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Main Event Day Two Hands
Sunday, July 15, 2007 I got my chips in mostly boring ways. I flopped two pair and reraised all-in. The raiser folded (showing the two kings he'd limped in with). I showed him my hand. I turned a set and raised a preflop bettor, who folded. I flopped a set as the preflop raiser and made a normal continuation bet. Both opponents folded. The only mildly interesting way I picked up chips came when I opened for 2800 (blinds 500-1000 with 100 ante) from the hijack with AJo. The button called, the small blind folded, but then the big blind moved in for an additional 19,000. He'd moved in twice already, so I got the sense the big blind was a real poker player, and not one of the ultra-tighties. I isolated all-in behind him. The button folded. The big blind revealed KTs and I won the showdown. After the first level of Day Two I had 109,000. I got back from break and played this crazy hand. I opened UTG for 3400 (blinds 600-1200 with 200 ante) with AJs. The player three to my left--the same player who earlier had mucked the kings face-up--called. Everyone else folded. The flop came 877. Check-check. The turn brought a nine. I bet 6,000. My opponent called. The river brought a four. There was 22,400 in the pot and my opponent had 20,800 left. I threw out four 5,000 chips. "Ten thousand," the dealer said. "How much?" I said. "Oh sorry, twenty thousand." I don't know if my opponent thought he picked up something from this or what (though I would've asked the dealer to correct his mistake even if I'd had AA), but he thought for a while and then decided to move-in, raising me 800 more. I reluctantly called, and he showed me AQ! He then even said out loud, "That was either a great call or a terrible call. I was hoping he was bluffing, I was just hoping he wasn't bluffing with ace-queen." Yeah, or ace-king how about? Not to mention there's no reason in the world for him to throw his last 800 in there. Regardless, nice call he made I guess. I recovered the chips from that above hand pretty quickly. I picked up AKs and moved in over a raise and a reraise. They both folded. I stole some blinds and got it to my high water mark of 115k. Here's how to go from 115k to broke in eight easy hands. Hand 1, UTG+2. I open for 3600 with QJo. This is looser than my usual opening standards, but I like my table and I've been having success stealing. The player to my immediate left makes it 7200. Having played with this guy for three hours, I'm 99.8% sure he has aces or kings. Everyone else folds. He has 50k behind. I call, trying to bust him. The flop comes queen-high. I check. He bets 5k into the 17k pot. I'm 99% sure I'll get all his chips if a jack comes, and 90% sure I'll get them if a queen comes. I call trying to bust him. The turn is a blank. I check. He bets 10k. I no longer have the implied odds, and fold. he shows AA. Hand 2, UTG+1. I open for 3400 with 86s (same looseness caveat as above). Folds to the big blind, who calls. The flop comes A96. He checks, I bet 6k, he calls. Turn and river are checked down. He wins with K6o. I think he was mad at me because I'd earlier defended with 96o against his button raise and won. Oh well. I end up showing my hand just in case I misread the situation and his kicker didn't play or something. That might have been a mistake. Hand 3, UTG. I open for 3400 with AKs. Folds to a MP player who makes it 10k, leaving himself 29k behind. Folds back to me and I move him in. He calls pretty quickly, and seems proud that he has JJ. I lose the showdown. He then starts talking about how it was "only a matter of time" and how if he didn't get my chips "someone else would have." I, of course, say nothing. Never mind that he's a 7-4 dog against the range I'm jamming with there. Hand 4, BB. UTG limps. Folds around to a MP player who makes it 4k. One cold callers, I call 2800 more with T9o. UTG calls. We take the flop four-handed. It comes KQ9 rainbow. Checked around. Turn is a four. Checked to the button who bets 3500 into the 18.6k pot. I'm very confident he's weak and make it 14,000. UTG, the same player who showed the AA earlier, instantly moves all-in. The rest of us fold in a matter of seconds. UTG shows KQo. Yes, he flopped top two on that board and checked it twice. Hand 5, SB. I fold this hand! Hand 6, Button. I open for 4200 with T8o or something. SB folds, big blind calls. Flop QTx. Check-check. Turn blank. Check, I bet 7500, big blind folds. Hand 7, Cutoff. I fold this hand! Hand 8, Hijack. I open for 3900 with TT. The cutoff calls. This is the very straightforward guy, and I'm sure he has a pair lower than mine. The button, who is certainly a player and has been calling my raises a fair amount, and also got caught making a big bluff earlier, makes it 11,500. Folds to me. I move in for 34k more. The cutoff folds, saying, "I know my hand is going to flop." The button thinks for a while, and then says, "let's gamble" and calls. And then he says, "do you have aces?" For the second straight year, someone has matched all my chips and then asked me if I had aces on my final hand of the main event. This year I shook my head no. (Last year I said yes and then flipped over my KTs, so this year I tried something new.) My opponent was "gambling" with two queens, and I failed to improve. If I sound bitter, I am a little. Sorry. Every once in a while that will happen. But mostly I'm pretty happy with the way I played on this trip, and I certainly had a much better time than I had at last year's WSOP. Renting a condo is so much more comfortable than shacking up at the Rio. I don't think I'll play much poker between now and WCOOP (although there's another FTOPS coming in August that I might have to look at). I'm planning instead to focus on reading and writing. This may mean that you'll see in this space one or two of those non-poker posts that I talked about doing a few months back. Best of luck to all playing poker. WSOP Main Event, Day Two Tuesday, July 10, 2007 I'm out. I got it to 115k, but it was all downhill from there. I'll write up some hands when I'm less irritated. WSOP Main Event, Day One Monday, July 09, 2007 I apologize for the lateness of this post. I spent today (Sunday) moving from the condo (where I've been staying for the past month) into the Bellagio, and I initially forgot my ethernet cable, so this post got delayed even longer. Anyway, I got through Day One with 49,300. I was as high as 78,000 and as low as 6,400. I would've been out in level two if not for a miracle suckout. A loose-aggressive player opened for 800, at least three people called (possibly four, I don't remember for sure), and I moved in for 7,150 from the small blind with two fives. The original raiser called. The first caller folded, but then the second caller moved in! The other callers folded, and then the initially raiser folded despite being ridiculously priced in. So I was getting 2-1 on my money, but almost mortally certain I was facing an overpair. Sure enough, my opponent turned over jacks. I didn't need to see the flop, I just saw my opponent jump out of his seat as the dealer revealed the window card. From there, I ran it up--though I was saved again, just in a different way. The same loose-aggressive player opened for 800, a fairly weak player called, and I called from the big blind. The flop came 975 rainbow. I checked, the raiser checked, and the caller bet 1500. I made it 3000. The initial raiser folded, the bettor called. The turn brought an ace. Before I could act, my opponent bet 2000 out of turn, leaving himself 8000 behind. I checked and let him bet the 2000, then I called. The river paired the nine. I moved my opponent all-in. He cursed and muttered, and eventually mucked. I'll reveal my hand after my tournament is over (feel free to guess via email to jacksup@mattmatros.com in the meantime, if you want), but I'll tell you that I wouldn't have won this pot if my opponent hadn't acted out of turn AND bet small at the same time. I ran AJs through QQ, and then check-raised all-in on a AKT flop (again, I'll reveal later), and I had about 78k after my opponent mucked. But then I ran KK into AA, which knocked me down to 60k. One or two steals gone bad took me down to 49k, and that's where we're at. I play again on Tuesday. I figure I'll need to run it up to about 200,000 to have an average stack by the end of the day. Here's hoping. $1500 Limit Hold 'Em Shootout Wednesday, July 04, 2007 Early in this thing, I got three bets in five ways with AA, only to have David Levi turn a set of fours on me. I also lost a coin flip for a good chunk of chips and was quickly down to 1,250 from my starting stack of 3,000. I then ran QQ through AA and that began a run that propelled me all the way up to 7,500. I lost some hands and went back down to 2,400 again. I caught a rush and went back up to 13,000 when we got three-handed. At some point, I played the following hand. I raised from the small blind with A2, David called in the big blind. The flop came AQ6. Bet-call. Turn 3. Bet-call. River 7. Bet-raise-call. David shows 54o for the nuts. Now back to 5k, I pulled about even with David when we finaly got heads-up. We agreed to save 5%. I then caught a tremendous rush of cards and won almost every hand. A monkey could've won the heads-up match with the cards I had. Thus, I advanced to round 2 for the first time in my brief WSOP shootout career. As good as I ran against David, that's as bad as I ran at the second table. I forgot what a real hand looked like. But not only that, I found myself folding on the river with pairs, which is pretty rare for me in limit. In hindsight, I think those folds were right, and if anything I wish I'd made one of them a street earlier. I got frustrated enough folding these pairs on the end, that I eventually made a bad call with one pair on a board of KQT9x just to prove a point to no one in particular. I was one of the 25 players put out of our misery last night, before the brass (correctly) decided the second round structure was too slow, and they would bring the remaining 47 players back the next day. After playing five straight long days, I'm happily taking today off. I haven't been feeling well, so some rest before the main event is just what I need. I chose Saturday as my day one, and I am looking forward to finally playing a tournament with decent starting chips (and of course, a ridiculously large prize pool). I'll try to post one more time before the big dance begins. SHOE Day Two Tuesday, July 03, 2007 I finished in 14th place. My high water mark was 130k in chips. I won two nice pots after the dinner break that I believe made me a temporary chip leader. But unfortunately, I won not a single pot (other than chops and a few ante steals) after that. I couldn't win anything once we got to the final two tables, and that's pretty tough when you're playing 6k-12k with an average stack of 90k. Oh well, I got to the crapshoot portion with average chips--that's all you can ask. On my last two hands I had (AT)23 and (A94)2 and got scooped both times. That's when you know it's not meant to be. Tomorrow: $1,500 Limit Hold 'Em Shootout $1,000 SHOE, Day One Monday, July 02, 2007 For once, I got through a limit tournament day one with more chips than I started with. I have 10,600 going into Day Two of the SHOE event, which should be slightly above average. There were some bad players, as I was hoping--including a guy who didn't know how to rank low hands--but there were some tough players around as well. I lost three or four big pots or else I could be sitting on a pretty nice stack. As it is, I could go broke on one hand as we're playing 600-1200 Stud to start the day tomorrow. I will say, however, that this tournament is far more fun than the short stack No Limit events. I'm hoping for more fun as I continue. Two More Short Stack Events Sunday, July 01, 2007 I made it pretty deep in the $2k NL on Friday, and not quite as deep in the $1500 NL yesterday. I took brutal beats to bust out of both. I'm going to try the $1k SHOE today. I'm expecting a soft field, with the small buy-in and many of the top players playing $10,000 PLO, so who knows, maybe I'll catch a few breaks. I'm still looking forward to the main event coming up in a week's time. That's always a chance to cancel out all the running bad a person has ever done.  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