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Off for a Week
Monday, August 28, 2006 Well, I got back some of my money over the last few days, so that will have to be good enough for now. I'll be back to poker in a week's time, but I won't be playing the tournaments next Labor Day weekend. I made a run in the Party tournament today, but I found new and exciting ways to lose coin flips. This one was pretty solid: Table Sunday Million Guaranteed(799876) Table #9 (Real Money) Seat 4 is the button Total number of players : 9 Seat 2: WolfiW ( $190520 ) Seat 4: jacksup ( $75976 ) Seat 6: motsi ( $38490 ) Seat 7: mittsexan129 ( $135067 ) Seat 8: willow525 ( $285087 ) Seat 9: Frappant ( $135432 ) Seat 10: gard666 ( $105917 ) Seat 5: bob1132 ( $122769 ) Seat 1: glb99 ( $96402 ) Trny:27938969 Level:14 Blinds-Antes(3000/6000-100) glb99 posts ante [100]. WolfiW posts ante [100]. jacksup posts ante [100]. bob1132 posts ante [100]. motsi posts ante [100]. mittsexan129 posts ante [100]. willow525 posts ante [100]. Frappant posts ante [100]. gard666 posts ante [100]. ** Dealing down cards ** Dealt to jacksup [ 8d 9d ] mittsexan129 folds. willow525 folds. Frappant folds. gard666 folds. glb99 folds. WolfiW folds. jacksup is all-In [75876] bob1132 folds. motsi is all-In [32390] ** Dealing Flop ** [ 7d, 6c, Kd ] ** Dealing Turn ** [ 2s ] ** Dealing River ** [ Js ] motsi shows [ 5d, 5h ] a pair of fives. jacksup shows [ 8d, 9d ] high card king. It's rough to have 65% equity on the flop and still lose the hand. But that was nothing compared to this earlier hand: Table Sunday Million Guaranteed(799876) Table #35 (Real Money) Seat 9 is the button Total number of players : 10 Seat 3: jacksup ( $147497 ) Seat 5: hans12783 ( $20975 ) Seat 4: jw4444 ( $44274 ) Seat 2: wildman22222 ( $34074 ) Seat 10: Quasi67 ( $102020 ) Seat 8: EZ2SUKOUTON ( $69177 ) Seat 6: dgevil ( $51315 ) Seat 7: canajin1 ( $68184 ) Seat 9: TO_bluejays ( $193336 ) Seat 1: detroitmgm ( $104010 ) Trny:27938969 Level:13 Blinds-Antes(2000/4000-100) detroitmgm posts ante [100]. wildman22222 posts ante [100]. jacksup posts ante [100]. jw4444 posts ante [100]. hans12783 posts ante [100]. dgevil posts ante [100]. canajin1 posts ante [100]. EZ2SUKOUTON posts ante [100]. TO_bluejays posts ante [100]. Quasi67 posts ante [100]. ** Dealing down cards ** Dealt to jacksup [ Js Jc ] wildman22222 folds. Quasi67: nh jacksup raises [8500]. jw4444 folds. hans12783 is all-In [20875] dgevil folds. canajin1 folds. EZ2SUKOUTON folds. TO_bluejays folds. Quasi67 folds. detroitmgm folds. jacksup calls [12375]. ** Dealing Flop ** [ Jd, 3d, Jh ] ** Dealing Turn ** [ Kh ] ** Dealing River ** [ Th ] jacksup shows [ Js, Jc ] four of a kind, jacks. hans12783 shows [ Qh, Ah ] Royal Flush. Wow. Why couldn't this have happened in one of those stupid Monster cash games they have going all the time? This was the best hand I've ever lost with, and actually the first time I've ever lost with quads. I won two showdowns with the worst hand in this tournament, but I lost two other showdowns with the worst hand, I was 1-for-4 in coin flips, and I busted with QQ to A7 all-in preflop. I also lost coinflips in pretty big pots to bust on Stars and Dise, and in neither of those tournaments did I have any suckouts to get my chips. Sigh. Sounds like a good time for a break. I wish everyone luck this week, and I'll see you in September! Running Bad Friday, August 25, 2006 I never should've posted about the productive days I had following the WSOP, because those days are long gone. I didn't cash in any FTOPS events, but that's the least of my poker troubles these days. I haven't won a hand in cash games for the last week and a half, and the losses are starting to accrue. I've been playing mostly 50-100 and 100-200 shorthanded Limit Hold 'Em, which are relatively large stakes for me. I'm quite confident I have at least a medium edge in these games, but I think for my sanity's sake I may switch back to playing many tables of 30-60, instead of two tables of the higher limits. There are definitely times I prefer to take a big edge at a lot of low stakes tables over a medium edge at one or two high stakes tables. I'll keep trying the higher games over the course of the weekend until Ivy and I go on our last vacation of the year next week. If I don't recoup at least some of my losses from the past few days, I'll definitely change things up in some manner. I hope all my readers are running better than I am, and best of luck to everyone playing the online tournaments this weekend. Online Tournaments Wednesday, August 16, 2006 It's a good time to be an online tournament player. The FTOPS is going on right now. Of course I haven't done anything in the first three events, but I'm optimistic about making a score sometime this week. Then we've got WCOOP going on soon afterwards. I love WCOOP. Fantastic structures, lots of different games, huge prize pools, and the chance to buy-in with $W. It's really quite incredible. Belated congratulations to our new champion, Jamie Gold. No matter what, it's quite a task to beat out 9,000 people. Like Raymer and Moneymaker and Varkonyi and Mortensen and Ferguson and Furhlong and Nguyen and Ungar and Seed before him, Gold played a loose-aggressive style on his way to victory. Joe Hachem may eventually go down as the tightest player to win the WSOP main event in the modern era. My next big brick-and-mortar tournament will be the Borgata Poker Open, and that actually happens before WCOOP gets started, so I guess I should book my hotel room or something. In the meantime, watch for me on Full Tilt this week. Who We're Rooting For, WSOP Main Event Friday, August 04, 2006 As Day Three finally gets underway at the Rio, I thought I'd send a shoutout to some of my friends still in the tournament (apologies if I left anyone out). I've broken them down in three groups. Some of them qualify in more than one group, but I wanted to even out the teams in case any of my readers decided to do some wagering. Right Coasters: Feming Chan $127,000 Jason Strasser $319,000 Jesse Martin $35,500 Bloggers: Matt Maroon $208,900 Mike May $73,200 Peter Feldman $93,200 Richard Brodie $57,800 ARGers: Michael "Bart" Simpson $23,100 Sabyl Cohen $103,300 Scott Byron $66,900 Best of luck all. WSOP Main Event Hands Thursday, August 03, 2006 Some of the numbers won't be perfectly accurate, since five days have passed since I exited the Main Event. They were productive days, however, as I won back the money I lost playing those pesky tournaments out in Vegas. Level One, Blinds 25/50 The guy to my immediate left quickly establishes himself to be an autobet machine (ABM). Once he shows aggression he doesn't stop. I tend to let those players do the betting for me. Blind-on-blind vs. ABM. I open for 125 with A8, ABM calls. Flop AT4. I bet 150, he makes it 300. I call. Turn 3. I check, he bets 400, I call. River 4. I check, he bets 600, I call. After I call, he just sits there not doing anything and I know I have the best hand. He eventually rolls over T2s and I scoop the pot. Another blind-on-blind vs. ABM. I open for 125 with QJ, ABM calls. Flop Q99. I check, he bets 300, I call. Turn 5. I check, he bets 700, I call. River ace. I bet 800. He mucks Q5 face-up. After those pots, plus some others, I'm up to about 13k. Then I raise in late position with KJ. The blinds calls. The flop comes KQ4 with two clubs. The small blind, a terrible player, leads out for 300. The big blind folds, I make it 800. The turn is a blank. The small blind checks, and I bet 1200. The small blind calls, and he's visibly shaking as he does. It's very clear he's nervous about making this call, which means he's probably on some kind of draw. The river is an offsuit ace, definitely not a good card for my hand, as ace-high flush draws, and also jack-ten and AQ got there on me. Check, check. He has AJ of clubs and I lose. He hit a huge flop, but I got 1200 in with one card to come when I was a pretty solid favorite. Oh well. I'm back down to just over my starting stack after this hand. Level Two, Blinds 50-100. Folds to me on the small blind and I open for 250 with Kh5d. ABM calls. The flop comes queen-high with two small hearts. Check-check. The turn is a small heart (though I don't have a straight draw; let's say the board was Q742). I check, ABM bets 500, I call. The river is an offsuit jack. I bet 600, ABM folds instantly. A terrible player limps in EP and I limp behind him with 77. We take the flop three-handed and it comes 744 with two spades. The big blind checks, and the limper bets 300. I make it 800. The big blind folds, the limper calls. The turn brings an offsuit three. The limper leads for 500. I make it 1700. The limper thinks for a while and calls. The river brings an offsuit jack. The limper checks. He has 5300 left, and there is about that much in the pot. I set him all-in. He sighs like he's going to fold, then he looks at his cards, looks at his chips, shrugs his shoulders and says, "I call." I table my hand and he says, "ohhh, I have two pair!" and rolls over his JsTs. Yes, this guy's play was ridiculous, but I really think I'm one of very few players in the field who bust him on this hand. After that hand I'm sitting pretty at 21k. I open in late position, on an absent player's big blind, with Ah9h. Only the small blind calls. The flop comes T84 and the small blind leads out for 300 into the 700 pot. I make it 900. He calls. The turn brings a three. Check-check. The river pairs the four, and my opponent leads out for 1000. I don't think he's capable of value betting a ten, or calling my preflop raise with a four (he'd been very tight to that point), so I actually thought it more likely than not that he was bluffing a missed flush draw. My biggest concern was that he was "bluffing" with AJ or AQ, but getting 3.5-1 on my money I actually thought I had a fairly easy call. He showed down JJ--in my opinion, the only hand other than tens full or eights full that he could be value betting there, and that is consistent with the rest of the action. Oh well. Back down to 19k. Level Three, Blinds 100-200 An early position player limps and I limp in middle position with 7s6s. The blinds call, we take the flop four-handed, and it comes Jh5s4s. Oh baby. The blinds check, and EP leads out for 500. I make it 1600, hoping he reraises so I can move in (he also has a big stack). Instead he just calls (the blinds folded). The turn is the 2s--a good card. He checks, I bet 2550, and he calls. The river pairs the jack and we both check. He says, "I have a flush," and tables QsTs. Part of me is stunned that I didn't go broke, having learned what he held, and the other part of me is stunned that I lost the pot, given how the action went. Down to 13k I pick up some small pots, and then it folds to the small blind, who makes it 800 on my big blind. This player is a rock. I call with Ad6d. The flop comes 987 and we both check. The turn pairs the eight, and my opponent leads out for 1500. I make it 4200. He thinks for a while and finally says, "I'm pretty sure I have you beat," which is poker lingo for, "I'm folding, but I have to act tough while doing it." He mucks. Shortly before the dinner break, a player opens in early position for 800. I call in late position with QQ. The flop comes J84 rainbow. He bets 1000. I call. The turn brings a ten. He bets 2500, and has 5400 remaining after his bet. I decide to move him all-in. He goes into the tank, and the longer he tanks, the more I start to think, "damn, I don't have the best hand here." Finally he holds his cards upright and I can sort of see them. They look like two kings! But then he throws them in the muck. More on this later. I go to dinner ecstatic to be sitting with 20,000 in chips, given the flush-over-flush, and given that I think was dealt QQ against KK and won the hand. Level Four, Blinds 100-200/25 The player to my left is now a short stack (and he's new to the table, ABM busted a while back), relatively speaking. He has 3100 left after posting his big blind. He's wearing Martin's Poker gear, so I assume he's less tight, more aggressive, and more intelligent than the typical player in the field. It folds to me in the small blind and I look down at A8. I don't want to make it 600 and fold to an all-in, but I don't love calling that all-in either. So I decide to limp, hoping he'll raise to 700 or 800 and then I can move HIM in. I limp, and he almost instantly jams for his entire stack! I shrug my shoulders and say, "I call" almost as fast as he moved in. "Good call," he says, and tables K5o. He flops a king and wins. I'm down to 16k. A few orbits later, the player who I think folded kings earlier opens for 800 in middle position. He has about 4300 remaining after his raise. It folds to me on the big blind and I look down at AJo. I'm pretty confident this player will only call me with KK or AA, and possibly QQ if I move in. Given that he's been opening with smallish pairs, and plenty of big card hands, I'm willing to risk running into a big hand and decide to move him in. He calls instantly with kings. I don't improve and he doubles up. "Nice hand," I say, and he says, "Thanks, that's the hand I laid down to you before." Further confirmation. But I'm now down to 10k. A couple of failed steals later (on one of which, the reraiser SHOWS me AA), and I go to the break at 8800. Level Five, Blinds 150-300, 25. Shane "shaniac" Schleger moves to my right, and even though he's a very strong player, I'm extremely happy to see him. He's a friend of mine, and the hours of tedious poker with pretty much no social interaction have been getting to me. I get my stack up to about 11k when it folds to Shane on the small blind. He limps, and I check in the big blind with 95o. The flop comes 987 rainbow. Shane leads out for 400, I call. The turn is a 4. Shane leads out for 1200. I call. The river is a three, and Shane throws out a pile of chips. "3300?" I say. "I think it's 28" Shane says. We count it, it's 3300. I decide a player as tricky as Shane could easily be bluffing here, or even value betting something like second pair with a decent kicker, and I call. He tables T6s for the flopped straight. I certainly didn't have an automatic call on the river, but Shane earned the call nicely by making it look like a bluff. Down to 5k, I get it back to 6400 when Shane opens in the cutoff+2 for 800. Shane has been opening a ton of hands, and I have the perfect stack size for an all-in reraise, and I've been waiting to just pick up anything reasonable to go with. I look down at KTs, which is plenty, and shove my stack in. The four players behind me are all extremely tight. So when the button shoves his stack in, I know I'm toast. The other guys fold, Shane folds, and the button says, "do you have aces?" "Yeah, I have aces," I say with obvious sarcasm as I table my KTs and he tables his (of course) KK. The flop comes KQx. The turn is an ace, but the river is not a jack, and I am out. I really feel I played very well, and I love my chances to get back in the event if the button doesn't wake up with KK in that spot. Oh well, there are plenty of tournaments. Just not too many that offer $12 million for first.  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