Today was a really fun day at Bellagio Cup, but I finished with a sour taste in my mouth when I lost a bunch of chips in the last orbit, which is really unfortunate because it was probably the most fun I've had at a poker table in a long time before that. Devo was on my right (MaverickUSC), shaniac on my left and Raymond Davis 2 to my right and we cracking jokes the entire day, I've never laughed so hard at a poker table. We started with 45K in chips and the structure is obviously very good. I didn't do much in level 1 before I played a couple really weird hands in level 2.
Hand 1: 100/200 John Pham raises to 625 UTG, one call, and I make it 2625 in the SB with AA. Shaniac cold calls in the BB and both others call. Flop JT5 two diamonds and I decide to check because betting out and getting raised would make me cry a lot, though I'm not sure this is any better. It's definitely the type of board I have to be a bit worried about a set on though. Shaniac bets 5500 and Phan calls. I also call because I still don't really know wtf is going on. Turn Ad. I decide I probably just have to bet and protect my hand even if it might cost me action so I fire 20K and both fold.
Hand 2: I open 97hh to 700 on the button. Ray Davis defends his BB. Flop T52 two hearts. I bet 1150 and he checkraises to 2500. I call. Turn Jc, he bets 2500 and I pussy out and just call. River As, he checks and i don't think I can really represent anything credibly and he's kind of a station so I check behind and give up. He table Q8o and wins and I want to kill myself.
Hand 3: I busted a guy with AQs vs A7 who clearly was a weak player looking to get out of there and then I won a bunch of small pots to get as high as 70K. I'm down to about 62K before the last level of the day when these 2 hands happen:
Hand 3: 300/600 a75 Richard Lee opens to 2000 in MP, I make it 6K with AKs and he instaships all-in. WTF. I just muck my hand since as suspicious as this looks I can't imagine I'm ever in good shape against his range here.
Hand 4: I open AJo to 1800 in EP and Lee defends his BB. Flop AT9 I decide to check behind. Turn T, he checks I bet 2500 and he makes it 7500. Siiiiiiiiigh. i've seen him so some spazzy stuff today so I call. River K he bets 11K and I pay it off, QTs is good. So I finish the the day with 36K and I am just enraged.
After that we go to Fix where we wait for 15 minutes to get a table we had reserved. I am already on megatilt from donking up the last hand before the end of the day and that just makes it worse. The service is really bad but at least the food is pretty good. Throughout the entire meal I am just furious though. As much as I know I have to be realistic about my skills in poker, to not have an ego, and to not get upset with myself when I make a bad play, there is still some part of me deep down that holds myself to impossibly high standards. I always expect the best of myself and anything less is unacceptable. That and being up chips all day until the final hand just really really pissed me off. I'm still kind of livid. I guess those high standards/expectations are a big part of what has made me successful at a lot of things, but at the same time as mellow and relaxed as I typically try to be there is a huge part of me that can not accept making mistakes and failing when it's my own fault and I should know better. Bad beats roll off me like nothing, but fucking up a hand the same way I've fucked it up 5 times before and still never learned drives me crazy. Oh yeah then I lost credit card roulette but it was only a $400 meal so whatever.
In other credit card roulette related news a bunch of us went to Prime Friday night, the steakhouse in Bellagio, to celebrate gobbo's big win and our general awesomeness or whatever. I had some ballin Kobe beef sampler of 3 different cuts of steak and it was exceptionally delicious. The servers were extremely professional and knowledgeable, and everything about the meal was just top notch, easily one of the best overall dining experiences I've ever had. This time I managed to not lose CCR for the $3K bill, so no complaints there. Anyways tomorrow/today I'm doing the usual Sunday online tournament thing. The guarantees are all doubled on Stars so it should be a fun day. Then Day 2 of Bellagio on Monday where my 36K is still plenty of chips.
Mike
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Sigh Day 3
Well as I'm sure most of y'all know by now I busted early in Day 3 well short of the monies. Here's how that went down.
Level 1: Noting happened and I chipped down to 100K. No one calls my raises and the few times I called raises I missed the flop and gave up.
Level 2: I've been pretty tight so far so I decide to pick it up a notch. I open several pots with marginal holdings winning the blinds and even mix in a resteal against a semi-active asian player who opened in MP. I've already chipped back up to 115K when this hand happens.
Hand 1: 1k/2k a300 I open KQo in MP to 6k. Old guy who seemed kind of tight but I've seen do some weird stuff as well calls in the CO. Flop KT9 two hearts. I check and he bets 10K, which I call. Turn 2c, I check and he bets 20K. I kind of think he has AK or a set or something here a lot but I've seen him do some weird stuff like I said so I decide I should call one more time, especially as I have some outs when I'm beat. River 5s, I check and he thinks a bit then checks behind and tables AA. Damn.
Hand 2: Asian guy who I restole already opens to 5800 in MP again. I find AKs in the SB and make it 18,500 again. He thinks a bit and calls. Gah. Flop Q87r, there's about 40K in the pot and 53K in my stack so I decide to just check and fold when he quickly bets 60K. I think stack sizes are too awkward to bet the flop, I don't want to commit 51K here but bet/folding is pretty gross too so I don't really like betting. I could have reraised bigger preflop so I can just shove any flop but I wanted to make the same bet as when I was stealing to maximize the chances of him doing something stupid preflop.
Hand 3: 1200/2400 a300 I've since lost a couple other small pots and am down to ~40K. French guy opens in EMP to 7K, asian guy calls in MP, his range here is really wide, and I find TT in the BB and shove. French guy calls a bit too quickly for me to like my chances at all and his JJ is good.
I'm taking today off and Bond and I are playing Day 1b of the $15K WPT event at Bellagio tomorrow. Unless I bust out tomorrow this will be my last live event of the summer (there's a $5k at the Venetian starting Sunday if I'm busto). The Bellagio events have been going really well for my friends thus far though. Bond won a $3K event for $193K and gobbo won a $5K event last night for $443K, so big congrats to him! Hopefully I can be next on that list of winners at Bellagio. I have had a moderate amount of success there in the past, and now that the tournaments are moved back to the Fontana Bar it's a great venue to play at again.
Mike
Level 1: Noting happened and I chipped down to 100K. No one calls my raises and the few times I called raises I missed the flop and gave up.
Level 2: I've been pretty tight so far so I decide to pick it up a notch. I open several pots with marginal holdings winning the blinds and even mix in a resteal against a semi-active asian player who opened in MP. I've already chipped back up to 115K when this hand happens.
Hand 1: 1k/2k a300 I open KQo in MP to 6k. Old guy who seemed kind of tight but I've seen do some weird stuff as well calls in the CO. Flop KT9 two hearts. I check and he bets 10K, which I call. Turn 2c, I check and he bets 20K. I kind of think he has AK or a set or something here a lot but I've seen him do some weird stuff like I said so I decide I should call one more time, especially as I have some outs when I'm beat. River 5s, I check and he thinks a bit then checks behind and tables AA. Damn.
Hand 2: Asian guy who I restole already opens to 5800 in MP again. I find AKs in the SB and make it 18,500 again. He thinks a bit and calls. Gah. Flop Q87r, there's about 40K in the pot and 53K in my stack so I decide to just check and fold when he quickly bets 60K. I think stack sizes are too awkward to bet the flop, I don't want to commit 51K here but bet/folding is pretty gross too so I don't really like betting. I could have reraised bigger preflop so I can just shove any flop but I wanted to make the same bet as when I was stealing to maximize the chances of him doing something stupid preflop.
Hand 3: 1200/2400 a300 I've since lost a couple other small pots and am down to ~40K. French guy opens in EMP to 7K, asian guy calls in MP, his range here is really wide, and I find TT in the BB and shove. French guy calls a bit too quickly for me to like my chances at all and his JJ is good.
I'm taking today off and Bond and I are playing Day 1b of the $15K WPT event at Bellagio tomorrow. Unless I bust out tomorrow this will be my last live event of the summer (there's a $5k at the Venetian starting Sunday if I'm busto). The Bellagio events have been going really well for my friends thus far though. Bond won a $3K event for $193K and gobbo won a $5K event last night for $443K, so big congrats to him! Hopefully I can be next on that list of winners at Bellagio. I have had a moderate amount of success there in the past, and now that the tournaments are moved back to the Fontana Bar it's a great venue to play at again.
Mike
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
A Rocky Day 2
My basic game plan on Day 1 of "Flop set, bust donk" turns out to not work as well when you don't flop 6 sets in one day. I basically was miserably card dead almost the entire day and watching my chip stack slowly but consistently decrease. Fortunately, Brandon Adams doubled me up in the last level of the night and I finished with 112,900 which leaves me in fine shape for Thursday. Here are the few interesting hands I can recall:
Hand 1: 250/500 a50. Folds to me on the button and I make it 1500 with K7o. Both blinds defend. Flop K62r I check behind. Turn Q they check and I bet 3000. SB calls, BB folds. Turn K, check I bet 6500 he calls and mucks.
300/600 a75: I'm fairly certain nothing actually happened.
Hand 2: 400/800 a100 I open to 2400 in MP with 99. Young Scandi on my left who likes to call and then fold when I bet the flop calls and mman_status makes it 9200 on the button with only ~15K more behind. I eventually decide to fold as much as I hate it since Mike is usually very solid, but I can't help but feel like a pussy. Mike told me had AA at the end of the day though, whew.
Hand 3: 500/1000 a10. OK so I'm down to 95K here coming back after dinner break and in this level I really start to bleed them off faster. I open J9s in the HJ, scandi calls again and mman_status calls in the SB. Flop K65r, well I think this is way too good a flop not to bet so I fire 6500, scandi folds and mman shoves so I lose 10K this hand. The rest of this level not much happens. I see a few flops here and there and miss and check/fold. One of my raises gets repopped and I'm down to 60K by the end of the level.
Hand 4: 600/1200 a200 I open 55 on the button and scandi on my left repops me. This is the first time he has reraised preflop the whole day but I still feel like he is fos. I eventually decide not to tilt shove. Then I open KJhh in EP a few hands later, the SB flat calls and JasonGray in the BB reopops. I know he has a monster so I obviously fold, but I'm visibly getting upset with how my day is going as I mucked pretty angrily. The thing about me is though that I don't really tilt like other people. I'm aware that my image is now terrible and no one is going to give me much credit. When I tilt I actually end up playing nittier since everyone seems to expect you to start overplaying your hands and spaz off your chips to them. I'm not sure how much my "tilting" has to do with what happened in this next hand since Brandon Adams is pretty insane to begin with but it's possible it has something to do with it.
Hand 5: I open AJs in MP to 3600 with around 50K more behind. Brandon Adams calls in the SB. Flop AJ9 two diamonds, he checks and I bet 6600 which he calls. Turn Td, not exactly my favourite card. He checks and I have a decision to make. The T shouldn't really have made his hand. He's certainly capable of floating the flop with KQ but it's not a likely holding. It could, however, have easily made him a worse 2 pair. It seems very unlikely that he has a flush. Most flush draw hands would also have a pair or straight draw of some sort on the flop and he would have played those more aggressively on the flop almost always. So unless he has something like 86dd, 56dd, or 57dd he shouldn't have a flush. With that decided it's now obviously extremely likely that I still have the best hand so I need to bet for value and to protect my hand. Of course with so few chips I can't fold to a checkraise so I have to be willing to commit my stack vs a raise since he could checkraise me with a lot of worse 2 pair, semi-bluffs, and possibly other stuff. So I make what I guess is actually a really easy bet of 15,600 (I should probably actually bet a lot bigger), he moves me in relatively quickly and I shrug and call. He says "I don't have much" and I table my hand. "Ya, I'm dead". He doesn't want to show his hand but he's required to in a tournament all-in situation so he's turns over his A6hh. Lucky for me since the river is the 8d.
I won and lost a couple small pots after that and finished the day with 112,900. Hoping for the super soft Day 3 table draw as I'm pretty sure my table today was likely the toughest in the entire tournament throughout the last half of the day. I recognized 3-4 people as very solid players and the other guys were not playing poorly at all either. In the World Series of Poker main event on Day 2 that's just extremely unlucky.
Mike
Hand 1: 250/500 a50. Folds to me on the button and I make it 1500 with K7o. Both blinds defend. Flop K62r I check behind. Turn Q they check and I bet 3000. SB calls, BB folds. Turn K, check I bet 6500 he calls and mucks.
300/600 a75: I'm fairly certain nothing actually happened.
Hand 2: 400/800 a100 I open to 2400 in MP with 99. Young Scandi on my left who likes to call and then fold when I bet the flop calls and mman_status makes it 9200 on the button with only ~15K more behind. I eventually decide to fold as much as I hate it since Mike is usually very solid, but I can't help but feel like a pussy. Mike told me had AA at the end of the day though, whew.
Hand 3: 500/1000 a10. OK so I'm down to 95K here coming back after dinner break and in this level I really start to bleed them off faster. I open J9s in the HJ, scandi calls again and mman_status calls in the SB. Flop K65r, well I think this is way too good a flop not to bet so I fire 6500, scandi folds and mman shoves so I lose 10K this hand. The rest of this level not much happens. I see a few flops here and there and miss and check/fold. One of my raises gets repopped and I'm down to 60K by the end of the level.
Hand 4: 600/1200 a200 I open 55 on the button and scandi on my left repops me. This is the first time he has reraised preflop the whole day but I still feel like he is fos. I eventually decide not to tilt shove. Then I open KJhh in EP a few hands later, the SB flat calls and JasonGray in the BB reopops. I know he has a monster so I obviously fold, but I'm visibly getting upset with how my day is going as I mucked pretty angrily. The thing about me is though that I don't really tilt like other people. I'm aware that my image is now terrible and no one is going to give me much credit. When I tilt I actually end up playing nittier since everyone seems to expect you to start overplaying your hands and spaz off your chips to them. I'm not sure how much my "tilting" has to do with what happened in this next hand since Brandon Adams is pretty insane to begin with but it's possible it has something to do with it.
Hand 5: I open AJs in MP to 3600 with around 50K more behind. Brandon Adams calls in the SB. Flop AJ9 two diamonds, he checks and I bet 6600 which he calls. Turn Td, not exactly my favourite card. He checks and I have a decision to make. The T shouldn't really have made his hand. He's certainly capable of floating the flop with KQ but it's not a likely holding. It could, however, have easily made him a worse 2 pair. It seems very unlikely that he has a flush. Most flush draw hands would also have a pair or straight draw of some sort on the flop and he would have played those more aggressively on the flop almost always. So unless he has something like 86dd, 56dd, or 57dd he shouldn't have a flush. With that decided it's now obviously extremely likely that I still have the best hand so I need to bet for value and to protect my hand. Of course with so few chips I can't fold to a checkraise so I have to be willing to commit my stack vs a raise since he could checkraise me with a lot of worse 2 pair, semi-bluffs, and possibly other stuff. So I make what I guess is actually a really easy bet of 15,600 (I should probably actually bet a lot bigger), he moves me in relatively quickly and I shrug and call. He says "I don't have much" and I table my hand. "Ya, I'm dead". He doesn't want to show his hand but he's required to in a tournament all-in situation so he's turns over his A6hh. Lucky for me since the river is the 8d.
I won and lost a couple small pots after that and finished the day with 112,900. Hoping for the super soft Day 3 table draw as I'm pretty sure my table today was likely the toughest in the entire tournament throughout the last half of the day. I recognized 3-4 people as very solid players and the other guys were not playing poorly at all either. In the World Series of Poker main event on Day 2 that's just extremely unlucky.
Mike
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Day 2 tomorrow, finally
Alright, I finally get to play Day 2a tomorrow. The UFC was awesome to go to live. We saw 2 really just sick fights. We arrived a little late and the first fight we saw was the war between Cole Miller and Jorge Gurgel which ended by submission with only 18 seconds left. Just crazy. And of course the main event was insane. The atmosphere during that fight was just electric from start to finish, it was awesome. I really didn't have huge expectations for the card coming in, and while the fights in the middle were pretty boring overall it was a great night. On Sunday I decided to stay home and grind online tournaments. The day was going catastrophically as I had not managed a single cash and I was down to only the last tournament of the night, the always tough Stars $200 rebuy. Things started going right in that tournament though and I kept picking up hands when short stacks pushed and holding against them. Before I knew it I had a lot of chips at the final table. At the final table I again got lucky in a few key pots and got heads up with a 2:1 chip lead. As always though everything just went wrong heads up. I got behind in chips but clawed back to even when the big pot happened.
10/20K he lmped the button and I raised to 60K with KK. He called and the flop came J65. I bet 80K and he called. The turn was an 8, I checked and he bet 160K. I shoved for 400K more and he thought a while before calling with QJ. River Q, sigh. 2nd again, but 31K is obviously still a good score.
Today I stayed home and relaxed. Went for a swim and played online a bit more. I luckboxed a big stack in the 100r on Stars but in consecutive hands I lost KK vs JTo aipf and then KQ vs AQ on a Q-hi flop against the same guy to bust 12th. So tomorrow is Day 2. My table draw seems relatively mediocre. The only player with a lot of chips is on my direct left, a Scandanavian sounding name with 83K. Solid online players mikeymer and SBRounder are also at my table but with only a little over 20K in chips each. Recognizing 2 players at your table as solid players this early in the tournament seems rather unlucky, but if the other guys are bad the table draw should be alright. None of the others seem to have any live results so that's probably a good sign. You should be able to follow my progress all day at PocketFivesLive, PokerNews, and of course my voice blog updates over at TwoRags. Hopefully I can pick up right where I left off on Friday!
Mike
10/20K he lmped the button and I raised to 60K with KK. He called and the flop came J65. I bet 80K and he called. The turn was an 8, I checked and he bet 160K. I shoved for 400K more and he thought a while before calling with QJ. River Q, sigh. 2nd again, but 31K is obviously still a good score.
Today I stayed home and relaxed. Went for a swim and played online a bit more. I luckboxed a big stack in the 100r on Stars but in consecutive hands I lost KK vs JTo aipf and then KQ vs AQ on a Q-hi flop against the same guy to bust 12th. So tomorrow is Day 2. My table draw seems relatively mediocre. The only player with a lot of chips is on my direct left, a Scandanavian sounding name with 83K. Solid online players mikeymer and SBRounder are also at my table but with only a little over 20K in chips each. Recognizing 2 players at your table as solid players this early in the tournament seems rather unlucky, but if the other guys are bad the table draw should be alright. None of the others seem to have any live results so that's probably a good sign. You should be able to follow my progress all day at PocketFivesLive, PokerNews, and of course my voice blog updates over at TwoRags. Hopefully I can pick up right where I left off on Friday!
Mike
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Day 1 in the books, 104K
Day 1 went really well for me in the main event. I won several big pots mostly by flopping sets and finished the day with 104,425 chips. Early on I was trying to get involved a lot and I was fooling around with limping in a lot of pots. It's not something I've ever really done before but I knew my table was never going to break and because of the structure I'd probably be playing a lot of the same people all day. I wanted to establish a bit more of a passive image so that my raises would get more respect in the later ante levels as well as encouraging the rest of the table to limp a lot as well. I guess the idea is to just outplay people postflop since most players in the main event obviously play pretty bad, especially with deep stacks. I also ended up picking up a lot of smal-mid pairs which I will just limp with as a standard play a lot of the time anyways to make sure I get to see the flop and try to hit a set (when I'm not in late position). So somehow I had established some goofy limpy image and people were rarely raising my limps, except one fish who liked to raise 7xBB. After having just limped/called a 7xBB raise with 77 and check/folding when I missed this hand happened:
Hand 1: 50/100 I find KK in EP and limp. Robert Varkonyi on my left limps and fish raises to 700 again. I make it 2200 and fish calls. Flop Ks 5s 4s. I bet 3200 fish calls. Turn 6c. I bet 10K fish calls. River Tc. I go all-in for my last 2000 into the 30K pot. Fish folds. lol. 32K after this hand.
Hand 2: 100/200 I limp 88 UTG. Folds to a tight player in the CO who raises to 1200. I call. Flop J87 two hearts. I lead 2K, he raises 5K, I make it 12K, he calls. Turn J. Damn, that might kill my action. I move all-in for his last 8500 or so. He thinks it over and calls with QQ and I hold. I have around 53K here or something.
Hand 3: I open limp KTo in MP. I don't really know what to say about this play, I just kinda decided to stick with the limping thing but it seems pretty ridiculous. Button makes it 800 and he's tight so I definitely have to fold, but the BB who is big fish calls so I decide I'm getting a good price to call, especially since the button has over 40K in front of him and the fish is a fish. Flop QJ9 (obv). Checks to button who bets 1600. Fish folds and I make it 6100, he calls. Wow, he really might have a set here which would be a huge pot. Turn 8 killing my action since I'm pretty sure he basically never has a T himself. I bet 10500 because I can't let a set peel a free card and he folds.
Hand 4: 150/300 Same tight guy from hand 3 opens UTG to 1200 and I call with 22 in the SB. Flop 632 (you might be noticing a trend). Check, he bets 1600 I make it 5100 but he folds. 71.5K at dinner break.
Hand 5: 150/300 a25 Folds to a seemingly decent player in MP who opens to 1K. I make it 3K in the CO with KK and he calls. Flop KTx two spades. He checks and I bet 4K. He shoves ~12K more and I call about as fast as anyone has ever called. He has JJ for some reason and I'm over 90K.
Hand 6: I guess I should include one hand where I don't have the nuts. Really bad player from Paraguay limps in EP as he often does. He is basically a huge call station and has never folded A-hi to a flop bet ever. He has limped AK/AQ and peeled a 743 2-suit flop several times. it's hilarious. I raise to 1200 in MP with 99 and he calls. Flop K52 with 2 hearts. He checks and
I bet 1800. He calls. Turn Q chk/chk. River 4 he bets 2500 I call and A6 is no good.
Hand 7: 200/400 a50 A young guy who is playing pretty tight except he's constantly opening UTG, but he's opening to 1400 so I kind of think he's not just stealing he just happens to only get hands UTG raises to 1400. He has 12K or so I think. I find JJ on the button and flat call. Flop J22. lol. He bets 2800 I call. Turn J (lol) he checks I bet 4200 and he folds. I found out later the player in this hand was MSNL poster ParlaySlow.
Not much else of interest happened and I finished the day with 104,425. I play Day 2a on Tuesday. In other news, huge congrats to Tony "Bond18" Dunst my housemate for finally winning a live tournament and getting out of hole. He won the $3K Bellagio Cup event for $193K, and timex doesn't even get all of that! It's unfortunate that we lose all the jokes about how he's lost $100,000 of some 18 year old kid's money, but really it was about time he broke through considering the amount of live tournaments he's played. Today I'm going to UFC 86. I will probably play the $3K at Bellagio tomorrow, though I might just stay home and grind online or do nothing and complain about how hungover I am all day depending happens after the fights. Oh yeah, because I was one of the chip leaders thoughout much of the day I got a decent amount of media coverage. Pockefiveslive were following me as always, but also PokerNews and PokerStarsBlog were following me a bit. In particular here's a nice little update they wrote about me on the latter.
http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2008/07/2008-world-series-sirwatts-is-lord-of.html
Mike
Hand 1: 50/100 I find KK in EP and limp. Robert Varkonyi on my left limps and fish raises to 700 again. I make it 2200 and fish calls. Flop Ks 5s 4s. I bet 3200 fish calls. Turn 6c. I bet 10K fish calls. River Tc. I go all-in for my last 2000 into the 30K pot. Fish folds. lol. 32K after this hand.
Hand 2: 100/200 I limp 88 UTG. Folds to a tight player in the CO who raises to 1200. I call. Flop J87 two hearts. I lead 2K, he raises 5K, I make it 12K, he calls. Turn J. Damn, that might kill my action. I move all-in for his last 8500 or so. He thinks it over and calls with QQ and I hold. I have around 53K here or something.
Hand 3: I open limp KTo in MP. I don't really know what to say about this play, I just kinda decided to stick with the limping thing but it seems pretty ridiculous. Button makes it 800 and he's tight so I definitely have to fold, but the BB who is big fish calls so I decide I'm getting a good price to call, especially since the button has over 40K in front of him and the fish is a fish. Flop QJ9 (obv). Checks to button who bets 1600. Fish folds and I make it 6100, he calls. Wow, he really might have a set here which would be a huge pot. Turn 8 killing my action since I'm pretty sure he basically never has a T himself. I bet 10500 because I can't let a set peel a free card and he folds.
Hand 4: 150/300 Same tight guy from hand 3 opens UTG to 1200 and I call with 22 in the SB. Flop 632 (you might be noticing a trend). Check, he bets 1600 I make it 5100 but he folds. 71.5K at dinner break.
Hand 5: 150/300 a25 Folds to a seemingly decent player in MP who opens to 1K. I make it 3K in the CO with KK and he calls. Flop KTx two spades. He checks and I bet 4K. He shoves ~12K more and I call about as fast as anyone has ever called. He has JJ for some reason and I'm over 90K.
Hand 6: I guess I should include one hand where I don't have the nuts. Really bad player from Paraguay limps in EP as he often does. He is basically a huge call station and has never folded A-hi to a flop bet ever. He has limped AK/AQ and peeled a 743 2-suit flop several times. it's hilarious. I raise to 1200 in MP with 99 and he calls. Flop K52 with 2 hearts. He checks and
I bet 1800. He calls. Turn Q chk/chk. River 4 he bets 2500 I call and A6 is no good.
Hand 7: 200/400 a50 A young guy who is playing pretty tight except he's constantly opening UTG, but he's opening to 1400 so I kind of think he's not just stealing he just happens to only get hands UTG raises to 1400. He has 12K or so I think. I find JJ on the button and flat call. Flop J22. lol. He bets 2800 I call. Turn J (lol) he checks I bet 4200 and he folds. I found out later the player in this hand was MSNL poster ParlaySlow.
Not much else of interest happened and I finished the day with 104,425. I play Day 2a on Tuesday. In other news, huge congrats to Tony "Bond18" Dunst my housemate for finally winning a live tournament and getting out of hole. He won the $3K Bellagio Cup event for $193K, and timex doesn't even get all of that! It's unfortunate that we lose all the jokes about how he's lost $100,000 of some 18 year old kid's money, but really it was about time he broke through considering the amount of live tournaments he's played. Today I'm going to UFC 86. I will probably play the $3K at Bellagio tomorrow, though I might just stay home and grind online or do nothing and complain about how hungover I am all day depending happens after the fights. Oh yeah, because I was one of the chip leaders thoughout much of the day I got a decent amount of media coverage. Pockefiveslive were following me as always, but also PokerNews and PokerStarsBlog were following me a bit. In particular here's a nice little update they wrote about me on the latter.
http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2008/07/2008-world-series-sirwatts-is-lord-of.html
Mike
Friday, July 04, 2008
Main Event Time!
So I busted in the 2nd round of the limit shootout. The key hand was when I lost a big pot to mattg1983 with AJ vs QT on a QJ9JQ board after I 3-bet him preflop. I probably should have lost one less bet on the river but my play wasn't that bad in retrospect. Matt went on to win the event and his first bracelet though! I was lucky enough to have made a swap with him before round 2 so I got a little % of the win. Today I am playing the main event at Blue 11, seat 9. Excited as always! I'll be phoning or texting in updates to TwoRags so check in over there to see how I'm doing.
Mike
Mike
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
lol min-bet
Today was the final preliminary event of the 2008 WSOP, the $1500 limit shootout. It got 823 runners. I was actually pretty excited for this event because while limit holdem is certainly not my best game I do play it pretty competently, and most people in these limit tournaments tend to be really awful. I also have a history of running pretty good in limit tournaments and that always makes you feel more optimistic. My first table was pretty much what I expected. 3 guys were just terribad. 4 people were just super ABC tight passive, if they ever raise you you are probably screwed. That left me and one other guy who seemed to play really solid with some aggression and little moves mixed in. I ran really good throughout the first 2 levels of my first heat and had already worked my stack up to 8K from the 3K start bank by the first break. I cooled off for the next 2 levels but I think I played well and lost the minimum, and I still had 5400 at the 2nd break. After that I started to cardrack pretty hard. I was making hands left and right and value betting aggressively to get maximum value. Finally, I ended up heads up against the only player who seemed tough. I ran insanely hot from the start and took a 21K-6K chip lead, but then I stopped making hands and dropped down to under 10K. Just as it felt like it might be slipping away I caught another rush of cards even more absurd than the last and made some solid value bets on the end to close out the match.
My 2nd table seems considerably tougher than my first. While my first table was very passive and predictable, this table is extremely aggressive. A few of the guys seem kind of spewy, but they are certainly not easy to play against. We played 4 levels at the 2nd table before calling it a night. I managed to chip all the way up from 30K to 30.5K in that time. We restart today at 2pm PST. If I win this table then next stop is the final table. Hopefully I can keep running good and min-bet my way to glory.
Mike
My 2nd table seems considerably tougher than my first. While my first table was very passive and predictable, this table is extremely aggressive. A few of the guys seem kind of spewy, but they are certainly not easy to play against. We played 4 levels at the 2nd table before calling it a night. I managed to chip all the way up from 30K to 30.5K in that time. We restart today at 2pm PST. If I win this table then next stop is the final table. Hopefully I can keep running good and min-bet my way to glory.
Mike
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday: Different game, same result
Instead of playing the usual online tournaments yesterday I was playing the $10K PLO tournament at the WSOP. I was pretty excited for this one being a big buy-in in a game I feel confident I am picking up very quickly. There's an awful lot of gamble in PLO though and I ended up on the wrong side of one I probably would have done better to avoid. I had built my stack up to around 29K mostly by winning a big pot with double suited aces against a wrap hand when this hand came up:
A weak player opened to 1500 UTG at 250/500. He had just won a huge pot off of Toto Leonidas when he made a really terrible flop call, and Toto was now pretty short. Next to act, Toto re-potted to 5250 with very little behind, maybe somewhere in the 4-7K range I'm not really sure. The way he/everyone was playing this is almost certainly AAxx, though having just lost a big pot he could be steaming a little and possibly doing this with worse, though I certinaly feel it's some kind of big hand. A T6 Poker pro who seemed good cold called quickly in the cutoff with a big stack and I found 8765ddss in the SB. Generally when a pot is going to be multiway like this one will be if I call this is exactly the type of hand you want. However, in this case there are two important factors which I think lean the hand towards a fold:
1. This is a tournament not a cash game. I'm getting into an extremely high variance situation where my edge isn't that big and I'm going to have to commit my entire stack on a lot of flops not knowing how much equity I really have. There are lots of weak players and I can surely wait and find better spots to get my money in. Usually this is the excuse of the weak-tight player as he makes a bad fold, but I feel like this is exactly the type of situation where it applies.
2. The CO, being a competent player, will often also have a hand similar to mine, and if his wrap is slightly higher than mine he will have me in really bad shape. Flops that it looks like I hit really hard he will have hit even harder. I think this is the more important reason. Without this consideration folding preflop would be passing up way too much EV, but when you factor this in you realize I'm not in nearly as profitable a situation as it may appear at first glance.
Still, calling is hardly ever going to be much of a mistake with such a strong hand, and that's what I did without much thought. The raiser decided to come along for the flop as well of course. The flop came As8s7c. Seemingly a monster flop for my hand, but there are lots of obvious possible problems:
1. My spades may no be live.
2. Toto probably has top set so my two pair doesn't do me much good.
3. I could be up against a better straight draw. Only a 4 gives me the nuts.
However, with so much money in the pot my hand clearly has way too much going for it to fold. Toto doesn't have too many chips left so if I end up all-in my two pair may hold up in a side pot against another draw that also calls. I quickly lead out for pot hoping to clean up my spade outs and get value from other draws. The original raiser ends up folding the nut flush draw luckily, but Toto and the CO both quickly call. Toto shows AAQJ for top set, and the CO shows 9865 for a wrap. This is a great spot for me however. My spades are live to scoop the whole pot. I have 6 additional straight outs to chop the entire pot, and even if I miss my 2 pair is a big favourite to scoop the large sidepot against the CO's 9865. Unfortunately a 6 hit on the river giving the CO a 9-hi straight and busting me from the tournament.
There are only 3 WSOP events left. Today is the final 1500 NL event which I will be playing. Tomorrow is a 1500 limit holdem shootout which should be good value too, and then the main event. I will be playing Day 1B on Friday. However the Bellagio Cup is also getting started soon so there's still lots more poker to be played. One final table finish could still easily salvage the entire Series for me.
Mike
A weak player opened to 1500 UTG at 250/500. He had just won a huge pot off of Toto Leonidas when he made a really terrible flop call, and Toto was now pretty short. Next to act, Toto re-potted to 5250 with very little behind, maybe somewhere in the 4-7K range I'm not really sure. The way he/everyone was playing this is almost certainly AAxx, though having just lost a big pot he could be steaming a little and possibly doing this with worse, though I certinaly feel it's some kind of big hand. A T6 Poker pro who seemed good cold called quickly in the cutoff with a big stack and I found 8765ddss in the SB. Generally when a pot is going to be multiway like this one will be if I call this is exactly the type of hand you want. However, in this case there are two important factors which I think lean the hand towards a fold:
1. This is a tournament not a cash game. I'm getting into an extremely high variance situation where my edge isn't that big and I'm going to have to commit my entire stack on a lot of flops not knowing how much equity I really have. There are lots of weak players and I can surely wait and find better spots to get my money in. Usually this is the excuse of the weak-tight player as he makes a bad fold, but I feel like this is exactly the type of situation where it applies.
2. The CO, being a competent player, will often also have a hand similar to mine, and if his wrap is slightly higher than mine he will have me in really bad shape. Flops that it looks like I hit really hard he will have hit even harder. I think this is the more important reason. Without this consideration folding preflop would be passing up way too much EV, but when you factor this in you realize I'm not in nearly as profitable a situation as it may appear at first glance.
Still, calling is hardly ever going to be much of a mistake with such a strong hand, and that's what I did without much thought. The raiser decided to come along for the flop as well of course. The flop came As8s7c. Seemingly a monster flop for my hand, but there are lots of obvious possible problems:
1. My spades may no be live.
2. Toto probably has top set so my two pair doesn't do me much good.
3. I could be up against a better straight draw. Only a 4 gives me the nuts.
However, with so much money in the pot my hand clearly has way too much going for it to fold. Toto doesn't have too many chips left so if I end up all-in my two pair may hold up in a side pot against another draw that also calls. I quickly lead out for pot hoping to clean up my spade outs and get value from other draws. The original raiser ends up folding the nut flush draw luckily, but Toto and the CO both quickly call. Toto shows AAQJ for top set, and the CO shows 9865 for a wrap. This is a great spot for me however. My spades are live to scoop the whole pot. I have 6 additional straight outs to chop the entire pot, and even if I miss my 2 pair is a big favourite to scoop the large sidepot against the CO's 9865. Unfortunately a 6 hit on the river giving the CO a 9-hi straight and busting me from the tournament.
There are only 3 WSOP events left. Today is the final 1500 NL event which I will be playing. Tomorrow is a 1500 limit holdem shootout which should be good value too, and then the main event. I will be playing Day 1B on Friday. However the Bellagio Cup is also getting started soon so there's still lots more poker to be played. One final table finish could still easily salvage the entire Series for me.
Mike
Friday, June 27, 2008
First Cash!
Well I finally cashed a WSOP tournament today. Things got off to a very good start when I won a whole bunch of smallish pots to get up to over 90K. Then I played this hand really bad which killed my chances.
I raise to 5500 in MP with TT and the BB Ben Fineman calls with around a 53K stack. I'm already super scared because I think he is trapping a big pair a whole lot but there's other stuff in his range as well. The BB who is a big donk also calls. Flop 443 two clubs, BB checks and I decide to check and see what happens since I'm not crazy about my hand. He bets 8K, BB folds and I'm not sure what to do. I was sort of planning to just call and play the hand passive but then I decided we were short enough that making a goofy sized checkraise and stacking off might induce him to get it in with worse hands so I did that and he obviously just had AA as I suspected all along. As much as I hate bet/folding overpairs this is the perfect time for it. If he raises my bet he always has a bigger pair than me except for the occasional time he has a flush draw which folding too is fine since he'll always have overs with it anyways. I seriously need to stop stacking off to this transparent bullshit it's so obvious and I know it but I still let it work.
Anyways then I basically folded into the money and eventually shoved KTo into AK. I got 69th for ~$8700. I then played the $1500 Stud Hi/Lo tournament which did not go well. Every time I play this game I realize I'm worse at it than I previously thought even though I do a lot of things right. So tomorrow is a $2K NL event. Hopefully now that I've got the first one under my belt I can start making deep runs more frequently in these things.
Mike
I raise to 5500 in MP with TT and the BB Ben Fineman calls with around a 53K stack. I'm already super scared because I think he is trapping a big pair a whole lot but there's other stuff in his range as well. The BB who is a big donk also calls. Flop 443 two clubs, BB checks and I decide to check and see what happens since I'm not crazy about my hand. He bets 8K, BB folds and I'm not sure what to do. I was sort of planning to just call and play the hand passive but then I decided we were short enough that making a goofy sized checkraise and stacking off might induce him to get it in with worse hands so I did that and he obviously just had AA as I suspected all along. As much as I hate bet/folding overpairs this is the perfect time for it. If he raises my bet he always has a bigger pair than me except for the occasional time he has a flush draw which folding too is fine since he'll always have overs with it anyways. I seriously need to stop stacking off to this transparent bullshit it's so obvious and I know it but I still let it work.
Anyways then I basically folded into the money and eventually shoved KTo into AK. I got 69th for ~$8700. I then played the $1500 Stud Hi/Lo tournament which did not go well. Every time I play this game I realize I'm worse at it than I previously thought even though I do a lot of things right. So tomorrow is a $2K NL event. Hopefully now that I've got the first one under my belt I can start making deep runs more frequently in these things.
Mike
Thursday, June 26, 2008
$1K Rebuy Day 2
I'm through to Day 2 of the $1K rebuy with 61K in chips which is about average. I'm now 4/4 in making Day of these tournaments at the WSOP, and I'll be looking to make it 2/4 arriving on time for Day 2 and 3/3 in cashing when I actually do eventually show up on Day 2. Today was a typical day when nothing went my way but I outplayed my opponents so badly that I was able to get by. Some quick examples:
Hand 1: Down to 3500 at 200/400 a50 I move in with J6o in MP. Button calls with TT and I make jacks up on the turn to double.
Hand 2: Raise KTcc and a shortstack shoves a small amount such that I have an automatic call. He has KJo and the board runs out 5 diamonds for the chop.
Hand 3: Raise AQo in EP to 1650 at 300/600 a75. Button instahoves for 7K more. Through a combination of pot odds and the fact that I showed down the ol J6o not too long ago and my image probably isn't stellar I take myself into calling. He obv has AKs but I show why it's superior to have 2 flush draws by running out a 4-flush.
Hand 4: I have 12K at 400/800 a100. Folds to this huuuuuuuge fish in MP. He looks at his cards. Starts pushing them forward like he's going to muck them. Pulls back. Looks at them again. Starts playing with his chips with a clear look of pondering on his face. Eventually he reluctantly decides to throw in 800 for a call. It was actually one of the most hilarious displays I've ever seen at a poker table. There is basically zero chance he's angleshooting, he's just that huge a tellbox. CO limps. I find A2s in the SB, and have to decide between shoving and raising big then shoving any flop. I decide to make it 5K. Fish folds, CO quickly shoves and I have to call off. He has ATs. Board runs off 6444J for the chop.
After that I basically just coolered some people to get to 61K. A true example of how the superior player doesn't need to rely on the luck of the cards to win at tournament poker. Anyways I intend to continue implementing the play bad run good system to it's full potential tomorrow, hopefully the poker gods are cool with that and supply the run good for me.
Mike
Hand 1: Down to 3500 at 200/400 a50 I move in with J6o in MP. Button calls with TT and I make jacks up on the turn to double.
Hand 2: Raise KTcc and a shortstack shoves a small amount such that I have an automatic call. He has KJo and the board runs out 5 diamonds for the chop.
Hand 3: Raise AQo in EP to 1650 at 300/600 a75. Button instahoves for 7K more. Through a combination of pot odds and the fact that I showed down the ol J6o not too long ago and my image probably isn't stellar I take myself into calling. He obv has AKs but I show why it's superior to have 2 flush draws by running out a 4-flush.
Hand 4: I have 12K at 400/800 a100. Folds to this huuuuuuuge fish in MP. He looks at his cards. Starts pushing them forward like he's going to muck them. Pulls back. Looks at them again. Starts playing with his chips with a clear look of pondering on his face. Eventually he reluctantly decides to throw in 800 for a call. It was actually one of the most hilarious displays I've ever seen at a poker table. There is basically zero chance he's angleshooting, he's just that huge a tellbox. CO limps. I find A2s in the SB, and have to decide between shoving and raising big then shoving any flop. I decide to make it 5K. Fish folds, CO quickly shoves and I have to call off. He has ATs. Board runs off 6444J for the chop.
After that I basically just coolered some people to get to 61K. A true example of how the superior player doesn't need to rely on the luck of the cards to win at tournament poker. Anyways I intend to continue implementing the play bad run good system to it's full potential tomorrow, hopefully the poker gods are cool with that and supply the run good for me.
Mike
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Back on the Grind
Now up to 0/15, -51.5K. I had relatively quick and painless exits in the $1500 NL and $2000 PL events last week. I skipped the $1500 NL event on Saturday and $1500 mixed holdem on Sunday to play online those days, and there was no event on Monday so I had a nice little 3 day vacation from losing real money. On Friday night we went to Treasure Island and did the drunken mixed games thing. Hilarity ensued when one usually more reserved 2+2er went a bit overboard on the Jagerbombs (see the thread on 2+2), but good times were had in general before and after we had to worry about taking care of him. On Saturday I slept in a bit and only played a few tournaments and more cash. I finished 2nd in the $50 rebuy on Stars after losing a 10:1 chip lead because I run good like that. It was only $6500 though, I forgot how small the prize pool was in that tournament since I don't usually play it. In cash games I had a lot success (read: luckboxing) in the PLO games but I've been getting killed in holdem. I've been playing the 25/50 cap PLO game on Full Tilt and find it's often pretty good, as well as some 5/10 and 10/20 on Everest and Mansion. My holdem play was mostly 10/20 on Everest and Mansion and a couple times I sat 25/50 on Stars when I saw a softish looking game but that's basically just gone terribly, though my play has been fine.
Speaking of Everest, I finished 7th in their big Sunday tournament for $3K. It is basically the softest tournament ever, like playing on Paradise 3 years ago sort of. The structure is really bad so it becomes a huge crapshoot except everyone plays way too tight waiting for big hands and you just run them over and pick up the blinds constantly. They doomswitched me at the final table though, my KK was obv no good vs AA. I also went deep in the $200 rebuy on Stars but busted on maybe a questionable shove, though given the information I had at the time I think it was definitely fine. So it ended up being a breakevenish Sunday with those 2 cashes and a min-cash in a $100 rebuy on Stars as well.
Monday night I skipped tournaments and went for a late dinner at Wing Lei, a very nice Chinsese restaurant in the Wynn, with a big group of mostly online players. After that we ended up doing some -EV gambling and playing beer pong at O'Shea's, which was pretty hilarious. I couldn't stay out too late though because I was playing the $1500 PLO8 event today. This event was my best finish in the WSOP last year when I finished 10th after getting countefeited on the river, and though I still don't consider myself especially good at the game, my expectations were still high as basically everyone in this tournament is waaaaaaaay worse. Unfortunately I couldn't repeat my performance. I chipped up a bit in some small pots and had a few semi-intersting spots that I think I played well, but in the end I played a really standard hand against Joe Hachem where I got over a third of my stack in preflop with AAQ8 double suited and lost to his AJ43 with the suited ace of spades when he flopped a low draw + flush draw and turned the flush. There is another stretch of consecutive good tournaments coming up though. Tomorrow is the $1K rebuy and the next day is the $5K 6-max. These are definitely two of my favourite events and I'm looking forward to them very much. It's actually kind of a shame I may have to miss the 6-max if I make day 2 of the rebuy. After those two there is a $2k NL on Friday and then on Sunday it's the $10K PLO which I've decided to play. It should go without saying that I would not be opposed to running good in a few of these.
Mike
Speaking of Everest, I finished 7th in their big Sunday tournament for $3K. It is basically the softest tournament ever, like playing on Paradise 3 years ago sort of. The structure is really bad so it becomes a huge crapshoot except everyone plays way too tight waiting for big hands and you just run them over and pick up the blinds constantly. They doomswitched me at the final table though, my KK was obv no good vs AA. I also went deep in the $200 rebuy on Stars but busted on maybe a questionable shove, though given the information I had at the time I think it was definitely fine. So it ended up being a breakevenish Sunday with those 2 cashes and a min-cash in a $100 rebuy on Stars as well.
Monday night I skipped tournaments and went for a late dinner at Wing Lei, a very nice Chinsese restaurant in the Wynn, with a big group of mostly online players. After that we ended up doing some -EV gambling and playing beer pong at O'Shea's, which was pretty hilarious. I couldn't stay out too late though because I was playing the $1500 PLO8 event today. This event was my best finish in the WSOP last year when I finished 10th after getting countefeited on the river, and though I still don't consider myself especially good at the game, my expectations were still high as basically everyone in this tournament is waaaaaaaay worse. Unfortunately I couldn't repeat my performance. I chipped up a bit in some small pots and had a few semi-intersting spots that I think I played well, but in the end I played a really standard hand against Joe Hachem where I got over a third of my stack in preflop with AAQ8 double suited and lost to his AJ43 with the suited ace of spades when he flopped a low draw + flush draw and turned the flush. There is another stretch of consecutive good tournaments coming up though. Tomorrow is the $1K rebuy and the next day is the $5K 6-max. These are definitely two of my favourite events and I'm looking forward to them very much. It's actually kind of a shame I may have to miss the 6-max if I make day 2 of the rebuy. After those two there is a $2k NL on Friday and then on Sunday it's the $10K PLO which I've decided to play. It should go without saying that I would not be opposed to running good in a few of these.
Mike
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Still an idiot
0 for 12 -46.5K now. Gave all my chips to JC Tran in the 1500 PLO rebuy today like a true holdem donk after luckboxing a stack early. Played meh in the 2500 6-max on Monday and didn't last long. Gotta go lose another 1500 now. How can I be this bad?
Mike
Mike
Thursday, June 12, 2008
I am an idiot
Scott Freeman Eliminates Michael Watson
Michael Watson raised to 4,440 and Scott Freeman called from the cutoff. Both players checked the 
Mike
On to Day 2
Today was an up and down day. I ran really good off the start but then messed up some hands at the end to lose a lot of my chips. Early on I flopped the nut flush against a set after chipping up in a bunch of small pots to get to 22K. Then I got some guy on my right to spaz out and put 21K in the pot at 100/200 a25 with TT vs my KK. I had not reraised preflop once in 3 and a half levels but he obv still never believes me. I used to try to use that image to 3-bet light. Now I just nit it up because people from the internet never believe other people from the internet in live poker. So I had 44K or something, got as high as 50K when 88>AQ vs a short stack. Then I misplayed a couple hands where I restole with K-hi and forgot to bluff him off A-hi postflop when he called. I also defended 55 against an LP raise and put in way too much postflop before finally folding and obv getting shown AA from the guy who kept instapotting very street. I grinded the short stack for a bit and ended the day with 26K. I'm supposed to catch the red-eye to Toronto tomorrow night so hopefully I min-cash and quickly bust with lots of time to make that or final table this shit fo sho. I think there are around 120 players left and 72 cash. Average would be around 60K to start the day at 800/1600 a200.
Mike
Mike
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Fast Structures Quick Bustos
Well Monday was a $1500 Shootout event. The $1500 events only give you 3K starting chips (all events have twice the buy-in starting chip bank) so if you don't run good early your day is over pretty quickly. I lost most of my chips on the first hand I played.
25/50 I open KQcc UTG 9-handed. MP calls, button calls, BB calls. Flop Ac7h2c. I bet 300, button calls. Turn 6d. I think I can represent AK pretty easily by firing a decent sized bet. The button is young kid who looks like a live player though so I think I can probably get him off stuff that can't beat AK. I fire 750 and he minraises. Fuck. I'm getting odds to call and try to hit my flush, though it's a weird spot if the 7c or 6c hits. I think I can check/fold the 7c but I might have to shove the 6c. Anyways I brick and am left with 1050 chips.
I later double with an A on the river AKs vs QQ but shove AQ over a raise and get called behind by QQ to bust. In the PLO not much good happened and I busted on the first hand after the break getting half my stack in preflop with double suited aces and the rest went in on the flop drawing pretty dead against the mighty KJT3 on the QJ3 flop. Tomorrow is a $5K NL event, the first pretty big buy-in NL event. I have a flight scheduled Thursday night to come back to Toronto for my grandpa's 80th birthday party with a lot of family for the weekend so this is the last event I'll be playing this week.
Mike
25/50 I open KQcc UTG 9-handed. MP calls, button calls, BB calls. Flop Ac7h2c. I bet 300, button calls. Turn 6d. I think I can represent AK pretty easily by firing a decent sized bet. The button is young kid who looks like a live player though so I think I can probably get him off stuff that can't beat AK. I fire 750 and he minraises. Fuck. I'm getting odds to call and try to hit my flush, though it's a weird spot if the 7c or 6c hits. I think I can check/fold the 7c but I might have to shove the 6c. Anyways I brick and am left with 1050 chips.
I later double with an A on the river AKs vs QQ but shove AQ over a raise and get called behind by QQ to bust. In the PLO not much good happened and I busted on the first hand after the break getting half my stack in preflop with double suited aces and the rest went in on the flop drawing pretty dead against the mighty KJT3 on the QJ3 flop. Tomorrow is a $5K NL event, the first pretty big buy-in NL event. I have a flight scheduled Thursday night to come back to Toronto for my grandpa's 80th birthday party with a lot of family for the weekend so this is the last event I'll be playing this week.
Mike
Monday, June 09, 2008
A Big Sunday Final Table!
I finally made my first final table in one of the biggest Sunday tournaments! I final tabled the $750K Guaranteed on Full Tilt. It was a bit of a strange tournament where every time I started getting chips I would lose the next pots I played and become short, but once I was short I would always win the next big pot and get back in contention. Unfortunately I couldn't get anything going at the final table and busted 6th for $23K. Between that and my 5th in the Stars 320 on Wednesday night for $10K I almost made up for the $40K I lost playing 200/400 PLO trying to get back my equity for missing Day 2 of the $1K rebuy. It was good to finally make one of these big final tables beating almost 3500 players, but obviously still a little disappointed not to win. But with JCarver at the final table in a Full Tilt tournament I clearly never had a real chance. I gotta give another shoutout, this time to my friend Leo Wolpert who finished 3rd in the $5K NL Shootout event. He made a deal for $300K which is obviously pretty sick. Tomorrow is the $1500 NL Shootout event, hopefully I have a little extra run good left. As much as I enjoy seeing all my friends make tons of money at big live final tables I'd prefer it was me.
Mike
Mike
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Another Quick Day
Today was a $2500 NL event and I busted before the first break again. One interesting hand:
25/50 5K starting chips. I have a little under that CO covers. Folds to CO who is a youngish guy who seems to have some idea what hes doing who raises to 175. I call in the BB with ATo. Flop T82r. I lead 250. I've started leading a bit in situations like this and I think it's a really good way to play the hand against aggressive players. They don't expect a thinking player to lead this type of hand into them here and you will often get called down light or induce bluffs. Checkraising makes the pot too big and I'm just not getting called down by worse with my image, so leading allows me to try to get one bet in on all streets which I think is basically the ideal situation with my hand. It does lead to some really messy situations but I think it's worth the higher risk to go for extra value. He calls and the turn is an 8. I bet 525 and he raises to 1500. I think there's a pretty good chance hes just decided to make a move out of confusion, and I don't think he raises an overpair very often here so he basically has trips+ or a bluff most of the time. I call. River blank, I check/call some stupid tiny 1K bet when I probably would have called off my stack and lose to A8. Then I later fold for a bit and lose A9o vs T9s for my last 1300.
After busting I found Aaron and Steve and hung out at their place with Timex who came down when Aaron final tabled Event 2, and we got tickets to see Mystere in the evening, the cirque du soleil show at Treasure Island. It was really good, the best of the cirque shows I've seen (though I haven't seen "O" yet which I've heard is the best one). Playing online today, then back on the live grind Monday. Tom finished 2nd in the $2500 O8/S8 event for ~$150K. What a badass.
Mike
25/50 5K starting chips. I have a little under that CO covers. Folds to CO who is a youngish guy who seems to have some idea what hes doing who raises to 175. I call in the BB with ATo. Flop T82r. I lead 250. I've started leading a bit in situations like this and I think it's a really good way to play the hand against aggressive players. They don't expect a thinking player to lead this type of hand into them here and you will often get called down light or induce bluffs. Checkraising makes the pot too big and I'm just not getting called down by worse with my image, so leading allows me to try to get one bet in on all streets which I think is basically the ideal situation with my hand. It does lead to some really messy situations but I think it's worth the higher risk to go for extra value. He calls and the turn is an 8. I bet 525 and he raises to 1500. I think there's a pretty good chance hes just decided to make a move out of confusion, and I don't think he raises an overpair very often here so he basically has trips+ or a bluff most of the time. I call. River blank, I check/call some stupid tiny 1K bet when I probably would have called off my stack and lose to A8. Then I later fold for a bit and lose A9o vs T9s for my last 1300.
After busting I found Aaron and Steve and hung out at their place with Timex who came down when Aaron final tabled Event 2, and we got tickets to see Mystere in the evening, the cirque du soleil show at Treasure Island. It was really good, the best of the cirque shows I've seen (though I haven't seen "O" yet which I've heard is the best one). Playing online today, then back on the live grind Monday. Tom finished 2nd in the $2500 O8/S8 event for ~$150K. What a badass.
Mike
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Such bustoness
No luck in the $5K shootout. My table wasn't that bad though it was certainly tougher than most. I was the first eliminated. I got off to a good start but then lost every pot I played after that. I then played some 5/10 PLO with a $25 straddle on the button most hands but just never made much in the way of hands there either. It was around 2 hours before I won a single pot. I ended up losing another $2K there so that sucked. Today is a $2500 NL event which figures to be pretty huge being on a Saturday and all. Maybe I'll run good or something. Also, today is my housemate here Tom's birthday. To celebrate he has made the final table of the $2500 Stud 8/Omaha 8 mixed tournament. He's 4/8 coming in and play starts up again at 4pm so good luck to him! Good to see someone in our house not sucking at least, winning a bracelet on your birthday wouldn't be a bad feat.
Mike
Mike
Friday, June 06, 2008
Double Busto
I played both events today with absolutely no success. The noon event was a $1500 6-max NL event which is usually pretty awesome because playing shorthanded against live donks is the best. I lasted 3 hands:
25/50 3K stacks. UTG who looks like mostly not very good opens to 150. I reraise AKs to 500 UTG+1, he calls quickly. Flop KJx, he check/calls my 625 bet. Turn T, he checks to me I think a bit and decide the T should basically never help him. If he has AQ or TT then great, but if he's that bad he's probably also bad enough to stack off KQ or JQ or QQ or something here so I shove my last 1875 and he snaps AQ. NH sir.
Then I waited around and played the $2500 half Omaha H/L half Stud H/L event. Most of my table was pretty bad but I never really made any hands and died a slow painful death. Tomorrow is the $5K NL Shootout which should be fun because you get to play shorthanded more. I expect a relatively tough field but obviously am pretty confident about my chances.
Mike
25/50 3K stacks. UTG who looks like mostly not very good opens to 150. I reraise AKs to 500 UTG+1, he calls quickly. Flop KJx, he check/calls my 625 bet. Turn T, he checks to me I think a bit and decide the T should basically never help him. If he has AQ or TT then great, but if he's that bad he's probably also bad enough to stack off KQ or JQ or QQ or something here so I shove my last 1875 and he snaps AQ. NH sir.
Then I waited around and played the $2500 half Omaha H/L half Stud H/L event. Most of my table was pretty bad but I never really made any hands and died a slow painful death. Tomorrow is the $5K NL Shootout which should be fun because you get to play shorthanded more. I expect a relatively tough field but obviously am pretty confident about my chances.
Mike
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Didn't make day 2
12:45pm: Call cab since everyone else drove in for 12pm event. 10mins to an hour wait time. OK could potentially be cutting it close but no worries.
1:15pm: Call back cab company. No one in the area wait another 10-15.
1:30pm: Call again. No one making any attempt to get here still.
1:45pm: Call again. Lady says she's going to try to get me a cab gets on phone. 10 mins pass she has no luck. Tells me to keep waiting.
2:05pm: Bond comes through the door busto before the first break as usual. I run out into the street chasing his cab waving my arms. Sprint for a block but I'm not closing distance.
210pm: Call back cab company offer $100 tip for a ride.
2:30pm: Have basically given up since I can't think of anyone that can come get me and I will probably be blinded off.
2:35pm: Kicking empty router box around the house on life tilt.
2:40pm: Call from Deeb wondering where the fuck I am. Explain situation he says he can find me a ride.
2:45pm: PokerNews posts update saying I have 4K in chips.
3:05pm: Geoff (mini-Thayer) and Shaun still not here. I am certain I will have been blinded off by the time I get there so I tell them thanks for trying. Sorry guys for making u come this way but I appreciate it.
Anyways a similar thing happened to me in a $1K rebuy event last year but I was able to get a ride in and only miss a couple orbits and we were in the money by the time I got there. Las Vegas cabbies who won't leave the strip because it costs them money can all go fuck themselves. Ace cab company when I do finally win a bracelet I am going to celebrate by going to your head offices and burning you to the ground. If you see an Ace cab kick the door in for me.
Mike
1:15pm: Call back cab company. No one in the area wait another 10-15.
1:30pm: Call again. No one making any attempt to get here still.
1:45pm: Call again. Lady says she's going to try to get me a cab gets on phone. 10 mins pass she has no luck. Tells me to keep waiting.
2:05pm: Bond comes through the door busto before the first break as usual. I run out into the street chasing his cab waving my arms. Sprint for a block but I'm not closing distance.
210pm: Call back cab company offer $100 tip for a ride.
2:30pm: Have basically given up since I can't think of anyone that can come get me and I will probably be blinded off.
2:35pm: Kicking empty router box around the house on life tilt.
2:40pm: Call from Deeb wondering where the fuck I am. Explain situation he says he can find me a ride.
2:45pm: PokerNews posts update saying I have 4K in chips.
3:05pm: Geoff (mini-Thayer) and Shaun still not here. I am certain I will have been blinded off by the time I get there so I tell them thanks for trying. Sorry guys for making u come this way but I appreciate it.
Anyways a similar thing happened to me in a $1K rebuy event last year but I was able to get a ride in and only miss a couple orbits and we were in the money by the time I got there. Las Vegas cabbies who won't leave the strip because it costs them money can all go fuck themselves. Ace cab company when I do finally win a bracelet I am going to celebrate by going to your head offices and burning you to the ground. If you see an Ace cab kick the door in for me.
Mike
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