Monday, July 31, 2006

Vegas: Day 4. The Main Event.

Breaking News: SirWatts terrible at poker. This day didn't go at all like I was expecting. I played really loose aggressive all day trying to take advantage of the tight players and kept getting in tough spots. This resulted in monstrous roller coaster swings of my chip stack. Here's how it went down.

I sit around and fold for a bit. Everyone is playing stupidly tight so I decide to start raising a lot and I steal some chips and am lucky enough to hit a flop or 2 as well and get some chips, but then I donk one up.

Blinds 25/50

Hand 1: I raise it to 200 with 89o from some position, likely enitrely too early to even be considered reasonable, and get called by the solid young player on my left. Flop 887. I bet 300 he calls. Turn 6 I bet 600 and he calls. River K I bet 1500 and he folds. Probably a little too greedy there.

Hand 2: I raise UTG with 54s and get one caller. Then random tight guy on the other side of the table makes it 600 on the button. I call and other dude calls. Flop Q44. Check to tighty who bets 800. I make it 2200 and get 2 folds. So lame.

Hand 3: I make it 200 with KQs in the CO and nit lady in the BB makes it 600. I call (I should probably just fold). Flop K87 she bets 1000 I call because, well, I have top pair omgomg. Turn 6, check/check. River 8 she bets 600 I make it 1600 because I'm not good at poker. She almost folds, and then calls and shows AK. It's hard to play this bad, seriously. I end the level with 8K, bad times.

Blinds 50/100

Hand 4: I limp 99 UTG with about 8K behind. Nit lady makes it 600, others fold and I call because she definitely has the aces. Flop 982, I lead for 1000 and she makes it 2000. Oh the aces are going down in flames here. I call. Turn brick. I check and she bets 2000. I raise all-in for 4000 more and she folds. Sigh.

Hand 5: I make it 300 from EP with the T7s and get 2 callers. Flop 972 and I bet 600. First guy folds and good(?)/tricky aggressive player makes it 1800 and I just don't believe him since he's made moves like this before, and I think I gave off some weakness tells so I call. Turn and river help no one and it gets checked down. I table my monster and it's good. Cool. I have about 16K at this point, woot!

Blinds 100/200. Everything goes to shit.

Hand 6: Weak player limps and I make it 800 with KQo. He calls. Flop 853 rainbow. He checks and I bet 1200, he calls. Turn 4, check/check. River Q. He bets 2000 super quick. Like I'm not even sure if he saw the river card first. I'm pretty sure I'm dead, but I make the crying call and lose to his 76s.

Hand 7: Folded to tightish guy on button who makes it 700. I call in the SB with 89s (I think this is a poor call, we're not as deep as earlier). Flop J9x and I check/call 1200. Turn blank I check and he checks, sweet I'm good. River A and I check/fold to his 2000 bet. Crap. I get reraised once and I'm down to like 5K when I get absolutely pwned.

Hand 8: I make it 600 from the hijack with QTo and the solid guy on my left calls as does tricky/good player in the BB. Flop J43 I bet 1200 and tricky guy calls. Turn 8 check/check. River A he checks and I bet bet 2000 of my last 3500 trying to make it look like I want a call. He tanks and calls with K3. WTF? fvjdksjfdlfkaslfk;asldas;lfdfdkf. I manage to steal my way up to 3000 before the end of the level.

Blinds 100/200 a25

Hand 9: Open shove J5s from the SB for 2600 or so and win the blinds.

Hand 10: Donk raises to 600 in EP and SB calls. I find AK in the BB and shove for like 3K total. Donk folds and SB calls with 77. I flop a K and win.

Hand 11: I make it 700 with KQo and the same tricky aggressive player from the K3 pwnage/donk call calls. Flop QJ5 he check/calls my 1500. Turn Q. He checks and I decide to just push my last 4500. He tanks and calls with 44. Yes, 44. I have over 13K all of a sudden and have regained my confidence.

Hand 12: Folded to me in the SB and I make 700 with KK. Solid young player defends his BB. Flop JJ2 2 hearts. I check, he bets 700 and I call. Turn blank, I check and he bets 1500. I call. River Ad. I check, he bets 3000, I tank and fold. Gross. I steal some and bust a short stack to get up to 17K or so then lose a huge pot.

Blinds 150/300 a25

Hand 13: I raise to 1000 UTG with the T8d and get called in 3 spots. Flop comes QJ2 with 2 diamonds. I bet 2300 (about half the pot) planning to push over a raise. Donk pushes for like 6K more and I have to call. He shows QQ. Turn 9! River 2. Back to 7500. I bust a shortstack when my aces hold to get to 11K. Then I donk everything up.

Hand 14: Raise ATo to 1000 in MP and the BB chipleader tight/solid guy calls. Flop T72 2 spades. He check/calls my 1500 bet. Turn 8 spades. He leads for 4000. I'm basically ready to fold but there's enough semibluffs out there that I at least want to think about it. Really this guy just isn't that tricky and he's almost certainly protecting a strong made hand against the flush draw. I stare him down and pick up something that makes me think he's weak. I go with it and push. He calls and shows 22, I fire my cards in the muck as I don't even have a flush draw. 22 is probably what I'd guess he had before I found my "tell". Nice read me. Being an online donk sucks.

Big 2+2 dinner tonight. I'll probably end up checking out some of the night life with those guys after, so the next report could be interesting. Open beer bar + 40 degenerates trying to maximize ROI by drinking as many as possible will likely result in awesomeness.

Mike

I donked out

Just made a terrible play and busted, I yoyo'd up and down from 16K to 1500 back up to 18K and back down to 7500 before donking off my last 10K on the final hand. Basically, I thought I picked up a tell and pushed when I would normally fold. Very upset with the play, I guess I'll eventually write a detailed report but I feel like crap right now.

Mike

Sunday, July 30, 2006

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

Saturday, July 29, 2006

Vegas: Day 2

Today was a much more relaxed day, I didn't even play any poker! Got up around 11 and went for lunch at the MGM Grand buffet which was pretty good, since we had to pick up some tickets for the show we were going to that night over there. This afternoon I didn't do anything. I got my internet set up in my room and browsed a little, then chilled with Steve and Aaron. They were pretty burnt out from poker and didn't want to play, and with the WSOP starting today there'd probably be long lineups everywhere to get a decent game so I didn't bother since the show was at 7.

We saw the Cirque du Soleil Beatles show. It was good but it was more of a musical. Not a lot of really crazy acrobatics which I personally probably would have enjoyed more. It was still pretty cool though and I'm glad I got out to at least one show. I think a bigger Beatles fan would really like it and probably understand more of it than I did.

After the show Aaron and I went to the Rio to pick up our seat cards for the ME and just check out the scene over there in general. Steve said it was insane in the morning but it had calmed down a little by the time we got there. There's still not much room for people to watch the action though and the rail was pretty crowded so we didn't stick around long. I only saw a couple faces I recognized playing, no one really big. Steve plays tomorrow and Aaron and I both play on Sunday. I start at table 141 seat 6, and I'll probably be there the entire day since they break tables on the other half of the room first. No plans for tomorrow yet. I may try to meet up with the elusive haddon, and I'll probably play a decent cash game session.

Mike

Friday, July 28, 2006

Hookers & Blow

OK, now that I've got your attention it's time for day 1 of the Vegas trip report. The day begins with me waking up early for the first time in months to get to the airport for my 7:30am flight. The flight is pretty uneventful and I manage a little extra sleep. We actually arrive half an hour early and from the airport I grab a shuttle to the Monte Carlo, where Stars has me staying. My room is pretty nice: king sized bed, nice decor, and very spacious. Nothing extravagant, but I'm sure I'll be quite comfortable for the small amount of time I spend in it. Anyways I head up to Steve and Aaron's room to meet up with those guys. They're just getting up from a late night of poker, but once we get organized we head over to the Rio. The Rio was absolutely crazy. We get some lunch at the Sao Paulo restaurant there which was decent and then head to the poker room. The poker room was packed, but the lines were actually moving and I eventually got seated in a 2/5 NL 500 max game. I sorta do nothing for a while and win/lose some small pots. Then I lose 3 medium sized pots:

First, I raise preflop to 25 behind 2 weakish limpers. One guy behind me calls and the limpers fold. I cont. bet the flop with air, then give up when called. The 2nd time I raise the J9d UTG and get called by the same guy. Flop is Qs2d3d and I bet about the pot, and he minraises. I call and see a blank turn card and check. He checks behind giving me a free river card but I miss my flush and check/fold. In the 3rd hand I make it 20 with 88 in the CO behind a weak limper and get called by the button, who seems fairly solid, a call station in the SB, and the limper. Flop is 653 and I bet $60 into an $80 pot. The button calls as does call station. I don't beat much the button can call with here, so I check the turn and we end up checking it down. Call station shows A5 and button scoops the pot with TT. So I'm down about 250 but then I make a few hands.

The first big hand I have the 54 of spades in the BB. It's folded to the button who doubles it and loose aggressive kid in the SB calls as do I. The flop comes 7s6s3h. Bingo. I decide to go for a checkraise and check to the button who bets 25. The SB makes it 65 and I'm not sure whether I should just call and try to slowplay or raise. I figure calling looks so suspicious anyways I might as well just raise and make it 165. Both fold and I win a decent pot. The next big hand I limp 88 UTG with about 625 behind. Call station from a previous hand makes it 20 and loose aggressive kid also calls in the blinds. The flop comes T84 rainbow and LAG Kid leads out for 35. I don't normally slowplay my big hands much but this seems like the perfect time. I'd like to keep the callstaion around since he only has about 120 left which he's quite capable of calling off drawing dead and I also want to let the LAG kid keep firing away, and there's not many draws to worry about. So I call the 35 as does call station. Then turn is a brick and LAG bets 100. I pretend to think for a second then call, and call station calls off his last chips. The turn is a 5 for a board of T8425 and LAG bets 200. It's now clear that he has a very strong hand so I think for a second to make sure pushing is correct. 76 is possible on the flop with the double gutter but he seems smart enough not to bluff the turn since call station is basically never folding. So the only thing that I need to worry about is TT but there's lots of other hands I beat that call my push so I stop being an idiot and push for another 270. He quickly calls and mucks when I turn over my hand. He didn't say what he had, and I rake in about a $1350 pot. Shortly after that Steve and Aaron got bored and my table really wasn't all that great anyways so I cash out and we head to the Bellagio.

The plan was to eat at the buffet there but the line is ginormous so we go the chinese place there called Noodles, where the wait is only 25 mins. The food again was pretty good but not amazing. Steve and Aaron are kind of burnt out from poker but we go by the Bellagio poker room to see what's going on. It turns out the 7:00 Bellagio Cup event started late and was only in level one. We all decide to plunk down the $1000 buy-in and eventually get in half way through level 2 as alternates. Yes, the biggest tournament I've ever played and I missed the first hour. Aaron busts out early and Steve follows suit not too much later. I'm hanging in there pretty card dead but finally double up when an aggressive kid in the CO raises and I shove with A7o on the button and boat up against his KT. Then I do nothing for a while again until I'm forced to push with AhJ and get called by KhK. The first 4 cards on the board are hearts and I double through. The next hand I push over a raise with AKs and everyone folds. I'm actually above average all of a sudden. As usual it doesn't last as I push over a raise and short stack reraise all-in with AKs. I manage to fold out the original raiser but lose to 99 on the KJ9 flop. Again shortstacked, I eventually push behind 2 limpers with AQo and get called by the 2nd limper with 33. The door card on the flop is a 3 and even the queen next to it is no help. I busted around 50/220, and stumbled around the Bellagio eventually finding my way outside to the cab stand and getting back to my room. I really like this tournament though and will probably continue my ways of solid bankroll management by playing it again at some point this trip. You start with 5000 chips and 25/50 blinds, 40 min levels. The dealers are very good, unlike at the Rio, and there's plenty of dead money in them. So yeah, so far Vegas is awesome, but with the time difference I've been up over 24 hours now so I need to get some sleep. Later,

Mike

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

This does not look good

http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2006/07/wsop-pokerstars-goody-bags.html

I'm not impressed they went to the jersey thing, it's a pretty lame idea. What's wrong with the good ol fashioned polo/golf shirts? At least I don't have to wear that awful UB jersey.

Mike

Monday, July 24, 2006

Last weekend before WSOP!

My flight is Thursday and the plan is to play a lot live and hopefully meet a lot of people before I play my day 1 on Sunday. Today I did the usual Sunday thing and had little success. I played 8 tournaments, only cashing in the million on Stars for just over a grand. So I took a nice loss on those. Fortunately, I played a lot of 5/10 NL too and ran pretty well overall to wind up back in the vicinity of even on the day. I'm going to post some 5/10 NL hands and make this a short entry. I'll have my laptop in Vegas and I'm planning to post updates around once a day, or at least whenever I'm in not too tired from a marathon session at the tables or the bars. Anwyays, some 5/10 NL hands:

The Good:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?424142 The villian is this hand was like 80/10 preflop and generally just as bad postflop. I would normally never get this much money in with TPTK but against this guy it's a monster (his preflop action doesn't actually mean anything other than that he doesn't have J4o this time).
http://www.pokerhand.org/?424138 If you can't fold an overpair when you're pretty clearly beat you're going to lose a lot of money at this level.

The Bad:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?424122 A horrendous river call. The fact that I made 2 pair is irrelevant since he has a set, a flush, or nothing, with nothing being unlikely.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?424153 His flop minraise screams set, but folding seems so weak. Then I pick up the nut flush draw and call one more time. I was planning to turbomuck the river since even the unlikely bluffs just got there.

The I wanted to kill myself when I made this laydown:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?424154 How can he not have aces though? This is probably terrible, but I dunno. How can he not have aces? Sigh.

Anyways, look for sick Vegas reports starting Friday.

Mike

Monday, July 17, 2006

Another crazy Sunday

It was a rollercoaster day for me. I played even higher this week than I have been with that extra 20K of padding in my bankroll. I started the day dropping a buy-in at 5/10 NL when I got stacked for the first time at that level. I couldn't push a guy off TPTK and my gutshot royal flush draw missed. Stuck a grand right off the bat, awesome. Throughout the course of the day I played the big WSOP sats on Stars and Full Tilt as well as various $100-200 freezeous and a couple $100 rebuys. I was in for $3500 in buy-ins by the end of it all and with only 3 tournaments left I had managed only one cash for $650 in the Party million. It was looking like a record day of the worst kind. However I got on a rush all of a sudden in the 3 remaining tournaments: the 100r and 2nd chance $370 WSOP satellite on Stars, and the $150+13 buy-in freezeout on Full Tilt. Unfortunately I flamed out on the bubble of the 100r when I ran TT into AA in a hand I feel I overplayed, and I turned a flush only to run into the nut flush in the satellite. However things went much better on Full Tilt as I made the final table and fought my way to heads up down 2:1 in chips. HU lasted all of one hand when my KQs lost the coinflip to his A8o. Fortunately I pulled in $7300 for 2nd to swing me from a big loss to a nice win on the day. It's 2 weeks until day one of the WSOP for me. Now that will be a really crazy Sunday.

Mike

Sunday, July 16, 2006

Hand History from my big win

The easiest way to look at it is to register at http://www.pokerxfactor.com/ (completely free and only takes a few seconds) then login and click on the following link to view it in their flash hand history replayer: http://www.pokerxfactor.com/servlet/pxf?a=mv&t=myhand2&handid=16120&fn=2971_20060716_031935. Thanks to Irah for posting this. However I've also analyzed most of the key hands so you can read my comments as you go here: http://pokerforum.ca/forum/index.php?topic=10175.0.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Wow, so I made $23K tonight. First I won the Pearl, a $150 buy-in NL tourney on Paradise, for $3K (only 73 players), and then I won the $162 buy-in nightly tournament on Stars for $20K. I'm really excited right now, I'm going to have to consider going for the Pocket Fives triple Crown (since I now have 2 legs and I'd actually have all 3 if I'd won that coinflip Saturday night) or maybe even making a run at the Stars weekly Tournament Leader Board. Also, Im going to have to drink some beers. Anwyays, I plan on reviewing my play from the Stars win and making a fairly detailed post analyzing all the key hands. Hopefully that will happen by the end of the week if I'm not too busy going for the triple crown and stuff. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Mike

Monday, July 10, 2006

Coinflipping for the $$

It was another decent week for me, I managed to grind out another 4 figures of profit but nothing spectacular considering how much I played. I feel comfortable playing 3/6 NL now and plan to mix it in a lot more when I'm not playing too many tournaments. My big scores for the week both came on Saturday night when I finished 3rd in a $100 rebuy on Stars for 4K and 2nd in a $77 freezeout on Party for $2700. Party crashed for an hour with 12 people left in the latter when I was chipleader, but fortunately they were able to get the tournament restarted. After taking some beats and hitting some suckouts of my own I was heads up even in chips, and I ended up getting all-in with 78 vs J6 on a 963 flop. I bricked my 14 outs twice and lost the $2000 coinflip. Not a huge deal, I've taken costlier beats, but flipping coins for 2 grand is a little ridiculous when you step back and look at it that way.

Anwyays, I had a fairly poor Sunday, but Steve's roommate Aaron made it heads up in the Full Tilt 200K Guaranteed. 2nd paid 31K and first 50K. The blinds were huge so they were left crapshooting for 19K. Aaron got it all-in with KJs vs TT when they were even in chips and a T on the flop ended things quickly. Gotta love flipping coins for 20K. Hopefully when I'm deep in the main event I'll win my 5-7 figure coinflips, but the key is to take care of the things that you can control. If you keep making good decisions eventually you'll catch some lucky breaks too and hit that big score.

Mike

Monday, July 03, 2006

WSOP has begun!

I'm starting to really get excited about heading to Vegas. The preliminary events have started and I've been reading almost everything that has to do with the WSOP. Live coverage, player's blogs, threads on 2+2 and CPF, etc.... Especially exciting so far was that two of the most respected posters in the MTT forum on 2+2 have already made final tables. Rizen, whose blog is very good and linked on the right, and MLG both made 6-figure scores for finishing 3rd and 4th respectively in early events. I have no doubt there will be a lot of other well known online players breaking through for their first big scores in live events as well. I can't wait to get down there and try to join them.

As for my own play this week, my results were a little more steady for a change and I made a small profit, mostly from 2/4 NL, as my tournaments were close to breakeven. I finally stacked someone for their full $400 at 2/4 when AA>KK. Getting shipped an $800 pot feels kinda nice. One of the more interesting things that happened this week was Friday night (June 30) I got home pretty early for a change, and decided to play almost every tournament on Stars before midnight in an effort to crack the top 100 on the monthly TLB. I was hoping to qualify for the WSOP freeroll and it seemed like a fun goal. I needed to gain another 250-300 points. I made the final table of a $22 180-man tourney and accross the table from me was MrSmokey. Smokey is one of the best players online and he was in this micro-buyin tourney, compared to what he normally plays, because he was trying to win a $5000 TLB sidebet against a few other top players for June. Anyways we ended up heads up about even in chips. Premier (another top player in the bet) was sweating the final table cheering for me to bust him, as I guess the bet was pretty close going down to the wire. Really, I think my crappy TLB quest was more important, so I owned him and got the 306 TLB points for first. Only top 20 scores count so this increased my score by about 250 points, it was going to be close, I just needed one more decent (like 100 point) score to lock it up, but the only thing I was still in was the 10r 55k Guaranteed. Fortunately, I was already in the money and I picked up AA on the button and got all-in against the SB's AK. Two runners to his broadway straight later I finished the month in 104th place, a measely 12 points out of the top 100.

Today I did my normal Sunday thing. I even decided to drop the $615 and take a shot at the one rebuy one add-on version of the Sunday million. I did terribly in that tournament but I made a decent run on Party again before bustng out on a pretty poor resteal for $600 in 384th. I final tabled a $100 rebuy on Dise and had lots of chips coming in but things didn't work out and I busted 7th for $1800. I also final tabled a $100 NL on Party before running the nut flush into quads and busting 5th for $2100. Overall it was a pretty good day though it's always disappointing to not make more of those final table chances, but really the cards just didn't cooperate once I got there. A belated happy CanadaDay to eveyone, I'm calling it a night. Well, maybe I'll see what's going on at the Rio first.

Mike