played down to 244 players from a starting field of 2,048. It had been determined by the tournament directors that we would play down to 225 people and wrap things up. With the blinds at 500/1k 100 ante this hand comes up when we are only about 5 people from calling it a night. The play has tightened up similiarly to bubble time. So, first postion raises to 2500, next player who has about 75k in chips reraises to 5500 and action comes to me and I look down and find Aces. Now, I am not sure about this play but I decide to just close my eyes and toss it all in. It is definitely a bit of an overplay but honestly at the time I was of the mindset I don't need to get cute here and I will be happy to take down 10k in uncontested chips. The original raiser folds quick and the big stack folds his JJ quickly as well. So, I finished the day with a stack of 41,600 and average stack will be just over 27k. They are still taking entries for tomorrow's day 1b but it looks as though the field will be a little over 4,000 entrants making the total prize pool in excess of $5,000,000. Official payout structures will not be announced until sometime tomorrow as they are still allowing registation.

Another couple interesting things from the day; I can not remember making a single hand bigger than two pair, the only showdowns I lost were in blind vs blind checkdowns, I did not have a single all in race situation. Overall I would probably give myself a grade of B on the day. I think I could have picked up a few more pots with some timely steals but in nl hold'em tournaments I generally bank on being the guy with the tight image so I can pick up uncontested money when needed. I was happy though with a number of laydowns I made not allowing myself to get married to the medium pairs.

On tap for tomorrow I still think I am going to go down and play the $150 O8 tournament at Binions in the afternoon. It should have a decent field and a lot of weak play. Unfortunately, weak players in O8 are known to go on great runs until they eventually implode.

My room service just arrived. The crab cakes here at the Imperial Palace kick ass and the french onion soup is pretty damn good too. Not to mention the service is generally super fast. Time to tear into that and get some sleep. Live poker seems to be much more of a drain than sitting and playing online for me. I think you just pay attention to so many more details that it is easier to get mentally fatigued.

In Vegas

Landed in Vegas without any problems on Friday night, well other than the taxi line that was a sea of people. I got checked into the Imperial Palace. I was hoping there would be a big line and I could bypass the general masses with my Platinum Harrah's card but alas there was no line for anyone and I got checked in with ease. I headed to the Rio to register for WSOP event #2, a $1500 NL Holdem event. As of last night there were already close to 3,000 players registered and there will be hundreds more registering this morning. For some reason a lot of players really love standing in line and registering for tournaments at the last minute. With such a large field the tournament will be split in two and have two starting days. I decided to choose today as my starting day as there is a $150 O8 tournament I would like to play at Binion's tomorrow. If I am lucky enough to survive day #1 then I will resume play on Monday when the remaining players are combined together. I assume about 75% of the players will be knocked out on their day #1.

The tournament structure provides 3,000 starting chips with 1 hour levels and opening blinds starting at 25/50. Day 1 is slated to commence at noon and play for 10 levels which with breaks will have people playing until a little past midnight. I will make another entry later with information on how my day went. Hopefully, I will be reporting on a chip stack and not about an exit story.

I'm off to the Rio now to find out where I actually start to play. My entry card shows me located in the "Buzzio" are which is not the main WSOP room. Last night I saw that there were about 15 tables set up outside of Buzio's seafood restaurant so I might be starting there away from the main tournament room.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Vegas Bound

Well, where to start? I have never written a blog before but wanted to try it for my upcoming Vegas excursion. If I enjoy the blog writing and find I get some positives out of the process then I may continue to write on a more regular basis for my daily poker exploits. However, this blog is intended as a synopsis of my upcoming Vegas trip. I know there are people who like to hear how I am doing in various events and this will certainly be a good avenue to reach people at their leisure. Also, I want to write the blog as honestly as possible to help keep myself somewhat in check over the course of my trip and curtail the degenerate gambling.

I fly to Vegas tonight from Fargo. I decided to book out of Fargo to save about $300 on a one way ticket to Vegas. I took a bus down here and actually the bus ride was not nearly as painful as expected. I read a little bit of Super System II which was enjoyable, it had been awhile since I read any poker literature. (well read anything for that matter)

The Plan: Play live tournaments for the entire month of June.
During the World Series of Poker there are tournaments of all sizes and structures to be played. The Venetian runs their Deep Stack Extravaganza for the entire month. I've always enjoyed the Venetian card room. It is roomy, good service, and the tournament directors do a very nice job. Also, when you cash they pay you in casino chips and do not take the 30% taxing for the IRS. I understand this year they are going to try to facilitate field sizes of 800 players for their events.
Caesars is hosting a MegaStack series to compete with the Venetian tournaments. I had some success on my last trip at Caesars chopping a $500 PLO tournament when we were 3 handed. Officially finishing in 3rd place for 2nd place money. The only real annoyance with Caesars or any Harrah's event is that they will tax your winnings immediately as a Canadian citizen. Oh, and depending on where you sit the room can be super cold.
Binions started a new series last year that is quite interesting. Basically they mirror the World Series of Poker events but do so at smaller buyins and two days before the actual WSOP event. So, if there is a 2K holdem event then binions will run a $200 holdem event two days earlier.

With all these tournaments happening I plan to target as many Omaha events as possible. I plan to play at least two WSOP events. The first, which starts tomorrow, is the $1500 NL Holdem event. I used my points from PokerStars to buy into this event. Last year the event had close to 3000 entrants and I expect it to be larger this year as it is the cheapest event PokerStars will allow you to buy into. There are going to be two starting days so I don't know if I start Saturday or Sunday at this point. Also, I will be playing the $1500 PLO8 tournament in late July. I played it last year and did not cash in spite of the overall field calibre being absolutely horrendous. If I happen to hit some nice early cashes I will consider playing two other O8 WSOP events as well. However, I always find that limit O8 is tough to play in a tournament format. At the start you have far too many people seeing the flops so it becomes bingo and then all of the sudden your blinds are so significant that you must hit hands and have them hold or you are suddenly done. I guess my track record online over the years seems to show I have a similiar ROI with limit O8 as I do with PLO8 but I certainly do not feel nearly as comfortable in the limit structure.

I will try to make daily posts as I come back to the hotel room each night. If anyone has any comments or suggestions do not hesitate to let me know.