Bellagio Prelims

Playing a few Bellagio prelims.  Played the $1.5k and $2k so far, no luck in either.  On Wednesday I busted out rather quickly.  Yesterday was a bit of a crazy ride.  We started with 6k and I built up to 18k in about the first half hour of the tournament.  However, in the 2nd hour, I lost a coinflip for a 19k pot when a guy in EP raised, LP called, I made it 1100 from the SB with AK, and the EP guy shipped for 9k total.  I thought his range was midpairs and AK/AQ so I called and he had 88 and I lost the flip.  I then lost an allin preflop with JJ vs A9 and eventually ended up shipping TT with 13 BBs and running into Jeff Madsen's AA.  Fun tourney.

I'm playing the $3k today and $5k tomorrow, then going home for a Mexico vacation next week before some more Bellagio prelims.

Rincon Quick Bust

Only have time for the cliff's notes version of what happened yesterday.  I busted quickly despite a very favorable table draw when I lost over 3/4 of my stack with AT on an AT8 board to the exact type of guy you hope to flop top two pairs against.  Unfortunately, he showed up with 88 and knocked me down to 6k.  I built back to 11k, but then shoved the turn into 3 players with 8.5k into an 11k pot with AK and nut flush draw on a QT842 board or something like that but the last guy looked me up with 66 and that was that.

Rincon Update and Revised Plans

I played the Rincon WSOPc $1k event yesterday, and once again put in almost 12 hours to bust very deep.  Strange lately how I have been going very deep in almost every tournament I play, but can't seem to finish one off.  I finished 12th last night for $3k when I shoved 66 and ran into AA, leaving me with one ante in my big blind.  I won that pot, then won the next pot, and then was back to over one big blind, haha.  I actually got that one big blind in with AK vs Q6 and would have had a fighting chance if I won that pot, but the 6 spiked and I was gone.  The play in this tournament was amazingly bad.  Example: a kid is trying to abuse the bubble by raising about 1/3rd of his stack, 5x the BB, hand after hand.  The table is so passive that its working.  I should have shoved over this raise one time, but I figured he didn't have enough to fold, LOL.  In hindsight, obviously he would have folded.  I did have a good stack to abuse the bubble and did build up to 135k, but the structure made everything a crapshoot at that point.  I raised a pot, cbet, and lost, and that left me with 15 BBs and that's when the 66 hand happened.

Going forward, I have cancelled my trip to Foxwoods because it's just too much travel and hassle for one tournament.  Instead, I will be heading up to Bellagio for some of their preliminary tournaments to the 25k WPT Championship.  That also allows us to clearly take a little vacation to Mexico that was up in the air because of Foxwoods, so everything works out well.

Zen, Motorcycles, Arete, and Poker

I just finished Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig, which was an enjoyable, thought-provoking, and timely read given my new motorcycle and continuing interest in philosophy.  Pirsig uses a cross-country motorcycle trip with his son as structure and symbolism for a philosophical inquiry into technology, science, romanticism, zen, and classical thought.  I enjoyed both the "travel writing" aspect and the philosophical aspect, and I enjoyed Pirsig's attempt to bring together technology/science/and classical rationality with romanticism/zen, and esthetics to come to what he calls "Quality" and what the classic philosophers referred to as "arete."  I really love the concept of arete in ancient philosophy.

At least for purposes of writing this blog, I try to relate things like this to poker.  The analogy that struck me was the clash between those who play strictly online poker professionally vs. those who play strictly live poker.  Online poker is more in the rationalism arena, where serious players are playing at least several tables at one time and often supplement that with television, instant messaging, and web surfing.  The mind is fully occupied and engaged with mathematical, robotic decisions and is not "settled" very often.  These players often struggle in the live setting.

Compare that to the live arena, where you play one slow hand at a time, and have much more information about each individual you are playing against.  Live players often talk about playing by "feel" and not by "math."  They play more in the moment, with less distractions and more by instinct.  This is analogous to the "zen" or "romantic" aspect of the book.  These players often struggle in the online setting, feeling it is rigged, too fast, or too luck-based given that there's little information about the players you are playing against.

There is a growing number of players that appear to truly excel in both settings, and I would equate these players as getting into the level of combining the two areas described by Pirsig in the book to reach "Quality" or, as I prefer, arete.  They are able to "settle" into the live game, use the wealth of extra information available, but still use their math skills and not become impatient or distracted by the slow pace.  In the online arena, they take copious notes and get to know the players they are playing against regularly, maybe even incorporating what they learn about those players in live settings into their notes and online play.  Arete indeed.

I learned quite a bit from the book, and (although it may be difficult at times for some readers) would recommend it.  I feel somewhat refocused by it and am (hopefully) a better person for having read it.

Survive and Advance, Part II

"Survive and advance" doesn't work if you get totally outplayed from beginning to end, which is what happened to the Bruins the other night when they got completely manhandled by Villanova.  I mentioned in my first blog on this subject that the concept can be trouble in the poker tournament context if you don't play well and "survive" but without a decent chip stack.  The analogy in the NCAAs is that if you repeatedly don't play well and "get lucky" it will eventually catch up to you.

The Bruins had a rough year, and toward the end you heard players talking about being able to "flip the switch" and play well when it matters, and how the regular season didn't mean much since their goal was the national championship.  Well, that's sort of a "survive and advance" mentality, and it definitely caught up to them.  First, the inconsistent approach resulted in a poor seeding and having to play out east against a tough Big East team.  Second, it's just not as easy to "flip the switch" as kids tend to think it is.  I was really worried once I heard the Bruins talking about things like this, as it definitely goes against Coach Wooden's teachings, and I'm a firm believer that you have to bring it at all times if you want to maximize your chances of success.

In the poker context, if you go to far down the "survive and advance" road in a longer tournament, you end up passing up edges necessary to get the chip stack that will increase your chances of making it even deeper then just the next day.  The mentality works for me when I make a mistake, or it helps prevent making big, unnecessary mistakes, but in general the mental approach you need in a poker tournament is to get chips when you can.  After all, the money and glory are all at the top, and to win you need to eventually win every single chip at one point or another.

On a random note, I've always liked classical music on a very superficial level, but haven't listened at all in a decade or more.  I bought the "50 essential" or whatever it's called off iTunes and have really been enjoying it.  It's amazing how just listening opens your mind to so many mental images or even moving pictures.  For example, everyone has heard this piece of music, and how dramatic is it?  I actually thought of it in the poker context, and it came to me that if you were to look in on a poker tournament in time lapse, and take away the fact that the drama unfolds so damn slowly, it really would match up to this piece of music quite well.  At any rate, enjoy it if you haven't heard it for awhile, enjoy "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grief.

Need your computer screen cleaned?

Enjoy!

Clean the Screen

Survive and Advance

UCLA was the very epitome of "survive and advance" last night, holding on for a one point victory despite VCU erasing an 11 point deficit and having a shot to win it as time expired. This mentality sometimes reminds me of poker tournaments, particularly long deep stacked "major" events, where I just try to find a way to get through each day, maybe even each level, and watch the number of remaining entries quickly dwindle away until next thing you know, you have an average stack with 30 left or something. It's a little different in the NCAAs since they literally start over at 0-0 in the next game. In poker tournaments, your stack carries over so performing poorly the first day can really cost you a chance to win the tournament even if you "survive" the first day or whatever. But I think this mentality does help me when bad things happen for whatever reason, because I think I play with a short stack pretty well so I sort of go into survival mode and try to advance. Hmmm, sounds familiar.

Another random thought. Why is it that the very best free throw shooters have barely been able to break the 90% career mark both in the NBA and in the NCAAs? I mean, don't get me wrong, making 9 out of every 10 free throw attempts is impressive on a way. But then if you figure, there's really no variables other then human imperfection, it really does reflect poorly on us as human beings. There's no wind gusts. The ball, hoop, and measurements are all standardized. It's only 15 feet for crying out loud. There's no defender, it's just the shooter, the ball, and the rim. As amazing as the human body is, even the very best can't do better then 90% putting the ball through a hoop 15 feet away with almost nothing in the way of uncontrollable variables. No wonder we screw up so often.

March Madness

GO BRUINS!

Bay 101: I'm at the airport, so....

That was one wacky hour of poker. I showed up with my 21 big blinds and looked down at AKs the very first hand and opened to 2500 at 500/1k/100 from UTG+1. LP, an older "not-very-good" player (yes I already had that read 1 minute into the day) flatted me with like 26k (???). Flop comes T22, ugh, I check and he SHOVES allin (20k into a 7k pot). I laugh and fold my hand faceup and he laughs and shows AT. Oh, this is going to be a fun day.

Meanwhile, Hoyt Corkins starts open shoving 50 big blinds hand after hand even with big stacks left. That was pretty awesome. This was really going to be interesting. After awhile, it folds to the cutoff who shoves 11 big blinds and I look down at A3o in the big blind, ugh. I call and he shows JTo and spikes the T on the river, sigh. So, I'm down to 10 big blinds and pick up AQo in the CO and shove and Crazymarco reshoves right behind me with 77, so we race and I spike the Q and double back up to around 23k or something. Not long thereafter, it's my big blind and Hevad Khan opens in EP. In LP an online player shoves 4k or something and I get 88 and think for a bit and shove. Hevad happily and immediately snap calls and I figure I'm toast against a bigger pair but he tables AQ and the other guy has AJ and I'm actually in good shape, but the Q spikes and I'm done.

Bay 101: Day 1 Report

I have made it through Day 1, but don't have much in chips thanks to a couple of bad plays, which really annoys me because other then two hands, I feel like I played really well and should have about 40k or so, but instead have just over 20k. The first hand, I overplayed TT on a 7-high board on the flop against the kind of guy I should have known had AA. The stacks made it difficult to get away from the hand, but in hindsight (that's always easy) I probably should have just folded the flop to this particular guy. The second hand, I made a crying call on the river to Daniel Negreanu when his bet sizing and demeanor should have made it obvious I was beat. Crying river calls tend to be a leak for me from time to time, and this was a pretty blatant example of a hand where I should have gotten away from the river, saving 6k.

I had Eli Elezra on my right all day yesterday. It's not a big secret that I think most "poker celebrities" are douchebags, but Eli is a really great guy and it was genuinely nice playing next to him all day. Probably because he has a family, is a businessman, and doesn't obsess over the notoriety aspect of poker. He just seems to genuinely love playing the game. Toward the end of the day, Negreaunu sat down on his right, giving us two $5k bounties at the table. Unfortunately, I didn't have a a good enough stack size to take advantage of having these two on my right, and I went totally card dead. Daniel must have serious ADD or something. He's the opposite of Eli, constantly making a spectacle of himself. It was fun, though. Later, Brandon Cantu sat down a couple to his right, and Alan Cunningham to his right, giving us four $5k bounties at the table, which Cardplayer termed the "table of death" with those four plus Adam "Roothlus" Levy and myself. Would have been nice to go on a heater and knock a couple of these guys out, but didn't happen.

Today, I have what I would consider a much tougher table, even though it's mostly unknown players to the general population. My entire table is full of expert players pretty much. I'm going to have to really play mistake free and hope to catch some cards and win a couple of all ins. But, if I bust I won't be terribly disappointed, given that I'll be on a flight home within two hours of busting. I'll update with results tonight or tomorrow morning.

Bay 101 "Shooting Star"

One of my favorite events of the year starts today. I'm currently in the airport just after 6am to catch a flight up to San Jose. I did not end up playing Saturday's event at Wynn, instead choosing to grab a flight home. Needed some time at home before having to fly up to San Jose, and the thought of being at Wynn for another 12 hour day was just too repulsive. It was a good choice, as I've had a nice couple days at home.

I like this event for a number of reasons. First, it's run by Matt Savage, the best tournament director in the business. Second, it has $5,000 bounties on a "star" at each table and there is a $10,000 award for chip leader after Day 1a and Day 1b, which makes it kind of fun and different. Third, the structure actually gets better as the event goes on and goes to 6-handed with 36 remaining. It should make for some tough and interesting play for those who are fortunate enough to make it that far in the tournament.

One of "Those" Days

I flew up to Vegas yesterday morning, scrambled to get to my hotel and get checked in, and then got over to Wynn as fast as possible and was still 1/2 hour late to the tournament. Not that big of deal, as we started with $15k in chips and the blinds start at 25/50, so we are deep for the first couple of levels anyway. Still, I don't like to miss time at the start of a tournament because tournaments are somewhat of a race to get bad players chips, and bad players tend to not hang around too long or have many chips for too long.

That being said, I had a good day for the most part, eventually building to around 70k after the dinner break. Unfortunately, I ran into a horrific situation. We'll pick it up on the turn of a board reading AJxx with two diamonds and I am holding KdJd. The flop had been checked around 3 ways. The small blind led out and and I was next and smooth called. Because of how the hand had played out, I was pretty sure he did not have an A. It was possible he had a set, but since the J had been the turn card, I found this even somewhat unlikely, so felt pretty strong that my J was good, that he was bluffing often and would follow through with a bluff on the river relatively frequently, and obviously I had the nut flush draw as well, so there was no reason to raise. The turn was an offsuit 6. He led out for about 25k, which was pretty concerning. I thought if he was bluffing he would bet less, but couldn't bring myself to fold. I called and he had 66 with no diamond, which meant he had hit the one card, the ONLY card, one the river in the entire deck that would beat my hand. Yikes.

Shortly thereafter, I got A5 allin against K8 and the K spiked to eliminate me. The K8 guy also gave me a little "victory" speech as I left, something about how he had been waiting to do that to me. I guess it's a good thing that I get people that frustrated, that they feel the need to rub it in if they eliminate me. This is the kind of thing I am talking about when I say that most poker players are repulsive in one way or another.

So, another 11 hour day, plus 5 hours of travel time, with nothing to show for it. And, the Bruins lost to the freakin' Trojans! Not a good day for Paul. Today's a new day, though, and a new tournament. I'll put yesterday behind me, and hopefully the Bruins put their failures behind them and have a good NCAA tournament run.

Back to the Wynn, and GO BRUINS

At the airport about to fly back up to Vegas for two more tournaments at the Wynn: the $2k today and the $3k tomorrow. Tonight the Bruins play that other school from LA at Staples, and I'm pretty sure I'd rather be there then Vegas. I feel like playing USC in basketball is almost a no-win situation, because while we almost always beat them, it just sucks to contemplate losing to them. It's the expectations that come with 11 national championships and three straight final fours, I suppose. GO BRUINS.

March is a Brotherhood

It's that time again, March Madness!  Time for a significant portion of the nation to become obsessed with dudes running around trying to throw a ball through a metal hoop.  I'm always grateful during this time of year (and others) to have gone to UCLA, which is arguably the top overall sports school in the country and beyond argument the top college basketball program of all time (11 national championships, thank you very much).  Sports seems a little strange with how bad everything is right now, but it's also nice to have a diversion I suppose.

Here's NBA superstar Kevin Garnett with some UCLA love.  GO BRUINS!

Wynn Final Table

I rode my bike up to Vegas and played three events at the Wynn Classic last weekend (all tournaments started at noon).  The $545 on Thursday (busted around 9pm), the $1060 on Friday (busted around 1am just short of the money), and the $1575 on Saturday (finished 6th).  For the $1575, we had to play until almost 4am to get to the final table (which was actually now 5am since the clocks moved forward for daylight savings time at 2am).  Then, we came back the next day at 4pm and I busted out around 7pm in 6th place for a $10k score, which made it a profitable trip but was a bit disappointing putting in all those hours (mostly with the repulsive types that make up a large portion of the poker population, and in the corner of the Wynn's casino floor amid the occasionally drifting smoke, thumping music, and screams of gamblers from the pit) and coming up just short of an $82k score.

LAPC: Day 4 Report (busto)

I busted out about 20 minutes into the day.  A guy limped UTG and (even though it's suspicious) I put in my 17k with 88 from MP.  Next guy to act is an even shorter stack and he calls.  Button calls.  UTG now reraises and gets all in against the button, so we have four players all in.  UTG has AA, button has JJ, shorter stack has KQs.  So, it's really not a horrific spot given I had 4 big blinds.  I just needed an 8 to quadruple up and have a fighting chance, but it wasn't to be.

So, I hoped on my bike and had a nice ride back home.  It's always a great feeling coming back to San Diego from a trip, and especially walking through my door and being attacked by my dogs (Laureen and Lexie aren't home).

LAPC, Day 3 Report

I am through to Day 4 with a pathetic 18k in chips (4.5 big blinds) but also at least $23k earned for making the money.  Obviously, that gives me mixed feelings but given the way I alternated between being absurdly card dead, not being able to find spots (either because they weren't there or because I'm not good enough to find them) to get chips, and having second best hands.  I did run good the few times I got my chips in, so that helped.  I also made some of the most absurd/good folds I think I've made in my poker career.

Funny hand, I get down to 6 big blinds and shove UTG with like 3 more to bust before the bubble or whatever, with A5.  Folds to internet kid (a somewhat rare very nice one) and he apologizes and says he has to call (of course he does, but nice thing to say).  He had Q8.  Flop is Q83, so I'm basically out of the tournament just off the money bubble.  Turn is an A.  River is an A.  Survival, LOL.

Anyway, I'm optimistic that anything can happen today if I can just get that first double up.  That would put me up to around 10 big blinds, and then I can work that with a little bit of fold equity and maybe get myself back up to 20 big blinds where anything can happen.  That being said, I'm packing up my motorcycle and checking out of the hotel prior to the tournament starting back up.

LAPC, Day 2 Report

I am through to Day 3.  Day 2 was pretty much another day of steady play.  I had my tough moments, and one huge suckout when I got all in on the flop with 87s against TT on a 722r flop.  I had bet the flop, Nick Schulman, who seemed very capable of messing with me on this flop, raised, and I figured I had to get it in.  The turn and river were diamonds to give me the backdoor flush.  Wow.  Earlier on he had doubled me up in a blinds battle when he bluff shoved over my river bet, but I had a boat.  Always nice to get a huge bluff from an opponent when you are holding a huge hand.

Otherwise, my day was pretty quiet and everything has pretty much gone according to plan.  In the overall plan, today is what I think of as "moving day."  170 players remain, 62 (I think) will get paid at least $22k.  So, in an ideal world I will win some big hands and get an above average stack with about 80 or 90 players remaining and position myself to do some bubble abusing.  If my table doesn't present that dynamic, though, or if I just don't get lucky enough to get a stack, then I'll just have to continue to play solid, get into the money, and then look to gamble a bit in that 60-40 players remaining range.

I have 46k going into today, which leaves me with just under 40 BBs.  Plenty of chips to work with.  

LAPC Main Event, Day 1 report

I made it through Day 1.  We started with 20k in chips.  I got up to 34k at one point, but the rest of the day was pretty gross and I ended with 15k.  Blinds start today at 200/400/50, so I have just under 40 BBs, not bad shape at all.  Plenty of time to get things going.

LAPC via Motorcycle

Quite a day yesterday.  I decided to ride my new motorcycle up to the LAPC and, since the plan could involve heading out to Vegas if I bust the ME during Day 1 or Day 2 on Saturday or Sunday, I had to pack up the bike for about 6 days worth of traveling.

I decided to ride through the Ortega Highway, rather then just take the freeways straight up to my hotel near the Commerce Casino, which involved about an extra hour of riding but from what I could tell it would be well worth it.  The Ortega Highway cuts across from the 15 in Lake Elsinore to around the 5 in Anaheim via the Cleveland National Forest.  Some amazing views and a really fun road to ride on a bike with lots of turns.  Here's a quick iPhone picture I snapped as I made my way up the mountain above Lake Elsinore.

So I made it to my hotel, unloaded, and had to head straight over to play in the $5k tournament.  My table wasn't too bad.  A couple very tough players but also some real soft spots, which is always nice to find in a $5k tournament.  Unfortunately, I lost my first decent sized pot I played, which was against Vanessa Rousso.  She limped, another guy limped, and I raised with KK in LP and they both called.  Flop was 45T with two clubs.  They both check and I bet and they both call (Vanessa appearing to do so very reluctantly).  Turn is the offsuit 3.  They both check again and I bet again, and this time Vanessa c/raises and the other guy folds.  I really think about folding but can't bring myself to do it as it seems like she's either trying a strange bluff or has exactly 67.  I just can't give her credit for anything else, and I figured she'd give up on the river if she was bluffing.  So, I called.  The river brought in the club, but I didn't think she had a flush draws.  She shoved and I tanked awhile and folded.  I probably should have folded the turn.  She later claimed to have 67 and she probably did.

So, it was no fun losing my first big hand and half my stack.  Playing with a short stack in live poker is always brutal as you just don't have anywhere near the options you have with a deeper stack.  But, I grinded away, hovering between 6k and 9k most of the evening (10k was starting stack).  Eventually I got it all in with QQ vs AJ and we chopped when the board ran out a straight, ugh.  A little later I got it in with ATs when I shoved over an LP raise and a flat call from the small blind.  First guy folded but other guy tanked and eventually called with KQo and spiked on me, and that was it.  Not a fun tournament.

So today I have the day off from poker, which means real world work from my hotel room most of the day.  Tomorrow is the Main Event.  The girls left for Vegas for Lexie's cheer competition this morning.  Seems incredibly strange for them to be in Vegas and me not be there.  Anyway, I will have a report from the Main Event late Saturday or early Sunday.

Finished One Off

After just writing in my post yesterday that I haven't been able to close out a tournament in a long time, I finally did so last night.  I won the nightly 109r on Stars after a long and tough head's up battle with lilholdem (who, ironically, earlier in the tournament got all in against me with 87s against my QQ and managed to hit to stay alive).  At the end, though, the cards were good to me as I flopped the nut straight against his overpair and we got it all in and I held despite the board pairing on the turn.  It felt really good to close one out for a change, and, as I said yesterday, I'm really happy with where my game is at right now and looking forward to a big 2009, if the cards cooperate.

PokerRoad Radio

Yesterday, I was interviewed live on PokerRoad Radio. I really like what Joe Sebok and Barry Greenstein have done with that site. There's some great podcasts, articles, and a forum where, among other things, those who are "Red Pros" as designated by the site have their own area to discuss poker without having random idiots show up and ruin threads (the threads are readable by everyone, but Barry has to approve anyone who wants to be a Red Pro). The show in which I was the featured guest can be directly accessed here. I believe I came in around 30 minutes into the program, and mostly they were interested in discussing Clonie Gowen's lawsuit against Full Tilt given my legal background.

I played four tournaments last night, with the "highlight" being a 12th place finish in the 109r on Stars.  I've been cashing at a good pace so far this year, but haven't been able to finish off any of my deep runs yet, but I'm sure that will come.  I feel very good about my game these days and am excited about reaching my 2009 goals.

America! (and another near miss)

It's hard to think about poker or my law practice this morning, as I watch the historic inauguration unfold. It's no secret that the last eight years were very painful to me. I cannot believe it's over, and I cannot believe the groundswell of support and excitement behind our new President. I feel fortunate to be around to witness all of this, and for the first time in a long time I feel hopeful and optimistic about the future of our country, despite all the tough issues we are facing.

At any rate, I had yet another in a LONG list of near-misses when it comes to big online scores last night. I got 17th in the Full Tilt $1k, with $103k going to first place. I lost a significant portion of my stack on an A-high board holding AJ when a K hit the river and villain bet and I called, and he showed KK (hitting his two outer on the river). Then, a couple hands later, I picked up JJ and got in preflop against JJ and 22, and the 2 hit and eliminated me, just like that.

Anyway, hard to be down, given the events unfolding in Washington, D.C. and how happy I am with my play of late.

Painful Sundays, WPT Legends Final Table Airs

Sunday was a painful end to a painful week. I've had a severe back problem all week, which made the trip to Biloxi and back, and two days of sitting at tables all day, pretty painful even without the KK losing to A5 with 39 left hand, and then I pushed myself on Saturday to sit out at Viejas much of the day in pain.

Sundays are all about the online tournaments. I usually play around 14 tournaments and am at the computer 10 hours or more. Unfortunately, things have not been going my way online at all. In the last week, I have run KK into AA so many times that I have lost count, and yesterday I also added running AA into KK only to have a K roll out on the river. Fun times. I went deep in one tournament for a relatively minor cash, but the rest of the day was a blank.

I also got to see my Legends final table on Fox Sports Net. It was pretty bland, as they only showed two hands that I played, and they edited out the entire controversy between myself and John Phan, where he claimed he could see my cards. They also edited out about two minutes from the hand where I called for clock on John, which made my decision look a bit more rash then it was. Also, Mike and Vince's commentary was pretty laughable (they criticized my calling for clock as a sign that I had a weak hand because I'd never do that with QQ+). Well, I'd probably never have QQ+ there anyway (I shoved 15 BBs from the SB), and 88 is a pretty standard and easy call from the BB in that situation, so it shouldn't have mattered anyway. It was still painful five months later to see the board roll out the way it did.

Anyway, Sunday ended a marathon week of travel and playing poker, and it will be nice to get back to my normal schedule for the next two weeks, after which time I'll start doing the marathon two hour commutes back and forth to play some tournaments at the LA Poker Classic.

Viejas!

Yesterday, I played a $1k entry tournament at one of the local San Diego casinos (Veijas). They were guaranteeing a $100k first place prize. It was sure to be very high equity due to predominantly local players, and it was going to count toward Cardplayer's player of the year standings, very rare for a local tourney.

I was right, it was full of very bad players, in some cases almost comically bad. The structure of the tournament appeared to have been put together by someone who was heavily on drugs at the time. The casino was smokey. The tournament was in like four different random rooms. The room I got moved to shortly after the start had no tournament screen to keep track of time or levels. It was just hilariously poorly run.

I did manage to go from my 7.5k starting stack up to just under 30k, but then the structure caught up with me and I shoved 33 only to run it into KK and was out. Oh well, I was not happy that they were quitting once the money bubble burst and bringing everyone back on Sunday, which would force me to miss all or some of the Sunday online tournaments.

So anyway, it's Sunday morning, which means 12+ hours of grinding anywhere between 3-8 tables. I have a really bad back problem that I'm going to have to see a doctor about this week, which is making it hard to sleep at night and sit comfortably (flying back and force to Biloxi and sitting at poker tables all day has not helped the problem!). So, it's going to be a tough day for me today, but I don't want to miss out on all that Sunday equity. It's nice to have the big football games to watch as well.

No more live poker until the LA Poker Classic (I'm not playing any events until early February even though it starts soon). Just online grinding and grinding away at my non-poker responsibilities. I'll update as warranted.

Finally, an update!

With all due apologies to all three of my readers for an absurdly long delay in updates, I’m going to start blogging again. My last update was from WSOP 2008, and that is quite difficult to believe. What happened since then? Way too much to blog about, but the major event was the final table of the WPT Legends event, which is set to start airing on January 18th on Fox Sports Net. But, I am not going to blog about that, at least for now. I’m going to focus on what’s going on right now, and go from there.

As I write this, I’m on a flight home from my WPT Biloxi adventure. I flew to New Orleans last Tuesday, only to find the dreaded news that my luggage did not make the trip. Is there anything worse then standing there as the bags dwindle at the baggage claim, getting that dreaded feeling? No clothes, no toiletries, a possibly week long trip. Lovely.

After confirming that I was indeed without all necessities (by visiting the baggage counter, is there any worse job in the world then having to deal with people who lost their luggage on a daily basis? try to be nice to these people if it happens to you), I picked up my rental and headed out for Biloxi, an hour and a half drive away. I checked in at “Hard Rock Casino” right next door to the tournament venue and was shocked and pleasantly surprised to find a very nice hotel and a very nice room.

The next day was Day 1 of the Main Event, a $10k entry WPT event, and I had a very specific plan (after visiting the local Walmart for clothes and toiletries). The plan was to get through Day 1, basically. Don’t get me wrong, it was to make one good decision after another, and certainly “getting through Day 1” does not mean playing weak-tight, or folding my way there, but also there is merit to the idea that getting through Day 1 with my same starting stack (30k) would mean heading into Day 2 with 50 big blinds! Plenty to work with. So the idea was to play well with an eye toward just getting to Day 2.

The plan went pretty much right as on schedule, ending Day 1 with 32k and over 1/3rd of the field eliminated (although that did necessitate shoving a flush draw over a bet and call on the flop in the very last hand – they both folded). The next part of my plan was to get down below 100 players (285 or so entered the event) and then start to methodically build a stack, and be willing to gamble to get a really significant stack with somewhere around 50 left, in order to abuse the bubble of a $10k even with a LOT of local players that would likely be looking to make the money (27 was the money bubble).

Day 2 also went exactly as planned. I chipped up to 45k in the first hour and a half, and then made a huge move up to about 120k during the next hour and a half, and meanwhile players will slowly but methodically busting out. If anything, I was ahead of the plan at this point, and focused on getting down to that 50-ish left area by playing well, avoiding big mistakes, and playing situations as perfectly as possible.

While there were some bumps along the way, the plan went on as planned, and we got down below 50 players left and I was hovering between 150k and 220k. In other words, I was very content because this thing had unraveled exactly as I had planned it. With 39 left, and 27 making the money, I had 190k. Not exactly the bubble-abusing stack I had planned, but solid nonetheless. Then, the jackpot hit. The hand that would make me 3rd in chips and give me a lot of opportunities to get a bunch of chips heading into the final 27. A guy first to act preflop, apparently some random foreigner that was quite obviously a bad player, raised to 15k at 3k/6k/1k. He had about 230k. It folds to me in the SB, and I make it 45k with KK. He instashoves and I instacall. He completely spazzed out with A5 and I was in great shape, until he spiked the ace and busted me in 39th place.

And, therein lies the ugly yet beautiful aspect of poker. All the travel, being away from Laureen and Lexie, away from the steadiness of my law practice, all to get to within 39 players of a $1 million plus first place prize and have KK vs A5 allin preflop to be 3rd in chips and BAM, the short-term luck (variance) aspect of poker knocked me right back down and made me put what I can’t control behind me, and look ahead to the next challenge. And who says poker is not a microcosm of the human condition?

All that being said, it was a great trip and I will likely come back to Biloxi for next year’s event. I am on a flight right now, heading back to San Diego (where it was forecast to by 77 degrees at my house today, when it is below zero in my beloved home town of Chicago). Laureen’s going to pick me up at the airport, we’re going to head down to South Beach Tacos (in Ocean Beach) and I’m going to have me some Calamari, a lobster taco or two, and a cold beer, and enjoy the company of my lovely wife. I’m very lucky to have so much to welcome me after what many would consider such a disastrous trip.

Looking forward, as I said, my WPT broadcast airs next week, I have a blurb scheduled to be in the next issue of Cardplayer Magazine to analyze a hand between Gavin Smith and Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, and (what was really enjoyable) I did a “conversation” on Clonie Gowen’s lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker for Bluff Magazine that should also hit in their next issue. Lots of fun times and looking forward to a big 2009, including a lot of blogging.

New Blog Address

I think, at least for now, I am going to just be updating my blog at PokerXFactor, where I am an instructor.  It just doesn't make sense to update both.  You can view my blog for free without being a member of the site (although I certainly encourage anyone serious about their game to become a member).

Here's the address:

http://www.pokerxfactor.com/problog/uclabruinz

WSOP: Stupid or clever?

"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."  --David St. Hubbins from This is Spinal Tap

We started the day yesterday in the money, but with a LOT of people left, a long way from a real payday.  So, I was somewhat determined to play aggressively as there was no incentive to "move up" the pay scale at this point.  You had to hit some big hands and/or make some big moves and get chips.

So I played quite a few pots, but really just bounced around between 30k and 45k until the big hand came up.  It limped to me in the SB and I had J7s.  I decided to limp and hopefully see a flop, but the BB, a somewhat aggro big stack, raised an additional 4k.  I then TRIED to rep a big hand and reraised 12k.  My plan was to fold to a shove (I stated the hand with about 40k and was well covered by the BB's big stack) or shove most flops if BB flat called since I would have a pot size bet left.  Mostly I expected to take the hand down right here, as I did not expect BB to want to really play an 80k pot at this point.  

Well, BB did flat call.  I immediately thought he had a mediocre hand with two biggish cards like KQ, KJ, AT, etc.  I did not think he had AK/AQ or medium to big pairs because I think he shoves those types of hands.  There was a small chance I was being trapped with a big pair, but I couldn't be worried about that at this point.  This read of his hands set the flop up well for a shove.  The flop was a perfect 6c4c2h (I had two diamonds), so I thought a bit and then shoved.  The BB immediate stood up and made various noises like he was in pain (uh oh!).  He tanked for quite awhile, but then called with AcTc.  The problem here is that he hit the nut flush draw on top of his two overs and was getting a little better then 2:1 on his call.  He had to call, obviously.  So, I got caught in my bluff and making a big move and did not hit the J or 7 and was out.  I got a somewhat mixed reaction from friends on the hand, but I am okay with busting while making a big, aggressive move that would have been successful apparently if there weren't two clubs on the board.

So believe it or not, from there my day got worse.  I collected my payout and immediately hit the road for home, but didn't think about it being a Sunday late afternoon on the road from Vegas toward Southern California.  It's been a LONG time since I tried to make that trip on a Sunday afternoon, and now I remember why.  I didn't make it very far before I got stuck in a massive traffic jam.  So, I gave up on that relatively quickly and ended up grabbing a flight home on Southwest since I have to go back on Wednesday morning anyway.  

On the bright side, the Cubs did finish off a sweep of the White Sox, which I got to watch while playing some cash games and waiting for my flight.  At least SOMETHING good happened yesterday.

So, now I am back home and on a big break until....  Wednesday's $1000 rebuy.  I play four straight events and then will head home once more for a break before the Main Event.

WSOP: LOL Roadtripaments

With three straight cashes and four cashes in six events entered I decided to add another event to my schedule and drive up to Vegas yesterday morning for the weekly Saturday $1500NL donkfest.  So that meant leaving my house in San Diego at 5:30am, and I was going to just drive right back if I busted.  Well, after another long day at the tables I am writing to you from a hotel room, so that's good news!

After four hours of play I headed to the 2nd break with about 4400 in chips.  I really hadn't gotten much going all day, although on the hand before that break I really messed up and missed a big opportunity to get up to around 11 or 12k at the break (I failed to follow through on a bluff opportunity and villain took the hand down with K-high vs my Q-high).  It's funny how these big hands tend to develop right before breaks, mostly because nobody ever believes the other guy has anything.

Anyway, so in the two hours between that break and the dinner break, I ran it up to 37k or something.  Mostly what happened was the guy on my left called basically every raise that I made and then tried to outplay me postflop.  Not sure why he was doing this, but I didn't mind too much.  I made a huge call against him on an QJ974 board with AJ when he fired on the turn and the river relatively big, which won me a big pot.  I also fired three barrels and he called me down all three times on a board that came out J854A or something when I had J9.  I think he said he had 99.

So then I got it up to 60k at one point, but lost with AT vs AK when I called getting 2:1 pot odds, probably a bad call given that villain was very rock-ish and not resteal-ish at all.  I then lost a big pot on a big semi-bluff when I ran it against a villain who couldn't fold a set of 8s on the flop.  Haha, oops.  So I was all the way down to 17k toward the end of the night, but then played pretty aggro as the end of the night approached and ended with 32k, which is not great but not bad with the blinds at 800/1600/200 when we resume at 2pm later today.

So that's four straight cashes, and five in the seven events I have entered this year.  Pretty lucky, but hopefully I can find a way to final table one before the series ends.  I will update tomorrow, hopefully with news that I am at a final table.

Event 31: Another close call, out 23rd

Well, with 4 cashes in 6 events and a 29th and now a 23rd place in huge field events, it's hard to be disappointed.  It's also hard to be disappointed since I got very lucky both times to get so deep.  Indeed, with around 30 left yesterday I managed to get 66 in preflop against QQ and hit a 6 on the river to double up and get a pretty good stack.  Unfortunately, I then lost a big coinflip.

I raised 77 and a guy who had shoved over me a couple times already and obviously knew all about reshoving light shoved on my left.  Everyone else folded and I deliberated for quite a bit, figuring the pot odds to be 3:2, so only needing about 40% equity against his range to be a break even call.  I figured I'm probably better then that so I called and he showed AT, making it a good call indeed.  Unfortunately, an A hit on the turn and that knocked me from 130k down to about 65k.  A little bit later, I shoved AJ and unfortunately ran it right into AA.  Oops.

So I was out in 23rd place for a little over $15k.

We're packing up and heading for home shortly.  It's been a grinding week with no days off due to all the cashes, often playing past midnight, so I'm ready for some rest.  I will be back in Vegas next week for one more stretch before the Main Event.

Event 31: Another Cash, Another Day 2

Okay, this is getting pretty absurd.  Good, winning players usually cash in about 15-17% of tournaments, and somehow I have managed to cash in 4 of the first 6 events this year.  Running good like this is great, but I could really use a big score, or god forbid a bracelet, to show for it.

Maybe today will be the day?  I made it through to Day 2 of the $2500 6-max event, with 76 players remaining out of the 1000+ entries.  I have 51,700 chips, which is below average but puts me in good shape going into play today with the blinds and antes at 800/1600/200.

Event 27: Busto 129th

Day 2 was pretty crazy.  I was determined to play very aggressive with my 22k I was coming in with (on a 1600 big blind), within the table dynamics obviously.  The big money was a LONG ways off, so it was really necessary to try to get chips.

I did shove a couple times and built up to around 30k.  Then it folded to the button who was short with about 11k and he shoved and it folded to me in the big blind, and my read was that he had a huge, huge range, perhaps close to any two cards, so I called with J9.  He had Q8 and made quads, LOL, but it was a good call (although half the table or so is sitting there in disbelief, which I love to hear because it tells you a lot about people's calling ranges and shoving ranges when most of the table is very shortstacked).

Anyway, I got all the chips back from him later when I open shoved about 20k from UTG with 77 and he called with AK.  There was a K in the door on the flop, but a 7 followed immediately after and I doubled up.  Shortly thereafter, a player in MP raised to 4400 on the 800/1600/200 blinds/antes and I elected to call on the button with AA.  The blinds folded, and the flop was K65r.  She bet out the flop and I called.  The turn was a 3 and put two clubs on the board.  She hesitated and bet again.  This time I figure either she has a K and I can get all the chips, or she does not, and I won't unless she catches up to me on the river, so I shove and she folds.

So now I am up to 60k and feeling quite good.  Unfortunately, that was the high point.  The guy two to my right shoved the button with about 11 big blinds.  Again, my read is that his range is huge, at least 50% of hands, so I called with A2 but he unfortunately he had A9 and somehow we did not chop the pot.  What a bad beat.  I was about 50% against his range of hands most likely, so with the pot odds it was a good call.

So that shot me down to about 22 big blinds, and then I folded to 18 big blinds when the bustout hand happened.  Aggro button raises and I am in the small blind with A5o.  I shove.  Big blind tanks a bit and shoves.  Button folds and big blind shows AK and somehow I don't win or chop.  LAME!  Haha.  So that was the end of the tournament for me, out 129th for just over $3.5k.  Not what I was looking for, once again, but happy with my play and fortunate to get as far as I did, and it is kind of cool to cash in 3 of the 5 events played so far.

So today is the $2.5k 6-max event.  I have been looking forward to this one.  It should be a pretty tough field, but I am looking forward to the challenge.  The good thing about busting out yesterday relatively early is that I finally had a chance to hang out with the family and feel well rested this morning for a change.  I will be playing today's event, and then tomorrow's $1.5k, and then heading home for another break before coming back for one more stretch of events before the Main Event.

Oh and by the way, GO CUB S!  They won again yesterday.

Event 27: Another Cash, On To Day 2

Well, the good news is that I am in the money again, the 3rd time I have cashed in the 5 events I have played so far this year, and am headed to Day 2.  The record for most cashes in any single World Series is 8, but I have about zero chance of approaching that (for one thing, I've just been running very hot which is unlikely to continue, and I am just not scheduled for enough events to have any serious shot at it).

The bad news is that I was at or close to the chip lead with about 90k and about 350 players remaining (total entries for the event was 2706, a very good turnout), but managed to have two extremely tough hands in a span of about 15 minutes knock me down to 27k.  The first hand, I played a flush draw very aggro in position.  He bet the flop smallish and I called.  He bet the turn smallish and I raised, and he called.  Then he bet the river small again.  I had 32s for the busted flush draw, and in hindsight I should have shoved the river given the action and the board.  

A couple hands later, a guy opens for 5x the big blind from UTG and I had AQ in the CO.  I elect to call.  Flop is A73, a very dry board, and he shoves for 28k with about 13k in the pot.  It's a laughably bad play, but what can I do?  I call and he shows AK and then proceeds to lecture me about my bad call.  I almost never tilt, and I think it is a huge part of tournament poker to be able to hold emotions in check in these situations.  This was pretty close though, and I was very fortunate that there was a 20 minute break shortly thereafter, and I was able to take a long walk and gather myself.

I came back and went card dead as the bubble approached, eventually getting all the way down to about 11k on 600/1200/100 blinds/antes, but then decided to play very aggro and either gets chips for Day 2 or bust out so that I could play the $3k event today.  I shoved multiple times, then a time or two over a raiser, and got up to about 22.7k, a semi-workable stack going into Day 2.  I checked the listings this morning and am in about 138th of the 224 remaining.

So that's three straight days of playing around 12 hours or more, and I am worked.  Hopefully I have to play 12 hours or more again today and make it to my first WSOP final table, but if I bust early I will not be tremendously disappointed, as I could definitely use some pool time with the family and a nice dinner with them as well.

Event 23: Out in 29th

I busted in 29th for about $10.7k.  Got a big stack at one point, then unfortunately got QQ in preflop against AA, and then seemed to go ridiculously card dead after that.  Waited patiently and eventually shoved AQ into AK preflop and didn't suck out this time.  I got lucky to get as far as I did, so I am not terribly disappointed, and will be back at it tomorrow in a new event at noon.

WSOP Event 23 $2k: Huge heater sends me to Day 2

I have made it through the first day of the $2k buyin Event 23, and thanks to the last two hours and a huge suckout, I am coming in 16th of the 134 players remaining (1344 started).  99 players will get paid at least $4400 and first place gets a very nice $507k and a coveted bracelet.

My day was characterized by tight play with a few spurts, none bigger then the spurt I went on during the last two hours of play (from about 11pm to 1am, which is way past my bedtime).  At the last break of the day I had about 7k on 500/1000/100 blinds/antes.  In other words, I was extremely short, probably last of the remaining players or very close to it.  A LOT happened in those two hours, but the three big hands were as follows:

The first double up happened when EP guy opening a fair amount of pots opens to 3k.  I shove AQ in MP and I'm so shortstacked he has to call and tables J8s or something like that.  I hold up and double up.  That gets me up close to 20k.

I build up to about 23k and this hand happens.  An online friend of mine raises two to my right.  I am on the button and shove with TT.  Big blind tanks for a bit (uh oh!) and eventually calls.  The other guys folds and I am allin for an almost 50k pot with TT vs JJ.  Not good, until the T spikes on the turn.  Wow.

I then play a fair amount of pots and end up with about 50k when this pot happens.  I raise in MP3 with KK and the guy on my left smooth calls.  Folds to young guy in the BB.  He had previously shoved allin in the exact same situation and myself and the other guy folded.  Oh please please please shove again.  He does, with about 24k I think.  I obviously shove and the other guy folds and I am allin with KK vs 99 and I hold up, which is how I ended the day with over 72k.

So it is not like I played spectacular poker or anything.  If there is anything I can pat myself on the back for, it's managing to get that deep in the tournament and give myself an opportunity to get some hands and have a huge suckout like I did.  A big part of tournament poker is avoiding those huge, devastating mistakes, and I managed to do that yesterday.

So today we will play down to the final table.  The girls got in late yesterday afternoon, and we have Love tickets for tonight.  Let's hope I will not be able to go.  Oh and by the way, the girls came over and had dinner with me.  Last time they did that was the WPT event that I ended up going on a huge post-break heater, just like this time.  Let's hope the results are the same.

Back in Vegas: WSOP $2k event today

I flew back into Vegas last yesterday afternoon and got all checked in at the MGM Signature, which is an infinitely better place for me to stay then the regular MGM or any hotel room for that matter.  Having a kitchenette for one thing is an awesome thing, and it's quiet, completely non-smoking, has a private pool, great fitness center, etc., and yet you still have access to all the MGM pools and such.  So this morning was great: got some work done, got down to the gym, and went for a swim in the pool.  The girls are driving up this afternoon (today was Lexie's last day of elementary school).  I am in a good frame of mind for today's $2k event.

Outside of the Main Event, this is the stretch of tourneys I was most looking forward to, as we have a nice place to stay, the girls will be here, etc.  I have five events scheduled over the next six days and then will be heading back home for another 5 day break or so.  Expect another update tomorrow, hopefully saying that I made Day 2 of this event.  If not, however, I am looking forward to a day off with the girls tomorrow at the pool, and then we have tickets to see Cirque "Love" tomorrow night.  As much as I have been in Vegas, I have never seen a Cirque show, so I am really looking forward to that (but hoping I won't be able to go because I am very deep in Day 2 of this event, haha).

WSOP Event 9: sold out and shut out

I headed over to the Rio about 11am yesterday to meet up with a friend for breakfast and also to meet up with on of my backers to discuss some issues and get the cash for my buyin.  I usually register early for events, or even a day or more in advance, but it never occurred to me that this event might be sold out.  Well, unfortunately, I did not make it over to register until about 10 minutes before the event, and it turns out it was in fact sold out and I did not get to play.

This seems to have been badly mismanaged by Harrah's, as they capped it at 1273 entrants when they had almost 1500 last year.  I would estimate about 500 players went away very upset and disappointed.  Not good.

So this morning I am headed home for a MUCH needed break from Vegas and live poker, and some much needed time with my family.  I will be flying back next Wednesday, and the girls will be joining me on Friday.

WSOP Event 7: Busto

I busted the $2k yesterday shortly before the dinner break, so I now have 1 cash in 3 events.  This tournament was mostly notable because I was down to 400 chips in the first level (we started with 4k) and built it all the way up to about 12k before busting.

 

I won a few early pots to get up to about 4500 when this absurd hand happened.  Guy raises UTG to 150 at 25/50 blinds.  He's a young Asian guy and is an instructor at Cardrunners, an internet poker instruction website.  Folds to me on the button with QQ, and I decide to just call.  Raising would be fine, obviously, but I'm not a big fan of defining my range against a good player who also likely has a good hand, and I don't generally like playing big pots early, so if he reraises from UTG I'd be in a tough situation.  Anyway, the SB also calls and we head to the flop with 500 in the pot.

Flop is 994, 2-suited.  SB checks and Cardrunner kid leads for 400.  I call on the button and SB calls as well.  The pot is now 1700.  Turn is a 7 or something like that, and matches the other suit on the board, so there are now two flush draws.  SB checks (my read is that he has a draw or nothing spectacular, like 88 or something), and the Cardrunner kid leads again for 1600.  Here's where I make a bad decision.  I don't think he leads for a second time into two villains without at least T9s or 98s or something like that.  Despite that being relatively obvious in hindsight, I decided for some reason to push in my remaining chips.  Folded back to Cardrunner kid and he reluctantly called and tabled T9o.  Usually my line is okay, but not against a Cardrunner instructor.  

Anyway, so I was left with 400.  A few hands later I got KK and open shoved from EP and got no callers.  Very next hand I got QQ and open shoved and AGAIN got no callers.  UGH!  Eventually, though, I ran my stack back up with a combination of getting hands and playing well.  I got up to almost 7k by the first break, and had over 11k by the second break.  Obviously things were going well.

Then, in the last level before dinner, a run of bad hands happened.  It started when a guy shoved 10 BBs or so from the CO and I had A8 in the SB and called.  He tabled A4 and sucked out on me.  Next I lost a pretty big flip with AK against JJ allin preflop.  That left me relatively short.  Eventually, it folded to the same guy with A4 that sucked out previously, and he asked how much I had before deciding whether to open from the CO (I was in the SB).  I said "3.5k, so you have to call if I shove."  He opened anyway, somewhat reluctantly, and it folded to me and I had A3.  With the overlay in the pot, I decided it was time to go, so put my chips in, and unfortunately he had A5 and spiked the 5 on the flop to end my day.  

I probably felt the least bothered by busting this tournament as I ever have for any tournament that I did not cash.  I was happy with how I played after the early QQ hand and that I did not let that hand or any of the late beats affect me at all.  I made good decisions all day and stayed focused and played pretty optimally.

Today is the last event before I head home for a break until next Wednesday, a $1500 6-max tournament that I am really looking forward to.  I really enjoy 6-max (meaning tables are 6-handed rather then the usual 9 or 10 handed).

WSOP Event 5: busto

Bah, that wasn't much fun.

We had a 2-level rebuy period that didn't go great for me.  It started off very nice.  I took the initial rebuy and was in for $2k.  I got AA fairly early and stacked a guy who had 44 but unfortunately had not taken the initial rebuy.  From there it was all downhill.  I got my money in good three times and got sucked out on all three times.  I had to double-rebuy once, which meant I was in for $4k total.  Near the end of the rebuy period I won a decent pot, and after taking the double addon was in for $6k total and had a 9k stack.  Not bad, but not great.

Shortly after the rebuy period I had a funny "non-hand."  It folded to David Baker (for you online types, it's not "Bakes" but the other David Baker).  He seems like a nice guy and we chatted a little.  He told me he is friends with the guy who finished second to me at Bellagio, and that his friend had spoken highly of the way I played, so that was nice to hear.  Anyway, he raises to 525 at 100/200 from MP3.  I'm in the CO with 22 and think about calling for set value but David only had about 7k in chips and I thought it was marginal and for some reason decided to just fold.  He's good and I just don't think the added equity beyond set value of playing position against him and outplaying him is there in a significant way.  One of the blinds calls him and the flop is like QT2 or something.  I'm sitting there steaming that I did not call.  After quite a bit of action between the two, David shows down QQ for the set.  I was supposed to ship him all my chips there, losing to set over set.  I tell him and he feels very wronged by not having my chips.

Anyway, I hovered in the 8-10k range for the rest of the day, never really getting anything going.  Eventually this hand happens.  We're at 150/300/25.  Folds to CO who raises to 1100 (I think it was to 1100).  Folds to me in the SB with about 8k in chips and I look down at AA.  I smooth call which looks pretty obvious to be AA, but I can't think of a better way to play it and the guy seems like he might not see the warning signals.  BB folds.  Flop is like T55 or something with two diamonds.  I check, he bets, I shove, and emphatically calls and I immediately think he has a 5, but he tables Ad4d for the flush draw.  Unfortunately, the Qd hit the turn and I was sent packing.  Nothing I can do, I got my money in quite good so I was disappointed but left with no regrets.

So no cash for the 1000r.

Today is another event, $2k NL.  Tomorrow is a $1.5k 6-max, which I am very much looking forward to, but obviously I hope I make Day 2 of today's event and have to miss out on tomorrow's event.  Once I am done with these two events, I'm headed home for a much needed break from Vegas.

WSOP Event 2: Busto

I made it into the money and then busted shortly thereafter yesterday.  The money bubble was absolutely brutal.  They decided to go hand for hand with 13 to go, which was a big mistake.  It took about an hour, playing a hand about every 5-7 minutes or so.

From the time we started until the money bubble burst, I basically hovered between 20k and 25k, stealing occasionally and not getting any big hands.  A short while after the bubble burst, I raised UTG at 600/1200/100 to 3200 with JJ and a little under 20k in chips.  It folded to an older guy on the button who had a biggish stack and had been calling preflop with all sorts of hands all day and he called.  The blinds folded.  So the pot was 9100 headed to the flop.  The flop was K85 with two diamonds (and I did not have a diamond).  Tough spot.  I can bet out for maybe 6k and fold to a raise, which would leave me with about 10k and about to go through the blinds, which felt no good.  I decided that if I checked he would bet his entire range of hands, which was a pretty wide range, and that I could c/raise allin and scoop his bet and the pot.  He did bet 6k, and I shoved, and he tabled KTs for the win.  Obviously in hindsight I wish I had bet/folded, but if I was right that he had a wide range of hands and would bet his entire range, this still seems like a +EV way to play the hand.

So, just like that, after playing 10 hours on Saturday and 3 hours yesterday, I was out.  I cashed for a little over $3200, which was not what I was looking for but it was nice to cash in my first event of the 2008 WSOP.

Today is a new day and a new event, the $1000 rebuy.  We get 2000 chips to start and can take an initial rebuy for an additional 2000 chips.  Then we can rebuy anytime we are at or below 2000 for the first two hours.  At the end of the first two levels you have the option to add on 2000 chips for another $1000 or 4000 chips for another $2000.  Should be fun and interesting, as I have never played a live rebuy tournament.

Lastly, the Cubs won again last night, which certainly softened the blow of my bustout.  That's 8 in a row now.  GO CUBS!

WSOP: Event #2 - Survived and headed to Day 2

I made it through Day 1 of the $1500NL Event #2 with 20.6k in chips, a little below average but that will be good for about a 20 BB stack once play resumes at 2pm on Monday.  Today they are playing the second starting day, so I am off for the whole day, which is nice but I really wish the girls were here to enjoy the day with me.  It appears that 2000 players started Day 1a, and they will get close to 2000 more today, which will make this the largest non-Main Event tournament in history, and 4th overall.  A good sign that the field sizes will be good for this WSOP despite the economy.  We ended play last night with 225 of the 2000 Day 1a entrants remaining, and today they will play down to approximately the same, so there will be around 450 remaining going into Day 2 when the fields combine on Monday.

I wish I could claim that stellar play got me to Day 2, but really it was mostly luck.  I played very tight for most the day and was very card dead.  With the small starting stacks and increasing blinds, if you never build a stack you end up playing most of the day in the 10-20 BB range, which is where I was parked the entire day.  It really limited my ability to do much other then wait for hands or spots to resteal-shove, which I didn't do much of.  

A couple big hands got me through, the biggest being a total suckout to triple up.  I held KJ and 10 BBs and open shoved.  I got called by one guy, and then the BB shoved allin over his call, which obviously looked terrible for me.  I was mentally ready to head for the exit.  The first guy tanked a long time, and obviously I'm desperately hoping that he folds and I end up with a coinflip with big overlay against TT or AQ or something like that.  He ended up calling, and I was up against AQ and AK, but the flop was a lovely KJx and I tripled up.

Most of the rest of the day was pretty uninteresting preflop play.  I hate a late double up when a guy shoved J7s and I woke up with QQ in the blinds and held up.  I also doubled up when I raised the button with 33 and a guy shoved 11 or 12 BBs from the SB and I called.  He had KJ and I won the coinflip race.  

I am not sure what I am going to do with my day off today, other then avoid casinos as much as possible.  I really hate the assault on the senses that is Las Vegas.  It is very hard to find any peace and quiet.  For example, early yesterday morning about 8am, I went down to the pool here at MGM for some exercise and relaxation.  It was beautiful out, and I got a bunch of laps in and then grabbed my book for some peaceful poolside reading (remember, it is 8:30am).  Unfortunately, they treat the pools like they are a nightclub, blasting dance music very loud.  I mean, seriously, am I getting old or is to too much to ask for some peace and quiet at 8:30am?

Anyway, today I may take a drive (it is so nice having my car), or maybe sit by the cool for a couple hours, or maybe play some Sunday online tournaments, who knows.  Lunch at ESPNZone while watching the Cubs game around noon also sounds good.  

I will update after busto-ing or surviving to the final table on Monday.

World Series of Poker 2008

Here we go again.  I did not play last year due to health issues, so it has been two years since I have played the WSOP.  I am actually quite excited about it.  I will be playing quite a few events this year.  I drove out yesterday morning (in our new Toyota Camry Hybrid, which I absolutely love and is just SLIGHTLY easier on the wallet then our Expedition), and went straight to the Rio to register for Event #2 so as to avoid the LONG lines that were anticipated.  Registration was very smooth and over within 5 minutes, which was very nice.  

MGM gave me an early check-in (at first the lady said "sorry, no way," but after seeing I would be staying 7 nights, she "made an exception"), and I was all set.  I watched the end of the Cubs game (one of the most amazing games I have ever seen, they came back from an 8-0 deficit to win 10-9), then played a little "low stress" 1/2NL and had a couple beers, then called it a night to get some good sleep before things get underway today.

Today's event is a $1500 event.  This is the same event that I got 20th out of 2766 entrants (if memory serves) two years ago, so let's hope for a similar but slightly better run.  These large-field events are pretty much a crapshoot, so all you can do is try to play well and hope that the cards also run well.

I will try to update my blog daily.  I will be here for a week, playing about 5 events, and then head home for a 5 day break, and then coming back out with the family for a week.  Later in June I have another week out here, and then in early July will be back yet again for the Main Event.

WPT Championship: Busto

I busted during Day 2. Things just never went well from the beginning. It was one of those days where I did not play well, and on top of that I ran really bad with the cards. Not my finest day of poker. This will wrap things up for me with live poker until May 31st when the World Series of Poker begins. Thank you again to everyone for all the support.

WPT Championship: Headed to Day 2

I am headed to Day 2 today with over 65k in chips, which is good for just above the average stack and puts me in 179th place out of 421 remaining (there were 545 entrants). First place is going to be paying about 3.3 million, I believe, and they are paying out 100 places starting at about 39k.

My table draw for today is as follows:

Seat 1 "The Grinder" 34k
Seat 2 "Devilfish" 100k
Seat 3 empty
Seat 4 Joe Hachem 35k
Seat 5 Me 66k
Seat 6 Barny Boatman 31k
Seat 7 Steven Koplow 103k
Seat 8 Brian Rast 110k
Seat 9 Adam "Roothlus" Levy 29k

I have a pretty good idea how Grinder, Devilfish (played with him all day yesterday, see below), Hachem, and Roothlus play. So, although it's a tough table, I don't feel too badly about it.

As for yesterday, I had a kind of strange table draw. The 1-5 seats all seemed to want to gamble, bluff a lot, play big pots, etc. I did not know any of them, other then Seat 3 vaguely which was David Tran. I was in the 10 seat so that actually gave me a bit of trouble, because I got 3bet quite a bit when I opened. Being so deep, I wanted to open a lot of hands (suited connectors, gappers, all pairs, etc.). In other words, the big implied odds hands that are well disguised. However, getting 3bet with those hands is problematic because you can call with good odds, but you have lost postflop initiative. It doesn't mean you can't make creative plays, but it's kind of tough.

One hand of somewhat note got me down to about 35k. A guy in EP raised and I looked down at KK in the small blind. I 3bet to about 4x his raise and he called. Flop was AA4. I checked, he checked. Turn was another A. We checked through again. River was a Q. I obviously believed I was good at this point, so I bet 2k. He thought for awhile and messed around with chips and made it 6.5k. Obviously, I have to call. He had the AJs for quads. Ugh.

I did not play any real big pots, so there is not too much to recount. I never really made a big hand. I did flop a set with TT on a QTx board and David "Devilfish" Ulliott lead out into like 4 other players. I decided he had to be relatively strong so I raised next to act and it folded back to him and he thought for awhile and said "you have KQ" and he folded. I hate my play there. I really needed to smooth call, particularly since I had seen him make a lot of folds to what appeared to be strength. I thought my raise on the dry-ish board would look suspicious. It was a bad play.

Another funny hand happened late in the day with Ulliott. I don't think I had gotten out of line much at all. I raised in EP with JJ. Ulliott calls in the BB. Flop is 984r. He check/calls my 3/4 pot bet quickly. Turn is a K. He checks, I bet 3/4 pot, and he gets out enough chips to c/raise me. He then decides to just call, and I read this as trying to show strength with a mediocre hand so that I don't bluff him on the river. River is a 5. He checks and I check (perhaps missing a small value bet). He says "I have a 9" and I table JJ and he gets pissy and sorta throws the cards in my direction, showing 96s. LOL?

Toward the end of the day, John Juanda sat down somewhat short stacked. He made two big moves on me that I had to fold to. The first, he raised in EP and I called on the button with 33. The big blind also called. Flop was J65 with two diamonds. They both checked, so I bet 2500 into about a 4k pot. BB folded, but Juanda shoved in for like 23k more. This seemed soooo obviously a draw, but I can't call there.

The other hand with Juanda he raised my BB from the cutoff to 1800. I watched him the whole time and thought he was weak and stealing, so I made it 7k with 97. He took a relatively short time to shove allin for like 29k total and I obviously had to fold. Nice read, Paul.

Overall, I am pretty happy with how I played, but also know I made a couple mistakes, calling down on the river early in the tournament when I should have known I was beat, and raising Ulliott with that set of Ts. Hopefully I will play better today and also run well. The blinds today will be 400/800/100 when we get back, so we still have relatively deep stacks, which is great. Looking forward to another tough but fun day.

WPT Championship: Day 1 Quick Recap

I made it through Day 1. I have 65.6k, with about 63k being average, so I am quite content. I am particularly happy given that I was down to about 35k at one point. Tomorrow will start back up at noon with, I am guessing, about 75% of the field still remaining. If I am feeling up to it in the morning, I will post a Day 1 recap. For now, after having to catch a 6:30am flight up here this morning, I am exhausted and ready to call it a night.

$25k WPT Championship Main Event

I will be flying out to Vegas early Sunday morning to play in the WPT Championship $25k Main Event, which is largely believed to be the toughest tournament of the year due to the buy in amount. There should be 400-500 entrants, and last year first place paid about $3.9 million. Should be fun, challenging, and interesting. They start us with 50k in chips at 50/100 blinds, so there will be very deep stacks to begin the tournament.

The field is split into two different start days, Saturday and Sunday. I have chosen Sunday. The day will start at noon and finish no later then 9pm. Day 2 will be on Monday, and for anyone fortunate enough to make it that far, the TV final table (final six) will be next Saturday, with Friday being an off day for the ME.

I will try to post updates nightly, and longer trip reports each morning. For real-time coverage of the event check the updates at www.cardplayer.com.

WPT Bellagio $2k Victory Wrapup

First, let me say I very much appreciate all the congratulatory messages I have received over the last couple of days. From my family, to Laureen's family, to my online poker friends, to my "real life" friends and their families, to complete strangers, it has really been very cool. I apologize to anyone I have not been able to get back to yet, but I will. Sunday we had to pack up and drive home, and yesterday I had a lot of work to catch up on in the "real world" of my law practice. So I am finally taking time this morning to try to put down into at least a few words what happened this last weekend. I am still humbled by what my online poker friend Andrew Brokos wrote about me on his blog, which you can read by clicking the link. I agree very much with Andrew that most poker players are to varying degrees not real pleasant people to be around, but there are notable exceptions, and the sentiments he expressed about me are certainly mutual.

So what went into a $203k bracelet victory? First of all, let me repeat that I am a "backed" player. So, I won't be seeing even 50% of that, because I was in "makeup." A quick summary because I know lots of friends and family are reading this and don't really understand how poker backing works. It is not a loan. If you overall lose money, they absorb it. In exchange, the player gives up 50% (at least that is my deal, deals vary). It allows a player like me to play comfortably in many high-buyin live events without any concern to bankroll strategy. In addition, once you get a payout (which happens monthly if you are profitable and not in makeup), you can never go backward. So assuming I stay backed permanently, I can never lose what I have won. I love being backed because even though I may be giving up overall equity (although that's not necessarily clear), it allows me to play all these huge events, have chances at huge scores, and never have to worry about losing money or going backward. In addition, my backers are two very great guys who have shown a lot of faith in my playing ability.

So how did I prepare for this event? A little differently then usual. First of all, we stayed at MGM Signature, which are condos attached to the MGM property. Very, very nice condos. The entire building is smoke-free. They have a great fitness center, which am proud to say I used every day before playing. It was just very, very comfortable, and we still got full use of the MGM amenities, such as their "lazy river" pool which the girls and I love. In fact, that is how I prepared on the day of the final table. I went to the gym with the girls and then we went and floated around the river pool for a couple hours. I will put pictures up on my personal blog shortly.

I am going to start my report at the 9pm dinner break on the first day, mostly because so much happened after that that I cannot recall anything specifically for the 9 hours prior. I'm sure there were some interesting hands, but I can't distinguish vague memories of hands that day from memories of hands in the previous event. I know I did play a very loose-aggressive style at my initial table (at least for me, since I am usually pretty tight-aggressive early). We started with just 4k chips and I was determined to try to get chips early by playing pots with the lesser skilled players before they were eliminated.

As the 9pm dinner break approached I had around 32k on 600/1200/ante blinds. The tournament director told us we were getting a free buffet for ourselves and a guest, and I lamented that I didn't know this earlier of I would have told the girls to only snack and meet up with me for dinner. Just as I was thinking this, I got a text message that they were there outside the room as a surprise. I looked over and saw them waving at me, and it was quite uplifting. I want to say at this point there was about 20 left in the tournament. So, we went and had a great dinner at the excellent Bellagio buffet, and the girls really made my whole night by showing up, particularly Lexie who is now at the age where she doesn't really want to hold Daddy's hand in public, but she grabbed it and insisted on holding it through the casino. And, what happened next seems beyond coincidental to me.

We returned from the dinner break at 10:10pm, and I had 32k chips on what were now 800/1600/ante blind. We ended the night about 3.5 hours later with our "final table" of nine players and me holding the substantial chiplead with 340k chips. Here is how it happened (as best as I can remember, I'm not necessarily good at getting the exact facts 100% correct).
I got a significant portion of those chips in three hands against a great, young player, but who also happens to be not so great of a guy. He was perfectly fine at the table, don't get me wrong, but in the "online arena" where he is hiding behind a computer, he loves to berate people and brag about how exceptional he is, and I am certainly one of his favorite targets, as he loves to tell the online poker world what an old idiot I am. In fact, when PokerXFactor.com signed me up as a guest pro instructor, he made sure to chime in with some very disparaging remarks. Well, I don't know if I believe in karma, but....

He was the substantial chipleader very late in this tournament, and watching that all go to hell is something painful to see even when it is someone you don't particularly care for. Things started for me when he raised in EP as he has been doing a lot with his big chipstack. It folds to me in LP with about 17 BBs and I look down at KK and instashove. I instashoved hoping to make it look like I had planned to do it regardless of my cards. It seemed to work, as he snap called after it folded back to him with AJ. I was surprised to say the least, and very happy when my KK held up to double me up and put me in pretty good business with a decent chip stack. I was now up around average.

The next hand where I got chips from him went as follows. We were 7 or 8 handed I believe, so probably about 15 left. My "friend" had been losing a lot of chips. I raised in EP with KQ. He called on the button. Everyone else folded. I felt he was calling relatively light with a big range of hands to try to outplay me postflop. I think the flop was A95 with no draws or something along those lines. We checked. The turn was another blank and we checked through again, although this might have put a flush draw on the board, I don't recall. The river was a Q. I was quite certain I was ahead but I knew if I checked one more time he would bluff with a high frequency, so I checked and he bet something like 3/4ths of the pot. I instacalled and he showed QT, which is a pretty thin river bet. I quietly raked in another decent pot.

The last hand against him was as follows. He raised in MP as he's still doing frequently even though his stack has now become relatively short. I call in the big blind with KJs and have him well covered at this point. He had gotten very short at one point, but had built back up to a semi-decent, playable stack. The board was something like J93 rainbow. I checked and he bet and I check-raised (which on a dry board looks very fishy). I'm hoping it looks very much like I'm trying a move. He hesitates a bit and shoves, and I instacall. He shows J7 and I hold up again to bust him out. I always feel bad for someone when they bust, and even though I don't care for this guy this was no different. He had a huge chiplead and was gone just a few spots from the final table.

Anyway, so we get down to 10 players, which means we consolidated at one table even though it is not the official final table. One more elimination and we will be done for the day, and have our final nine for the next day's final table. I have around 175k at this point, good for second place. The chipleader is Mark Seif with over 350k. I am content at this point to play solid poker and go to the next day's final table in very good shape. However, the following takes place.....

MP guy limps at 1.5k/3k/ante blinds. Mark makes it 12k on the button. I look down at KK in the big blind and think and then raise to 36k. It folds to Mark and he mumbles about pot odds and thinks for awhile, and then makes the call. I'm a little confused as to what types of hands he might have here, but it's not ultra strong IMO. Maybe something like AQ or 88-JJ, although given the tournament situation I don't think he ought to be necessarily even calling with most of those hands.

The flop comes and the first card that hits the door is an Ace and my heart thumps for one millisecond before I see the K4 join the Ace on the board. I check, hoping he puts me on TT-QQ and willing to give up, and he obliges by somewhat emphatically betting 40k. I have 140k behind and can't think of anything that could come on a later street to help me get the rest of the chips in the pot so I go ahead and just shove right here, hoping he somehow thinks the whole thing might be an elaborate bluff of some sort or that I could be doing it with a donkey-ish mediocre hand. Not much chance he would think that, though, right? Well, he INSTA-called, which I thought when he said it meant he had fooled me the whole time with AA, but he showed the AJ (???) and I raked in the HUGE pot and was handed the substantial chiplead. I played pretty snugly for the remaining time until the next player busted, and we were headed to the final table.

As for the final table, I wish I had a more detailed report, but the reality is that I played my big stack with selective loose-aggression and there weren't a lot of really big hands. At least 6 of the 9 players were clearly trying to move up the payout scale, which made them big time targets for me to get involved with. Two of the other players I classified as very good players, one on the very tight end, the other not afraid to put lots of pressure even on me with my big stack. So mostly I was going to try to "chip up" through all the other players and not play too many pots with them. Fortunately, one was directly on my right and the other was two to his right, which made for an excellent table setup for me.

My strategy worked to perfection. I won a few early pots and got up to about 450k, and then hovered around 400-450k for quite some time. One by one, players were eliminated, and nobody really seemed to get a "dangerous" stack to me, which was good. I kept adding to my stack and the other stacks seemed to all hover around the same amount. I think when we were around 4-handed, Patrick Poels, one of the two players I had classified as most dangerous, did get up to around 350k when I had around 650k I think, so I was watching that closely.

I wish I could remember crucial hands, but I really can't. Eventually I eliminated the dangerous guy on my right, but I don't recall the specific hand. He was beating me up a bit in blinds battles, so it was good to get rid of him. When we were 3-handed, it was myself, Patrick, and a really nice, somewhat older guy that had made it repeatedly clear since the beginning that he wasn't really in it to win it, only to move up payouts (not the correct thing to make known at a final table, by the way). So 3-handed I basically raised every hand, knowing that they both really wanted to get 2nd place locked up and wouldn't really want to tangle with me. My stack continued to grow.

Eventually I got it allin on the flop against the older guy when I check-raised all-in with an open end straight draw. He had top pair second kicker, and I had one over card, so I had 11 outs twice. My Ace was paired on the river, and I eliminated him. So now I was head's up with Patrick, who said "how did I know it would be me and you." I felt the same way. I definitely thought he was the stiffest competition for me, along with the other guy on my right. Patrick Poels is a really nice guy and a true pleasure to play with at the table. I think we had a lot of mutual respect.

Head's up did not last long. I had almost 1 million chips and I think Patrick had about 180k or something. I generally start head's up play by pounding away until I get a feel for how the opponent will react. Patrick called every button raise I made, which was a bit surprising. The second to last hand he raised his button and I shoved with JJ hoping it would appear I was bullying him. He made a great fold with KJ. The last hand I raised the button with K7 and he called. The flop was K94 or something with two diamonds. He check-raised allin and I called and he had T3 of diamonds for the 9-out flush draw. The turn was a blank and I thought to myself "black five would be nice dealer" and the 5 of clubs hit the board, giving me the victory. Hearing the announcer call the hand and hearing my name announced as the winner was surreal, as was the handing of me a WPT bracelet.

Definitely the highlight of the whole thing was immediately calling my wife. This woman has been right there with me through all the ups and downs of playing poker "semi-professionally" the last couple of years, so being able to say "I won" and hearing her response was just incredible.

Payouts were arranged, and I walked back to MGM Signature and we celebrated in our own little way. We had some drinks in the room, and Lexie was exhausted from being in the pool all day so Laureen and I went down to play $10 hands of blackjack for awhile while she had a nap and had a great time. We picked up Lexie a little later and went out for a killer sushi dinner and then called it a night. Very good times.

My victory included entry into the WPT Championship at Bellagio this coming weekend, which is a $25k buyin event. Hard to believe I am going to be playing in a tournament with that high of a buyin, but am very much looking forward to it. The "Day 1s" are split into Saturday and Sunday, and I have chosen to play on Sunday (sleeping at home and flying in Sunday morning is definitely the best way for me to go, as sleeping in Vegas is something I find very hard to do for whatever reason). I will update my blog from Vegas. Tahnks again to everyone for all the support.

WPT Bellagio Bracelet

Slightly hungover this morning and we're getting packed up for the drive back to San Diego, so don't really feel like putting together a big writeup. So I will just sum things up with a picture for now and write much more later.

Holy cow, I won

I won. I know you all want to know what it means. The first place prize was just under $178k plus a free entry into the $25k WPT Main Event next weekend at Bellagio. I also got a pretty killer Bellagio bracelet. I was a bit in "makeup" with my backers, but after that I get 50% of profits. Good stuff. Just wanted to post this quick note before we go to dinner to celebrate.

Final Table: WPT Bellagio $2.6k event

I made the final table of the $2.6k event, which just finished. Fourteen hours of poker was a grind, but I am coming in with the chiplead by a decent margin. If I am feeling up to it in the morning I will recap some hands. It was a fun day. The final table will happen at 3pm tomorrow (well, today, Saturday, given it is 2:30am right now).

First place pays over $200k. Hopefully I can finish this off.

Bellagio WPT $5k: busto

Sometimes tournament poker can be a real pain in the rear, particularly when playing live. You are stuck at the table, the hands come slowly, and you go card dead and have to stay focused and patient, but your stack is short enough that you can't see flops and don't have flexibility. That's what happened to me yesterday. I lost a couple of early hands, probably making pretty questionable river calls, and never really got going significantly in the other direction. Eventually, with 9k, I shoved AJ from the big blind over a raise from the cutoff and he called with 77. So, I had a chance to get it going if I won that pot, but alas I lose the virtual coinflip (my first of the tournament) and was busto in about 50th out of 140 runners.

I will be back at it again today at noon, and hopefully this time I can get something going.

WPT Bellagio Prelims

I am out in Vegas for three WPT preliminary events to the $25k championship. For some reason, I couldn't convince my backers to enter me into a $25k event. Haha. But I am playing the $5k event today, and the $2k and $2.5k events this weekend. Should be interesting, as I anticipate small and tough fields (not good tournaments as far as EV goes). I will try to update each night or morning.

WPT Bay 101: Busto early in Day 2

I knew it probably wasn't going to be a good day for me when I saw the seat/table assignments. On my direct left was JC Tran with a big stack. On his direct left was Tuan Le with a big stack. Therefore, even if I got something going with my small stack and doubled up once or twice, I was going to have to deal with two very, very good players on my left. I was going to need cards for sure.

First hand of Day 2, I get 99 and open shove 11.6 big blinds from UTG+1 and take down the blinds/antes. From there, I did get one walk and that was the end of my success. I blinded down to about 8 BBs in the SB when the button raised. I shoved A5s and he actually seemed to think for quite awhile about folding (LOL) and then called with KJ. I was good until the dreaded K hit the river, and that was it. Out around 120th I think.

I don't recall any mistake hands, so I feel pretty good about the tournament. This will probably be it for major live tournaments until the WSOP starts at the beginning of June, which is fine by me. If anything big happens with online poker I will post something up here, otherwise I will see you this summer from the WSOP.

WPT Bay 101: Good news and bad news

The good news is that I survived Day 1 and will be starting back up on Day 2 later this morning. The bad news is that I have only 11.6k chips and the blinds will be at 500/1000, leaving me just over 11 big blinds. In other words, I will be open shoving a lot and hoping to double up.

The day got off to a great start when I got involved in a hand with Barry Greenstein. At 25/50 blinds, three players limped and Barry raised on the button to 350. I was in the SB with 99 and opted to call. The two other players called as well. The flop came KQ9, jackpot! Although, I immediately recognized that there were three disaster possibilities, KK, QQ, and of course JT. We all checked to Barry and he bet 500. I raised to 1500. Other two players folded and Barry called. Hmmm. At this point I think he has one of the three disaster hands or AK/KQ, so basically I could be in a lot of trouble. Just as I am thinking this, the turn comes the case 9 to give me quads. I lead out for 3/4 pot and Barry calls relatively quickly. The river is a 4. I actually think about shoving, which would have been about 2x pot, and that may have been right. I had Barry slightly covered and would have won his bounty of $5k if I busted him. However, I felt he could fold JT if I did that, putting me on Qs full, and if he had KK or QQ, he would probably raise the river anyway. So I bet 7k and he said "I know you have Qs full" and then called after a bit of thinking. He did have JT, so nasty cooler for him. Flop the nuts and lose to turned quads. Pretty gross.

From there I got up to around 35k at one point. Then it was all downhill. We had a very good table initially. There were a couple good players, Barry's a great player of course, but a few pretty bad players as well. Unfortunately, I couldn't seem to find spots or make hands to take advantage of this, and when I did they unbelievable missed their hands and folded. I flopped a set of 9s on a A-high board in a 5-way pot and could get no action. Yikes. I had a couple good chances to double up when I 3bet with KK but after lots of whining both times the villain folded.

The big hit for me came on this hand. There's two limpers in front of me. I limp with 44. Big blind checks. We are 5-ways heading to the flop and I am on the button. Flop is K34. Checks to me and I bet about 3/4 pot and the big blind calls. Turn is a 5. He checks to me and I bet close to pot. He calls. River is a very, very ugly 6. I check and he checks behind and shows 52 for rivered straight.

At any rate, that one hurt and put me down around 20k. From there I tried to play patient and perfect, with no spots and no action on the rare occasions I got a hand. Just the way poker goes sometimes. I bounced between 15k and 27k, and eventually ended the night blinding down to 11.6k to end the night. Not where I want to be by any stretch, but still in and a double up will put me back in the game. Playing a shortstack is easy, at least.

I ended the day with Greenstein, Mike "the Mouth" Matusow, and Alan Cunningham at my table. Mike was extremely annoying at first when he sat down at the table, but he actually ended up being enjoyable to play with and seemed to be a very nice guy. Barry was quiet and irritable all day, I guess because he took some rough beats a couple times. Not really the way I expected him to be at a table. Alan was as you would expect, quiet. Although he did chat with Mike quite a bit since they were sitting next to each other, and they seem to be friends which is kind of surprising since they are so opposite. Barry clearly does not like Mike.

WPT Bay 101 $10k Main Event

First, a little whine from last night. I played a full Sunday schedule and it was pretty brutal. I did get very deep in a $650 satellite to the WSOP Main Event ($12.5k package). With 32 left and 30 getting the package, I was in last place and it folded to the small blind. He shoved and I called with AQ and he had KK and he held up. Ugh.

Tonight I am heading up to San Jose for the WPT Bay 101 "Shooting Star" event, a $10k buyin with an expected $1.2 million or so for first place. This tournament should be kind of fun, because they have a "known" player at each table and you get a $5k "bounty" for knocking him or her out. They also hand out $10k to the Day 1a and 1b chipleaders. Lastly, when down to 36 players they will switch to 6-handed tables, which should be cool in the unlikely event I get that deep.

As usual, I will try to post daily updates.

LA Poker Classic - Day 4 Recap BUSTO

My day got off to a wacky start. I had received a "read" from a trusted friend on the lady two to my left at the start of the day that she liked to reraise a lot preflop and would almost always fold to a shove. So, a couple hands in it folds to me in the cutoff with 260k or whatever, and I raise to steal the blinds with 86o since the big blind has not shown up to the table yet. Svetlana reraises to 70k just as my friend predicted she would be likely to do, and I think for about 15 seconds and ship my 260k in and she snapcalls with AK. Oops! Oh wait, 6 hits the flop and I double through her to over 500k just like that. Easy game.

Unfortunately, it wasn't particularly easy the rest of the day. I played a hand very badly against David Singer not too long after doubling up, and shipped him an extra 90k that I really should not have. The rest of the day I mostly hovered between 200k and 500k as it is quite easy to move up and down with the blinds and antes so high, and it being so expensive even just to cbet a whiffed flop.

At the dinner break I still had 440k and was doing okay. Shortly after, I got a few more chips and was up to around 520k when this hand happened. Folds to small blind who is this older guy that everyone seems to know and is friends with Hellmuth. He doesn't play like your typical older guy, he definitely is making plays. He completes the small blind and as I do at a fairly high frequency in these situations, I raise to 4x the big blind with a mediocre hand (Q7o). He thinks for not long at all before calling. I think I had 520k and he had about 400k to start the hand. I think the blinds were 8k/16k/2k. Flop was K83 with two diamonds. He checks and I cbet 80k into the pot of about 110k if I recall correctly, and he waits about 10 seconds and shoves allin and I insta-muck. That hand really hurt, as I was unable to get anything going the rest of the day and was left with a stack where I couldn't speculate despite lots of action at the table.

So, from there on out I tried to play perfect 10-25 BB poker, staying patient and looking for good spots, but they just would not come. I never saw a hand, literally, and was getting blinded down. Hellmuth was very active, but being across the table from him it was really hard to find spots to take advantage of that. I called him twice from the big blind and completely whiffed the flop both times and had to fold. I did pop him once from the big blind and he folded.

I had another rough hand when I raised in the CO with AKs. The big blind, another older gentleman, emphatically called my raise. The flop came out 335r and he emphatically led out for about 1.2x the size of the pot. It was so bizarre it took me awhile to figure it out, but I eventually decided he had a middle pair and wasn't folding if I shoved and mucked. That was really painful. He said he had TT for what that's worth. Seems about right.

In the end, I kept getting no spots and being blinded off, and had 10 BBs sitting in the cutoff. There wasn't much time left in the level so the blinds were about to go up, so I shoved J8s into Hellmuth's big blind and he instacalled with 99 and it held up for him. That was that. 19th place out of 650ish entries, $42k paid out. As a backed player, though, I won't be seeing any of that as I'm not currently in the black. Still a good score though and it gets me closer to seeing profits. And, it was a great experience.

As for Hellmuth, he takes a lot of crap and deservedly so, even about the way he plays, but I have to say after playing a long time with him he clearly is a great player. He had almost total psychological control of the table, and his tactics sometimes are subtle but effective. Once he got lucky and obtained a big stack, he was very, very difficult to deal with.

The WPT Bay 101 up in San Jose is in a couple weeks. I haven't decided yet for sure whether to play that. I'll decide in the next day or two.

LA Poker Classic - Busto

Out in 19th place. Went card dead and missed flops the few hands I played. Not much I could do. Was fun while it lasted but also an exhausting four days.

LA Poker Classic - Day 3 Recap

I started the day with 196k and ended with 259k, but it was a pretty insane ride along the way.

I took a tough hit early in the day. UTG+1 with about 70k limps at 1k/2k/200 blinds/antes. I raise to 8k in MP with QQ. Folds back to him and he instashoves. I think it through a bit and decide he has AK almost always and call, and he does. My 57% favorite hand holds until the river when a K spikes and he rakes away a 140k+ pot. Ugh. Just like that I'm down around 120k.

I got whittled down to about 90k and then built back to around 120k when this happened. Probably one of the goofiest and worst players I have played with shoved 27k UTG when I believe blinds were at 1k/2k/200. He's 2 to my right and I have QQ. I think about just flat calling and decide to shove my 120k stack. I think flatting might be better here to induce worse hands to shove behind me, but I also didn't want someone calling behind and having to look at an A or K high flop with a big pot in front of me. At any rate, the bad, goofy guy had A4s. The flop came with a 4, and the turn was a 4, and he raked the 60k-ish pot.

The rest of the day I seemed to hover between 60k and 100k. I don't recall any big hands. When the bad beat happened, I tried to really get into the zone of playing my short stack perfectly from a math perspective, and not making any bad decisions. If I busted getting my money in at the right spot, I was fine with that. I just didn't to make a mistake.

I had Phil Ivey move to my table and sit down two to my right, which actually with my stack size was a good thing because he opens lots of pots and with 15-20 BBs I could do a lot of restealing or shoving for value with less of a hand then normal. But that only happened once before our table broke.

I got moved to Phil Hellmuth's table, and that was pretty interesting. His dog and pony show seemed kind of ridiculous as it always has to me, but honestly it became quite entertaining. I engaged him some in what I hoped were the right spots to irritate him or assist in his tiltish behavior but mostly our limited conversation was okay and I know I certainly earned his respect by shoving three times while we were literally on the bubble. If I busted I got zero, if I survived I got at least $22k. Which brings me to....

The bubble was comically painful. With 66 left and 63 getting paid at least one of the remaining tables had a guy stalling every hand as long as he could. The tournament director decided to put an end to that and went hand-for-hand. This took like two hours of play or something before the bubble finally burst. I was very shortstacked and one of the ones in danger of bubbling out. With 64 left, a guy I had seen open raise in EP without much raised, and I shoved in MP with 99 and about 10 BBs. He tanked and folded, saying he folded 77 (ugh, please call like you are supposed to!). Same situation came up awhile later. This time I had TT and he called with 99, and I had to avoid a 9 to avoid bubbling out of the tournament. My TT held and I got my coveted double up and was back in business.

I hovered around 120-130k until the bubble burst. Right after the bubble burst, I got moved to a new table with nobody that I was familiar with other then Alan Goehring, who is a former WPT champion and seems like a helluva nice guy, two to my right. With about 110k and the blinds at 3k/6k/1k, I decide I'm going to be aggressive for the last 15 minutes of the day/level so that I can hopefully come back with some chips for the 4k/8k/2k level the next day. Soooooo, I make this wacky play.....

Young kid who had been walking around a lot during the bubble and seems to know people limps in MP. Folds to me in the SB and I decide to bluff with 62o at the pot and make a raise to 25k. My thinking is that the raise size looks like a big pair and forces the MP kid to either shove or fold, and I think he folds a LOT. He's almost never flat calling, so I"m not really worried that he will, and if by some reason he does I'm going to assume its with a big hand to induce me to get it in on the flop, so I'm not playing postflop. Anyway, the worst possible scenario happens, the older guy with a huge stack in the big blind flat calls, and that induces the kid to call, and I'm headed to the flop with 62o to play a big pot completely out of position. Such fun I can get myself into sometimes.

The flop comes Q85 all clubs and we check through. I'm ready to fold at any time if someone will just bet. The turn is a 4, which causes me to internally chuckle and think how funny it would be if we check through and a non-club 3 hits the river. It checks through a non-club 3 hits the river. I check to induce bluffs, because I don't think either almost ever has a hand that can call my bet with and c/raising will look bluffy so I might get looked up. I'm not afraid anyone has a flush at this point. So I check, big blind checks, and the MP kid obliges with a 45k bet. I shove my remaining stack in and he suffers for awhile and calls and tables 33, and goes relatively ballistic that I made a straight with 62. I rake a huge pot to end the day and am not sitting at 259k.

So I am headed back yet agains today. Here's the picture that was on the front of the Cardplayer website last night. I'm obv the guy across the table in UCLA gear.

Cardplayer will have live updates and they know me now so hopefully I will be covered if something happens. Check it out at http://www.cardplayer.com/.

Remaining playes and chip counts can be found here:

http://news.pokerpages.com/index.php?option=com_simpleblog&task=view&id=2952

LA Poker Classic - Going to day 4

I survived a crazy, insane Day 3. Recap tomorrow morning if I have time. I have 259k, which I think I heard is good for 21st out of the 59 remaining.

LA Poker Classic - Day 2 Recap

Where do I start? I started the day with 42k in chips and ended with over 196k, good for 11th of the 136 players remaining. So yes, it was a pretty crazy day and lots of fun.

The hand that got me going in the right direction by a long shot went as follows. An online poker friend of mine (we know each other very well from a poker message board) who is a very, very good poker player opens for a standard raise UTG. Folds to me on the button with QQ. I could raise here, but that narrowly defines my range against a player I really don't want to have a good idea of my range (he would know that I am repopping his UTG raise with very specific hands). So, I call planning to play postflop poker with position with him having no real idea of my hand range. Folds to lady in big blind who shoves for about 13k (I think ). She had played very tight so far, only shoving a couple times and otherwise folding. My friend thinks for awhile, asks how much I have, and seems a little uncomfortable but eventually shoves his 39k in. So he raised UTG and reshoved over a shove. I felt somewhat sick about my situation and my 38k stack, but thought it through for quite awhile and got my friend to talk a little bit in a way that made me even more confident. Eventually I decided he almost never has AA or KK, so I called and had a beautiful situation of QQ vs the lady's AK vs my friend's AQ. I managed to hold and won a big pot to get me to about 90k.

For the rest of the day, I played very aggro (which is not my usual style) as dicated by table conditions and mostly built my stack by stealing a lot of blinds, hitting flops, and having good timing. I ran two big bluffs. One against Gavin Smith and one against Mike Sexton (I ran a ton of smaller ones but not worth writing about).

The first one was against Gavin Smith. I raised from EP/MP with 88 and he called in the big blind, as he does quite a bit. I have a pretty big stack at this point and he has about an average one. I had been at the table long enough to have a pretty good idea how he plays. The flop is QJT 2-suited. He checks and I cbet close to the size of the pot and he calls. I don't often cbet this type of flop, but Gavin could have a lot of different cards so I decided to fire. Turn is a J, making for one scary looking board indeed. He checks again. At this point, I do not figure him for a big hand because he would hate to check and have me check behind on the turn. From what I have seen of his play he has some sort of little-ish draw (although I think he probably plays a draw more aggressively) or some weakish hand like Q7 or something. The board is so scary right now I think I can get him to fold quite a big portion of his range. So I decided to again fire, again close to the size of the pot. He hems and haws a bit and folds, showing a Q as he folds. Since I normally don't bluff a lot, I decide to advertise and maybe tilt Gavin a little and show my 88 face up, and the table oohs and aahs a little and Mike Sexton on my right says, "wow, that was very well played and you really earned that pot." He repeatedly commented about that hand. Keeping that in mind....

I played a LOT of pots against Sexton, calling him with position and taking away pots on the flop. He got pretty frustrated with me, although we did have some good conversation. He's a really nice guy. For those who don't know, he is the commentator for the WPT broadcastst on the Travel Channel (now on GSN actually). Anyway, Mike puts in a standard raise in EP and I call with 7h6h. Everyone else folds. Flop comes 592 with two hearts and he leads for about 3/4 pot. I seriously consider raising but also know that if I wait and see the turn and don't make my hand I may have the option of shoving. The turn is an offsuit Q. He again leads for 3/4 pot, and I check out his chipstack, which is still pretty hefty (I think he led for 10k and had about 40k remaining behind) and I shoved with my flush draw and gutshot. He tanked and complained for quite awhile, then folded KQ face up. This time I did not show my bluff.

The rest of the day was mostly stealing the blinds/antes quite a bit and cbetting when called to take down pots. I lost two small allins AQ losing to AK and KJ losing to A8. I won a decent sized coinflip at the end of the day with QQ beating AK. We ended play at about 11:45pm, and I was on the road home just after midnight. I will be heading back shortly. The 1.5 hour (plus any traffic) commute sounds bad, but actually it's kind of nice for decompressing at the end of the day, and gathering my thoughts on the way up there.

If you are looking for live updates, you can try http://www.pokerpages.com/ or http://www.cardplayer.com/, although they mostly cover "known" players. Thank you to everyone who has sent their private well wishes.

LAPC - Headed to Day 3

I made it through Day 2 and am headed into Day 3 with 196,800 chips.

LA Poker Classic - Day 1 Recap

I made it through Day 1 of the Main Event, ending the day with about 42k. Day 2 starts today at 12:30 p.m.

It was a very eventful day. I started the day by hitting a full house on the turn on the first hand, and made about 3k chips off the hand to get up to 23k. It's always a very good feeling to win the first hand I play, and get my stack started in a positive direction. Starting the day with 20k chips and 25/50 blinds means we are very deep stacked, which is fun and interesting to play.

It was only about (I'm guessing) 10 hands later when the following hand comes up. MP guy raises to 150. I call on the button with 88. SB calls and so does the BB. We go to the flop 4-handed. Flop is 552 rainbow. It checks to me so I bet 300. SB calls, BB calls, and the MP guy folds so we are now 3-handed going to the turn with 1350 in the pot. The turn is a very beautiful 8. SB checks, BB bets out about 1k. I think and call, hoping the SB will raise or at least call. He folds. River is a 7, making the board 55287. I have the 2nd nuts, trailing only quad 5s. Pot is 3350. BB checks. I bet 3k. He makes it 9k. Oh well, if he has quads, good game me. I shove. He immediately jumps out of his seat, says "yes! I call" and slams down his cards face up. I briefly see a 5 and my heart sinks, but then quickly see a 7. I turn over my 88 and have doubled up about 15 minutes into the tournament to around 42k.

What made the hand even more interesting is that as the river is happening, none other then Phil Ivey sits down at the empty seat at the table and sees it all go down. Great, the guy I suspect is the best player in the world is now three players to my right. At least I will have position on him most of the day. What's funny is that he seemed to spend almost no time paying attention until the last level of the day. He mostly watched golf, talked to friends, and read a magazine. I suppose a $10k tournament is kinda boring to him, at least in the first few levels.

I hovered around 42k until the 100/200 level, where I got whittled down to 25k going into the dinner break. I can't really recall specific hands. I made a couple of close river calls. I remember on one hand I made a thin river call on a J75J2 board. The action made it likely to me that the guy betting did not have a J, and his river bet seemed like it either had to be Jx or a bluff, so when I checked and he bet the river I had a hard time figuring out how my 7 was no good. I called and he had TT. Oops.

One hand I lost money on was against Ivey at 100/200/25. I raised UTG to 600 with AKo. I saw him glance at me a couple times before looking at his cards. It folded to him in the SB and he flat called. The BB folded and I am headed to the flop against Ivey with position, holding AKo. Flop is JT6 with two diamonds (I have the Ad). We both check. The turn is an A. Phil bets 1k. I call. River is an offsuit 8. Phil briefly grabs 2500, then grabs one more 1k chip, and bets out 3500. Phil had seen me make several thin river calls, so after a lot of thought I decided there's no way he doesn't have me beat here, and I folded. I asked several of my friends about this hand and everyone agreed it's a fold. Still felt tough.

Another kind of brutal hand was when there was two limpers in front of me at 100/200/25. I make it 1100 on the button with QQ. Folds to the guy two to my right who calls. Flop is KK2r. Check/check. Turn is a 7. Check/check. River is a T. He bets the pot and I call and he has K5s. Hmmm, nice preflop limp/call buddy.

After the dinner break I gathered myselt and started to chip back up. I got up to 28k when the following hand came up with a little over an hour left in the day. At 150/300/50, I raise UTG with AKs to 900. Folds to the button, an older guy (relatively speaking) who from what I can gather is a regular in high stakes cash games. He calls. The blinds fold (good, no Ivey in this hand). Flop is 974 with two clubs (I do not hold a club). I bet 2k. He quickly calls. Turn is an offsuit J. I think its highly likely he has a draw so I fire 4k and he again quickly calls. River is an offsuit K. I check to induce the bluff from a missed draw and he obliges with a lovely 9.5k bet. I take about 10 seconds to call and he quickly mucks, and I rake in a big pot.

So now I was back to around 42k, and from there out I played pretty tight, with a couple 3bet steals to maintain my stack, including raising Ivey from the SB with 57o, which felt kinda nice. I did this a few times at a good frequency throughout the day over Phil's raises and he folded each time. I probably could have gotten away with doing it a few more times, honestly.

Toward the end of the day the table got very testy over the following issue. The action of the hand is pretty irrelevant, but on the turn the guy on my left throws out an orange 5k chip and says "3." Everyone knows this obviously means "3k." A guy not in the hand says something like "the technical rule is that means 300." The other guy in the hand says "ha, well I would call 300 but not 3k." The guy not in the hand says "well, you could call the floor" and the other guy thinks and does ask for the floor to make a ruling. The floor rules its a 300 bet, and that allows him to call.

The guy who bet the orange chip was very pissed. He ended up winning the hand, but I can only imagine what would have happened if the "call the floor" guy hit a 2-outter or something on the river. This all lead to a lot of discussion and even a prop-bet on what percentage of players would call the floor in such a situation. My position was that it was extremely crappy. Everyone knew beyond doubt the guy meant 3k. My position was that almost no players would call the floor in such a situation. An informal poll showed this to be correct.

At any rate, the day ended with me having 42k and feeling pretty good about things. We start back up today at 12:30pm. They are re-drawing tables, so I will have an entirely new table. I did ask Ivey about the AK hand after the day ended and he said he definitely had me beat (he seemed genuine FWIW). It was a good experience playing an entire day with him, he has an unusual style of limping a LOT in the early going, and playing a ton of hands. He won most of his chips when he had KK against AK on an AKx flop, but he also chipped up a lot by firing at flops. He's almost impossible to read and difficult to play against.

LA Poker Classic - $10k Main Event

After running bad online and really bad at live poker for awhile now, tomorrow might be good timing for turning things around. Tomorrow is the Main Event of the LA Poker Classic, $10k buyin and guaranteed at least $2million for first place. We get 20k chips to start and 90 minute levels, so there's time to work with deep stacks.

This is potentially a LONG tournament, with the final table not until later in the week, so I plan to take things one day at a time, or more accurately one level at a time (i.e., 90 minute levels, play my table, stay focused). In the end, all I can do is take things slowly, play my game, and make all my decisions good ones. Oh, and try to have a LITTLE bit of fun. ;-)

LAPC $1500 - busto (quickly!)

The fun didn't last long in this tournament. We only had 3500 chips to start, and I quickly found myself down to about 2600 35 minutes in mostly playing some speculative hands and missing flops. Then the following hand came up.

I raised in EP with AKs to 150. Folds to small blind guy who makes it like 475. I thought about jamming, but decided I was a little too deep and it was a little too transparent, so I just called. The flop was a beautiful QTx giving me the nut flush draw, a gutshot draw, and two over cards to the flop. This is a flop you want to get it all in with, and the other guy obliged by leading out the flop for about a pot-sized bet. I jammed and he snap-called and tabled TT for a set. I still had tons of outs, but didn't get there and my tournament was over that fast.

Next up is the $10k Main Event on Saturday. I have now played 7 live tournaments since I got backing and haven't cashed in any of them. Hopefully that will change soon.

Laker Game and LAPC

Went to the Laker game last night, which is poker-related because it was courtesy of my poker backers (5th row center court) and I sat with a bunch of their other backees. Pretty fun and interesting. I have a few pics and thoughts on my personal blog (http://paulesmith.blogspot.com).

Today is the $1.5k LA Poker Classic event, my last event before the $10k Main Event on Saturday.

Deja Vu Sunday

It seems to be the same scenario every time I play a big day or night of online poker these days. Get deep in a big tournament and close to a big score only for a bummer hand to end it. This time it was the $215 rebuy tournament on Pokerstars. I lost a huge pot for the chiplead about halfway through with KK losing to AQ allin preflop, and then with 15 left I lost KQs to T8s allin preflop. So, I got paid $2.5k or something with first being $53k. Didn't really get anything going in any of the other big Sunday tournaments, and ended up down for the day although the $215r made it close.

I'll be taking a much needed break from online poker for a couple weeks now to focus on work and the two upcoming LA Poker Classic events (Wednesday's $1.5k prelim event and Saturday's $10k Main Event).

LAPC $2600 - busto

I busted about 40th in the LAPC event last night. I played pretty well overall but badly misplayed one hand, passively playing the nut flush draw instead of playing it aggressively like I should have and probably winning a decent pot. I also had a big triple up when I was down to 9 BBs, shoving KTo and getting called by 88 and QQ, and hitting a T on the flop and T on the river. That was sick, but a few rounds later I had 20 BBs and shoved A9s over a CO raise against a big stack, good player, and he surprisingly called with 55 and I lost the big coin flip. Ugh.

Next event is Wednesday, then the Main Event next Saturday. Back to real-world work today and online poker tomorrow.

LA Poker Classic - $2600 event

Today I play my first event up at the LA Poker Classic. I'm commuting for this one, which is really ugh. The tournament starts at 3:30 p.m. (why oh why?) and won't wrap up for the night until about 4am as I understand things. Then, I have to make the 1.5 hour drive home (if I make it that far). If I have to come back for the second day, that starts at 9pm. Really bizarre scheduling.

Anyway, today's event starts with 5k chips and a pretty decent structure. Looking forward to the play, but not the drive.

Sigh....again

About 1300 entrants in last night's Full Tilt "FTOPS" Event, a $322 rebuy 6-max event (i.e. 6 players at each table instead of 9). I ended up in for $1,522 (initial buyin, initial rebuy, a double rebuy when I busted, and the addon). I really felt I played perhaps my best tournament, playing very aggressive against the right players. I had a Top 10 stack for quite awhile late in the tournament, then with about 80 left things got messy.

The carnage began when I called a raise out of the big blind with A9ss, and checked the Q-high flop with two spades and shoved over his c-bet, only to have him instacall with QQ and somehow not find a spade on the turn or river. So that cost me about 1/3rd of my stack. The next bit of ugliness was when UTG put in his standard raise (which he was doing a lot) and the small blind reraised almost half his stack. I was in the big blind with AKs and shoved. UTG folded and the SB instacalled with AA and bam, I'm down to about 14 BBs. A few hands later I'm in the cutoff with KJo and just under 12 BBs, so I open shove and the big blind calls with A7o and I fail to improve and bust 59th.

So that's it. Play great for six hours, get a little lucky, build a big stack and am ITM looking at $247k for first place, and then three standard hands and I'm out of the tournament. Gotta love this game.

Another tough ending, and Pokerxfactor.com

Yet another tough one last night. With 30 left in the $109 rebuy on Pokerstars and about $38k for first place, a guy UTG made a standard raise and I reraised from the small blind with QQ. He shoved and I called and he showed the somewhat surprising TT. Unfortunately, the 4:1 favorite did not hold, as the flop came KJT and I failed to redraw out on him despite my open ended straight draw. Ugh. I'm 3rd in chips if I win that pot with 29 left.

Anyway, I also have some other big poker news from the last couple months. I was signed as a "guest pro" by the PokerXFactor website (http://www.pokerxfactor.com/) to do instructional videos. I did my first one six weeks or so ago and got very good feedback from the subscribers, and will be doing my second one over the next couple of weeks. Basically, you show your entire tournament in a replayer and comment on your hands as they are played. The pay is excellent and it is pretty fun, and there's really no better learning tool then having to teach.

I will be playing another round of big online tournmants tonight and then will not play until the $2.5k tournament at the LA Poker Classic this Friday.

Another deep run, and an explanation of backing

Last night was yet another near miss. The nightly 109r was a huge field last night, with 41k going for first. I got 15th, busting on this hand. Button who had been opening from LP a lot raises, I shove about 18 BBs in from the small blind with 99. Big stack is in the big blind and thinks and overshoves with AJ and other guys folds. We have a coinflip for a huge pot, but the A hits the flop and I'm busto. Ugh.

Also, some friends have been asking how this backing thing works. I am backed by the two biggest backers in the business, at least as far as I am aware, known online as "Sheets" and "Johnnybax." They pay for all my buyins for all tourneys. If I am in the red, they get all profits until I am out of the red. In other words, under no circumstances do I ever have to pay with my own money, and I never owe them money if for whatever reason the backing deal ends. However, I can't just quit and go play on my own, although I can quit and just not play anymore.

If I am in the black overall, then we split profits 50/50. Thus, they are taking 50% of my profits in exchange for me having literally no negative variance. I can quit the deal anytime I am in the black and go play on my own dime if I wish. They back me for all online tournaments, including the weekly $1k's and the nightly 109 rebuys. They also back me for live tournaments up to $10k Main Events.

That's the short of it. It's a very good deal for me, allowing me to play big live events that I would pretty much never play on my own dime, and to have no concerns over downswings while depending on my law practice for my regular income.

At any rate, that's my backing deal, and that's how I'm able to play so many big buyin live events, including the upcoming $10k ME at the LA Poker Classic (along with a $1.5k and a 2.5k event).

Online Sundays

I don't play the big "major" Sundays all that often anymore, but with football season over and not much going on, I figured I'd put in a full day yesterday. It turned out being pretty eventful.

The closest I got to a big score was 21st out of more then 3000 entries in the Pokerstars "Sunday Warmup," with $109k for first place. I busted by getting it allin preflop with AQ vs. A5, only to see two 5s hit the flop. The next hand I was short and shoved K7 from late position only to get looked up by AK and bust out. From good shape to take down a major score to out in two hands, such is poker.

I also went very deep in the Full Tilt "FTOPS" $322 event. I think I busted about 130th out of around 5000 players, with almost $300k for first place. Ugh, one of these days I will get deep and finish off one of the big tourneys for a major score.

Looking forward to the LA Poker Classic (WPT) events. I added a third tourney this morning, because my backers offered to send me to the Laker game (5th row tickets!) the night before a $1.5k tournament. Um, okay! Works out well because Lexie is out of school, so we will be heading up there for a couple nights together during the middle of next week. I'll be playing tourneys this Friday, next Wednesday, and then the $10k Main Event the following Saturday.

Rincon ME: Busto

The first few levels went pretty well, and I felt good having accumulated up to 25k by the second break. Not great shape, but not bad. A couple tough hands, a lot of folding, a questionable bluff, and next thing I knew I was sitting on about 12k with the blinds at 400/800/100. It folded to me in the SB and I had AJ with about 15 BBs. The big blind was very tight, so this was a pretty easy shove. He tanked for about 15-30 seconds and then called and flipped up aces. Great, got slowrolled on top of the horrible situation.

Not a good week at Rincon, but mostly I think I played well and ran bad. I think I made a few questionable decisions, though, so definitely have a little tightening of my game to do. I am very busy at work these days, so I am not sure how much playing I will be doing in the coming weeks. As of right now, I'm planning to play up at the LA Poker Classic in a couple weeks. Just two events, though, including the $10k Main Event. Hopefully I will run better and play a little better as well.

Rincon $1k busto, Rincon $5k ME today

I did not getting around to updating Sunday's result, which was the same as the other two results unfortunately. Once again, I never got much above the starting stack size, and after staying patient for four hours ended up short and my allin shove of QJo ran smack into KK. Yikes. In four hours, the biggest pocket pair I saw was 99, and I never saw AK once.

Today is the last tournament, the $5k Main Event. With $20k starting stacks and 60 minute levels, I intend to once again stay very patient early, and then once antes kick in during the third hour, start slowly ramping up the aggression and picking spots to make moves. The field will probably be small and pretty tough, so I will need to run well.

Rincon $750: busto

I'm out and back home in time to watch the UCLA game tonight, that's the good news. The bad news is that once again I couldn't really get anything going. I feel better today, though, because I feel like I made the correct decision in every tough situation I found myself in.

Three hands killed me.

First, in the second hand of the tournament a guy in EP limps for 50, and a guy on my immediate right in MP raises to 150. I have KK and raise to 450 (we started with 9k). It folds back to the MP guy, and he gives off pretty strong "live tell" vibes that he has a big hand, and doesn't take long to make it 950 total. I feel he probably has AA and I make the call, knowing I can take the rest of his stack if a K happens to hit. Flop is Q45 with two clubs. He bets 2500 into the 2000 pot and I think for awhile and fold. I felt he had to have AA, but if he didn't the next most likely hand was QQ. His bet sizing on the flop was odd, but it seemed like the "I don't want to have my AA sucked out on" type of bet. So, laying down KK there was not fun.

Not much later, a young kid, kinda aggro and plays a little odd, limps in EP, another guy limps behind him, and I limp KJs in late position. SB folds and the BB checks so we are four ways. The BB checks the K34 flop (two clubs). The kid checks, the other guy checks, and I bet out about 3/4 pot. Folds to the kid who just over minraises me? Seems very odd to do with any kind of hand, and it seems like he might have thought I was trying to buy it and is putting on a move. I call and everyone else folds. Turn is a 9h, and I call his bet. River is a 7d and I again call his bet, thinking he has to be on some kind of weird bluff. He turns over 34 of hearts for bottom two pairs. Very strange way to play it on the flop IMHO and I don't think I can fold there given I can't really put him on a hand.

The last fun hand was when I had about 8k with the blinds/antes at 300/600/75. Same aggro kid limps in MP, I have KQ in the SB and opt to call. Raising might be okay here as well, but I felt that hitting a K or Q would be deceptive and I could get him or the aggro BB to bluff of chips. The flop was K99 with two diamonds. I thought about a c/raise but decided on betting out instead, thinking it would be deceptive and they would try to push me off the hand. C/raise may have been better (well not from a results oriented point of view). So I bet out just under pot, and the BB smooth called quickly which looked to me like a flush draw or a 9. The aggro kid then raise enough to put me all-in. Reluctantly I folded, and they ended up allin with the BB having a flush draw and the other guy have T9 for trips. Good fold.

The rest was just shortstack math, and I feel that I played well. At the first break I was down to about 5k, but got back to about 11k shortly after the break with some well timed reraising and shoving allin. But not much went my way after that.

Tomorrow is the $1k. I fear the field will be very small being Super Bowl Sunday and all. Hopefully not.

Rincon $550: busto

Today did not go well. I busted in the third level, right before the break. I was mostly treading water around the starting stack, then as the blinds quickly went up, I lost a couple big hands and was out. Nothing too exciting to describe. Had a couple close hands that I probably could have gotten away from.

Tomorrow's another day.

WSOPc Rincon: $550 event today

Today is the $550 buyin event at Rincon, my first live poker since the WPT Main Event at the Bike a few months ago. It gets underway at noon. Very much looking forward to it. I do not expect a big field today, being a work day and such, but I definitely feel I need a couple live tournaments to warm up for Tuesday's $5k Main Event. Live poker is almost a different game then online poker, and you have to sort of get dialed into the much slower flow of the game, and the greatly magnified issues of reads and image.

If anything interesting happens and I'm sitting around bored on a break or something, I will update from my phone. Otherwise, I'll post a summary tonight or tomorrow morning of what happened.

World Series of Poker Circuit at Rincon

I am playing four events at Rincon in San Diego at the World Series of Poker circuit event this coming weekend. I will be playing the $550 on Friday, the $750 on Saturday, the $1060 on Sunday, and the $5150 Main Event on Tuesday. It has been quite awhile since I played live poker, so I am really looking forward to it. I will also be playing the LA Poker Classic later in February including the $10k WPT Main Event.

I am going to revive this blog for these events and at least update daily, perhaps even send updates at breaks if I have time. Stay tuned.

Quick Update

It has been a LONG time since I posted. I have a different blog at which I will occasionally post poker stuff along with whatever else I'm writing about. The web address is paulesmith.blogspot.com.

Back to "normal" life

It has been a couple weeks now since WSOP 2006 ended for me. It was a great experience, and I'm happy to have two good cashes in five events under my belt.

I am back to my "normal" life now. I'm back to my online poker routine, which has been pretty blah since I have been back. I did make the final table of the Saturday night $162 ($2k added) tournament on Party, finishing 7th for about $2,400. That was a crazy final table. I immediately shoved JJ and got called by AK and lost and was literally down to 1/2 big blind. Then I went on a crazy run and built my stack right back up to around the table average. Then JJ bit me again when I pushed it UTG, ran into AQ, and again lost the virtual coinflip, this time busting out 7th.

It is nice getting back to our normal recreation routine as well. We saw Ben Harper on Sunday night (outstanding concert, our third time seeing him). Last night we caught the Padres game (and they again lost). Next week we are seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers (finally, as I have never seen them before).

Friday, unfortunately, I go in for foot surgery to determine what's wrong with my bone that my fourth toe attaches to, which is my second surgery in a year. Only 36, and my body is apparently already breaking down. I guess this is partially a price of being a big dude and playing a lot of sports over the years.

Anyway, I will continue to update this blog from time to time mostly with poker stuff. I'm not currently planning to play any more big events this year, because we have two trips to Hawaii planned (with the second one being to see U2 and Pearl Jam in Honolulu which I am seriously stoked about). I will mostly be sticking to online poker, but will post interesting hands or results from time to time.

WSOP ME Lesson: he took what's mine!

I am back home from a grueling five weeks of a lot of live poker, including four pre-ME WSOP events and the ME. Of course, the reflection has begun and I have concluded there are very specific areas of my game that need lots of work, and I am looking forward to putting in that work and improving significantly between now and next year. When I think back and realize that it was a little over one year ago that I began playing NL holdem, and that I really just ramped up my MTT game significantly since March of this year, I am stoked to be where I am and optimistic about my future.

I have given some thought to what allowed me to cash in the ME (another time I will talk about why I didn't go deeper then the minimum cash), and I concluded that the single biggest reason I went as deep as I did while many very good players might not have was my response to losing significant chips in Day 1 and Day 2.

In Day 1 in the first couple hours I pretty smoothly chipped up to about 13k in chips and was feeling pretty good about my game. The first break came and I was stoked to tell friends and family that my stack had improved and that things were going relatively well. I was looking forward to continuing to grow my stack at a reasonable pace. I was happy with the way things were going.

Then, I took a hit. I ran a bad semibluff against a guy who was never folding and failed to connect on the turn or river. I compounded the failed attempt by making an ill-advised big river bet, resulting in my stack being chopped in half in one hand. What was a pretty little stack in front of me was now pretty pathetic, and I was sitting at 6k, approaching just half of my original stack. I was literally in shock.

In Day 2, I went in with an above average 34k in chips, and again felt very good, particularly since I had built most of that stack late in Day 1. In the days off, I had researched my table and plotted my tentative strategy, and felt very good about my chances to continue to grow my stack. Then, four hours of the toughest poker I have ever endured. In the first two hours, I get AA twice and KK and get no callers of my preflop raises. On the other hand, every steal or raise with a mediocre hand would be met with a shove. I had a couple tough calls getting 2:1 that I lost. In hours 2-4 more of the same. I pickup JJ and raise and get reraised, call and see the flop, and have to check/fold to a guy showing KK. I make a straight on the river head's up and lose to a higher straight. The kicker was picking up AA again, getting it all-in preflop against AK, and having to chop up the pot when we both make a straight on the river. My pretty 34k chip stack is now down to 12k. Again, I am stunned and in shock.

Part of human nature is to protect what's ours. We work for our possessions, and feel extremely violated when they are taken from us wrongfully. When we lose something of value to us, we grieve for our loss and vow to get that something back, or do something to make up for it. Often, we want revenge.

In poker terms, once those pretty chips are stacked neatly in front of us, we consider them ours. We either paid for them or worked hard to obtain them, and we think almost exclusively in terms of getting more, how good that will feel, and what we need to do in order to make that happen. We rarely think in terms of what will happen if we have some of them taken away from us, how we will react and what our strategy will be. So when these chips all of a sudden end up in some else's possession, for whatever reason they got there, it is an extreme psychological jolt.

This is magnified, of course, when you are playing live and can look at them there in front of another person, who is looking happy and content to be possessing what once was yours. Sadness, anger, a thirst for vengence, panic. These emotions can all come to the surface in a bubbling soup of shock and confusion. They can be directed at the "thief," ourselves, or just the poker gods in general, but they are sure to arise in one form or another. It's human nature.

How we react to this inevitability (i.e., that we are sure to lose a significant amount of chips at one point or another in a larger tournament) may determine the difference between a major cash and a major flameout. The human nature part of us is going to push an immediate desire to get those chips back to the forefront of our mind. We have to fight this desire and instead focus on playing whatever stack we have optimally and making each decision as +EV as possible.

I have no magic psychobabble theory on how each person should deal with the shock of losing a significant amount of chips. Just understanding that this can happen, and what the human nature reaction is to such an event, is over half the battle. Finding the path to accept what happened, learning from it (whether it was your own mistake or a manner in which the hand was played by an opponent that will tell you something about future hands), and resetting your situation and the table dynamics is something you have to be able to do quickly and completely.

My point of this post is not to tell you how to get through your own personal reaction to significant chip loss, it's to get you to recognize that you ARE going to react to it, and that you need to get through it and on to playing good poker under whatever conditions you are left with. It seems I hear about, or read about, significant chip loss in these bigger events all the time, and then how that led to "having" to make a move shortly thereafter that resulted in elimination from the tournament. I wonder how often that move really had to be made, as opposed to the move being a subconscious desire to get back those pretty stacks we so pleasantly owned which were taken from us so wrongfully.

I made many mistakes in the ME that may have cost me a chance to go significantly deeper then I did in the tournament. On the other hand, fighting through the panic that bubbled over in response to losing that pot early in Day 1, and the run of terrible luck early in Day 2, did allow me to reset my situation and realize I had nothing to be in a panic about. Both times, although my stacks were significantly damaged, I had plenty left to play solid poker with, and I am proud of the fact that I did so and pushed away that strong desire to make something happen to get back those chips. Toward the end of Day 1, after staying patient all day, I was able to grow that stack up to 34k (including busting Gus Hansen in the process). Late in Day 2, again after staying patient and fighting off panic, again I was able to grow my stack back up to over 55k going into Day 3.

Finally, in Day 3, I again played very poorly and saw my 55k stack steadily decline as the money bubble approached (the opposite of what we want to happen). Instead of allowing myself to panic, which I often wanted to do, I stayed patient waiting for opportunities, and when they did not come I took my medicine and cashed for $14.5k rather then trying to "make a move" out of desperation.

We all know that in tournaments it takes just one hand to take away our shot at a huge payday. We can't let that hand be the result of a poor decision due to the frame of mind we are in after a signficant chip loss.

$$$ but out

I busted but made the money. $14.5k.

Break 2

24k. Not looking good but will try to make good decisions.

Break 1

Down to 31.5k.

WSOP ME: Day 3 about to get underway

Three hours to go until Day 3 gets underway, the first day in which the entire field is combined. There were almost 9,000 entrants and there are 1,159 of us remaining. I have 55.2k in chips, which is good for somewhere around 670th currently. Ultimately 873 will make the money for a minimum of about $14.5k, although the payout structure seems very flat after that. You have to go considerably farther to make significantly more money.

I have unfortunately received a terrible table draw. I have the second chip leader two to my left, with a guy with about 150k and about 2.2 million in lifetime earnings on his left. I also have Layne Flack on a shortstack two to my right. It's going to make for a very interesting table dynamic and I am going in with an open mind and willingness to adapt to how things develop early.

I noted that there are very few truly short stacks going into today, so the money bubble may not burst for quite awhile. Although I never cease to be amazed in these bigger tournaments how quickly the field gets whittled down. It should be interesting to see how things develop in the first few hours.

I am stoked that for the first time in five events my wife gets to railbird for awhile today. She has been out here with my daughter for most of the time that I have been out here, but due to the lame "no kids allowed" rule in the WSOP room, she has not been able to see any of the play.

I will try to give updates at breaks once again, so look for them about one every 2.5 hours, although we are playing only 1 hour at the current level so I imagine we will get a break one hour after getting underway today. Once again, thanks for all the supportive comments. Comments left here are copied to my email and I get them on my phone at the event, so they are very appreciated.

WSOP Day 2 - survive and advance

Another difficult day where most things went wrong and yet I managed to accumulate back up at the end of the day to a reasonable stack.

The first four hours of the day were brutal. I started with 34k, and got down to about 12k (I think) at one point. I got AA twice and KK once and got no action, taking down the blinds/antes all three times. However, whenever I would steal or raise with mediocre hands I would get shoved over almost every time. I actually worried a bit about live tells, but I really don't think it was that. Just bad timing/luck. Like, for example, raising with A3 on the button and getting shoved over and having about 2:1 to call and making the call to lose to A8 after just barely missing a chop. This kind of thing happened several times.

Then, I get AA again, and UTG puts in a love 4k raise with 400/800 blinds. I minraise it to 8k knowing he's going to have to push, which he does with AK. So, I'm like a 9:1 favorite or something but the river brings a straight for both of us and we chop up the pot. Lovely. At this point, I was fighting tilt pretty hard. A few hands earlier I lost a big pot when I rivered a straight only to lose to a higher straight. And a few hands before that I raised, got reraised, and I called with JJ. Flop came Q high and I checked, he shoved, and I folded and he showed KK.

But, much like Day 1, I tightened up, treaded water for awhile, and then after dinner I was able to chip back up to 55k while really only catching one big hand. Once my table broke, I think I played my new table very well. Unfortunately, we had a guy "stalling" to make it to Friday so there was almost no action in the last 45 minutes. It was a very strange situation, and I was at a loss as to whether to call clock so that I could continue to accumulate or just let it go, as the entire rest of the table seemed willing to do. I was tired and didn't want to piss off the rest of the table so I let it go, but I think it was a very -EV thing for me to do. Chipping up to 70k or so would have been very advantageous for me.

At any rate, I am now on to Day 3 which is Friday at noon (Layne Flack at my table with Annie Duke one over and Phil Ivey one behind me). I will have a Day 3 preview up shortly. I have serious issues with the table draw, as I will have a 440k stack two to my left and Flack (again) two to my right with a shortish stack with which I expect him to be very, very aggressive.

End of day

I have made it to day 3 on Friday with about 50k.

Last break

Have about 47k. There are 620 left in our half of the field. We are
playing one more hour. If I make it through that it is on to Day 3 on
Friday.

Dinner break

I went on a rush before dinner and got back to 45k. Not bad considering
hands like my AA having to chop with AK when we both made straights on the
river.

Break 2

Down to 15k. Brutal. Picked up aces twice and got no action. But
everytime I raised with a mediocre or stealing hand someone would shove.

Blinds and antes will be 400/800/100 so it is time to move or go home.
This is pretty much the situation I was in most of Day 1.

Break 1

Down to 19k. Very rough first two hours.

WSOP ME, Day 2 an hour away

I will be heading over to the Rio in a few minutes to play Day 2. I am excited but not nervous. I spent some time this morning researching my table and have a good draw. No "name" pros. Smaller stacks to my left, larger stacks to my right. Only three guys with a public record of winnings, and they are on the opposite side of the table.

I have 34k and am at Table 4, Seat 2. I do not have a predetermined strategy, but will play pretty tight out of the box and see who understands the blinds/antes and how they affect things, and then slowly begin to go to work on steals/resteals, etc. Who knows, I will adapt as things develops. As always, I hope only to play well by making good decisions. I am breaking this marathon tournament down into 2 hour sections so as not to be overwhelmed. I think only about playing my table for those two hours and not beyond.

Thanks again for all the support. I will update every two hours or so when I am on break.

I'm not out! Late blog posts just arriving?

For whatever reason, some of my updates from my Treo are just now arriving on my blog several days later. I was wondering why they never showed up. So no, I am not out of the Main Event. I deleted the ones that just showed up, but more may arrive during the day today so I apologize for any confusion in advance.

WSOP ME: Day 2 tomorrow

First, regarding the Gus Hansen bustout hand, my friends Nath and Jason pointed out that with top two pair on the flop I should have check/raised the third guy in the hand. However, I had the board wrong. Whatever it was, I had top pair with the weak kicker and was worried he had a stronger ace.

Anyway, on to tomorrow. I will be playing at noon and will be at Table 4, Seat 2 with just under 34k in chips, which I believe is a bit above average. Today I will be looking up the other players at my table and getting an idea of chip stacks and the experience level of my table opponents. My plan is to play quietly aggressive, stealing the blinds and antes and looking for an occasional resteal over a loose late position opponent.

I have not seen the actual numbers yet, but I believe there will be around 3200 remaining going into Day 2, with 1600ish playing on Tuesday and 1600ish playing on Wednesday. Thursday will be an off day, and the fields will be combined into the same day for the first time when play resumes on Friday. Somewhere around 880 will get paid, I'm guessing at least $13,000, with the "money" bubble probably bursting on Friday.

Of course I have no idea whether I will still be in next Friday. As always, I hope only to play well by making good decisions, the rest is up to the cards.

WSOP ME: Day 1 recap

I don't think I have the energy to write up a long report, maybe more in spurts later. However, many people have been asking about the Gus Hansen bustout so I'll recap that quickly and give some overall thoughts.

As for Gus Hansen, this happened at the last level of the night (between 1am and 3am) and the blinds/antes were 200/400/50. I'm working from hazy memory, so forgive me if I don't get things exactly accurate.

Two absolutely horrible players limp in early position (as they did over and over again despite the high blinds/antes). By the way, on a sidenote, the one guy was so bad he folded his "option" in the big blind at least three times to only the small blind who completed. Wow. Anyway, they limp and as he has been doing Gus limps from LP wanting to play with these two postflop. I have just 200 more to complete from the SB so I do it reluctantly with J4s. The big blind comes along so we are now five handed going to the flop (very rare this late in the tourney). I would guess I had like 12k and Gus had about 10k to start the hand.

Anyway, the flop comes J83 rainbow. Unexcited about my top pair, weak kicker, I check and it checks all the way around. The turn comes another unexciting card, a 6 I think. I check again to see how things develop and it checks around to Gus (acting last) and he sets out 1700. I hesitate and call, the rest of the table folds and we are on to the river. The river comes an ace and I ask Gus what he has left, which is 5.2k. I'm relatively certain I'm ahead and figure I'll check and hope Gus bluffs at the pot. I do, and he does, for 2.5k. I give it a little more thought and call, and Gus mucks and says "you win."

Gus left himself with like 2.7k or something, and was muttering to himself incessantly, calling himself stupid, etc. It is hard for me to criticize someone who I literally think is among the very best, elite poker players in the world. I just don't think that betting into the turn with four other players in the hand (including the two calling station bad players) with nothing was a good idea, and considering how tight I had played betting the river after I called and ask for his chip count was really not a good idea. He knew this and thus the self-berating that went on until he left.

His bustout hand came when he was in the big blind with about 2500 left. I got A7 in EP and (now having a stack) raised. The huge stack on the button called (uh oh) and Gus obviously shoved his remaining chips in from the big blind. I called as did the button. The flop came A74 or something and I checked and the button bet and I instacalled. We checked down the turn and river and Gus was out with his 66. The button had 42s for bottom pair on the flop so I raked in another pretty hefty pot.

Gus played another hand that I will reluctantly criticize for a ton of chips. He raised from EP with AA. The big blind (the same huge stack guy) called in the big blind and seemed to really think over a reraise but settled on calling. The flop came T94 rainbow. Big blind checked and Gus bet, and big blind called without much excitement. Here is where it got interesting. A jack came on the turn and the big blind gave off a blatant live tell. He frowned, sighed, and checked. Gus, appearing not to have observed the big blind at all, bet out again. The big blind then immediately check/raised. Everything was saying that the jack had given him some kind of monster, either a straight or a set. Still, Gus called. The big blind then bet out pretty big on the river with a blank card, and Gus again reluctantly called. The pot was huge, and the big blind raked it in with his set of jacks.

Anyway, it's pretty ridiculous to sit here and criticize someone with poker skill and aptitude that I will never have, but his play was his play. Gus was really great to be at the table with, very personable (although quiet) and really good for the game without being at all obnoxious at any point. I have no played extensively with Jen Harmon, "Sheik" Shekhan, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, Layne Flack, and Gus, and Gus was definitely the most enjoyable, although the only one I kinda disliked was Flack, who was super talkative when things went well and/or the cameras were around, but super quiet and annoyed when things weren't going his way.

So I am now on to Day 2, which will be on Tuesday at noon, so I have plenty of time to recover from 15 hours of grueling poker yesterday. I think I played poorly early, but my patience is something I am very proud of, and I think I played very well the last couple hours both getting hands but also making some moves. Poker is fun.

On Day 2 there will be about 3200 total left out of the apparently 9000 or so total entrants. Probably about 900 will get paid. If I make it through Tuesday I won't play again until Friday.

I will have more to say between now and Tuesday.

Patience pays: I'm headed to day 2

After spending almost the entire day treading water between 4k and 8k, I went on a run at the end of the day today to spring from 5k up to 33,775 to end the day. Highlights include taking a big pot from Gus Hansen and then busting him a couple hands later. Gus was a real pleasure to play with.

It's 4:30am, the latest I've been up in possibly decades, and I'm dead tired. I'll post a more detailed update tomorrow (later today!).

Break 5

7.5k. Phone battery almost dead.

Live updates

I was told on break that pocketfives.com is doing live updates and that I
was featured at least once with picture. Check it out if interested.

Break 1

I have 12,200. Layne Flack three to my right obnoxiously hamming it up
for the cameras.

Table assignment

I will be at table 112, seat 5 today if anyone wants to railbird. Cards in
the air in just over one hour.

WSOP Main Event: 3 hours away and counting

I am three hours away from my first WSOP Main Event. Still no nervousness whatsoever, which is a good thing. I am really happy that I won my seat through an online satellite. Instead of feeling like I have $10k invested in this, I feel like I am on a freeroll. I spent about $900 trying to qualify, and won the $10k buyin, a free room at the MGM for the week, and $1k in spending money. Thus, I really feel like I am playing for free and have no investment in the outcome of this tournament.

I probably did not "prepare" as well as I should have last night. I stayed up until a little after midnight playing a $2/5 cash game while waiting for my wife and daughter to arrive. I won about $550 yesterday playing cash games though, so that was a nice little momentum builder (winning money with somewhat deepstacks like we'll start with today). At any rate, I did get a decent night's sleep and a good room-service breakfast and am enjoying just taking it easy with my family this morning.

As for the ME, I have thought a lot about strategy and talked with many poker friends over the last week or so. I am not going to deviate from my general default strategy despite having very deep stacks, which is not something that I am used to. I am going to play very tight, adapt to the table as needed, and get more aggressive as the antes kick in. I am going to look to play pots with weak players, and avoid strong players. I will, however, look to play pocket pairs and suited connectors against the stronger players, which will make my postflop decisions pretty clear. I will know pretty well where I stand when the flop hits. I will not be playing mediocre hands like KJ or probably even KQ. It's premium hands or speculative hands for me, maybe with an occasional "position move" here and there.

The bottom line, as always, is that I am looking to play well by making good decisions. The rest is up to the poker gods. I will be updating my blog throughout the day at breaks.

Countdown to WSOP Main Event

I am three days away from my first WSOP Main Event, and looking forward to it.

First, though, a funny story from my online play last night. I played in only two tourneys because some family was visiting, busting in one about halfway through. In the other, the $109r "Oyster" on Paradise, I (for the first time ever) fell asleep during the tournament. When I fell asleep, I think I had about 12k with the big blind at 400. When I woke up I looked at my laptop to see about 5.2k in chips and the big blind at 1.2k, with about 30 players left and 20 getting paid. Not good when you have $309 invested in the tournament. However, I got lucky a couple times and actually built a decent stack and made the final table.

The final table was interesting, as an acquaintance of mine "Rizen," who in my opinion is the top online player in the world right now, was also there and was the massive chipleader. Unfortunately I went out in 8th place as I pushed TT from the button with about 9 big blinds, and Rizen called in the big blind with A2 and spiked the A. Good game, me. Rizen went on to take it down. Congrats to him (again!). I guess I should be happy to have cashed in a tournament in which I slept through a crucial portion of it. Maybe that should be my ME strategy?

So on to the Main Event. I decided not to go back to Vegas until Thursday. I had originally planned to go back on Monday and play in Tuesday's $1.5k NL event, but being home is really nice and should things go well in the ME, it will be a long grind. So, I wanted to get all the home time that I could and am now heading back on Thursday. PartyPoker is putting me up at the MGM, which is probably our favorite hotel anyway so that is nice. My wife and daughter will be flying out on Thursday night as well, so it will be really nice to have my family with me.

My start day is Day 1 on Friday, which I have mixed feelings about. I requested it, so I can't complain, but upon further review I would probably take Sunday. As is, if I survive the first day (playing from 2000ish players down to 800 on each of four days), then I won't play again until Tuesday. Even if I do not survive the first day, we won't be going home until Tuesday. So, Saturday through Monday will be a great time to relax, socialize with my poker friends, play a little poker here and there, etc. If any family or friends are thinking about coming out to Vegas, having those weekend days off is going to be fun so I encourage it!

As to the ME itself, this is my first "deepstack" tournament so I have been giving some thought about how to approach it. We get $10k starting chips, and levels are two hours each. To compare, all the other WSOP events I have played so far start with $1.5k chips and have one hour levels. My general approach to tournament poker is to play tight/solid early and then ramp up the aggression once the antes kick in, and to shift gears of course as the table dynamics dictate. I am going to take the same approach here, I think, as deviating from my normal style of play probably would not be good at this point. I will, however, look for more spots to get involved postflop with hands where I will have a pretty clear idea where I stand (suited connectors and gappers, all pocket pairs, etc.). I play those normally very early in tournaments but the difference is that in this case we will have a LONG time where playing those types of hands is appropriate. In the shorter stacked tourneys, you have only a couple levels where it is appropriate to generally be looking to play those types of hands before the "implied odds" value is no longer there because of the increasing blinds.

So I am excited to play, and as usual am focused only on playing well and staying focused on the present. I saw a quote somewhere that said something along the lines of "focused on the present, but tasting the future." I like that for some reason. I also liked a quote I read over the weekend from Earl Woods after Tiger's impressive British Open victory. Tiger won that tournament by playing the way the course dictated, not by trying to overpower it. Tiger Woods using driver on only ONE hole for an entire major championship, and winning it? Amazing. Anyway, Earl Woods told his son to develop a game plan for a round of golf and never deviate from it without good reason (or something like that). I am focused on not committing a major error in this event, and I think Mr. Woods's approach is a good one.

As has been my custom, I will update my blog from the event on Friday, and perhaps put something up before then. Anyone that wants to get together in Vegas, drop me an email at paulesmith@cox.net.

Event 27: bustout and headed home

I sent my bustout announcement from my phone last night, but I see this morning it did not post for whatever reason, so my apologies to anyone left wondering what happened after the dinner break last night.

When I was on dinner break, I decided that with just two hands left before the blinds hit me again and just 3600 in chips and 200/400/50 antes, I would shove in with anything decent in the first two hands. My first two hands went by with 93o and T4o. Ugh.

So the blinds went by and I went to dinner break's Plan B. A guy three to my right with a big stack had been open raising like crazy prior to dinner, so I knew my chance to open shove would be limited. Instead, if he opened and I had any kind of decent hand I was going to push knowing that he would have to call, but that I would probably be around a coinflip against his range but getting the 1100 chip overlay from the blinds/antes. He opened from MP, I shoved from LP with QJo, everyone folded and I was quite pleased to see him turn over 44 for the real coinflip. My plan succeeded, I just forgot to win the coinflip (he spiked the 4 on the turn) and I was out but very happy that I made a +ev play that just didn't happen to work out this time.

I had some really bad luck in this tournament and still managed to get relatively deep once again. I missed out on some real opportunities to accumulate early. By way of example, there was a very aggressive and good player at one of my early tables that had pushed me off two pots postflop (which he was also doing to everyone else at the table). One guy take him off a pot, and so he gets up to walk around and blow off steam. I had previously raised his big blind twice, and both times he played back at me aggressively and I missed on the flop and didn't continue. So it folds to me and I look down at AA which is a dream against this guy, and yet he's not at the table. I put in the standard raise and it folds around and I take down the blinds.

I just never got any traction in this tournament, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I still found myself deep and a coinflip from perhaps on my way to getting a workable stack. I had planned, if I won that flip, to gamble more and try to build up a bigger stack as the bubble approached and then really work the bubble. Alas, it was not to be.

So this afternoon I head for home, looking forward to seeing my family (they left yesterday), my dogs and cat, and my own bed. It has been a tough second trip, but still fun, and I look forward to coming back for the second to last event and the Main Event itself. But for now I look forward to the comforts of home.

Lastly, an acquaintance of mine, Carl Olson, is apparently still in yesterday's tournament and has a big stack (or is maybe even chipleader?). Good luck, Carl.

Dinner break

I made it to the dinner break with about 3600. Blinds/antes will be
200/400/50 when I get back so I am, as I have been all day, shortstacked.
It has been a long day of not getting any traction, but somehow I am still
in with about 350 left. About 210 will get paid, so my plan is to gamble
after dinner and try to build up a good enough stack to work the bubble
with.

Break 2: 3k chips

Hanging in there. Blinds will be 100/200 with 25 ante when we return.
Time to ramp up the aggression.

First break: 2375

standard first 2 hours. Report layer.

Event 27: Heading in with a little momentum

Event 27 begins at noon today, a $1.5k NL holdem tournament.

After a difficult run on the one-table SNGs, I won two of the three I played yesterday, a $225 and a $525, which gives me some nice momentum heading into today. I allowed too much chopping in the $525 which ultimately cost me some money, though. With five left, the other four all wanted to pull $500 each out of the prizepool. I didn't want to do it, particularly given I felt I was the best player left by a considerable margin, but also didn't want to raise a stink so I agreed. Then, once head's up and with a smallish lead in chips I agreed to take another $500 chip out each, leaving just $1.5k in the prize pool for first. I took it down for $2.7k including the $500 lasts longer pool, but definitely left equity on that table. I do believe in chopping some in these tourneys to control variance, but allowing $3k to be chopped out was probably a strategic mistake. Luckily in the $225, the guy refused to chop head's up with his 2:1 chip lead and I responded by taking it down for the entire $2.1k payout. Nice.

My family left for home this morning, which is bearable only because I will be following them as soon as today's event is over for me. They are excited to get home as we are all pretty sick of Vegas at this point. I will be coming back for the last pre-ME event and the ME itself, of course, but for now look forward to getting home and getting some time away from the game and more toward my regular life.

Lastly, congratulations to another online acquaintance that I have gotten the chance to meet out here, Brendon Taylor, for taking 7th in the $3k limit holdem tournament.

The next few days....

So today I plan to head over to the Rio shortly and again grind out a few of the sit-n-goes. I have been running extremely bad playing these, which is pretty hard to do since they are pretty soft. But, I have started keeping close track and I have literally lost 17 of my last 18 coinflip or near-coinflip situations. Amazing. Add in some bad beats, like going out third yesterday in a $325 when AQs lost to A5o all-in preflop, and, well, what can you do? The only thing I control is my decisionmaking and I think it has been very good. It's just that variance thing again.

My next tournament will be Tuesday's $2k NL, after which I have decided to head for home for a break. Vegas gets old really quick, as does living out of a hotel room. I need my family, my home, my dogs, etc. I will be coming back to play the last event before the Main Event and of course the Main Event itself.

By the way, thanks to all who have left the encouraging notes. This experience has really been something so far, and quite the roller coaster. My first trip was amazingly good, this one (so far) has been amazingly bad, but overally I am still up a lot of cash and enjoying the experience, and definitely improving my poker playing.

Congrats Nath!

Nath, a friend of mine from online poker playing and discussion, took second place in his first WSOP event yesterday, the $2.5k NL 6-handed event. I watched the whole final table, and he played outstanding poker. He got head's up with near equal stacks, but lost when his straight was beaten by a higher straight. Tough way to go out, but $238k will soften the blow.

Four of us from 2+2 then headed over to Bellagio and played 2/5 NL until 3am which was fun but I am not used to being up that late. Nath played like a maniac (of course) and it was very entertaining poker. Congrats again, that first bracelet is only a question of when.

Nath at final table

An online poker friend of mine, Nath, is underway at his first final table at his first wsop event.

"Rest" day today

I plan to take it pretty easy today. My family arrived yesterday morning, and since I busted early from Event 22 I spent the day with them, floating around the river pool at the MGM drinking Tecates and playing with my daughter, and then having an incredible feast on sushi at a Japanese restaurant in the MGM with my wife, daughter, and mom. The last week without my family has been much more difficult even then I anticipated (and I knew it would be tough). I enjoy the live poker game, but not coming home to my wife and daughter really drains all the fun out of it. Having them here yesterday made busting out of the $2k early quite easy to stomach.

Today I am going to head over to the Rio in a little while to play a few sit-n-goes and then sweat one of my online poker acquaintances who has made the final table of his first WSOP event, the $2.5k 6-handed event. That should be pretty fun to watch. I intend to update my blog live from that event for the 2+2 community and anyone else interested. Anyone who wants to meet up before that event kicks off should meet me at Starbucks at 1:30 p.m.(ish). I am 6'7" and mostly bald, so I am pretty easy to spot.

Event 22: Bustout hand, fold QQ?

I busted in the second hour of the $2k NL event today. I busted by making the mistake of pushing QQ over an MP raiser from the SB with QQ. How can that be a mistake? Here's how.

I'm down to 1100 chips after having no hands and hitting no flops, not even any draws. I feel to this point I have played flawlessly, and am in no panic whatsoever. I feel I have a good read by now on the entire table (which has at least two or three very good players, present company excluded).

So, it folds to MP who makes it 300 to go with 25/50 blinds. Us online donkeys know this is always some moron who is afraid to play postflop with a marginal hand and is happy to take down the meaningless 75. It folds to me in the SB and I look down at QQ. Move? Push, obviously.

Where did I go wrong? This is standard, right? I went wrong because I forgot I was playing live, and forgot that I am good at live reads if I only give myself a chance.

I don't know who the MP raiser was, but he was wearing two bracelets. His style was aggressive, but bets so far had been standard. Why in the world, with at least two shortish stacks remaining to act, would he open for 300? He can't be trying to take down the blinds. What is he up to? The answer is he is holding a monster and is trying to induce a donk like me to shove with a shoveable hand. I took the bait with the third best hand in the deck and paid the price.

So yes, I have learned a lesson. Folding QQ to an MP raiser with only 20ish BBs is possible, and possibly right. I think if I had given myself a chance to think through this at the time, I would have come to the right conclusion. Instead, being an online donk, I didn't think at all about my read on MP and paid the price.I post this so others can learn what I learned today without having to go through it, or I can be berated for even contemplating folding QQ in this situation.

Event 22: Bust

Didn't make the first break. Not getting good cards and missing every flop is no bueno. Not even draws. Then with 1100 or so left MP makes it 300 to go with 50 big blind. In the small blind with QQ I push. MP obviously has AA. I think I could have seen through his raise but meh. Next tourney please.

Event 22: Here we go

Event 22, 2k NL, about to get under way. Looking forward to having 2k chips. Will update at first break or when I bust.

Event 17: Trip Report

I was very pleased that they gave us 1500 chips to start this tournament, as I (and everyone else) had been expecting 1000. It is tough enough with only 1500, but 1000 would seriously be a joke.

The first two hours were very routine. I small-potted my way to 2100 by the break. I flopped a set once, but couldn't get any action. After the break, I ran into a couple very big hands. After running my stack up to about 2700, I ended up in a four way pot and flopped a set, which is the dream scenario. Unfortunately, one guy called my flop bet and turned a straight. He tried to slow play it, which saved me some chips, but I was down to about 1500 after that hand.

Only two hands later, a guy who had tried to give me lessons after the flopped set hand raised to 300 from LP into my big blind. I looked down at 99 and pushed. He called with AK and I lost the race, and just like that in two hands I was down to 350.

I went into push/steal mode at that point, and immediately doubled up by winning a 60/40. I started punishing limpers and slowly built up my stack without another showdown. For the next couple hours I played aggressive shortstack poker and actually at one point built it all the way up to 3400 with a 200 big blind. With the antes kicking in, I was intending to even become more aggressive.

Unfortunately, I ran into two "bad" spots where shortstack players shoved into my big blind giving me almost exactly 2:1 to call. Unless I would be so crippled I would essentially be out of the tournament, I always call in those situations with any two cards. The first time I had K5s and villain had A4o. Not a bad situation. I hit my 5 on the flop, only to see an A on the river. The second time, I had just 97s which made for an ugly call, but villain had AKo so (being results oriented) it was a good call. Again I hit a pair on the flop only to see an A on the river. A little frustrating. That took me down to 1600.

In the last hand, villain was on the button and I was in the SB. He made a standard raise but with a relatively short stack, which was an odd play. I looked down at KTs and shoved, knowing I was far ahead of his stealing range. He cried for about two minutes and then made the call with T3s, pretty much my best case scenario and leaving me about a 3:1 favorite to double up. The lovely K came on the flop, but with one spade (his suit). The turn was a spade, and the river was a spade, and my tournament was over with me finishing somewhere around 500th with about 2700 entries.

But my goal is always to play well and make good decisions, and I am very happy with the way I played that tournament. I got little help from the cards, but still managed to essentially steal my way into a position where one or two hands going differently would have at least sent me into the money. Now it will be on to Event 22 on Friday, a $2000 NL event.

One side note, the tournament director decided to run this event 11-handed all the way up to the time I left. With about 700 left, I threw a minor fit and asked to see him. He said they needed the room for satellites. I find that highly inappropriate. It is bad enough to start 11-handed, but to be 75% of the way through the field and still be 11-handed is ridiculous, and the excuse that those playing for a bracelet have to play 11-handed so they can run satellites is absurd. I think players need to be more vociferous about this issue.

Event 17: bust

Out about 500ish. Guy raised from button. I shove from SB with KTs. I am
elated to see him call with T3s. K flops and he runner runners a flush.
Next tournament.

Event 17: break 2

1650. Two key hands that I will write about later. Was down to 350. Big
blind will be 200 after break so going to need help. No idea how many
left.

Event 17: First Break

2100ish chips. They were nice enough to start us with 1500. Flopped a set
once but couldn't get paid. Otherwise just steadily accumulated. No
'names' at my table. All alternates have been seated and total entries
will be about 2700 again. Probably about 2100 left.

Hello, Mr. Variance

I arrived yesterday in Vegas after an uneventful trip. I was greeted by Mr. Variance, which in poker terms means it is a game of wild swings. Anyone who read my first trip report knows I was on a 'heater,' meaning I was enjoying the positive side of variance. I have also been on a heater online lately.

Yesterday, variance smacked me down in a minor way. I played 8 SNGs at Rio and managed only one second place chop and a lasts longer win. I don't think I played particularly well and the cards were cruel. Meh.

So today is the $1k event, my second of this series. There is a rumor that they will give us 1500 chips instead of 1000 which would be a substantial improvement. As always I hope only to play well and make good decisions.

Today will be my first attempt at live blogging the event.

Non-poker: Pearl Jam tonight

Before I head out to Vegas in a couple days, I get to do something I have waited fifteen years to do, see one of my favorite all-time bands live: Pearl Jam. I love the new CD and highly recommend it.

Here's a recent video from the Letterman show, an epic performance of Porch.

Pearl Jam - "Porch"

My tentative WSOP schedule

I am arriving back in Vegas on July 9th and tentatively plan to play the following events:

July 10th - Event 17 - $1,000 NL Holdem
July 14th - Event 22 - $2,000 NL Holdem
July 18th - Event 27 - $1,500 NL Holdem
July 21st - Event 31 - $2,000 NL Holdem
July 25th - Event 37 - $1,500 NL Holdem
July 28th - Main Event - $10,000 NL Holdem

I may skip one or two events to fly home for a few days, we'll see.

Won my WSOP Main Event seat

So last night, for the fourth time, I played an online satellite to the WSOP Main Event. The buyin was $215 with 550 or so entries and the top 10 finishers all getting entry packages. I played well, got lucky a couple times, and then pretty much cruised to victory. This is a relief, as I wanted to play in the Main Event but didn't want to have to face the prospect of paying the entry fee.

So, Party Poker will be paying my $10k entry fee, giving me $1k in spending money, and putting me up for the duration of the Main Event at the MGM Grand. My starting date will be July 28th, 29th, 30th, or 31st (they have four starting dates as they are expecting about 8,000 entries and will split the field up initially into four groups of 2,000 or so each).

I look forward to playing in my first Main Event with it's estimated $10 million first prize and, as always, hope only to play well and make good decisions. I will be updating from my Treo mobile phone throughout the Main Event as well as the four or five other events I plan to play before then.

First Trip: Event 2

My first trip to a WSOP (non-circuit) event has come and gone, and it was a very interesting trip indeed.

I flew to Vegas on June 25th and immediately headed over to the Rio to register for Event #2, $1,500 NL holdem. The registration process was, surprisingly, quite smooth. I handed over a wad of cash and they gave me my seat assignment. I headed over to Bellagio and got checked in for my five night stay.

I decided to play $2/5 NL cash game all day at Bellagio to keep things simple. It would be a good warmup to live action play, and I know I need to work on my cash game skills. So, I played all day Sunday and late into the night, and found the game surprisingly soft and added to $1.2k to my bankroll, which was quite a nice start to the trip.

I recall three fun hands off the top of my head. In the first, I held AKs and ended up in a position to push the flop with two overs and a flush draw to the Q73 board. Quite surprisingly, I got called by JJ and hit my K on the turn and made my flush on the river. Good start. A little later, I hit a set on the flop and let an overly aggressive young guy do all my betting for me. He eventually made a huge bluff bet on the river (by which time I had made my full house) and doubled me up. The last hand was not a big deal, but I was dealing with two obnoxious and very aggressive young guys. It was the last hand of the night, and I called one of them down with top pair and weak kicker and got to see him have to show his bluff. It was an enjoyable way to end the evening, taking away his chips while he berated me to his friend.

Monday morning I decided to head back to the Rio and play some satellites (one table sit-n-goes). I played a $135 or whatever it was and nothing special happened. I then had lunch with a couple of guys from the 2+2 forums which was great, and played a $325 sat with a $100 lasts longer. That satellite was interesting, as I played great early and nearly tripled up, but then lost KK<65o allin preflop and then later lost a couple races to finish 5th. That was a cruel satellite. After that, I had to head back to Bellagio to meet up with my wife and daughter who were arriving that afternoon.

After dinner with my wife and daughter (to eat anywhere in Bellagio you need to take out a second mortgage on your house), I decided to step up to the $5/10 NL game. This game was drastically different then 2/5, with almost everyone at the table being very good. I did manage to squeek out $400 in profits on the night, and was happy with my play although I basically just tried to stay out of trouble and hope to find an opportunity to stack someone (which never came).

Tuesday was the big day, my first WSOP (non-circuit) event. It was great having my family with me, and I spent the morning swimming with my daughter in the Bellagio pool which was a great way to relax. I felt good about my game and not invested in any outcome other then hoping to play well and make good decisions.

The day went by without too much eventful. I nearly tripled up early by limping and then calling an obviously very strong raise out of the blinds. A couple other callers came along. I held 77 and the 7 hit the flop and tripled me up as stacks were too short for the guy holding AA to even think about getting away from the hand. The rest of the day I just maneuvered in my usual style, picking up small pots here and there, never really building a big stack or getting into short stack territory.

Toward the end of the day we approached the bubble, which I think meant a $2.3k payday. It was pretty amazing how important this was to most people. I am not saying $2.3k is not important to me, but you just can't play like it is life and death to get there. You have to take advantage of those who are playing that way. I didn't find too much in the way of opportunity to do so, as I didn't have the bigger stack I would have preferred. The lowlight for me was a nice guy who played on my left for awhile going out around 300ish with 270 paying. He really wanted to make the money, as did his wife who was railbirding for hours and kept telling him how close he was. It was a very sad sight seeing them walk away. He played great and deserved to cash.

After cashing, the night was a lot of fun. I had an enjoyable table, with a couple bracelet winners but no big names. It was a bit surreal seeing Hellmuth, Harmon, Mortenson, Gordon, and of course Doyle in tables around me. I am not an idol worshiper, or celeb watcher, or anything like that. You won't see me asking for autographs. But considering where I have come from in this game over the last year, it was, well, surreal. The night ended around 1:30am and we had 122 left. First place payed around $750k, so it was going to be a long night and next day until we started up again at 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday. It actually wasn't bad, as everything was gravy to me at this point. I had cashed in my first WSOP appearance, and I was stoked. My only goal continued to be to play well and make good decisions.

So Wednesday morning was mostly sharing my experience with family and friends, and then I was back to the Rio at 2pm. My biggest impression from day 2 was that the size of the antes really makes every pot huge before any cards hit the felt, and you have to be aggressive and go after those pots. Unfortunately, most players left feel the same way, and that makes for fierce competition over almost every hand. It was a long, stressful day, and I don't think I played as aggressively as I should. Still, I maintained a moderate stack most of the day.

When we got down to 30 players or so things became very interesting. I had one hand where I raised from LP with AJo and was reraised by the SB in an awkward manner that left me confused. This hand generated a lot of discussion with friends and most seem to think that I correctly folded. I still don't know, but I think in the future I will err on the side of aggression.

I played next to Jennifer Harmon for quite awhile, and she was personable. She played very tight and passive. One hand I limped from the SB and she checked. We checked the flop and turn, and on the river I made a half-pot bet with nothing and she folded. I was a little surprised she didn't take that pot away from me at some point, but she looked to be uninterested in playing without a very strong holding.

Eventually I busted 20th on a very straightforward hand. I had a short stack, a little less then 10 big blinds, and pushed all-in from UTG with AQo. A guy in LP called with QQ. I got no help and was out just like that, which is a strange feeling after playing over 20 hours of poker in two days, seeing the FT and a WSOP bracelet on the immediate horizon, and then just like that it's over in a very routine way. No bad beat to feel bad about. No questionable decision to second guess. Just the wrong alignment of cards on a hand that everyone played correctly. I was ushered to fill out some paperwork and then collect $20.5k in a wad of $100 bills. Yes, that's really crazy and makes for an uncomfortable couple cab rides before it ended up deposited in my bank account.

No big celebration for me. I went back to my room and found my wife, who had been in hysterics (for her, she really NEVER gets hysterical) all night trying to find out updates and busily making contingency plans to get someone out there to watch our daughter if I made the final table. We "celebrated" by ordering a couple $7 beers from room service and hanging out together. My daughter desperately made it staying awake until I got home, and then was OUT just like that (kind of like my tournament results).

Thursday was my last day in Vegas, and I hung out with the family and then played beer 2/5. I usually don't drink when I play poker, but could afford to let loose a little on my last day. It was a lot of fun, and again I played very well and ran well which also helped. The lowlight of my trip was seeing a nice young girl with an average game blow through $300, rebuy for $200, and then leave crying when she lost that. It is a cruel game, and I felt really bummed to see that. Sometimes I wonder about the ethics of the "poker boom," but I wil save that for another blog entry. I wrapped things up by winning another $1.8k playing 2/5, and was off for home the next morning with my wife and daughter.

So, it was a good first trip, and I look forward to my return to Vegas on July 9th. As an aside, I got to meet several guys from 2+2 and that was pretty fun. I look forward to hanging out with them more when I get back to Vegas.