I've easily been on the biggest online heater of my life this month and this week was just more of the same. I didn't really play all that much this week, mostly just 200/400 PLO when I saw a decent looking game running and 5 tournaments. I final tabled 4 of them placing 2nd, 4th, 4th, 5th for a total of ~54K. On Wednesday night I played the four 9pm majors, and for the first time in my career I made 3 final tables at the same time. I got yet another 2nd in a tourney on Absolute, 5th on UB, and 4th in the FTP 100r. I recorded the end of these so there's a pretty good chance I'll turn them into a training video at some point. I also played the AP $500 tourney on Saturday and got 4th this time after just losing every pot at the final table after having the chip lead at one point. The play at this final table was some of the most ridiculously hilariously terrible play I've ever seen and I recorded that as well so maybe I will turn it into a video where I mock everyone relentlessly for entertainment.
Speaking of videos I finally finished my 1st video for PokerSavvy which I expect to actually be up this week. It didn't turn out as well as I might have hoped but that was probably inevitable the first time around while still getting used to the software etc... I think it still turned out pretty good though, I guess I'll get to see what people think soon enough. I believe PokerSavvy still has a short free trial promotion going so you might be able to go check that out once it's up. So that brings us to PLO.
I basically have just continued running stupidly good all week at 200/400 running up short stack buy-ins. I'm just going to tell you the story of Thursday night/Friday morning since that was my biggest shot yet and also my biggest win. I jumped into a game just after midnight and did my usual luckbox thing:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494156
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494160
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494162 - Not sure if my flop semi-bluff is good in this one as my wrap can easily be in bad shape on this board with the flush draw. Still, I feel like if either of them had a hand they really wanted to go with they probably would have just bet it themselves so I think I have a decent amount of fold equity. Gus ended up calling the flop real light though he's a coin flip against my actual hand but I am too lucky.
So that was pretty sick I quit up my 55K and the games broke so whatever. I was still up in the morning though and there was more 200/400 PLO action going than almost ever with like 6 tables running. I started running up stacks on them but this time I didn't quit when I got deep stacked if I had good table position. I ended up 4-tabling for around 4 hours and having a really swingy session. The variance of these games is really sick and from my +55K starting point I went as high as +110K then dropped as low as just +16K. I bounced back and ended +95K. It was a really crazy session but it was also really fun and a great learning experience. I've never had anywhere close to that much money in play before in my life or played that many high stakes tables at once before. I definitely made some mistakes but I didn't feel like they were related to the amount of money on the line, I've just still got a decent amount to learn about PLO and even the best make mistakes sometimes. Here are some more key pots:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494206
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494207 - Ups. A slightly lighter 3-bet from me here.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494212
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494216
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494217 - This looks ugly but it's actually pretty standard. I have to call the flop with possibly 6 outs and preflop is correct too. Oh yeah I do lose some pots too:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494227
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494232
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494234 - I guess I could jam the flop but I have 3 hearts and I have to be concerned about whether my 7 is actually live. Certainly I don't figure to have much/any fold equity at all so I decided to just peel.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3494251 - Having 3 diamonds sucks but I don't really see what else I can do here there should be enough semi-bluff hands in his range that I have good equity against.
Heading to NYC this week so probably not much poker will be played for a bit. Take it easy and watch my video let me know how bad it sucks.
Mike
Monday, November 24, 2008
Monday, November 17, 2008
Winning All the Gold
That's what I've been doing this weekend. Well, just Saturday to be more accurate, I gave some back today. Saturday was one of the best days of my internet pokers career though so I'll tell you all about that now. The day started at 2pm with a bunch of tournaments and some 200/400 PLO shots. I made 24K at PLO so that was pretty sweet. Here are the biggest pots I won:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3461326 - 3-betting preflop is probably more standard but stack sizes make it awkward when he calls and I hadn't been 3-betting much. Obviously get it in on the flop and hold the 56-44 how lucky.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3461335 - Flop pretty good turn better river ok also.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3461339 - I guess I have to get it in on the flop, though if I run into the nut flush draw I'm fairly dead. Getting called in two spots was unexpected, as the hand played out I'm not really sure what they had. With the blockers against the nuts bombing the turn definitely merited serious consideration but I went the more conservative route this time. When Ozzy checks the river I'm almost certain my hand is good and decide to go for a checkraise since Patrik should either have made a flush himself and be looking to value bet it or turn something into a bluff a lot. Pretty easy checkraise for value once Ozzy folds since Patrik would almost surely have raised the flop with the nut flush draw.
After that I just concentrated on my tournaments. The awesome $5K 6-handed FTOPS was on but I busted super early losing a big flip with AK vs JJ. It was just a spot where even though we were 200xBB deep I had to put the money in. I did much better in the other early FTOPS event though, the $500 heads-up tournament. I was actually really happy with how I played these HU matches for once and I was making a lot of pairs and winning races and stuff as well which obviously helps a lot. I think I was doing a very good job getting maximal value in a lot of spots where in the past I may have made the mistake of playing for pot control too much. I rattled off five quick wins with more than a bit of luck on my side (my 88 beat QQ all-in preflop for most of the chips in the 5th) and as I was waiting for my 6th match I ended up playing HU in two other tournaments!
The first was a Step 6 satellite for a PCA seat. I got heads up around even in chips with jorj, one of the regulars who plays every single step 5/6 that runs basically, and I got lucky to win a coinflip for almost all the chips to take down the $14K package. I'm definitely glad I was able to get that seat out of the way early and without spending too much on satellites. Next up was the AP $500 tourney. I had a huge chip lead throughout most of the final table which I was able to increase easily as all the short stacks had around the same number of chips and several were clearly just playing to try to move up a few spots. I just moved in preflop uncontested time and time again to pick up the large blinds and antes. When we got 3-handed though I lost a big pot to apestyles with 99 vs AA and then doubled up the short stack when he finally called one of shoves to all of a sudden find myself as the short stack. Ape did something crazy and sucked out on the other guy to get us heads up but with me way behind in chips. I doubled once but then lost QJ vs J8 aipf to bust 2nd for $24K.
As the heads up of the AP tournament was being played my 6th round in the FTOPS tournament started. My new opponent was actually pretty weak but after I grinded him way down he doubled up twice to take the chip lead from me momentarily. I got back to a 2:1 chip advantage and then ran my 88 into his 77 to end it. The next round I ran into a much tougher opponent though and got behind early. I won a flip to get back to even and then another big pot where I turned the nut straight to take the chip lead. I had a 2:1 chip lead when I checkraised him on the turn of a QT96 board with Q6 and called his shove only to run into 87. I won A7 vs A5 to get back in it but on the final hand I got all-in on the flop with J8 vs his KJ on the J-hi flop to end my run. I finished 9-16th for $7500.
So as you can tell all those scores added up to a pretty big day. Not final tabling a $10K+ buy-in tournament big but still probably a top 5 online day for me. Then I got to watch a pretty sweet UFC 91 card so it was just an all-around super day. The hot run didn't carry over to Sunday though unfortunately. I only cashed the early $100 buy-in FTOPS event and the $200 rebuy on Stars for less than $2K total. Now that FTOPS is over this week figures to have less poker. I'll keep working on my PLO game and maybe play a couple of the bigger tourneys but that's likely about it. I also need to get my first PokerSavvy video out asap. That's all I've got for now, keep it real homies.
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3461326 - 3-betting preflop is probably more standard but stack sizes make it awkward when he calls and I hadn't been 3-betting much. Obviously get it in on the flop and hold the 56-44 how lucky.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3461335 - Flop pretty good turn better river ok also.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3461339 - I guess I have to get it in on the flop, though if I run into the nut flush draw I'm fairly dead. Getting called in two spots was unexpected, as the hand played out I'm not really sure what they had. With the blockers against the nuts bombing the turn definitely merited serious consideration but I went the more conservative route this time. When Ozzy checks the river I'm almost certain my hand is good and decide to go for a checkraise since Patrik should either have made a flush himself and be looking to value bet it or turn something into a bluff a lot. Pretty easy checkraise for value once Ozzy folds since Patrik would almost surely have raised the flop with the nut flush draw.
After that I just concentrated on my tournaments. The awesome $5K 6-handed FTOPS was on but I busted super early losing a big flip with AK vs JJ. It was just a spot where even though we were 200xBB deep I had to put the money in. I did much better in the other early FTOPS event though, the $500 heads-up tournament. I was actually really happy with how I played these HU matches for once and I was making a lot of pairs and winning races and stuff as well which obviously helps a lot. I think I was doing a very good job getting maximal value in a lot of spots where in the past I may have made the mistake of playing for pot control too much. I rattled off five quick wins with more than a bit of luck on my side (my 88 beat QQ all-in preflop for most of the chips in the 5th) and as I was waiting for my 6th match I ended up playing HU in two other tournaments!
The first was a Step 6 satellite for a PCA seat. I got heads up around even in chips with jorj, one of the regulars who plays every single step 5/6 that runs basically, and I got lucky to win a coinflip for almost all the chips to take down the $14K package. I'm definitely glad I was able to get that seat out of the way early and without spending too much on satellites. Next up was the AP $500 tourney. I had a huge chip lead throughout most of the final table which I was able to increase easily as all the short stacks had around the same number of chips and several were clearly just playing to try to move up a few spots. I just moved in preflop uncontested time and time again to pick up the large blinds and antes. When we got 3-handed though I lost a big pot to apestyles with 99 vs AA and then doubled up the short stack when he finally called one of shoves to all of a sudden find myself as the short stack. Ape did something crazy and sucked out on the other guy to get us heads up but with me way behind in chips. I doubled once but then lost QJ vs J8 aipf to bust 2nd for $24K.
As the heads up of the AP tournament was being played my 6th round in the FTOPS tournament started. My new opponent was actually pretty weak but after I grinded him way down he doubled up twice to take the chip lead from me momentarily. I got back to a 2:1 chip advantage and then ran my 88 into his 77 to end it. The next round I ran into a much tougher opponent though and got behind early. I won a flip to get back to even and then another big pot where I turned the nut straight to take the chip lead. I had a 2:1 chip lead when I checkraised him on the turn of a QT96 board with Q6 and called his shove only to run into 87. I won A7 vs A5 to get back in it but on the final hand I got all-in on the flop with J8 vs his KJ on the J-hi flop to end my run. I finished 9-16th for $7500.
So as you can tell all those scores added up to a pretty big day. Not final tabling a $10K+ buy-in tournament big but still probably a top 5 online day for me. Then I got to watch a pretty sweet UFC 91 card so it was just an all-around super day. The hot run didn't carry over to Sunday though unfortunately. I only cashed the early $100 buy-in FTOPS event and the $200 rebuy on Stars for less than $2K total. Now that FTOPS is over this week figures to have less poker. I'll keep working on my PLO game and maybe play a couple of the bigger tourneys but that's likely about it. I also need to get my first PokerSavvy video out asap. That's all I've got for now, keep it real homies.
Mike
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Bad Habits, a Donkament Score, and High Stakes PLO
Since arriving back in Toronto I've quickly gotten back into my normal lazy at home routine. I stay up too late, then sleep away the hours of the day in which I could actually go out and do productive things, then play some tournaments and cash games, watch TV, download the TV I miss, and various other lazy activities which keep me up all night. It's not like I'm super upset about it, not having any real obligations and being able to live on such a ridiculous schedule if I want to is a pretty sweet luxury to have. I'm enjoying my time relaxing, but at times the unproductive and lazy feeling of a day mostly spent at a computer or TV screen can be pretty gross, even if I've spent a lot of that time "working". As an example, this blog is being written at 7:30am and I assure you I did not just wake up. I'll get to what I was doing tonight shortly but first let me recap what else I've been up to since the last time we talked.
FTOPS started and I've played a handful of events. I didn't have much luck at all with tournaments through this weekend unfortunately. I final tabled the $100 single rebuy $100K Gtd tournament on Ongame on Sunday but busted 9th for ~$1600 and didn't have any other particularly notable cashes until tonight. I've also been playing some more big PLO. 25/50 and 50/100 Cap games as well 200/400 shortstacking shots have been up and down quite a bit but overall going pretty well, and of course some 10/20 and 25/50 games on Cake when they are good. OK so on to tonight.
I skipped most of the nightly tournaments but decided to play the 9pm ones on Stars/Full Tilt. There were two FTOPS events tonight, the $500 HORSE and $200 turbo NLHE. Both of those are really fun formats even though I seem to suck at HORSE. Anyways the turbo was where I picked up a big score. Running good in a turbo donkament is really really fun. There were almost 2600 players and the whole thing lasted just over 3 hours (it ended before the 3rd break). The beauty of the turbo donkament is you more or less skip all the boring deep stacked play and get right to the best part: Jamming your stack in with crap and hoping they all fold or you suck out.
I mean really, what's better than pushbotting? Every hand there is a very real possibility you could double up or go broke and that's pretty exciting. Well I'll tell you what's better, pushbotting deep in a tournament when substantial money is on the line and everyone is too scared or too bad at poker to do it properly. Obviously running sick hot and winning every time you have to call someone or they call you makes this significantly more fun, and that was what happened tonight. I held the chip lead for a decent while in the latter stages of the tournament before slipping a bit as we got down to two tables. But then I owned some chump's 99 with my K6s and made the final table 3rd in chips. The final table got off to a bad start as I lost AT vs AK and was super short. I luckboxed a couple double ups and some blind steals though and made it to 3-handed play 2nd in chips. Unfortunately djk had a big chip lead though, and he's even better at going all in every hand and winning every time they call with an obviously superior hand than I am so when he shoved my BB and I called with A6hh I was eliminated by his Q8ss. I still got $50K for 3rd though which is a solid three hours work in my opinion.
So then I ended up playing a bunch of high stakes PLO all night as the games were really good and only lost around $9k which wasn't too bad. Overall it was a pretty solid night. I even recorded a session 2-tabling 50/100 Cap PLO which I think I will turn into my first PokerSavvy video, hopefully by the end of the week. I'll let you all know when that actually happens. Anyways I should probably go rest up now I've gotta do this all again in 12 hours or so.
Mike
FTOPS started and I've played a handful of events. I didn't have much luck at all with tournaments through this weekend unfortunately. I final tabled the $100 single rebuy $100K Gtd tournament on Ongame on Sunday but busted 9th for ~$1600 and didn't have any other particularly notable cashes until tonight. I've also been playing some more big PLO. 25/50 and 50/100 Cap games as well 200/400 shortstacking shots have been up and down quite a bit but overall going pretty well, and of course some 10/20 and 25/50 games on Cake when they are good. OK so on to tonight.
I skipped most of the nightly tournaments but decided to play the 9pm ones on Stars/Full Tilt. There were two FTOPS events tonight, the $500 HORSE and $200 turbo NLHE. Both of those are really fun formats even though I seem to suck at HORSE. Anyways the turbo was where I picked up a big score. Running good in a turbo donkament is really really fun. There were almost 2600 players and the whole thing lasted just over 3 hours (it ended before the 3rd break). The beauty of the turbo donkament is you more or less skip all the boring deep stacked play and get right to the best part: Jamming your stack in with crap and hoping they all fold or you suck out.
I mean really, what's better than pushbotting? Every hand there is a very real possibility you could double up or go broke and that's pretty exciting. Well I'll tell you what's better, pushbotting deep in a tournament when substantial money is on the line and everyone is too scared or too bad at poker to do it properly. Obviously running sick hot and winning every time you have to call someone or they call you makes this significantly more fun, and that was what happened tonight. I held the chip lead for a decent while in the latter stages of the tournament before slipping a bit as we got down to two tables. But then I owned some chump's 99 with my K6s and made the final table 3rd in chips. The final table got off to a bad start as I lost AT vs AK and was super short. I luckboxed a couple double ups and some blind steals though and made it to 3-handed play 2nd in chips. Unfortunately djk had a big chip lead though, and he's even better at going all in every hand and winning every time they call with an obviously superior hand than I am so when he shoved my BB and I called with A6hh I was eliminated by his Q8ss. I still got $50K for 3rd though which is a solid three hours work in my opinion.
So then I ended up playing a bunch of high stakes PLO all night as the games were really good and only lost around $9k which wasn't too bad. Overall it was a pretty solid night. I even recorded a session 2-tabling 50/100 Cap PLO which I think I will turn into my first PokerSavvy video, hopefully by the end of the week. I'll let you all know when that actually happens. Anyways I should probably go rest up now I've gotta do this all again in 12 hours or so.
Mike
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
November and Future Plans
Now that I've been home a few days I've had some time to sit down and plan out the next few months. The rest of this year is going to be pretty laid back in terms of live poker, but it looks like the beginning of next year is going to be really really crazy. So for November I'm probably not playing any live tournaments. There's a chance I could go to Vancouver for the BC Poker Classic but it's looking pretty unlikely at this point as the buy-ins just aren't that big. There's another FTOPS starting today though so I'll play some of those events. I certainly don't plan to try to grind the events every day like I have in the past but I'll play when I feel like it and don't have other plans. The $5K buy-in 6-handed 2-day event should be awesome and is the only one I feel like I can't miss, but I'll try to play at least all of the bigger prize pool events. Then at the end of the month is the ECOOP on the iPoker network. I might have to miss a couple of the bigger events in that one unfortunately as I have plans to go visit my friend in NYC for American Thanksgiving (and all the football and partying that comes with it).
After that I'll be headed back to Vegas for the Bellagio Five Diamond series at some point. I may skip some of the prelims as turnouts for preliminary events have been way down lately and as much as I love Vegas I was just there for a while and I'm not getting comped this time :-). Once I'm done there it's back to Newfoundland to see my friends and family there for Xmas. As always I'm reeeally looking forward to that. Then January is when things look like they're going to get crazy. I really wanted to avoid doing this but I think I'm going to play both PCA and Aussie Millions. The travel is horrendously awful, but Aussie Millions is not going to be as good this year without Full Tilt sponsoring it and PCA is going to be insanely huge and the High Roller event should be sick as well. So the tentative plan appears to be to rent an apartment in Melbourne with timex and stay for at least an extra week after Aussie Millions because Melbourne kicks ass.
Now, depending on the LA Poker Classic schedule it's possible I could end up going straight from Melbourne to LA for that. This would be an incredibly long trip as I would stay in LA until early March, but on the other hand it has to beat the hell out of winter in Canada. I'm still far from settled on any of this but it does kind of make sense and would be fairly awesome, though barely being in Toronto for a 3-month span is really crazy. Sooooo I dunno.
In other news I am going to give the video training site thing a try and do some videos for PokerSavvy Plus this month. I'll add more details about that as I figure them out, but I'm going to try to make my first video for next week. Oh yeah I haven't played much poker this week but I'm up over 100K. I bought a piece of a friend in a big game which he ended up absolutely killing and making me ~90K, and then I had one of my random 200/400 PLO shots where I ran 8K up to 38K in 23 hands or something. I played 3 big pots and won them all, and they all happened to be against Gus. Once I got him in drawing almost dead, the 2nd I got it in horrendously bad (but in a standard spot) and sucked out really badly, and the third I got it in really bad against his aces preflop (but again I think it's gotta be fairly standard against Gus) and sucked out again. Sooo I'm a lucksack, but you probably already knew that.
Mike
After that I'll be headed back to Vegas for the Bellagio Five Diamond series at some point. I may skip some of the prelims as turnouts for preliminary events have been way down lately and as much as I love Vegas I was just there for a while and I'm not getting comped this time :-). Once I'm done there it's back to Newfoundland to see my friends and family there for Xmas. As always I'm reeeally looking forward to that. Then January is when things look like they're going to get crazy. I really wanted to avoid doing this but I think I'm going to play both PCA and Aussie Millions. The travel is horrendously awful, but Aussie Millions is not going to be as good this year without Full Tilt sponsoring it and PCA is going to be insanely huge and the High Roller event should be sick as well. So the tentative plan appears to be to rent an apartment in Melbourne with timex and stay for at least an extra week after Aussie Millions because Melbourne kicks ass.
Now, depending on the LA Poker Classic schedule it's possible I could end up going straight from Melbourne to LA for that. This would be an incredibly long trip as I would stay in LA until early March, but on the other hand it has to beat the hell out of winter in Canada. I'm still far from settled on any of this but it does kind of make sense and would be fairly awesome, though barely being in Toronto for a 3-month span is really crazy. Sooooo I dunno.
In other news I am going to give the video training site thing a try and do some videos for PokerSavvy Plus this month. I'll add more details about that as I figure them out, but I'm going to try to make my first video for next week. Oh yeah I haven't played much poker this week but I'm up over 100K. I bought a piece of a friend in a big game which he ended up absolutely killing and making me ~90K, and then I had one of my random 200/400 PLO shots where I ran 8K up to 38K in 23 hands or something. I played 3 big pots and won them all, and they all happened to be against Gus. Once I got him in drawing almost dead, the 2nd I got it in horrendously bad (but in a standard spot) and sucked out really badly, and the third I got it in really bad against his aces preflop (but again I think it's gotta be fairly standard against Gus) and sucked out again. Sooo I'm a lucksack, but you probably already knew that.
Mike
Thursday, October 30, 2008
GOING TO FUCKING KILL SOMEONE
Today was the maddest I have ever been at a poker table. I don't give a fuck about bad beats or about bubbling the stupid tournament. I'm partly very mad at myself for being an idiot and allowing this bullshit to happen, but moreso that some jackass actually pulled this on me. The story is coming shortly let me begin at the beginning. So I run/play bad for a bit and get down to 200K, then double with TT vs 22 blind vs blind and I think win some other pot I can't remember. Then this hand happens:
6k/12k a1k I open to 32K UTG with JJ and the BB who is bad defends. The flop comes J87 with two hearts, he checks and I bet 56K which he calls. The turn is an 8 he checks and I bet 86K and he calls. The turn is a Q, he leads out for 125K, I say all-in for his roughly 200K more. I hear him almost immediately say call and turn over my hand. At this point he says "What are you doing I didn't say anything yet." I ask the dealer "didn't he say call?" The dealer obviously doing his job well says "I didn't hear anything." At this point I fuck up really bad since I don't know what is going on. Instead of calling over the floor I just kind of end up going with it and letting him fold his hand and keep the last of his chips. I don't know why I did did that, it was one of those situations that kind of happened so fast and I was obviously pretty excited about having the effective nuts that I can't even remember exactly how things happened. Also, who the fuck has the audacity to say "Call" in front of a table of people and then be like "No wait I actually didn't say that"? It certainly made sense I could be the one who fucked up. So the hand ended and we go on break (which also could have added to the confusion).
The guy sitting directly between me and my opponent at the table now comes up to me and says "Why didn't you call the floor? He definitely said call." The the dealer who was waiting to rotate into our table also says "Yeah I heard him say call. I think you even asked him "Did you say call?" and he said yes before you turned your hand over." Obviously at this point I am pretty fucking livid but it's too late to do anything. The rule apparently is that if the dealer doesn't hear anything two people have to have heard him say it, so if I'm not an idiot he wouldn't have gotten away with it which makes me feel even worse.
Anyways I have my break and am able to accept what has happened. As a poker player I am trained to ignore things outside my control and just focus on making good decisions in the future, it's all I can do really. I'm still pretty pissed though because the whole thing was so fucked up and I can't believe this scumbag actually did that that I was sitting there steaming for most of the next level just planning how bad I was going to slowroll him when I finally bust him and take MY chips back. I'm very card dead for a while though and end up folding all the way back down to around 440K when this hand happens:
15k/30k a3k I'm UTG with KK and make it 77K. Folds to angle shooting scumbag in the BB who has folded his way all the way down to 225K playing like a fucking genius after having chipped back up earlier. He thinks for a minute or 2 then makes the brilliant play of flat calling. The flop comes A73r, he checks and I check behind since nothing worse calls and I can let stuff that's drawing basically dead catch up a bit. If he has me beat he's going to get my money regardless. The turn is a J, he checks and I check behind again. I can probably just move in here and hope he calls with a J but if he's behind he can't have more than a few outs and giving him a chance to do something stupid on the river is fun and I'm still getting called by a J on the river usually anyways. The river is a T, he checks and I finally bet 100K of his 150K. He moves in, I cry but obviously have to call and he has JT....
I don't think I had ever thrown cards or chips in anger at a poker table before but that streak is now over. I would never get really mad over just a bad beat but given the circumstances I think it's pretty understandable why I was furious. Our table breaks after this hand and I have a meager 210K at my new table. I move in with A7 on the first two hands and get back to around 350K. Then I pick up 99 UTG and move in again, Kathy Liebert calls with AK and I lose. I tell her nice hand, wish Adam good luck, and make my exit.
So in the end I don't know what else to say. I could have done a lot of things differently after the fact but it's just not me. In the future I'll just have more confidence in myself and less faith in the poker community, not that I didn't know it has more than it's fair share of liars and cheats to begin with. That being said the great majority of the people I've met in the poker world are incredibly honest and good people (especially the newer younger generation), but you do have to watch your own back. Still, I'm not going to stop believing that most people are good honest people and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. You can't be so naive as to let yourself get taken advantage of, but I sure as hell am not going to go about living my life being paranoid and not trusting anyone, I'd rather risk getting angled once in a while than live my life that miserably. So there you have a rare Watts emo rant. Peace y'all,
Mike
6k/12k a1k I open to 32K UTG with JJ and the BB who is bad defends. The flop comes J87 with two hearts, he checks and I bet 56K which he calls. The turn is an 8 he checks and I bet 86K and he calls. The turn is a Q, he leads out for 125K, I say all-in for his roughly 200K more. I hear him almost immediately say call and turn over my hand. At this point he says "What are you doing I didn't say anything yet." I ask the dealer "didn't he say call?" The dealer obviously doing his job well says "I didn't hear anything." At this point I fuck up really bad since I don't know what is going on. Instead of calling over the floor I just kind of end up going with it and letting him fold his hand and keep the last of his chips. I don't know why I did did that, it was one of those situations that kind of happened so fast and I was obviously pretty excited about having the effective nuts that I can't even remember exactly how things happened. Also, who the fuck has the audacity to say "Call" in front of a table of people and then be like "No wait I actually didn't say that"? It certainly made sense I could be the one who fucked up. So the hand ended and we go on break (which also could have added to the confusion).
The guy sitting directly between me and my opponent at the table now comes up to me and says "Why didn't you call the floor? He definitely said call." The the dealer who was waiting to rotate into our table also says "Yeah I heard him say call. I think you even asked him "Did you say call?" and he said yes before you turned your hand over." Obviously at this point I am pretty fucking livid but it's too late to do anything. The rule apparently is that if the dealer doesn't hear anything two people have to have heard him say it, so if I'm not an idiot he wouldn't have gotten away with it which makes me feel even worse.
Anyways I have my break and am able to accept what has happened. As a poker player I am trained to ignore things outside my control and just focus on making good decisions in the future, it's all I can do really. I'm still pretty pissed though because the whole thing was so fucked up and I can't believe this scumbag actually did that that I was sitting there steaming for most of the next level just planning how bad I was going to slowroll him when I finally bust him and take MY chips back. I'm very card dead for a while though and end up folding all the way back down to around 440K when this hand happens:
15k/30k a3k I'm UTG with KK and make it 77K. Folds to angle shooting scumbag in the BB who has folded his way all the way down to 225K playing like a fucking genius after having chipped back up earlier. He thinks for a minute or 2 then makes the brilliant play of flat calling. The flop comes A73r, he checks and I check behind since nothing worse calls and I can let stuff that's drawing basically dead catch up a bit. If he has me beat he's going to get my money regardless. The turn is a J, he checks and I check behind again. I can probably just move in here and hope he calls with a J but if he's behind he can't have more than a few outs and giving him a chance to do something stupid on the river is fun and I'm still getting called by a J on the river usually anyways. The river is a T, he checks and I finally bet 100K of his 150K. He moves in, I cry but obviously have to call and he has JT....
I don't think I had ever thrown cards or chips in anger at a poker table before but that streak is now over. I would never get really mad over just a bad beat but given the circumstances I think it's pretty understandable why I was furious. Our table breaks after this hand and I have a meager 210K at my new table. I move in with A7 on the first two hands and get back to around 350K. Then I pick up 99 UTG and move in again, Kathy Liebert calls with AK and I lose. I tell her nice hand, wish Adam good luck, and make my exit.
So in the end I don't know what else to say. I could have done a lot of things differently after the fact but it's just not me. In the future I'll just have more confidence in myself and less faith in the poker community, not that I didn't know it has more than it's fair share of liars and cheats to begin with. That being said the great majority of the people I've met in the poker world are incredibly honest and good people (especially the newer younger generation), but you do have to watch your own back. Still, I'm not going to stop believing that most people are good honest people and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. You can't be so naive as to let yourself get taken advantage of, but I sure as hell am not going to go about living my life being paranoid and not trusting anyone, I'd rather risk getting angled once in a while than live my life that miserably. So there you have a rare Watts emo rant. Peace y'all,
Mike
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Caesar's Poker Classic Main Event Day 1
The tournament that I've been sticking around for the last week or so since I busted Bellagio began today. It's a $10K buy-in with a million guaranteed first prize. The do the payouts by their normal payout structure for all places but then if first is less than a million they top it up to that, so there's an overlay (of only ~55K this year though as they got ~310 players). However, a lot of the players in the tournament are actually freeroll and special contest winners and there are a ton of satellite winners on top of that so this easily the softest 10K+ buy-in tournament in Vegas outside of the World Series. We played really late and are starting up again at noon so I can't write a big report, but I ran pretty good all day including set over setting someone on one of the last hands of the day to run my stack up to 457.6K from the 100K starting bank.
The structure is really bad and while there was a lot of play today it is going to become a complete crap shoot tomorrow, though to be honest that suits me just fine, especially if I can maintain a big stack into the bubble since there is going to be so much dead money scared satellite and freeroll winners. I think Cardplayer (www.cardplayer.com) is the only place doing live coverage so you can check there for updates throughout the day. Gotta try to get some sleep tonight for another (hopefully) long day tomorrow. Night,
Mike
The structure is really bad and while there was a lot of play today it is going to become a complete crap shoot tomorrow, though to be honest that suits me just fine, especially if I can maintain a big stack into the bubble since there is going to be so much dead money scared satellite and freeroll winners. I think Cardplayer (www.cardplayer.com) is the only place doing live coverage so you can check there for updates throughout the day. Gotta try to get some sleep tonight for another (hopefully) long day tomorrow. Night,
Mike
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Festa al Lago Day 2
Well I'm busto. I grinded my short stack for quite a while but every time I got something good going I immediately lost a pot to give it back. In the end I obviously got owned Doug Lee because why wouldn't I?
Hand 1: 500/1000 a100 Somehow I'm down to 13K at this point and Jen Harman opens on my right. I move in with KK and Kristy Gazes instaships in the BB and Jennifer folds. She has QQ and I double back to around 30K.
Hand 2: Somewhere in here Doug Lee gets moved to the table. It folds to me in HJ and I raise to 2700 with QsQh. It folds to Doug in the BB and he calls because when it's his BB that's what he does. The flop comes A64dd, he checks and I check behind intending to fold approximately never no matter what happens ever. Then the turn is the Kd, and he bets 5K and I cry and fold. There's a good chance calling down here is still correct.
Hand 3: 600/1200 a200 So I get back to like 22K and raise to 3200 in the HJ again with KQo this time. Doug Lee calls in the BB because as we've established why wouldn't he? The flop comes 743r, I'm not thrilled but I think I have to bet. I bet 5K and he calls. The turn is a 2 chk/chk river J chk/chk. "I have one pair." I nod my head like obviously that's good but for some reason it takes him a while to roll over the winner, his 83s.
Hand 4: 800/1600 a200 Down to 13K now it folds to Jon (FatalError) in the CO and he opens to 4K, I ship A9o in the SB and hold against his KJo.
Hand 5: I'm back to around 30K and we get moved away from the balcony in the Fontana room because it was insanely cold. As we're unracking our chips a the new table the dealer asks me if I remember this card, and shows me the Ad. As it turns out it's the dealer who peeled off that beautiful Ad on the river against David back in July when I was all-in with AK vs QQ. So the first hand at the new table I'm UTG+1 and look down to see AKo! I raise and everyone folds and I show the ace and say I knew I had nothing to worry about. The next hand I get AKo again UTG! This guy is good! I open to 4400 again and Doug Lee makes it 16K in MP. Folds back to me and I insta-double fistpump-triple backflip-Hi 5s all around-turbo ship the rest of my chips in and he calls with AQ. The board runs out KJxx.......T. Oops. I guess I'm still slightly ahead lifetime on his river cards though so no major complaints.
I'm gonna stick around for another week still and play the 10K at Caesar's at the end of the month and probably some cash games. It's undoubtedly too much to ask, but I certainly wouldn't mind doing that thing where I hit a big score in my last tournament of the trip again! In the mean time I will try to get in an appropriate amount of trouble.
Mike
Hand 1: 500/1000 a100 Somehow I'm down to 13K at this point and Jen Harman opens on my right. I move in with KK and Kristy Gazes instaships in the BB and Jennifer folds. She has QQ and I double back to around 30K.
Hand 2: Somewhere in here Doug Lee gets moved to the table. It folds to me in HJ and I raise to 2700 with QsQh. It folds to Doug in the BB and he calls because when it's his BB that's what he does. The flop comes A64dd, he checks and I check behind intending to fold approximately never no matter what happens ever. Then the turn is the Kd, and he bets 5K and I cry and fold. There's a good chance calling down here is still correct.
Hand 3: 600/1200 a200 So I get back to like 22K and raise to 3200 in the HJ again with KQo this time. Doug Lee calls in the BB because as we've established why wouldn't he? The flop comes 743r, I'm not thrilled but I think I have to bet. I bet 5K and he calls. The turn is a 2 chk/chk river J chk/chk. "I have one pair." I nod my head like obviously that's good but for some reason it takes him a while to roll over the winner, his 83s.
Hand 4: 800/1600 a200 Down to 13K now it folds to Jon (FatalError) in the CO and he opens to 4K, I ship A9o in the SB and hold against his KJo.
Hand 5: I'm back to around 30K and we get moved away from the balcony in the Fontana room because it was insanely cold. As we're unracking our chips a the new table the dealer asks me if I remember this card, and shows me the Ad. As it turns out it's the dealer who peeled off that beautiful Ad on the river against David back in July when I was all-in with AK vs QQ. So the first hand at the new table I'm UTG+1 and look down to see AKo! I raise and everyone folds and I show the ace and say I knew I had nothing to worry about. The next hand I get AKo again UTG! This guy is good! I open to 4400 again and Doug Lee makes it 16K in MP. Folds back to me and I insta-double fistpump-triple backflip-Hi 5s all around-turbo ship the rest of my chips in and he calls with AQ. The board runs out KJxx.......T. Oops. I guess I'm still slightly ahead lifetime on his river cards though so no major complaints.
I'm gonna stick around for another week still and play the 10K at Caesar's at the end of the month and probably some cash games. It's undoubtedly too much to ask, but I certainly wouldn't mind doing that thing where I hit a big score in my last tournament of the trip again! In the mean time I will try to get in an appropriate amount of trouble.
Mike
Festa al Lago WPT Day 1b
Not a very successful day 1 today unfortunately. I finished the day with 25K of my 45K starting stack. My starting table was very soft, the only other players I recognized were shaniac and gobbo. Unfortunately I then got moved to some crazy table with Shawn Sheikhan, Brad Booth, Minh Ly and some other people I recognized. Here are two interesting hands I played today, the latter being the key hand of my day.
Hand 1: 200/400 a50. The player on my right opens to 1400 in MP and I flat KK next to act hoping for a squeeze from Sheikhan or Brad Booth or to just trap the raiser. One player calls behind me in position and Booth calls from the BB. The flop comes AT6hh and checks around. Turn T checks around. River 5 checks to me and I figure I almost always have the best hand and I may be able to get value from a hand like JJ or QQ so I bet 2800 and Brad calls with JJ.
Hand 2: Brad has been very active making a lot of really big preflop raises and reraises. In thish and Minh Ly open to 900 in early-middle position and Booth makes it 3800 next to act. I find KK on the button and make it 14K which is probably a bit too big. Booth calls pretty quickly which is really strange. The flop comes Q65hh and he checks. I think for a bit and was going to just jam it in and hope to get hero called but eventually I decided his preflop call seemed so strong that I was actually pretty worried about him having AA or QQ and I could induce bluffs or something by checking anyways. The turn is an 8 and he bets 8K which I call. The river is an A and he bets 22K. I think for a bit and mutter about how I must be the only nit in the world who plays this hand so weak and I'm either an idiot or a genius before accepting that I just can't imagine how he could be bluffing and fold. He said he flopped three queens and kept muttering about how if he played the hand differently he could have busted me so it seemed pretty legitimate that he actually had the hand.
I was down to 30K after that hand and finished the day with 25K after a boring level where I didn't do too much other than steal the blinds a few times. Hopefully I can turn things around and get something going tomorrow.
Mike
Hand 1: 200/400 a50. The player on my right opens to 1400 in MP and I flat KK next to act hoping for a squeeze from Sheikhan or Brad Booth or to just trap the raiser. One player calls behind me in position and Booth calls from the BB. The flop comes AT6hh and checks around. Turn T checks around. River 5 checks to me and I figure I almost always have the best hand and I may be able to get value from a hand like JJ or QQ so I bet 2800 and Brad calls with JJ.
Hand 2: Brad has been very active making a lot of really big preflop raises and reraises. In thish and Minh Ly open to 900 in early-middle position and Booth makes it 3800 next to act. I find KK on the button and make it 14K which is probably a bit too big. Booth calls pretty quickly which is really strange. The flop comes Q65hh and he checks. I think for a bit and was going to just jam it in and hope to get hero called but eventually I decided his preflop call seemed so strong that I was actually pretty worried about him having AA or QQ and I could induce bluffs or something by checking anyways. The turn is an 8 and he bets 8K which I call. The river is an A and he bets 22K. I think for a bit and mutter about how I must be the only nit in the world who plays this hand so weak and I'm either an idiot or a genius before accepting that I just can't imagine how he could be bluffing and fold. He said he flopped three queens and kept muttering about how if he played the hand differently he could have busted me so it seemed pretty legitimate that he actually had the hand.
I was down to 30K after that hand and finished the day with 25K after a boring level where I didn't do too much other than steal the blinds a few times. Hopefully I can turn things around and get something going tomorrow.
Mike
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Awesome Day!
Today started like almost any other day. I woke up and lazed around for a bit. Eventually I forced myself to go get a workout and then I came back to the room and ordered some food. I watched the new episode of Entourage which was the best in a long time, and also Dexter which was really good as always. After that I decided I'd go check out the poker room and see if any good games were running and buy into Day 1B of the WPT event for tomorrow. I ran into Vivek in the poker room and we both ended up sitting in a 10/20 game for a bit. Then we heard a new 25/50 NL game was opening and that a certain swimmer you may have heard of was playing it, so we instantly locked up seats and moved to that game. Sure enough, seated three to my left was none other than Michael Phelps.
Normally, to play in the legendary Bobby's Room, home of the biggest cash games in the world, you have to be playing at least something like 100/200 NL with a minimum 20K buy-in, but seeing as Michael Phelps is kind of a big deal and all they made an exception and moved our table in there. We were playing 25/50 NL and the BB also posted a $100 ante so it played a fair bit bigger than a normal 25/50 game, but you probably don't care about that. So there Vivek and I are, both coming off of huge WPT victories, sitting in Bobby's room play high stakes poker with the greatest olympian ever and one of the most famous people in the world this year. At the other table next to us Doyle, Helmuth, Eli, Ralph Perry, Freddy Deeb and various others are playing some huge stakes mixed game. It was kind of a ridiculous surreal moment where all Vivek and I could do is look at each other and say "Wow, are we living the life right now or what?".
So anyways back to things you probably care more about. Michael was actually really down to earth despite all his success and a cool guy. He immediately recognized Vivek (everyone seems to) which Vivek obviously thought was pretty sick. He didn't really seem to recognize me though, but I guess that's not surprising because I'm just some quiet kid who won a WPT event when the entire poker world was focused on them reaching the final table of the WSOP main event. Anyways, he was having a beer and enjoying himself and it was a really fun game. He actually seems to play fairly well though he never got in many tricky spots postflop at all and we never really saw any of his hands. The whole experience was pretty amazing though, and afterwards Vivek, Adam, and I went for some food at Fix and grabbed a late dinner to celebrate our sweet day. Oh yeah on top of that I also won $4K in the game by flopping the nuts a bunch but never winning any really huge pots.
So, tomorrow I begin my quest to defend my WPT at Bellagio bracelet. I'm pretty excited to get going, though I somehow doubt tomorrow will be able to compete with the events of today.
Mike
Normally, to play in the legendary Bobby's Room, home of the biggest cash games in the world, you have to be playing at least something like 100/200 NL with a minimum 20K buy-in, but seeing as Michael Phelps is kind of a big deal and all they made an exception and moved our table in there. We were playing 25/50 NL and the BB also posted a $100 ante so it played a fair bit bigger than a normal 25/50 game, but you probably don't care about that. So there Vivek and I are, both coming off of huge WPT victories, sitting in Bobby's room play high stakes poker with the greatest olympian ever and one of the most famous people in the world this year. At the other table next to us Doyle, Helmuth, Eli, Ralph Perry, Freddy Deeb and various others are playing some huge stakes mixed game. It was kind of a ridiculous surreal moment where all Vivek and I could do is look at each other and say "Wow, are we living the life right now or what?".
So anyways back to things you probably care more about. Michael was actually really down to earth despite all his success and a cool guy. He immediately recognized Vivek (everyone seems to) which Vivek obviously thought was pretty sick. He didn't really seem to recognize me though, but I guess that's not surprising because I'm just some quiet kid who won a WPT event when the entire poker world was focused on them reaching the final table of the WSOP main event. Anyways, he was having a beer and enjoying himself and it was a really fun game. He actually seems to play fairly well though he never got in many tricky spots postflop at all and we never really saw any of his hands. The whole experience was pretty amazing though, and afterwards Vivek, Adam, and I went for some food at Fix and grabbed a late dinner to celebrate our sweet day. Oh yeah on top of that I also won $4K in the game by flopping the nuts a bunch but never winning any really huge pots.
So, tomorrow I begin my quest to defend my WPT at Bellagio bracelet. I'm pretty excited to get going, though I somehow doubt tomorrow will be able to compete with the events of today.
Mike
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Festa al Lago Update
Hey I've been lazy and haven't written anything in a little while so here's what I've been up to this week. After I busted Niagara I drove home immediately and started looking for a flight to Vegas. There was a very cheap Westjet flight at 9pm that night and I had a credit for Westjet that I had to use soon anyways so I booked that right away, threw a bunch of extra clothes in my bag, and was off to the airport. I got in around 11pm PST and checked into the Bellagio. They were nice enough to comp my room for this trip as the returning champion so that was pretty badass. I had actually never stayed at the Bellagio before though I had seen the rooms and knew what to expect. Still, my room is way nicer than I remembered them being. There's so much space, the bathroom is huge, and all the decor is really classy without being excessive or snobbish. I of course still have to pay for all my own incidentals (internet, gym/spa, room service, mini bar, etc...) and they're very good at making those add up quickly, so even without paying the actual room rate they're still making an alright sum off me.
I've played a fair bit since I got here and had no success. On Thursday I played the $5K buy-in tournament and busted early without much going right. The next day I played a $1500 satellite to the main event but played very poorly and wasn't really focused and busted early again. I then played some 25/50 NL live and lost a bit over $5K getting in some tough spots and making a few likely questionable/poor plays. Today I played the $5K tournament and hung in until just before the dinner break very card dead for the most part. I busted on a tricky hand which I think I'm fine with:
600/1200 a100. A player who has been playing a lot of hands and limping a fair bit limps in MP. He seemed to be a cash player so competent but making a lot of preflop mistakes on the shorter effective stacks. I find KJcc in the CO make it 4200 with ~27K behind, and it folds back to him and he calls. The flop comes Ah Jh 7s and I check behind. The turn is the 2s and he leads very big for 10K. I feel like his bet sizing is either a made hand protecting against the 2 flush draws or a semi-bluff. I thought he would raise a lot of aces preflop so it's a bit less likely he has an A, and there are tons of ways he can have a flush draw that I'm ahead of. With only 17K behind after the 10K bet I think it's a spot where I have to move in for value if I think he has a draw since the pot will be so big if I call that trying to play the river would really not be fun. In the end that's what I decided to do but he had ATo and I lost. I think there are more aces in his range than I originally gave him credit for since he can probably limp/call a bunch of suited aces as well as some offsuit ones with middling kickers but I still think he should have a draw often enough that stacking off was ok.
The $15K WPT main event starts Monday and Tuesday, and after that there is a $10K buy-in tournament at Caesar's that I didn't know about with a million dollar guaranteed first prize so I'll probably stay until the end of the month to play that as well. I'll probably also try to play more big cash games during the main event since they should be fairly good, but I'm still not a big fan of live cash at this point. Maybe I just need more experience but it can be pretty boring. Oh yeah I've also picked up one Adam Junglen as a roommate again on this trip as he just turned 21 today! So happy birthday to him! I thought I got rid of him after London but it seems I was mistaken. Oh yeah also Friday night was David 'Bakes' Baker's birthday so a bunch of us went out for beer pong at O'Shea's which was a fun time as always. There's not as many people here that I know as usual but more and more are arriving as we get closer to the main event so it should be a fun couple weeks!
Mike
I've played a fair bit since I got here and had no success. On Thursday I played the $5K buy-in tournament and busted early without much going right. The next day I played a $1500 satellite to the main event but played very poorly and wasn't really focused and busted early again. I then played some 25/50 NL live and lost a bit over $5K getting in some tough spots and making a few likely questionable/poor plays. Today I played the $5K tournament and hung in until just before the dinner break very card dead for the most part. I busted on a tricky hand which I think I'm fine with:
600/1200 a100. A player who has been playing a lot of hands and limping a fair bit limps in MP. He seemed to be a cash player so competent but making a lot of preflop mistakes on the shorter effective stacks. I find KJcc in the CO make it 4200 with ~27K behind, and it folds back to him and he calls. The flop comes Ah Jh 7s and I check behind. The turn is the 2s and he leads very big for 10K. I feel like his bet sizing is either a made hand protecting against the 2 flush draws or a semi-bluff. I thought he would raise a lot of aces preflop so it's a bit less likely he has an A, and there are tons of ways he can have a flush draw that I'm ahead of. With only 17K behind after the 10K bet I think it's a spot where I have to move in for value if I think he has a draw since the pot will be so big if I call that trying to play the river would really not be fun. In the end that's what I decided to do but he had ATo and I lost. I think there are more aces in his range than I originally gave him credit for since he can probably limp/call a bunch of suited aces as well as some offsuit ones with middling kickers but I still think he should have a draw often enough that stacking off was ok.
The $15K WPT main event starts Monday and Tuesday, and after that there is a $10K buy-in tournament at Caesar's that I didn't know about with a million dollar guaranteed first prize so I'll probably stay until the end of the month to play that as well. I'll probably also try to play more big cash games during the main event since they should be fairly good, but I'm still not a big fan of live cash at this point. Maybe I just need more experience but it can be pretty boring. Oh yeah I've also picked up one Adam Junglen as a roommate again on this trip as he just turned 21 today! So happy birthday to him! I thought I got rid of him after London but it seems I was mistaken. Oh yeah also Friday night was David 'Bakes' Baker's birthday so a bunch of us went out for beer pong at O'Shea's which was a fun time as always. There's not as many people here that I know as usual but more and more are arriving as we get closer to the main event so it should be a fun couple weeks!
Mike
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
WPT Niagara Day 2-3
The internet stopped working on my computer in the hotel room for some reason so I wasn't able to blog last night. I had a pretty crappy day despite getting up to as high as 94K pretty early. I then went pretty card dead and lost most of the pots I did play. I was in pushbot mode by the end of the day and stole the blinds a few times to get to 40K. Today I played all of one hand when I moved in with A9s in MP for 32K for whatever and didn't beat JJ even though I flopped a flush draw. Timex and stevepa are stll in though so gogogogo them. I'm gonna book a flight to Vegas asap and play as many Festa al Lago events at Bellagio as I can now.
Mike
Mike
Monday, October 13, 2008
WPT Niagara Day 1
Hey I finished day 1 with 49.5K which is about average (30K starting stack). We only played 5 levels so not too many people were eliminated. I don't really feel like there were enough really interesting hands that I want to write a detailed report. Also, I'm pretty tired and just don't really feel like it. We start up again at noon tomorrow.
Mike
Mike
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
EPT High Roller Day 2
Well as most people probably know by now I finished 3rd for 241K pounds. It was a tough tournament and I never had a ton of chips so I was pretty happy with the finish, and obviously it's by far my 2nd biggest cash ever. I guess a lot of the hands have been reported pretty accurately elsewhere so I'll try not to focus too much on those but I do want to write a little recap.
Early on I was able to pick up a few pots where I reraised David Benyamine but I was otherwise fairly card dead. Between the blinds getting big leaving me on an awkward stack size and the fact that 9th paid around 2.5 buy-ins making it a really big bubble I didn't have much choice but to play very tight. I hung in until the final table but entered with a pretty short stack. Then I started coolering the other shortstacks, first Isabelle with AK vs her AJ and then Masaki with 99 vs Q9. I lost the latter though but then immediately picked up AA vs David's KJ (probably didn't move me up his list of favourite people at all =/) to bust him and AKs vs Masaki's AQs to bust my 3rd player and move into 2nd chip position. I then lost a couple small pots including this hand which was my only really tough spot at the final table. Here's a cut/paste of the strategy post I made on 2+2:
Weird river spot, all of call, fold and shove seemed pretty reasonable.
Relevant history or whatever first. 5-handed, errbody is playing super solid TAG except Scotty on my left who's super nitting it up.
5k/10k a1k. Last orbit I raised UTG to 27K and Peter defended his BB. Flop came 228 I c-bet 36K and he called. Turn and river were low cards and we checked it down and his TT was good.
I think effective stacks were around 300K for this hand. Next orbit I raise UTG again to 27K with A9s. As I'm putting in the chips Peter says "trying again are u?" or something to that effect, and I say "If at first you don't succeed...." Can't imagine that's terribly important but included for the sake of completeness. Folds to him in the BB and he calls.
Flop AK8r. He checks and I check behind. I think betting is obv fine too but I didn't do that. Turn 5d making a backdoor flush draw. He bets 37K I call. River 4h, he bets 65K and I???
So I ended up folding and I guess the commentator's weren't pleased I took so long but obviously it was kind of a hard decision and big fold. I felt like AT-AQ were by far his most likely holdings as he probably wouldn't call a hand like A6s preflop so all I beat was a bluff which I also thought was pretty unlikely.
So after that I folded a lot into 3rd, then won a bunch of pots in a row including a double up with QT vs A8. But then I busted when Juanda opened the button to 56K at 10k/20k and I shoved 400K and change I think with A7o and ran into his AK. I'm not thrilled about that spot but the shove has to be +EV against any reasonable range he's opening on the button there. The only way I can really fold is if I suspect the button raiser has a much tighter opening range than usual because he doesn't want to have to fold to a shove again. I think I would have folded A6o though, not sure if that makes any sense mathematically or not but there you go.
So next up is WPT Niagara just down the road from Toronto for me! I'm playing Day 1c on Sunday. I always look forward to this one since it`s my "home" event so to speak. Right after that I'm heading to Bellagio for whatever prelims I can play and then the Festa al Lago WPT event. So lots more live poker coming up in the next few weeks, we'll see if the ol' luckbox has anything left.
Mike
Early on I was able to pick up a few pots where I reraised David Benyamine but I was otherwise fairly card dead. Between the blinds getting big leaving me on an awkward stack size and the fact that 9th paid around 2.5 buy-ins making it a really big bubble I didn't have much choice but to play very tight. I hung in until the final table but entered with a pretty short stack. Then I started coolering the other shortstacks, first Isabelle with AK vs her AJ and then Masaki with 99 vs Q9. I lost the latter though but then immediately picked up AA vs David's KJ (probably didn't move me up his list of favourite people at all =/) to bust him and AKs vs Masaki's AQs to bust my 3rd player and move into 2nd chip position. I then lost a couple small pots including this hand which was my only really tough spot at the final table. Here's a cut/paste of the strategy post I made on 2+2:
Weird river spot, all of call, fold and shove seemed pretty reasonable.
Relevant history or whatever first. 5-handed, errbody is playing super solid TAG except Scotty on my left who's super nitting it up.
5k/10k a1k. Last orbit I raised UTG to 27K and Peter defended his BB. Flop came 228 I c-bet 36K and he called. Turn and river were low cards and we checked it down and his TT was good.
I think effective stacks were around 300K for this hand. Next orbit I raise UTG again to 27K with A9s. As I'm putting in the chips Peter says "trying again are u?" or something to that effect, and I say "If at first you don't succeed...." Can't imagine that's terribly important but included for the sake of completeness. Folds to him in the BB and he calls.
Flop AK8r. He checks and I check behind. I think betting is obv fine too but I didn't do that. Turn 5d making a backdoor flush draw. He bets 37K I call. River 4h, he bets 65K and I???
So I ended up folding and I guess the commentator's weren't pleased I took so long but obviously it was kind of a hard decision and big fold. I felt like AT-AQ were by far his most likely holdings as he probably wouldn't call a hand like A6s preflop so all I beat was a bluff which I also thought was pretty unlikely.
So after that I folded a lot into 3rd, then won a bunch of pots in a row including a double up with QT vs A8. But then I busted when Juanda opened the button to 56K at 10k/20k and I shoved 400K and change I think with A7o and ran into his AK. I'm not thrilled about that spot but the shove has to be +EV against any reasonable range he's opening on the button there. The only way I can really fold is if I suspect the button raiser has a much tighter opening range than usual because he doesn't want to have to fold to a shove again. I think I would have folded A6o though, not sure if that makes any sense mathematically or not but there you go.
So next up is WPT Niagara just down the road from Toronto for me! I'm playing Day 1c on Sunday. I always look forward to this one since it`s my "home" event so to speak. Right after that I'm heading to Bellagio for whatever prelims I can play and then the Festa al Lago WPT event. So lots more live poker coming up in the next few weeks, we'll see if the ol' luckbox has anything left.
Mike
Sunday, October 05, 2008
EPT High Roller Day 1
Just a quick post to update that I made it to day 2 of the High Roller tournament. I have 118K which is roughly average with 14 players left of 86 who started. I did the following skillful things to get my chips:
Cold 4-bet shoved 99 over Barry Greenstein's 3-bet of a crazy Scandi and beat his AA.
Got KK in preflop vs Chris Moneymaker's AA and rivered the K to crack them again.
Pussied out and checked behind the turn with A9ss when I turned a backdoor flush draw against Benyamine when I clearly should have semi-bluff shoved. River the card that makes my flush and also his trips to double up. I don't think I am David's favourite person these days.
We were supposed to play down to 9 but we stopped early at 2am instead with 14 left. Only 9 pay so hopefully I don't bubble and end up changing my flight for nothing. We start up at 1pm local time tomorrow. Once we get down to the final table you should be able to watch a live video stream of the final table with commentary on www.eptlive.com. Not sure when that will start since we ended the day early but check it out, hopefully you'll see me there.
Mike
Cold 4-bet shoved 99 over Barry Greenstein's 3-bet of a crazy Scandi and beat his AA.
Got KK in preflop vs Chris Moneymaker's AA and rivered the K to crack them again.
Pussied out and checked behind the turn with A9ss when I turned a backdoor flush draw against Benyamine when I clearly should have semi-bluff shoved. River the card that makes my flush and also his trips to double up. I don't think I am David's favourite person these days.
We were supposed to play down to 9 but we stopped early at 2am instead with 14 left. Only 9 pay so hopefully I don't bubble and end up changing my flight for nothing. We start up at 1pm local time tomorrow. Once we get down to the final table you should be able to watch a live video stream of the final table with commentary on www.eptlive.com. Not sure when that will start since we ended the day early but check it out, hopefully you'll see me there.
Mike
EPT HIgh Roller
Last minute decision I decided to play the High Roller event and was able to get myself bought in. It's a 20K+300 pound buy-in so like $36K USD. Capped at 100 players it's only a 2-day event so it should be a bit of a crap shoot but what's better than huge money crap shoots? Normally I can only lose like 10K playing tournaments on a Sunday. Going for the high score!
Mike
Mike
Friday, October 03, 2008
EPT London Day 2
Busto in 3rd level of the day. Only a couple of biggish hands.
Hand 1: 500/1000 a100 First hand of the day it folds to the SB who shoves his 11.3K stack. I find KTo in the BB and out luckbox his A3s to get to 46K.
Hand 2: 800/1600 a200 I don't do much for a bit and open AKs UTG to 4400 the first hand back from break when a couple people aren't back yet. French team Winamax lady who hasn't really done much shoves 13K more or something on the button and I'm in pretty ok shape against her KJo. Flop QJ6 two spades isn't ideal but I have lots of outs which I unfortunately brick.
Hand 3: I had shoved a couple hands in a row and then our table broke. At my new table I have 25.7K and Vicky Coren limps in EP. I find 88 next to act and while I'm a little worried she could be limping a big hand she plays so bad that I can't give her too much credit and there's enough in the pot now to easily justify shoving to try to pick it up. Folds back to her she says something about how she hasn't played with me maybe you're the type to actually have a hand at which I'm pretty sure I'm about to get nit-rolled. She eventually does call and her TT is easily good.
So in the end just another typical day in the life of Watts. I had a fun time but no luck with the ladies.
Mike
Hand 1: 500/1000 a100 First hand of the day it folds to the SB who shoves his 11.3K stack. I find KTo in the BB and out luckbox his A3s to get to 46K.
Hand 2: 800/1600 a200 I don't do much for a bit and open AKs UTG to 4400 the first hand back from break when a couple people aren't back yet. French team Winamax lady who hasn't really done much shoves 13K more or something on the button and I'm in pretty ok shape against her KJo. Flop QJ6 two spades isn't ideal but I have lots of outs which I unfortunately brick.
Hand 3: I had shoved a couple hands in a row and then our table broke. At my new table I have 25.7K and Vicky Coren limps in EP. I find 88 next to act and while I'm a little worried she could be limping a big hand she plays so bad that I can't give her too much credit and there's enough in the pot now to easily justify shoving to try to pick it up. Folds back to her she says something about how she hasn't played with me maybe you're the type to actually have a hand at which I'm pretty sure I'm about to get nit-rolled. She eventually does call and her TT is easily good.
So in the end just another typical day in the life of Watts. I had a fun time but no luck with the ladies.
Mike
Thursday, October 02, 2008
EPT London Day 1a
Hey gang, I made day 2 of the EPT with 34.2K, which I think is somewhere in the vicinity of average. I only remember a couple big pots, I won a bunch of small ones I guess to chip up a bit in between. In general my tables were incredibly soft, gotta love the EPT.
Hand 1: 150/300 a25 last hand before break. Crazy french guy limps in MP as he does very frequently, I limp the CO with 66, SB completes and the BB shoves for around 5100. French guy folds and I eventually decide to reshove since the BB seemed pretty competent about shortstack play and I figured he was probably shoving super wide since the French guy is almost always folding and no one else really figures to have much of a hand. SB folds and BB has 44 which I hold against to get to roughly twice starting stack with just under 20K.
Hand 2: 300/600 a75 I'm up to 30K at this point, I won a few smallish pots when I flopped huge but somehow couldn't get any action, and I'm at a new table where I don't really know how people play yet. A middle aged british guy limps, devinr12 limps behind and I make it 3K in the SB with JJ. British guy calls and we see a Q76hh flop. I check and he bets 3K which I call. Turn is the 3c putting up a 2nd flush draw, I check and he checks. River 6d, I bet 5K trying to get paid by 88 or 99 and he quickly shoves. I think for a bit pretty confused as I didn't really think he had an A6s or 56s type hand but eventually end up folding because somehow they always have it. He told me on the break that he had quad 6s which I guess I'll believe. The rest of his play throughout the day also made me pretty confident in my fold.
Hand 3: Shortly after the last hand I'm down to around 15K when the HJ opens to 2025. I find AA in the CO and decide to flat call and guy from last hand calls in the BB. The flop comes 554r, and the BB leads out for 1300(?), HJ folds and I make it 5K. He thinks a bit and puts me in and I hold vs TT. No more big pots and I ended the day with 34.2K.
Day 2 is on Friday and I have today off while they play Day 1b. Hopefully I can make a little run and do that thing where I wait until the last tournament to turn an unsuccessful trip into a very profitable one again.
Mike
Hand 1: 150/300 a25 last hand before break. Crazy french guy limps in MP as he does very frequently, I limp the CO with 66, SB completes and the BB shoves for around 5100. French guy folds and I eventually decide to reshove since the BB seemed pretty competent about shortstack play and I figured he was probably shoving super wide since the French guy is almost always folding and no one else really figures to have much of a hand. SB folds and BB has 44 which I hold against to get to roughly twice starting stack with just under 20K.
Hand 2: 300/600 a75 I'm up to 30K at this point, I won a few smallish pots when I flopped huge but somehow couldn't get any action, and I'm at a new table where I don't really know how people play yet. A middle aged british guy limps, devinr12 limps behind and I make it 3K in the SB with JJ. British guy calls and we see a Q76hh flop. I check and he bets 3K which I call. Turn is the 3c putting up a 2nd flush draw, I check and he checks. River 6d, I bet 5K trying to get paid by 88 or 99 and he quickly shoves. I think for a bit pretty confused as I didn't really think he had an A6s or 56s type hand but eventually end up folding because somehow they always have it. He told me on the break that he had quad 6s which I guess I'll believe. The rest of his play throughout the day also made me pretty confident in my fold.
Hand 3: Shortly after the last hand I'm down to around 15K when the HJ opens to 2025. I find AA in the CO and decide to flat call and guy from last hand calls in the BB. The flop comes 554r, and the BB leads out for 1300(?), HJ folds and I make it 5K. He thinks a bit and puts me in and I hold vs TT. No more big pots and I ended the day with 34.2K.
Day 2 is on Friday and I have today off while they play Day 1b. Hopefully I can make a little run and do that thing where I wait until the last tournament to turn an unsuccessful trip into a very profitable one again.
Mike
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Made the break this year
WSOPE main event is just not my tournament. Last year I busted in level 1 with bottom set vs top 2 pair all-in on the flop, and this year I didn't fair much better. I survived level 1 but won only one pot which was just me picking up the blinds and chipped down to 15K. Then early in level 2 this hand happens:
100/200 Winamax French guy limps UTG, Devilfish limps in MP, I pop it to 1K with AJo in the CO and both call. Flop Ac Qd 6c. Both check to me and I bet 2K, Winamax folds Devilfish calls. Turn Js, check I bet 5K, he asks how much I have left and I show him my 6475. He thinks for a bit and calls. I am certain that he has clubs that picked up a straight draw. River Kd, he quickly bets enough to put me all-in. Sigh, I think it over for a bit and decide the only hands he can have are KQcc, KJcc, JTcc, T9cc, T8cc. I beat 2 of those 5 and I'm getting almost 4:1, but it comes down to a matter of weighting those hands properly. He needs to have KQ or KJ over 20% of the time for me to call, meaning that if he only bluffs with them on the river half the time that he has them I should fold. Now that I say it like that I actually think it's kind of an easy fold against David but I stuck it in and lost to T9. Oops. It was a tricky spot though and I'm not too upset about it.
So that just leaves EPT London which begins for me on October 1. Hopefully I can run/play better there.
Mike
100/200 Winamax French guy limps UTG, Devilfish limps in MP, I pop it to 1K with AJo in the CO and both call. Flop Ac Qd 6c. Both check to me and I bet 2K, Winamax folds Devilfish calls. Turn Js, check I bet 5K, he asks how much I have left and I show him my 6475. He thinks for a bit and calls. I am certain that he has clubs that picked up a straight draw. River Kd, he quickly bets enough to put me all-in. Sigh, I think it over for a bit and decide the only hands he can have are KQcc, KJcc, JTcc, T9cc, T8cc. I beat 2 of those 5 and I'm getting almost 4:1, but it comes down to a matter of weighting those hands properly. He needs to have KQ or KJ over 20% of the time for me to call, meaning that if he only bluffs with them on the river half the time that he has them I should fold. Now that I say it like that I actually think it's kind of an easy fold against David but I stuck it in and lost to T9. Oops. It was a tricky spot though and I'm not too upset about it.
So that just leaves EPT London which begins for me on October 1. Hopefully I can run/play better there.
Mike
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Winning streak snapped at one
I was unable to extend my live tournament winning streak today in the 5K pound PLO tournament. I busted on the very last hand of the day getting all-in with the nuts on the turn but in unfortunately bad shape.
I had about 45K at 500/1000 when Allen Cunningham opened the button to 3K. I had JT98 with clubs in the SB and called, as did Andy Bloch in the BB. The flop came K87ssc. An ok but not great flop for my hand because of the presence of the flush draw. I check and Bloch leads out for 6K. Allen folded and I call. The turn is an offsuit J, I decide I can't risk him checking behind which I expect he will very often and just lead out for pot (21K). He quickly moves in and I call. Unfortunately my weak redraw to a full house doesn't look so great when he turns over QT9x with spades for the nuts as well with a massive redraw and rivers the As to bust me.
I play Day 1b of the WSOPE main event which I believe is Saturday. Hopefully I can get a new streak started in that event! Or at least make it to level 2 this year.
Mike
I had about 45K at 500/1000 when Allen Cunningham opened the button to 3K. I had JT98 with clubs in the SB and called, as did Andy Bloch in the BB. The flop came K87ssc. An ok but not great flop for my hand because of the presence of the flush draw. I check and Bloch leads out for 6K. Allen folded and I call. The turn is an offsuit J, I decide I can't risk him checking behind which I expect he will very often and just lead out for pot (21K). He quickly moves in and I call. Unfortunately my weak redraw to a full house doesn't look so great when he turns over QT9x with spades for the nuts as well with a massive redraw and rivers the As to bust me.
I play Day 1b of the WSOPE main event which I believe is Saturday. Hopefully I can get a new streak started in that event! Or at least make it to level 2 this year.
Mike
Monday, September 22, 2008
WCOOP over, off to London!
I didn't have much luck with my Sunday tournaments today. I managed a couple small cashes but lost a bit overall. I bubbled the WCOOP main event after being a bit unlucky. Things were actually going pretty smoothly for quite a while until this hand happened:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3223838
I fought for a little while on the shortstack and then made an aggressive resteal with 44 over some guy that was raising constantly and just way out of line in general. A supertight player behind me woke up with JJ though and by the river I was staring at quads again to bust within 15 or 20 from the money. Tonight I am off to London for WSOPE followed by EPT London. I'll be there for two weeks before returning home for WPT Niagara. First up is the 5K pound WSOPE Omaha event followed by the 10K pound main event and 5K pound EPT main event. It should be fun to get back to playing live again, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there as I haven't traveled since Bellagio.
Mike
http://www.pokerhand.org/?3223838
I fought for a little while on the shortstack and then made an aggressive resteal with 44 over some guy that was raising constantly and just way out of line in general. A supertight player behind me woke up with JJ though and by the river I was staring at quads again to bust within 15 or 20 from the money. Tonight I am off to London for WSOPE followed by EPT London. I'll be there for two weeks before returning home for WPT Niagara. First up is the 5K pound WSOPE Omaha event followed by the 10K pound main event and 5K pound EPT main event. It should be fun to get back to playing live again, and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone there as I haven't traveled since Bellagio.
Mike
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