It was a short day in the tournament, but not without some excitement. I finished 65th for $67ooish.
I donk off some chips and then shove 75dd for my last 22K. The SB tank folds AJs. lol. Then I shove AQs UTG, get called by 99, and river an A. At some point after that an aggressive asian guy raises UTG 6-handed (because half our table showed up late) to 6K at 1k/2k still , and I jam like 37K with K8o in the BB and pick up some more chips. Then I raise AQs in EP, it folds to the BB who is wearing all Full Tilt gear but I don't really know who he is. He thinks for a bit and shoves. I tank and fold unhappily. The very next hand I have like 40K left and raise UTG to 9K at 1500/3000 with 99, and an aggressive asian man makes it 24K in MP. I'm getting like 1.85:1 on the rest of my stack and decide that's too good a price, but he obv has AA. I flop a flush draw but miss everything :-(.
Then after that I decided to go play 50/100 Stud Hi/Lo because it's fun and I've never played the game live before. I played for 5 or 6 hours and made $1100 due to running good and scooping a few big pots mostly, though the players didn't seem overly tough. It was a nice break from holdem though for sure. Tomorrow is the $1500 NL 6-max which I'm looking forward to because 6-max is the best. If I somehow don't make day 2 then Friday is the $5k PL Holdem.
Mike
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
My first WSOP cash
Hey all, I made the money in the $1k + rebuys tournament today. It was an up and down day and I didn't play all that well, (pressed the call button too much as usual) but I managed to battle through to the money and Day 2 tomorrow. I begin the day with 34,400 chips, average stack is like 65K or something and blinds 1k/2K with a 300 ante, so it could be a short day if I don't get an early double up. I think I'm guaranteed like $5K or something now, for a tidy $1k in profit. On to the hands, we started with 2K in chips and I immediately took a rebuy for another 2K in chips:
Rebuy period: I steal a bunch of small pots and move allin with big hands and get called by worse hands. Lose a smallish pot at the end to drop to 7500, double add-on to 11.5K. In for $4K.
Hand 2: I"ve won some small pots to get up to $15K. I raise AJo in EP to 700 at 100/200 a25. Fish calls in MP and Paul Wasicka calls in one of the blinds. Flop J86 two spades, I bet 1800 and both call. Turn 4d. Fish can have a lot of stuff, usually some sort of draw, and Wasicka basically always has a draw too, so I fire 6K and take it down. I considered trying to go for a cheackraise on the fish but it's too risky and he's often checking behind drawing hands anyways.
Hand 3: Folds to CO at 150/300 a25 ,who's a weak player and open limps. I limp JTo on the button and blinds come along also. Flop T54 checks to me and I bet 900. Amnon Filippi calls in the SB and the others fold. The turn is a 6 and I check behind. River is a K and he fires 3500. I fold pretty quickly and he later says he had 23.
Hand 4: First disaster river call. Last hand before the break Martine23 raises in EP to 1200 at 200/400 a25. I have AsQd on the button and like 20K which he covers. I consider reraising since he can be raising wider than usual since people want to just fold and go on break, but decide to call instead. The BB calls also. Flop T9x 2 spades checks around. Turn Qs, Martine bets 2300, I call, and the BB folds. River is the Td and he fires 6K. I'm pretty sure this is basically never a bluff, but his action doesn't make sense. The only hand he can really have is KJ but I would expect him to bet bigger on the turn. There's basically no way he can ever have a flush since he would usually also have at least a gutshot on the flop with it and he doesn't check that big a draw. I deliberate for a while and finally call and he shows KcJs as expected to take the pot and drop me down to 10K.
Hand 5: I go on a little rush after the break and get some chips back, I recall 3 hands but can't remember the exact order they happened. I raise 88 to 1800 at 300/600 a75 in EP and only the BB calls. Flop QQJ goes chk/chk. Turn J, chk/chk. River K he checks, I bet 2500 and he folds. Whew.
Hand 6: I raise UTG with AA and get called by Amnon on my left and the BB from the last hand now on the button. Flop Axx I checks around. Turn blank check around, river A I bet 3600 and the button calls with some bad pocket pair that should never call there since I have like JJ at worst.
Hand 7: I raise AQss UTG to 1800 and get called by two young guys in MP. Flop comes KTx 2 spades and I decide to go for a checkraise all-in. In retropsect the frist caller didn't have that many chips so I probably should have just led big. Anyways it checks to the second caller who bets 3K, I make it 12K and both fold quickly. After all these hands I was up to like 34K or something at my peak.
Hand 8: Eep this hand is pretty embarassing. Raise to 3600 at 6/12 blinds with 99 in EP. Asian guy calls in MP, he seems loose/aggressive and just lost a big pot on the last hand. The BB calls also. Flop KQ4 checks around. Turn 3 putting a heart draw out there also checks around. River J checks to the asian guy who bets 8k. BB folds and I tank thinking he could easily have air here. I really didn't think he had a K or Q since I'd expect him to bet the turn, I don't know if he'd bet just a jack there, prboably not, so unless he has a bizarre slowplay or AT it seems reasonable I could have the best hand. There could also be a steam factor from the last hand I guess too. I go for the hero call and lose to QJo. Oops.
Random shortstakced hands: Jam a few times with marginal hands to pick up the blinds and antes, shove over a raise with JJ, and then UTG raise A3o and steal the blinds/antes since the table ahd been playing super tight. Moved to new table where I thankfully no longer recognize everyone.
Hand 9: The tournament directors announce hand for hand as we're on the bubble. I have like 28-29K at 1k/2k a300 and open shove 33 in the CO. Thankfully they all fold, the bubble bursts, and I get my first WSOP cash. My new table seems to have some lunatics so if I pick up some hands and they hold I should be able to get back in contention.
Mike
Rebuy period: I steal a bunch of small pots and move allin with big hands and get called by worse hands. Lose a smallish pot at the end to drop to 7500, double add-on to 11.5K. In for $4K.
Hand 2: I"ve won some small pots to get up to $15K. I raise AJo in EP to 700 at 100/200 a25. Fish calls in MP and Paul Wasicka calls in one of the blinds. Flop J86 two spades, I bet 1800 and both call. Turn 4d. Fish can have a lot of stuff, usually some sort of draw, and Wasicka basically always has a draw too, so I fire 6K and take it down. I considered trying to go for a cheackraise on the fish but it's too risky and he's often checking behind drawing hands anyways.
Hand 3: Folds to CO at 150/300 a25 ,who's a weak player and open limps. I limp JTo on the button and blinds come along also. Flop T54 checks to me and I bet 900. Amnon Filippi calls in the SB and the others fold. The turn is a 6 and I check behind. River is a K and he fires 3500. I fold pretty quickly and he later says he had 23.
Hand 4: First disaster river call. Last hand before the break Martine23 raises in EP to 1200 at 200/400 a25. I have AsQd on the button and like 20K which he covers. I consider reraising since he can be raising wider than usual since people want to just fold and go on break, but decide to call instead. The BB calls also. Flop T9x 2 spades checks around. Turn Qs, Martine bets 2300, I call, and the BB folds. River is the Td and he fires 6K. I'm pretty sure this is basically never a bluff, but his action doesn't make sense. The only hand he can really have is KJ but I would expect him to bet bigger on the turn. There's basically no way he can ever have a flush since he would usually also have at least a gutshot on the flop with it and he doesn't check that big a draw. I deliberate for a while and finally call and he shows KcJs as expected to take the pot and drop me down to 10K.
Hand 5: I go on a little rush after the break and get some chips back, I recall 3 hands but can't remember the exact order they happened. I raise 88 to 1800 at 300/600 a75 in EP and only the BB calls. Flop QQJ goes chk/chk. Turn J, chk/chk. River K he checks, I bet 2500 and he folds. Whew.
Hand 6: I raise UTG with AA and get called by Amnon on my left and the BB from the last hand now on the button. Flop Axx I checks around. Turn blank check around, river A I bet 3600 and the button calls with some bad pocket pair that should never call there since I have like JJ at worst.
Hand 7: I raise AQss UTG to 1800 and get called by two young guys in MP. Flop comes KTx 2 spades and I decide to go for a checkraise all-in. In retropsect the frist caller didn't have that many chips so I probably should have just led big. Anyways it checks to the second caller who bets 3K, I make it 12K and both fold quickly. After all these hands I was up to like 34K or something at my peak.
Hand 8: Eep this hand is pretty embarassing. Raise to 3600 at 6/12 blinds with 99 in EP. Asian guy calls in MP, he seems loose/aggressive and just lost a big pot on the last hand. The BB calls also. Flop KQ4 checks around. Turn 3 putting a heart draw out there also checks around. River J checks to the asian guy who bets 8k. BB folds and I tank thinking he could easily have air here. I really didn't think he had a K or Q since I'd expect him to bet the turn, I don't know if he'd bet just a jack there, prboably not, so unless he has a bizarre slowplay or AT it seems reasonable I could have the best hand. There could also be a steam factor from the last hand I guess too. I go for the hero call and lose to QJo. Oops.
Random shortstakced hands: Jam a few times with marginal hands to pick up the blinds and antes, shove over a raise with JJ, and then UTG raise A3o and steal the blinds/antes since the table ahd been playing super tight. Moved to new table where I thankfully no longer recognize everyone.
Hand 9: The tournament directors announce hand for hand as we're on the bubble. I have like 28-29K at 1k/2k a300 and open shove 33 in the CO. Thankfully they all fold, the bubble bursts, and I get my first WSOP cash. My new table seems to have some lunatics so if I pick up some hands and they hold I should be able to get back in contention.
Mike
Monday, June 04, 2007
Some pictures
I got the master bedroom. Walk-in closet.
My own bathroom.
Living room.
Kitchen, nice new appliances.
Dinner table with laptops.
4th place finisher looking photogenic as usual.More Vegas Trip Reportage
I'm probably not goign to go into as much detail in this post just an update mostly. On Saturday I couldn't play the $1500 NL so I was thinking of just playing the online tournaments, but I ended up going to the Venetian instead to play their $540 deepstack tournament. The tournament is pretty good, players are soft etc.... It becomes a huge crapshoot pretty suddenly though because the antes are enormous. Anyways, some people donated me chips early, but then I did nothing for a while before luckboxing 63>KQ aipf on the last hand before the dinner break. I ended up cashing and then eventually pushing JT into KQ and losing. One semi-interesting hand of note:
Some guy limps at 100/200, he's generally just loose/bad. I find JJ and raise 4xBB to 800 in position. I've been playing very aggressive so far so this is a great spot as I'm likely not going to be given credit for much of a hand here. Folds back to the limper who calls. The flop comes K98. He checks and I check behind. The only bad cards that can come off are an A or Q so I'm not too worried about a scare card, but I don't really want to bloat the pot or give him a chance to do something stupid and bluff me off the best hand. Then turn is a 5, he bets 1300 and I call. The river is a 6, and he bets 2K. At this point I still kind of think I might have the best hand. Obviously he can have a king, maybe some kind of bluff that backed into a straight or something, but I also thought that given our history he could have nothing or he could be blocking with a worse one pair hand because people suck at playing the river properly. Eventually I call and J9s is no good. His river bet is a standard thing you see from weak players. He gets confused and thinks he might still have the best hand so he just bets smallish and hopes something good happens. If you think the hand through from his point of view you'll realize that on the river it's really hard for me to ever call with a worse hand, so there's no point to bet unless he's hoping I fold a better hand. His hand has lots of showdown value though so there's not really any point to turn it into a bluff, and betting 2K into 4500 isn't going to be a very effective bluff anyways.
OK after that I drove back to the Rio and sweated Steve until 3am or something when they finally made the final table. I bumped into AaronBeen, Kush, and MrTimCaum also railing the final 2 tables. Steve caught some cards and finished 2/9 going into the final table. On Sunday I ended up heading over to Aaron/Kush's place to play Sunday tournaments. Everytihng went pretty bad and I lost even more money playing cash. I was in a pretty good 25/50 game on UB and stacked some really bad player to get a 10K stack but then I didn't leave and played a really tough hand against another guy who I only barely covered, and lost a 20K pot, when as usual lately I couldn't find the fold button. I don't know why I'm such a call station lately in cash games but I've got to get that fixed. As you prboably know by now, Steve finished 4th for 120K or so. He got pretty unlucky to go from chipleader to bust in like 3 hands, but the blinds in the limit section were so big that's the way it goes. The plan for today is to relax, prbably run some errands like getting some food in the house, and then either go play live cash games or more likely stay in and play the $1k tournament on Full Tilt and other online donkaments. Oh yeah I finally got my wire transfer late Saturday night so at last I have lots of money here. My next big live tournament is the $1k rebuy WSOP event on Tuesday. I've got a pile of $1K casino chips ready to go.
Mike
Some guy limps at 100/200, he's generally just loose/bad. I find JJ and raise 4xBB to 800 in position. I've been playing very aggressive so far so this is a great spot as I'm likely not going to be given credit for much of a hand here. Folds back to the limper who calls. The flop comes K98. He checks and I check behind. The only bad cards that can come off are an A or Q so I'm not too worried about a scare card, but I don't really want to bloat the pot or give him a chance to do something stupid and bluff me off the best hand. Then turn is a 5, he bets 1300 and I call. The river is a 6, and he bets 2K. At this point I still kind of think I might have the best hand. Obviously he can have a king, maybe some kind of bluff that backed into a straight or something, but I also thought that given our history he could have nothing or he could be blocking with a worse one pair hand because people suck at playing the river properly. Eventually I call and J9s is no good. His river bet is a standard thing you see from weak players. He gets confused and thinks he might still have the best hand so he just bets smallish and hopes something good happens. If you think the hand through from his point of view you'll realize that on the river it's really hard for me to ever call with a worse hand, so there's no point to bet unless he's hoping I fold a better hand. His hand has lots of showdown value though so there's not really any point to turn it into a bluff, and betting 2K into 4500 isn't going to be a very effective bluff anyways.
OK after that I drove back to the Rio and sweated Steve until 3am or something when they finally made the final table. I bumped into AaronBeen, Kush, and MrTimCaum also railing the final 2 tables. Steve caught some cards and finished 2/9 going into the final table. On Sunday I ended up heading over to Aaron/Kush's place to play Sunday tournaments. Everytihng went pretty bad and I lost even more money playing cash. I was in a pretty good 25/50 game on UB and stacked some really bad player to get a 10K stack but then I didn't leave and played a really tough hand against another guy who I only barely covered, and lost a 20K pot, when as usual lately I couldn't find the fold button. I don't know why I'm such a call station lately in cash games but I've got to get that fixed. As you prboably know by now, Steve finished 4th for 120K or so. He got pretty unlucky to go from chipleader to bust in like 3 hands, but the blinds in the limit section were so big that's the way it goes. The plan for today is to relax, prbably run some errands like getting some food in the house, and then either go play live cash games or more likely stay in and play the $1k tournament on Full Tilt and other online donkaments. Oh yeah I finally got my wire transfer late Saturday night so at last I have lots of money here. My next big live tournament is the $1k rebuy WSOP event on Tuesday. I've got a pile of $1K casino chips ready to go.
Mike
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Event 1: $5K Mixed Holdem
I missed only two hands since we started like 45 minutes late. I arrive for my BB and defend with 87s, miss the flop, and check/fold. In my quick glance around the table as I arrived and had to play the hand right away I didn't see anyone I recognized. Upon further inspection Phil Ivey is definitely in the 9 seat but everyone else is unnkown to me, most appear to be random live players so it looks like a sweet table draw. My initial impression turns out to be correct, it really is a pretty soft table, but I'm pretty card dead early on and the few random plays I make don't work.
Hand 1: We're now at 75/150 NL, I'm down to like 8500 from starting 10K. UTG limps (people had been limping lots) and I find QQ UTG+2 and make it 600. It fold to Eric Seidel in the SB (he had just recently been moved here) who calls, some old guy in the BB calls, and the limper calls. The flop comes a perfect AQx with 2 clubs. They check to me and I fire 1750. Seidel folds, and the BB makes it 4K. Folds to me and I move in and get called by AK. Up to 20K.
Hand 2: 150/300 blinds limit holdem (I'll talk in terms of blinds instead of betting limits for the loimit hands). Ivey raises in MP, the SB cold calls, and I call with KQo in the BB. The flop comes QQ8 2 diamonds and I checkraise Phil. He calls and a blank turn rolls off. I bet he raises and I call down and lose to AQ. Back to 17Kish. Shortly after this I get moved to a new table which sucks. Im in the 6 seat, Dutch Boyd is in the 2 hole, Josh Arieh in the 3 seat, Jeff Madsen is on my left in the 7 seat and Freddy Deeb is in the 9 seat. Tough table.
Hand 3: I raise a few hands when I get to the table then get card dead again. Finally I raise AJo in MP at 200/400 NL and the BB moves in for 4K total. I call getting 2:1 though I'm likely dominated and lose to AQ. Down to 9K.
Hand 4: I've managed to chip down to 6Kish now. I raise KK to 1200 still at 200/400 NL and the BB calls. Flop Q65 he check/calls my shove and Q3s is no good. No idea where that came from but I'm back in it.
Hand 5: Arieh is playing very aggressive as usual. He raises in the hijack at 400/800 blind limit and I decide I'm 3-betting anything playable in the SB. A8s looks pretty huge for this purpose, so I 3-bet and he calls. Flop ATx he calls my bet. Turn is a blank and I decide to check, he checks behind. River is some card I forget and he calls my bet and mucks.
Hand 6: Arieh again raises in the hijack and I have KQo in the SB. I know a 3-bet isn't going to get a lot of respect but I still think I have to 3-bet there. He calls and raises my bet on the J8xhh flop. I call and fold a blank turn, resisting the urge to do something stupid.
Hand 7: I raise QJs in the CO, still at 4/8 limit. Madsen 3-bets from the SB and I call. I flop gin: T98. I raise his flop bet bet and he calls down with what he later said was a big pair. Back over 20K.
Hand 8: I've chipped down a bit to 13.6K now at 800/1500 blinds limit and another new table. I raise 22 in the hijack and the button 3-bets to 4500. I call and the flop comes 754. I have the best hand there enough that I can't really fold to his c-bet but calling down leaves me with 1500 only, so I have to checkraise and make sure to get full value the times he doesn't have a pair. He calls and raises my turn bet which I have to call all-in and lose to A5o.
The line for the $1500 NL tourney on Saturday was so long that there was no way I was waiting in it. I ended up playing at the Venetian instead. My wire transfer finally arrived on Saturday and Steve final is playing at the final table of the $5K mixed holdem tourney today. He's coming in 2nd in chips. Good luck Steve! I'm exhausted so sorry if some details are lacking in this report.
Mike
Hand 1: We're now at 75/150 NL, I'm down to like 8500 from starting 10K. UTG limps (people had been limping lots) and I find QQ UTG+2 and make it 600. It fold to Eric Seidel in the SB (he had just recently been moved here) who calls, some old guy in the BB calls, and the limper calls. The flop comes a perfect AQx with 2 clubs. They check to me and I fire 1750. Seidel folds, and the BB makes it 4K. Folds to me and I move in and get called by AK. Up to 20K.
Hand 2: 150/300 blinds limit holdem (I'll talk in terms of blinds instead of betting limits for the loimit hands). Ivey raises in MP, the SB cold calls, and I call with KQo in the BB. The flop comes QQ8 2 diamonds and I checkraise Phil. He calls and a blank turn rolls off. I bet he raises and I call down and lose to AQ. Back to 17Kish. Shortly after this I get moved to a new table which sucks. Im in the 6 seat, Dutch Boyd is in the 2 hole, Josh Arieh in the 3 seat, Jeff Madsen is on my left in the 7 seat and Freddy Deeb is in the 9 seat. Tough table.
Hand 3: I raise a few hands when I get to the table then get card dead again. Finally I raise AJo in MP at 200/400 NL and the BB moves in for 4K total. I call getting 2:1 though I'm likely dominated and lose to AQ. Down to 9K.
Hand 4: I've managed to chip down to 6Kish now. I raise KK to 1200 still at 200/400 NL and the BB calls. Flop Q65 he check/calls my shove and Q3s is no good. No idea where that came from but I'm back in it.
Hand 5: Arieh is playing very aggressive as usual. He raises in the hijack at 400/800 blind limit and I decide I'm 3-betting anything playable in the SB. A8s looks pretty huge for this purpose, so I 3-bet and he calls. Flop ATx he calls my bet. Turn is a blank and I decide to check, he checks behind. River is some card I forget and he calls my bet and mucks.
Hand 6: Arieh again raises in the hijack and I have KQo in the SB. I know a 3-bet isn't going to get a lot of respect but I still think I have to 3-bet there. He calls and raises my bet on the J8xhh flop. I call and fold a blank turn, resisting the urge to do something stupid.
Hand 7: I raise QJs in the CO, still at 4/8 limit. Madsen 3-bets from the SB and I call. I flop gin: T98. I raise his flop bet bet and he calls down with what he later said was a big pair. Back over 20K.
Hand 8: I've chipped down a bit to 13.6K now at 800/1500 blinds limit and another new table. I raise 22 in the hijack and the button 3-bets to 4500. I call and the flop comes 754. I have the best hand there enough that I can't really fold to his c-bet but calling down leaves me with 1500 only, so I have to checkraise and make sure to get full value the times he doesn't have a pair. He calls and raises my turn bet which I have to call all-in and lose to A5o.
The line for the $1500 NL tourney on Saturday was so long that there was no way I was waiting in it. I ended up playing at the Venetian instead. My wire transfer finally arrived on Saturday and Steve final is playing at the final table of the $5K mixed holdem tourney today. He's coming in 2nd in chips. Good luck Steve! I'm exhausted so sorry if some details are lacking in this report.
Mike
WSOP Trip Report #1
OK a fair amount of stuff happened already I'm going to try to remember everything as best I can. Thursday was a pretty boring day. My flight was relatively uneventful, I met Steve at the airport in Toronto, and despite leaving 45 minutes late we arrive in Vegas right on time. Schaefer picked us up at the airport, and we went to rent a car for him since he's 25+ and Steve and I are using his car. Eventually we got all that sorted and headed towards our condo, which we were able to locate without much trouble. Things were going just a little too well up to this point, it was pretty ominous. So we go up to our condo and put in what we think is the code to unlock the door and nothing happens. After a few minutes of hopeless button mashing we try calling the lady to find out the real code (turns out the code we had was for an outside gate that is never closed). It's 1:30am or so by now though sh's obviously asleep. Great. So we decide to run down to the Rio (where all WSOP events take palce) to get our money and register for a few tournaments and hope we somehow hear from her while we're there.
Now the whole wire transfer to the Rio thing had me kind of nervous because the people at the bank who did mine hadn't really done a lot of these before so I was pretty worried it might not have been done right. We get up to the cage and they start looking for our money. It must be a complete disaster back there because she kept saying hold on I'm looking somewhere else. Eventually she came back saying to try again in the monring because those people are better with things, but that they may not ahve received it yet. Sigh. Between the condo and wire transfer I was really hoping to go 1/2 for at least, I mean I knew something had to go wrong but come on. So at this point we're basically screwed, we have like 8K between us and we both want to play a 5K tourney the next day, and it's getting late and we have nowhere to sleep. We call one of our friends and find out that Bond18 is staying at the Rio and he says we can crash with him. So we meet him 20 mins later and go crash for the night. In the morning I was supposed to do a big online for cash transfer with another guy I know from online so we would have money to buy in.
We make up at 8:30, and for some reason I slept terribly. We're able to get a hold of the lady renting us the condo and find out taht Aaron set the door code himself and forgot to tell it to Steve. Frigging Aaron. Steve could have guessed it if he knew that too. So we go try to get our money again and they tell us the transfer hasn't gone through yet. Great, these things are not supposed to take more than a couple days normally. Anyways we're able to put together a plan where we go get set up in our condo, then head to Tresaure Island to the PokerStars booth to get our gear from there and sign some form(I'm buying in to several events with my W$ so I ahve to wear their crap), and then rock over to the Mandalay Bay to meet Thayer and borrow some money. Thayer is at the final table of the Mandaly Bay WPT event today so good luck to him! He is obviously being backed by Steve and timex, so their Vegas backing is off to a pretty ok start. First tourney, first final table. timex is so lucky at backing it's sick.
So things go as planned and we arrive at the Rio at 11:45 for a 12pm start. The line is like 1000 peopl long or something. It's completely fucking insane. Fortunately, as we had guessed, they were letting people playing the $5K that day cut to the front and register since it was starting soon. It still took a while and a few more debalces to get bought in, but I finally was seated at table 39 seat 5. OK I'm going to make a new post for the tournament since this is semi-long already. I busted out towards the end of the day for those who want to know how I did.
Mike
Now the whole wire transfer to the Rio thing had me kind of nervous because the people at the bank who did mine hadn't really done a lot of these before so I was pretty worried it might not have been done right. We get up to the cage and they start looking for our money. It must be a complete disaster back there because she kept saying hold on I'm looking somewhere else. Eventually she came back saying to try again in the monring because those people are better with things, but that they may not ahve received it yet. Sigh. Between the condo and wire transfer I was really hoping to go 1/2 for at least, I mean I knew something had to go wrong but come on. So at this point we're basically screwed, we have like 8K between us and we both want to play a 5K tourney the next day, and it's getting late and we have nowhere to sleep. We call one of our friends and find out that Bond18 is staying at the Rio and he says we can crash with him. So we meet him 20 mins later and go crash for the night. In the morning I was supposed to do a big online for cash transfer with another guy I know from online so we would have money to buy in.
We make up at 8:30, and for some reason I slept terribly. We're able to get a hold of the lady renting us the condo and find out taht Aaron set the door code himself and forgot to tell it to Steve. Frigging Aaron. Steve could have guessed it if he knew that too. So we go try to get our money again and they tell us the transfer hasn't gone through yet. Great, these things are not supposed to take more than a couple days normally. Anyways we're able to put together a plan where we go get set up in our condo, then head to Tresaure Island to the PokerStars booth to get our gear from there and sign some form(I'm buying in to several events with my W$ so I ahve to wear their crap), and then rock over to the Mandalay Bay to meet Thayer and borrow some money. Thayer is at the final table of the Mandaly Bay WPT event today so good luck to him! He is obviously being backed by Steve and timex, so their Vegas backing is off to a pretty ok start. First tourney, first final table. timex is so lucky at backing it's sick.
So things go as planned and we arrive at the Rio at 11:45 for a 12pm start. The line is like 1000 peopl long or something. It's completely fucking insane. Fortunately, as we had guessed, they were letting people playing the $5K that day cut to the front and register since it was starting soon. It still took a while and a few more debalces to get bought in, but I finally was seated at table 39 seat 5. OK I'm going to make a new post for the tournament since this is semi-long already. I busted out towards the end of the day for those who want to know how I did.
Mike
Monday, May 28, 2007
Weekend Report + Vegas Schedule
I played a fair amount of 10/20 and 25/50 in the last few days as well as the usual bunch of tournaments. I've basically decided that when I play cash I'm just going to sit at the best tables I can find across all the sites whether they're 10/20, 25/50, or maybe even an occasional 50/100 game. While I don't want to get back into shortstacking high stakes a lot, if a 100/200 or 200/400 game looks especially good I'll allow myself to take a shot at those too. Anyways I feel like my cash game is in a bit of a funk the last day or 2, I'm just not reasoning through situations as clearly as usual and I find myself pressing that call button too much when I'm confused. Part of this probably has to do with playing more aggressive players at higher limits, but a lot of it is just me not being at 100%. I put in more hands in the last few days than usual and I've never been good at playing long cash sessions, so I'll probably cut back a bit before I leave for Vegas on Thursday.
The other thing I've noticed lately is that most online tournaments have become somewhat boring to me. Other than the Sunday tournaments and a few of the special ones throughout the week, most online tournaments are such small stakes compared to my cash games and the tournaments I'll soon be playing in Vegas, that they just don't seem important and aren't as exciting anymore. This makes me want to play more cash tables than tournaments in my mix, but as I said above I seem to do a lot better when I'm not overdoing the cash tables. I might put in some short sessions based around the Full Tilt $1K tourney on Monday and new Stars $1K tourney on Tuesday this week, but other than that I think I'm gonna play a bit less until I get to Vegas. Anyways, as for results my cash games went up and down a lot this weekend but I finished down like $10K mostly due to shortstacking big games unsuccessfully again. In tournaments I cashed the Stars Million again this week for $1100 and finished 3rd in the UB $530 for $9400, so I made back a bit there.
Ok Vegas plans. Steve and I arrive in Vegas on the same connection from Toronto Thursday evening. We'll hopefully get moved into the condo we rented without any problems and then I'm playing my first WSOP event of the year on Friday: The $5K mixed holdem event (half limit half no-limit, it's kinda weird). From then on I'm planning to just play a ton of events, though my actual schedule will depend on how a lot of things are going. Playing live poker every day may very well drive me insane at some point (especially since it's so slow compared to online), but I'm pretty motivated to really breakthrough on the live circuit and make a big final table, book at least a 6-figure score, and maybe even win my first world series bracelet if I get lucky. I've always been pretty good at playing a lot of hours when it comes to tournaments, so I'm pretty optimistic I'll be able to keep focused and play a relatively full schedule over the entire month and a half or so, and still think poker is fun at the end. Of course I'll make sure there's still lots of time to party it up bit, play some golf, and relax and enjoy things other than poker in general while I'm down there too. A lot of people I know will be in Vegas during most of the WSOP, and meeting and hanging out with all the other poker players, especially the online players I play against and discuss strategy with almost every day, is always the best part of these trips. So wish me luck, and awesome Vegas trip reports will commence on here by the end of the week!
Mike
The other thing I've noticed lately is that most online tournaments have become somewhat boring to me. Other than the Sunday tournaments and a few of the special ones throughout the week, most online tournaments are such small stakes compared to my cash games and the tournaments I'll soon be playing in Vegas, that they just don't seem important and aren't as exciting anymore. This makes me want to play more cash tables than tournaments in my mix, but as I said above I seem to do a lot better when I'm not overdoing the cash tables. I might put in some short sessions based around the Full Tilt $1K tourney on Monday and new Stars $1K tourney on Tuesday this week, but other than that I think I'm gonna play a bit less until I get to Vegas. Anyways, as for results my cash games went up and down a lot this weekend but I finished down like $10K mostly due to shortstacking big games unsuccessfully again. In tournaments I cashed the Stars Million again this week for $1100 and finished 3rd in the UB $530 for $9400, so I made back a bit there.
Ok Vegas plans. Steve and I arrive in Vegas on the same connection from Toronto Thursday evening. We'll hopefully get moved into the condo we rented without any problems and then I'm playing my first WSOP event of the year on Friday: The $5K mixed holdem event (half limit half no-limit, it's kinda weird). From then on I'm planning to just play a ton of events, though my actual schedule will depend on how a lot of things are going. Playing live poker every day may very well drive me insane at some point (especially since it's so slow compared to online), but I'm pretty motivated to really breakthrough on the live circuit and make a big final table, book at least a 6-figure score, and maybe even win my first world series bracelet if I get lucky. I've always been pretty good at playing a lot of hours when it comes to tournaments, so I'm pretty optimistic I'll be able to keep focused and play a relatively full schedule over the entire month and a half or so, and still think poker is fun at the end. Of course I'll make sure there's still lots of time to party it up bit, play some golf, and relax and enjoy things other than poker in general while I'm down there too. A lot of people I know will be in Vegas during most of the WSOP, and meeting and hanging out with all the other poker players, especially the online players I play against and discuss strategy with almost every day, is always the best part of these trips. So wish me luck, and awesome Vegas trip reports will commence on here by the end of the week!
Mike
Monday, May 21, 2007
It's becoming a new Sunday pattern
1. Win a few buyins at cash to cover most of tournament fees.
2. Donk out of all the Sunday major tournaments. Get semi-deep in 1 or 2 maybe, just enough to get a little bit of hope up to be crushed.
3. Win WSOP seat in the $650 satellite.
So yeah I have 5 main event seats now. I was doing pretty well in the Sunday million but then I decided to lose every all-in instead of winning them, which was probably a poor strategic decision on my part to go away from what had been working and got me that far. Oh yeah I also blew a massive stack in the Party $530. With 16 players left I had 120K. Average stack at the final table was approximately 50K so I had just an enormous stack. I made the final table with 18K and finished 9th. That sure was fun. Hmm I guess that's about it. I'm starting to get really excited about Vegas, it's going to be amazing. 10 more days.
Mike
2. Donk out of all the Sunday major tournaments. Get semi-deep in 1 or 2 maybe, just enough to get a little bit of hope up to be crushed.
3. Win WSOP seat in the $650 satellite.
So yeah I have 5 main event seats now. I was doing pretty well in the Sunday million but then I decided to lose every all-in instead of winning them, which was probably a poor strategic decision on my part to go away from what had been working and got me that far. Oh yeah I also blew a massive stack in the Party $530. With 16 players left I had 120K. Average stack at the final table was approximately 50K so I had just an enormous stack. I made the final table with 18K and finished 9th. That sure was fun. Hmm I guess that's about it. I'm starting to get really excited about Vegas, it's going to be amazing. 10 more days.
Mike
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
A few things on PocketFives
PocketFives is an online community for tournament poker players, their big feature is their ranking of the top 100 online tournament players. As I mentioned in a post some time last year when I was ranked for a couple weeks, there are lots of good reasons not to read too much into those rankings (the ranking criteria are explained on the site), but nonetheless it is kind of nice to be recognized as a top player. I re-entered the rankings last week in the 100 spot, and after my performace on Saturday I jumped up 21 spots to 79. Also, there's an article on the front page now about members of the P5s community that have been doing well in the first few FTOPS events. There's a paragraph about me in there for my 2nd place finish in Event #2.
PocketFivers dominating the FTOPS
I didn't write anything about Sunday because it was pretty unevenful. I made a bunch playing cash and lost some of it back at tournaments. In particular I've moved back to shortstacking 25/50 full ring games and taking shots in those games with a full stack when I happen to have position on a big fish while shortstacking. My results so far have been very positive taking these shots, here's a few hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1103117
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1103118
And one from Party. It turned out the guy I didn't recognize at this table wasn't bad, but in the time it took me to figure that out I played this hand against another guy. Pretty easy call for me on the river I guess, though I took my time making it since it was for a lot of money. He's trying to represent a big hand on the river, but on a draw heavy board like this there's no way he ever checks behind a big hand on the turn, and no draws got there on the river obviously. The only thing that makes any sense is if he rivered a set of twos, but that's very unlikely compared to the chances he's bluffing, especially since it doesn't look like I have much of a hand either the way I played it.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1103139
Oh yeah I checked the flop because it's a connected board that may have hit someone hard, and getting a continuation bet raised there is awful when I have such a big draw. Often with such a big draw I would lead out and move all-in over a raise, but if I get raised on this board it's way too likely that pairing my K or J won't be enough to win me the pot so I don't just want to get all-in on the flop as a big underdog. I wasn't sure about the turn but I think I'd have taken my chances and checkraised all-in over a decent sized bet since there's a good chance I have the best hand but he has a ton of outs. Against some really tight players I might call and fold if he follows through with a big river bet, but I like the checkraise against a more aggressive player, though I didn't have much of a read here.
Mike
PocketFivers dominating the FTOPS
I didn't write anything about Sunday because it was pretty unevenful. I made a bunch playing cash and lost some of it back at tournaments. In particular I've moved back to shortstacking 25/50 full ring games and taking shots in those games with a full stack when I happen to have position on a big fish while shortstacking. My results so far have been very positive taking these shots, here's a few hands.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1103117
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1103118
And one from Party. It turned out the guy I didn't recognize at this table wasn't bad, but in the time it took me to figure that out I played this hand against another guy. Pretty easy call for me on the river I guess, though I took my time making it since it was for a lot of money. He's trying to represent a big hand on the river, but on a draw heavy board like this there's no way he ever checks behind a big hand on the turn, and no draws got there on the river obviously. The only thing that makes any sense is if he rivered a set of twos, but that's very unlikely compared to the chances he's bluffing, especially since it doesn't look like I have much of a hand either the way I played it.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1103139
Oh yeah I checked the flop because it's a connected board that may have hit someone hard, and getting a continuation bet raised there is awful when I have such a big draw. Often with such a big draw I would lead out and move all-in over a raise, but if I get raised on this board it's way too likely that pairing my K or J won't be enough to win me the pot so I don't just want to get all-in on the flop as a big underdog. I wasn't sure about the turn but I think I'd have taken my chances and checkraised all-in over a decent sized bet since there's a good chance I have the best hand but he has a ton of outs. Against some really tight players I might call and fold if he follows through with a big river bet, but I like the checkraise against a more aggressive player, though I didn't have much of a read here.
Mike
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Huge Day!
I had two huge tournament cashes today. First I won the $100 rebuy on Stars for $23K. I got lucky at the right times at the final few tables and won a big coinflip when a shortstack shoved A2, I shoved to isolate with JJ, and gotskillz moved in over the top of me with AKs. I flopped a set and won the huge pot. From there I picked up a couple more hands at the right time and cruised to victory.
My other big score was in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) event #2. It was a $100+rebuys PLO tournament of all things. I'm not much of an Omaha player, but I've read the PLO section in Super System 2 and practiced enough online and in friendly live games that I'm pretty sure I'm +EV in a big PLO tourney like this with lots of satellite qualifiers who won't rebuy. Also, most people are just really bad at Omaha, and once the blinds get really big it takes most of the skill out of the game, even more so than in Holdem. So I basically just ran incredibly well winning most of my 52/48s and flopping the nuts a lot, which makes your decisions pretty easy even when you play as poorly as I do. One player had all the chips at the final table but I was able to pick up some pots at the right time (including one pretty big suckout) and outlast everyone else. I started the heads up way behind in chips and busted on the first hand. 2nd paid $33K though, my biggest ever online score. Maybe I should play more Omaha or something. I might add some hands from the tournaments later if I get around to it. Trying to explain why I played some PLO hands the way I did could be embarrasing though.
Mike
My other big score was in the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) event #2. It was a $100+rebuys PLO tournament of all things. I'm not much of an Omaha player, but I've read the PLO section in Super System 2 and practiced enough online and in friendly live games that I'm pretty sure I'm +EV in a big PLO tourney like this with lots of satellite qualifiers who won't rebuy. Also, most people are just really bad at Omaha, and once the blinds get really big it takes most of the skill out of the game, even more so than in Holdem. So I basically just ran incredibly well winning most of my 52/48s and flopping the nuts a lot, which makes your decisions pretty easy even when you play as poorly as I do. One player had all the chips at the final table but I was able to pick up some pots at the right time (including one pretty big suckout) and outlast everyone else. I started the heads up way behind in chips and busted on the first hand. 2nd paid $33K though, my biggest ever online score. Maybe I should play more Omaha or something. I might add some hands from the tournaments later if I get around to it. Trying to explain why I played some PLO hands the way I did could be embarrasing though.
Mike
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Go Will!!
My friend Will "cutiepi314" Ma is chipleader going into the final table of the Grande Prix de Paris tomorrow (it used to be a WPT event but because of some new French laws it isn't this year, so the field was only about 130 players). Not bad for his first ever live tournament. Good luck Will!
Will Ma -- 610,000
Jeff Lisandro -- 490,500
Ram Vaswani -- 413,000
David Redlin -- 370,500
Runar Runarsson -- 309,000
Tor Gammelgard -- 255,000
Paul Gourlay -- 122,000
Yuri Kerzhapkin -- 111,500
Jeff Wallace -- 103,000
Prize Structure:
1 €422,560
2 €224,480
3 €158,460
4 €105,640
5 €79,230
6 €66,020
7 €52,820
8 €39,615
9 €26,410
Oh yeah I have some % of his action :-D. In other news I am basically broke on Full Tilt until timex and I settle up. Bad luck + some bad play = bustoooooo.
Mike
Update: Will won obviously. That was the easiest money I ever made, maybe this backing thing isn't so bad.
Will Ma -- 610,000
Jeff Lisandro -- 490,500
Ram Vaswani -- 413,000
David Redlin -- 370,500
Runar Runarsson -- 309,000
Tor Gammelgard -- 255,000
Paul Gourlay -- 122,000
Yuri Kerzhapkin -- 111,500
Jeff Wallace -- 103,000
Prize Structure:
1 €422,560
2 €224,480
3 €158,460
4 €105,640
5 €79,230
6 €66,020
7 €52,820
8 €39,615
9 €26,410
Oh yeah I have some % of his action :-D. In other news I am basically broke on Full Tilt until timex and I settle up. Bad luck + some bad play = bustoooooo.
Mike
Update: Will won obviously. That was the easiest money I ever made, maybe this backing thing isn't so bad.
Monday, May 07, 2007
More Sunday disappointment
I went really deep in the two biggest tournaments today, but busted out short of the real money again. 53/6667 paid $2600 in the Stars million and 33/2350 paid $1500 or so in the Full Tilt 400K. Such a tease to beat so many people and still be so far from the final table. Check it out I actually got my money in with the best hand for once:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1070045
I did however win a 4th WSOP main event seat in the $650 satellite on Stars. I got the $1k cash and 10K W$ again. That tournament is such a gold mine. Anyways it would have been a very profitable day except I dropped 3 buyins shortstacking 200/400 pretty quickly. Apparently timex has been killing it lately though so it sounds like I'll be doing pretty well if we ever get around to settling up.
Anyways I now have $15K W$ kicking around. It turns out Stars is letting people buy into some of the prelimiary WSOP events with W$ again this year so I'll have no problem using that. You still have to buy into the events on your own though, they just credit your account with the cash once you send them proof you played the event. This is because of this whole debacle where 3rd party registrations for WSOP events are no longer permitted. This means if you win a WSOP seat you will just be paid the $10K in cash and it's really up to you what to do with it. A lot of people will probably just pocket the money (as they should really), so expect the main event field to be waaaaaay smaller this year.
Let's see what else. I've been doing really well at the 10/20 NL 6-max games with a full stack lately. Being able to play on Party still is so big. In general the games are a lot softer there, though I table select over Party/Stars/Full Tilt and just play the best tables wherever they are. I definitely think there's still a lot of money to be made in the mid-high stakes NL cash games for a solid player, but you've got to put more effort into picking your spots. I have no interest in sitting with 5 other solid regulars and trying to outplay them, there has to be at least one noticably soft spot or several weaker regulars. I think that's about all I've got for today, I'm going to go contemplate why the Sunday majors are so rigged against me.
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1070045
I did however win a 4th WSOP main event seat in the $650 satellite on Stars. I got the $1k cash and 10K W$ again. That tournament is such a gold mine. Anyways it would have been a very profitable day except I dropped 3 buyins shortstacking 200/400 pretty quickly. Apparently timex has been killing it lately though so it sounds like I'll be doing pretty well if we ever get around to settling up.
Anyways I now have $15K W$ kicking around. It turns out Stars is letting people buy into some of the prelimiary WSOP events with W$ again this year so I'll have no problem using that. You still have to buy into the events on your own though, they just credit your account with the cash once you send them proof you played the event. This is because of this whole debacle where 3rd party registrations for WSOP events are no longer permitted. This means if you win a WSOP seat you will just be paid the $10K in cash and it's really up to you what to do with it. A lot of people will probably just pocket the money (as they should really), so expect the main event field to be waaaaaay smaller this year.
Let's see what else. I've been doing really well at the 10/20 NL 6-max games with a full stack lately. Being able to play on Party still is so big. In general the games are a lot softer there, though I table select over Party/Stars/Full Tilt and just play the best tables wherever they are. I definitely think there's still a lot of money to be made in the mid-high stakes NL cash games for a solid player, but you've got to put more effort into picking your spots. I have no interest in sitting with 5 other solid regulars and trying to outplay them, there has to be at least one noticably soft spot or several weaker regulars. I think that's about all I've got for today, I'm going to go contemplate why the Sunday majors are so rigged against me.
Mike
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
I kinda like Mondays though
My Sunday post was really short but here's a long strategy-type post to make up for it. I finished 2nd in the Full Tilt $150 40K Guaranteed for the 3rd time without a win. The heads-up was ridiculous as I grinded out the chiplead playing pots postflop, then lost it in a 40/60 all-in preflop. Grind back a 2:1 edge, lose flip. Grind back to even, lose flip. gg. I think I did a pretty good job of getting inside his head in the heads up and making some big calldowns. Or maybe I was just lucky he never made a hand at the right time. Anyways here are some of the big pots.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053136 - This one would have more or less ended things without a marathon heads up. I wasn't thrilled about calling his all-in but it's so likely he has a draw on that board that I think I have to.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053149 - Given the flow of the game I really felt he could be raising almost any 2 since he hadn't punished my limps in a while. I floated the flop thinking I could still easily have the best hand. Maybe I should have bet the turn but I thought there was a chance he could be hoping to trap me with a checkraise, and I didn't think he'd ever bluff the river unless maybe another club fell. He said after that he came really close to firing the river and I probably would have had to fold. When he checked to me on the end I considered betting since it'd be really embarassing if he rolled over KT and won the pot, but I figured he might call with almost any piece of the board since I'd been bullying him a lot, and my hand had enough showdown value that checking was best.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053786 - I checked behind the flop so he can't just checkraise me off my hand or anything. Betting is fine too, it's situational and I mix it up. Turn there were enough draws out I had to bet, and I just didn't believe his checkraise, though it was certainly possible he could play a king that way. I decided not to fold and the decision was between calling and pushing. I really thought he would lead most of his good draws on the turn instead of checkraise, he hadn't done anything that tricky. So it seemed possible he could have complete air, and given his earlier comment I decided to give him the chance to follow through on the river this time (instead of pushing to protect against draws), but I was committed to calling some ugly looking river cards. The river wasn't a great card but my decision was already made on the turn, I had to call.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053781 - seemed like a good time to mix in a preflop reraise. Oops.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053823 - I decide to mix in a checkraise bluff. He seemed to mostly be raising with big cards so it was pretty unlikely he hit the flop, and his cont. bet was a bit bigger than most which in this circumstance I thought showed a little weakness too.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053835 - Another poorly timed reraise. Given the way things had been going playing flops there's a good argument to be made for not playing big pots preflop without a really big hand, but on the other hand he was raising often enough that I can't see how this reraise is really a misake.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053839 - Standard, but another lucky flop for me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053844 - This is one is unavoidable. Oh well.
I also found some fish playing 10/20 on Party and had a very profitable session.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053867 - ooooook.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053870 - A bit of a cooler, I probably played it unnecessarily fancy but I figured there could be a lot of random garbage in his range that I wanted to let bluff again.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053875 - Obviously not exactly standard. Against this guy I was willing to play a really big pot with TPTK though. I never miniraise like I did on the flop really, but against this guy I thought it would work well to induce some bluffage. His check/call turn followed by a huge river jam doesn't really make sense and I'm just not folding against this guy here.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053887 - lol? He did stuff like this a lot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053894 - Well that sure was nice of him.
Wow, actual content on my blog, unreal.
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053136 - This one would have more or less ended things without a marathon heads up. I wasn't thrilled about calling his all-in but it's so likely he has a draw on that board that I think I have to.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053149 - Given the flow of the game I really felt he could be raising almost any 2 since he hadn't punished my limps in a while. I floated the flop thinking I could still easily have the best hand. Maybe I should have bet the turn but I thought there was a chance he could be hoping to trap me with a checkraise, and I didn't think he'd ever bluff the river unless maybe another club fell. He said after that he came really close to firing the river and I probably would have had to fold. When he checked to me on the end I considered betting since it'd be really embarassing if he rolled over KT and won the pot, but I figured he might call with almost any piece of the board since I'd been bullying him a lot, and my hand had enough showdown value that checking was best.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053786 - I checked behind the flop so he can't just checkraise me off my hand or anything. Betting is fine too, it's situational and I mix it up. Turn there were enough draws out I had to bet, and I just didn't believe his checkraise, though it was certainly possible he could play a king that way. I decided not to fold and the decision was between calling and pushing. I really thought he would lead most of his good draws on the turn instead of checkraise, he hadn't done anything that tricky. So it seemed possible he could have complete air, and given his earlier comment I decided to give him the chance to follow through on the river this time (instead of pushing to protect against draws), but I was committed to calling some ugly looking river cards. The river wasn't a great card but my decision was already made on the turn, I had to call.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053781 - seemed like a good time to mix in a preflop reraise. Oops.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053823 - I decide to mix in a checkraise bluff. He seemed to mostly be raising with big cards so it was pretty unlikely he hit the flop, and his cont. bet was a bit bigger than most which in this circumstance I thought showed a little weakness too.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053835 - Another poorly timed reraise. Given the way things had been going playing flops there's a good argument to be made for not playing big pots preflop without a really big hand, but on the other hand he was raising often enough that I can't see how this reraise is really a misake.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053839 - Standard, but another lucky flop for me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053844 - This is one is unavoidable. Oh well.
I also found some fish playing 10/20 on Party and had a very profitable session.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053867 - ooooook.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053870 - A bit of a cooler, I probably played it unnecessarily fancy but I figured there could be a lot of random garbage in his range that I wanted to let bluff again.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053875 - Obviously not exactly standard. Against this guy I was willing to play a really big pot with TPTK though. I never miniraise like I did on the flop really, but against this guy I thought it would work well to induce some bluffage. His check/call turn followed by a huge river jam doesn't really make sense and I'm just not folding against this guy here.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053887 - lol? He did stuff like this a lot.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1053894 - Well that sure was nice of him.
Wow, actual content on my blog, unreal.
Mike
Sunday, April 29, 2007
I hate Sundays so much
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1047982
I lost more shortstacking and stuff too this week. As much as I knew a big downswing was coming it doesn't make it suck that much less. Oh well. I've moved out of Waterloo basically permanently. I'm in St. John's for a month and then Vegas for the World Series. Steve, Aaron, and I have a place booked from May 31 until the end of the Main Event. I'm planning to play a lot of events. After that I don't know where I'm going to live. Maybe Toronto or something, I'll see what options are available.
Mike
I lost more shortstacking and stuff too this week. As much as I knew a big downswing was coming it doesn't make it suck that much less. Oh well. I've moved out of Waterloo basically permanently. I'm in St. John's for a month and then Vegas for the World Series. Steve, Aaron, and I have a place booked from May 31 until the end of the Main Event. I'm planning to play a lot of events. After that I don't know where I'm going to live. Maybe Toronto or something, I'll see what options are available.
Mike
Monday, April 23, 2007
Nice Downswing
I'm not sure of the exact number because I don't know how timex finished the week, but I think I lost like a billion dollars or something this week. Actually, timex may have carried the team enough that I only lost like 50K. It's funny because my account is down a lot more than that due to shots at a juicy 500/1000 NL cap game where I owned only a small % of my own action. Basically, David Benyamine put a series of brutal suckouts on me Monday night and took like 60K off me, but only like 20K of that was my action. At the end of the night timex had to ship me 84K because a lot of the money I lost has his and he had a big winning night at 2/4.
Then Friday night I put up a nice -70K at 2/4. So timex will prboably owe me another big transfer next time we settle up unless I start running good again soon. Anyways, the regulars in those games seem to be adjusting better to us now so we'll probably have to be a little more particular about when we decide to play, we'd gotten a bit slack and just started playing all the time because we were running so good. I didn't play a lot of donkaments yesterday because I was in terrible shape after Saturday night.
We went to Fallsview in Niagara for mine/my buddy's birthday. The theme of the night was the Entourage episode where they go to Vegas. If you don't watch the show you prboably should. Anyways, the night was an overwhleming success and we partied like movie stars for a night. I obviously volunteered to take care of the high stakes blackjack scene, and luckboxed $1300. It was fun to be the drunk fish who doesn't really know what he's doing but simply can not lose for a night. So I bought a bottle of Dom P for the entourage at the club. While it definitely wasn't part of the plan, the night ended with us being involved in an altercation at the club and getting the boot, just like in the Enourage episode. Since no one was hurt or anything we were actually quite pleased with that result.
Here's a funny graph. Since half the downswing comes from 500/1000 where I had only a small % of the action I'm actually still up quite a bit over this period.
Mike
Then Friday night I put up a nice -70K at 2/4. So timex will prboably owe me another big transfer next time we settle up unless I start running good again soon. Anyways, the regulars in those games seem to be adjusting better to us now so we'll probably have to be a little more particular about when we decide to play, we'd gotten a bit slack and just started playing all the time because we were running so good. I didn't play a lot of donkaments yesterday because I was in terrible shape after Saturday night.
We went to Fallsview in Niagara for mine/my buddy's birthday. The theme of the night was the Entourage episode where they go to Vegas. If you don't watch the show you prboably should. Anyways, the night was an overwhleming success and we partied like movie stars for a night. I obviously volunteered to take care of the high stakes blackjack scene, and luckboxed $1300. It was fun to be the drunk fish who doesn't really know what he's doing but simply can not lose for a night. So I bought a bottle of Dom P for the entourage at the club. While it definitely wasn't part of the plan, the night ended with us being involved in an altercation at the club and getting the boot, just like in the Enourage episode. Since no one was hurt or anything we were actually quite pleased with that result.
Here's a funny graph. Since half the downswing comes from 500/1000 where I had only a small % of the action I'm actually still up quite a bit over this period.
Mike
Monday, April 16, 2007
I Actually Meant it at the Time
Really, I wasn't planning to play 200/400 again any time soon. I'm usually a big bankroll nit. On the other hand we were up a couple buy-ins and the game seemed beatable. Worst case we lose back what we had won and gain a story to tell about that time we took a shot at the biggest game online. Oh, how we were foolish when we were young. So one night when the game looked relatively soft Mike and I agreed to the same 50/50 deal and took another shot. A funny thing happened though. We won again. This was already a huge amount of money we'd made, but instead of just being happy with that and quitting while we were ahead, we did what any good poker player would do. We got greedy.
It was clear we had an edge against most of the usual lineups, so we started taking shots whenever we saw the game running with a favourable lineup, and kept running hot. We went on a sick run Saturday afternoon grinding the game for several hours. The swings are huge, but I am likely the biggest luckbox in the history of shortstacking so we always ended up ahead. By the time I quit to go out for the evening we had made a completely ridiculous amount of money.
Sunday was another good day. We played the usual tournaments and sat 200/400 when the game was running and looked good. I continued to run insanely hot and just killed the game today. Mike ran really cold and lost a huge number. I don't think there's really much difference in the way we play so it really is mostly just random luck that I did so much better than him. Without giving exact numbers on how much we won or lost, we just settled up for the week and I sent him $60K to make us even, and he was in the black for the week before that. timex may be the luckiest person in the history of staking deals/trading action.
I also had a very good day at my normal games. I won several buy-ins playing 10/20 and a buy-in taking a shot at fullstacking 25/50 on Party. Even my tournaments went well as I won the $530 tournament on Party for $14K. Overall the week was just been completely insane. I don't even think it has really sunk in yet. Either that or poker has desensitized me to the value of money even more than I thought. Here's the biggest pot of the week. I forgot to sit out on my next blind after doubling up and then this happened:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1003105
How lucky.
Mike
It was clear we had an edge against most of the usual lineups, so we started taking shots whenever we saw the game running with a favourable lineup, and kept running hot. We went on a sick run Saturday afternoon grinding the game for several hours. The swings are huge, but I am likely the biggest luckbox in the history of shortstacking so we always ended up ahead. By the time I quit to go out for the evening we had made a completely ridiculous amount of money.
Sunday was another good day. We played the usual tournaments and sat 200/400 when the game was running and looked good. I continued to run insanely hot and just killed the game today. Mike ran really cold and lost a huge number. I don't think there's really much difference in the way we play so it really is mostly just random luck that I did so much better than him. Without giving exact numbers on how much we won or lost, we just settled up for the week and I sent him $60K to make us even, and he was in the black for the week before that. timex may be the luckiest person in the history of staking deals/trading action.
I also had a very good day at my normal games. I won several buy-ins playing 10/20 and a buy-in taking a shot at fullstacking 25/50 on Party. Even my tournaments went well as I won the $530 tournament on Party for $14K. Overall the week was just been completely insane. I don't even think it has really sunk in yet. Either that or poker has desensitized me to the value of money even more than I thought. Here's the biggest pot of the week. I forgot to sit out on my next blind after doubling up and then this happened:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1003105
How lucky.
Mike
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
March Graph
Someone asked so I'll post it, I still feel a bit uncomfortable about posting these though. On the one hand I know part of what makes this an interesting read is that I try not to hide anything and give an honest portrayal of the ups and downs of my poker career, and it wouldn't really work without going into actual numbers. On the other hand, well, exactly how much money I make is none of your damn business :-). I think I can still get the point accross without always being so specific. So I may have to be a little more vague about the exact numbers in the future (even if a lot of the data is available publicly elsewhere). Also, despite what it may seem like when I write posts like the one from Saturday, it's not generally something I like to brag about (except when talking to other poker playing friends it's become fairly standard to brag back and forth a bit). Anyways, enough rambling here's the graph already. March was another excellent month.
In other exciting news I finished 6th in the $1k tournament on Full Tilt tonight for $11K. I made a mistake on the final table bubble I'm kind of upset with myself about though. I'm just not closing these tournaments lately. Obviously there's a lot of luck involved, but that's why you need to make sure you're not making any mistakes near the end of these things, since even if you're playing perfectly the cards aren't going to fall your way a lot of the time.
Mike
In other exciting news I finished 6th in the $1k tournament on Full Tilt tonight for $11K. I made a mistake on the final table bubble I'm kind of upset with myself about though. I'm just not closing these tournaments lately. Obviously there's a lot of luck involved, but that's why you need to make sure you're not making any mistakes near the end of these things, since even if you're playing perfectly the cards aren't going to fall your way a lot of the time.
Mike
Monday, April 09, 2007
Wow
timex's friend "IBluffUOut4" final tabled the two biggest tournaments on the internet yesterday. He finished 3/1962 for $30K in the Full Tilt 400K Guaranteed, and 5/6637 in the Stars Million for $42.6K. That has to be one of the sickest Sunday performances ever.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
We Fly High
It was a Saturday like any other Saturday. I was just planning to play the usual Saturday 320s in the afternoon then watch Masters,Habs/Leafs, and UFC. Seemed like a nice relaxing day. So I start talking to Mike aka timex aka hit21hit on MSN, and next thing I know I'm playing 200/400 NL with Phil Ivey. As you can tell, he didn't really have to twist my arm much. (my comments in brackets)
Watts says:who nenad playing 200/400 with aba and ivey (Nenad Medic, used to go to UW also, now wins WPTs etc...)
Watts says:*whoa
timex says:o wow
timex says:btw, I bought a watch (Mike had a BBV thread about buying a balla watch recently)
Watts says:what one?
Watts says:the tag?
timex says:ya
Watts says:nice
timex says:pretty decent
timex says:they are having a sale at fairview mall, so I got 20% off
Watts says:sweet yo
Watts says:so just uner 2k?
timex says:so it was 1730 after tax
Watts says:not bad
Watts says:TAG doesn't have the same ring as timex or rolex tho
Watts says:thogh it could still have nice double meaning as a poker name (I'm not funny)
timex says:lol (pity laugh)
Watts says:lol doubling up first hand of 10/20 for the day (brag)
Watts says:soooo...
Watts says:do Ishortack 200/400 or not?
timex says:YES obv (as if I didn't know he'd immediately say yes)
Watts says:you want half my action?
timex says:I'll take 1/2 ur action if you tell me ur hands etc.
timex says:and only until say 240 or something, I need sleep after that
Watts says:k
Watts says:letus gogogogogo (BBV-ism)
The games weren't exactly what most people would call soft: Phil Ivey, sbrugby (probably the best HSNL player online, played in this season of High Stakes Poker), Nenad (serb) and Gus Hansen. Some other random shortstack guys that were terrible showed up too fortunately, I defintiely had an edge in this game, especially as I'm unknown to everyone except maybe Nenad. Mike talked me into playing both tables.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?975976- Things were going well when I played my first all-in pot as a *slight* favourite. Sorry forgot to clean up the railtards chat. That sucked.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?975985 - Phil Ivey owns me obviously.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?976046 - I got the best of Nenad in the hands we played today.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?976062 - I finished +13K, timex got half of course.
Timex then sat but I decided I'd had enough high stakes action for one day (for a long time prboably) and I didn't take any of his action. He obviously won a coinflip against Phil Ivey, proving his luckbox knows no bound.
Also, I won two more WSOP seats. First I luckboxed a $160 double shootout on Stars last night, and then I won the $650 satellite today (6 spots paid). Full TIlt just gave me cash for their seat when I told them I had to take the Stars seat, and I got 10K W$ and $1K cash for the second seat on Stars. Balllllin!
Mike
PS. no donkaments tomorrow for real this time because I'm spending Easter with family.
Watts says:who nenad playing 200/400 with aba and ivey (Nenad Medic, used to go to UW also, now wins WPTs etc...)
Watts says:*whoa
timex says:o wow
timex says:btw, I bought a watch (Mike had a BBV thread about buying a balla watch recently)
Watts says:what one?
Watts says:the tag?
timex says:ya
Watts says:nice
timex says:pretty decent
timex says:they are having a sale at fairview mall, so I got 20% off
Watts says:sweet yo
Watts says:so just uner 2k?
timex says:so it was 1730 after tax
Watts says:not bad
Watts says:TAG doesn't have the same ring as timex or rolex tho
Watts says:thogh it could still have nice double meaning as a poker name (I'm not funny)
timex says:lol (pity laugh)
Watts says:lol doubling up first hand of 10/20 for the day (brag)
Watts says:soooo...
Watts says:do Ishortack 200/400 or not?
timex says:YES obv (as if I didn't know he'd immediately say yes)
Watts says:you want half my action?
timex says:I'll take 1/2 ur action if you tell me ur hands etc.
timex says:and only until say 240 or something, I need sleep after that
Watts says:k
Watts says:letus gogogogogo (BBV-ism)
The games weren't exactly what most people would call soft: Phil Ivey, sbrugby (probably the best HSNL player online, played in this season of High Stakes Poker), Nenad (serb) and Gus Hansen. Some other random shortstack guys that were terrible showed up too fortunately, I defintiely had an edge in this game, especially as I'm unknown to everyone except maybe Nenad. Mike talked me into playing both tables.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?975976- Things were going well when I played my first all-in pot as a *slight* favourite. Sorry forgot to clean up the railtards chat. That sucked.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?975985 - Phil Ivey owns me obviously.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?976046 - I got the best of Nenad in the hands we played today.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?976062 - I finished +13K, timex got half of course.
Timex then sat but I decided I'd had enough high stakes action for one day (for a long time prboably) and I didn't take any of his action. He obviously won a coinflip against Phil Ivey, proving his luckbox knows no bound.
Also, I won two more WSOP seats. First I luckboxed a $160 double shootout on Stars last night, and then I won the $650 satellite today (6 spots paid). Full TIlt just gave me cash for their seat when I told them I had to take the Stars seat, and I got 10K W$ and $1K cash for the second seat on Stars. Balllllin!
Mike
PS. no donkaments tomorrow for real this time because I'm spending Easter with family.
Monday, April 02, 2007
What a stupid Sunday
I lied in my last post, my basketball game was earlier than I thought so I got over to Steve's in time to play the evening tournaments. Things were going very well in several tournaments but then I lost two hands worth a combined 25-30K in equity I'd estimate. The first was against Ogre from 2+2 on the final table bubble of the Stars 100r. I was 2/10 and looking to improve on my 13K cash from last week.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?959055 - He thought I was picking on the BB who had been playing really tight (I actually had some old hands on him from somewhere that said he was fairly aggressive so Ogre's read was way off). I knew he was capable of shoving a fairly wide range there so I had to call even though getting into a big confrontation with another biggish stack there kind of sucks. 42o is just a terrible hand though I think he needs at least some showdown value for his push to be reasonable, oh well lol donkaments etc... I went on to bubble.
No worries I'll just win my WSOP seat in the 650 satellite I figured and it won't be such a bad day. I was deep in that with a bubble type stack, but I had finally picked up enough pots that I was in very good shape when some donkey went off his mind and tried not to make the WSOP. There are 24 left and 22 get seats. I'm like 17/24 when this ridonkulousness happened:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?959066 - I just shove in because it's the thing to do (folding might be ok but I don't have enough chips to fold in yet so pushing is better since the BB had shown no suicidal tendencies) and some guy decides to go on a kamakaze mission to ruin my life. If he had AA you might be able to have some discussion as to whether calling or folding is correct (he should still fold), but with AQ his call is just suicidal.
So at this point I was pretty pissed but I had a ton of chips in a $200 WSOP sat on Full Tilt that paid 3 seats so I decided not to endlife and go for vindication there. As luck would have it I was able to win a couple crucial big pots for a change and I got my WSOP seat after all! So all-in-all it turned out to be a pretty OK day I guess, though it could have been so much better. Tournaments really are stupid.
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?959055 - He thought I was picking on the BB who had been playing really tight (I actually had some old hands on him from somewhere that said he was fairly aggressive so Ogre's read was way off). I knew he was capable of shoving a fairly wide range there so I had to call even though getting into a big confrontation with another biggish stack there kind of sucks. 42o is just a terrible hand though I think he needs at least some showdown value for his push to be reasonable, oh well lol donkaments etc... I went on to bubble.
No worries I'll just win my WSOP seat in the 650 satellite I figured and it won't be such a bad day. I was deep in that with a bubble type stack, but I had finally picked up enough pots that I was in very good shape when some donkey went off his mind and tried not to make the WSOP. There are 24 left and 22 get seats. I'm like 17/24 when this ridonkulousness happened:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?959066 - I just shove in because it's the thing to do (folding might be ok but I don't have enough chips to fold in yet so pushing is better since the BB had shown no suicidal tendencies) and some guy decides to go on a kamakaze mission to ruin my life. If he had AA you might be able to have some discussion as to whether calling or folding is correct (he should still fold), but with AQ his call is just suicidal.
So at this point I was pretty pissed but I had a ton of chips in a $200 WSOP sat on Full Tilt that paid 3 seats so I decided not to endlife and go for vindication there. As luck would have it I was able to win a couple crucial big pots for a change and I got my WSOP seat after all! So all-in-all it turned out to be a pretty OK day I guess, though it could have been so much better. Tournaments really are stupid.
Mike
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