Vegas: Day 3

Today was not a good day pokerwise for any of us. I generally avoid posting bad beats but since this one isn't mine I think it's ok.

At 100/200 25 ante Steve is down to about 8K. Some guy who likes to limp then fold to raises limps and Steve makes it 1000 with T5o from the SB. The limper calls this time though and the flop comes A55. Steve bets about half the pot and the guy pushes like 6000 more. Steve beats him into the pot, and the guy shows AK. Turn K. River K.

As for me, I put in a 7 hour session of 2/5 NL at the Bellagio. I made approximately zero hands in this period. I didn't actually win a pot until about 2 hours in. Basically, there were 2 huge LAGs raising like every hand and hitting every flop. Both had like 2-3K behind, and the max buy-in was 500. The thing about these guys is they were both good players postflop and when a lot of money went in the pot they almost always had the goods. People just didn't seem to catch onto this though because of their awful preflop play and kept paying them off. So Lag 1 raises to 25 and gets a caller. I find KK in the SB and make it 100. LAG calls. Flop QJx. This is a terible flop for my hand under normal circumstances since a solid player has QQ or JJ in his position a lot. However against this guy I thought it was great because he could have like anything and lots of stuff might pay me off. For some reason I forgot that this guy actually knew what he was doing and had just called a substantial reraise from the tightest guy at the table. I fire 200 and he pushes me in for my last 170 or so. I have to call and lose to AA. Good times. I guess I'm prboably just supposed to go broke here anyways.

Eventually this guy leaves and there's only 1 LAG left. We've had a few small confrontations, usually with me folding marginal hands to his aggression before I had a good read on his play. Anwyays I find AQs and raise to 20 behind a limper. One guy calls behind, LAG calls from the blinds, and limper calls. Flop AJ9 rainbow. Checked to me and I bet 50. LAG checkraises to 150. Like I said he actually played pretty solid postflop and he had to figure I have a hand here so what is he checkraising me with? A worse ace he probably just calls and I don't think he'd even play a straight draw this aggressive since he probably doesn't expect me to fold a good hand here given his image. Anyways he's also a big tellbox and says "Kings are no good" at which point I muck pretty quickly because I'm not good. He shows an ace as he rakes the pot, and I'm pretty confident he had 2 pair.

This brings us to the most ridiculous hand of the session. LAG opens to 20, weak lady calls, and I randomly call with the Q9s from the SB. Flop Q54, I check and LAG bets only 20 (tell 1). lady folds and I call. Turn Q. I check, LAG bets 30. I still feel like he could be very strong and if he has nothing I'd rather let him continue to bet anyways. River A and I check again. He asks how much I have left and puts me allin for my last 400. Holy massive overbet. OK, I'm pretty sure I'm beat right here (he's not actually crazy remember, just trying to appear that way), but I strongly consider tilt calling. Then he says something like "You didn't slowplay kings again did you?" (tell 2). Then he turns over one of his cards, an ace (tell 3) and says see, kings no good. At this point I turbomuck because I'm not an idiot. For some reason I showed the queen and he later tells me I made a good fold, but I was pretty sure of that one anyways. I play a little longer and miss some more flops and stuff before quitting down only $1000.

For people interested in "poker celebs", they were playing the big game at Bellagio today and I saw Chip Reese, Gus Hansen, and Barry Greensein playing it. Minh Ly was down there waiting for a seat also and I saw Sean Sheikhan as well. Going to bed now. Tomorrow is a big day, hopefully Aaron and I fare better than Steve.

Mike