Another year has come and gone, and for me and poker - 2012 has been fairly amazing indeed.
My game has yet again grown leaps and bounds. I truly feel comfortable playing live - both in someone's home and in a card room and typically feel like one of the better players at any given table. And while the game of tournament No Limit Hold-Em is ever evolving, I'd like to think I've worked reasonably hard at keeping up with it and have been rewarded for my efforts. The rewards have not necessarily been financial, see below, but I have excelled at learning and loving the game despite it's frequent sickening setbacks.
The largest leap in my game by far in 2012, and for that matter in my entire amateur poker career, has been that for the first time EVER, despite my previous solemn pledges, I have kept strict track of my results. No, really, I have.
And at the end of 2012... drumroll please....
I'm down $1680.
I played almost exclusively tournaments in 2012 and I played WAY more than I ever have before in my life. 122 to be exact. Out of 122 I cashed 28 times, just over 20%.
My cashes added up to $6845. All told I spent $8525 in entry fees. Tournaments are a tough nut to crack, no shit.
I never thought I would divulge all of this info on a public blog, but there it is. I really feel in poker, as well as in most of my life, a very strong desire to be as open and as honest as I can with just about anyone who cares to listen.
When I mentioned working really hard on my game, I didn't specify that the one area I've worked the hardest on is letting go of the anger that the game can bring about. Three outers? I've had plenty. Two outers? Yep, probably just as many. And that delightful one out sting to the heart? Oh yeah. More than a few times in 2012.
I've finally, finally ALMOST gotten to where these things don't matter. I say almost because the other night, on 12/21/12 at the Monte Carlo in Vegas (you can find it on the grid) I stomped away from the table without saying a word to the kid who slow rolled me with kings.
He was a classic case of d-bag meets loser (yes I did say I wasn't going to be insulting on this blog but he really was) who fancied himself the table captain. I had quietly man handled him in a couple of pots to which he just laughed and swore he would get me back - I was the only reason he didn't have a mountain of chips about an hour in to the tournament.
But this was a turbo - and soon I had to get it in. I had 11 bigs, it was folded to me and I shoved from the SB with A4 - standard, and another player, the BB, called off his tournament life with Q4, which of course binked a lady on the turn.
I was crippled, maybe 3 bigs, and happy to stick in the rest of my chips from the button with a suited King. The table "captain" who was a player or two to my right and had limped, called my shove and waited for me to show before he flipped up his kings. He cackled in delight as the board ran out harmlessly for him.
"Nice slow roll" I mumbled as the blank river hit. He whooped and hollered and as I rose to leave he stopped himself, goofball that he was, and extended his hand. My back was already turned and I was out the door. "See ya Philly!" he shouted after me. (My Phillies hat had earned me that moniker at that table). "Fuck you fucker." is all that came into my head as I left the room.
But it was I who was truly a fucker. I had let the goofball win by letting him get to me, and even though he was a savvy enough player to know what he did was way out of line - I should have been bemused and tapped the table and shaken his hand. I had already cashed that night for Christ's sake. Who cares if this guy thinks he's on the WPT? He's just another traveler, though I doubt very much he's a television director who has traveled to 33 countries and lives with a fantastic wife and beautiful daughter in a lovely home in Burbank. In fact based on his boorish behavior he very likely has scars that I can't see, and tough as it is, I really needed to dig deep and remember that. Oh well.
The negative number at the end of my balance sheet is a concern for my game, but it's down the list of what I know is important in poker. Dealing with tools who are actually sad is my top priority - for I find that when I do handle them well I find myself having fun and everything else tends to fall into place.
Having fun is definitely the number 2 goal to keep working on and improving. It's closely related to dealing with a-holes, but is in itself it's own pursuit. When my cards are cold, cold, cold and the table is super aggressive - I need to simply relax and focus on the other hands unfolding around me; soak up that information so that when I do wake up with queens I have a good idea how to play them against specific opponents. And in the meantime enjoy myself. There's no point in being miserable at the poker table - I'm paying good money to sit amongst these fine fellow travelers and play a game! Why not be loose and a bit silly?
And yes, finishing out of the negative in 2013 will be very important to me as well. There are a few ways I can better achieve this.
1) More volume. Alas, this is the one I don't think will be possible. Playing poker on over 100 days in 2012 was probably pushing it a bit in the first place. If I can even approach this number in 2013 I'm afraid I'm playing too much. Still, if the opportunities present themselves, I'm afraid the degenerate in me will win out. But no way am I playing MORE poker.
2) More cash game - less tournament. Alas, again, I don't know if I'm up for this. I love tournaments so much, for many reasons, all of which I have gone on about at length on this blog. And cash games pretty much bore me. Oh they can be fun, but they seem like so much more of a grind (both at home and in a card room, but way more so in the latter). It is especially true with me, that at a card club I can't seem to shake the feeling that rent money is at play. (Not mine, but those travelers out there that I'm trying to find love in my heart for.)
3) Tournament style - GO FOR THE BIG CASH. This approach and attitude is something I've worked on steadily for the past few years, and I'm going to tackle it with even more vigor this year. In 2012 I played in more than a few "big" events with six figure guarantees. I look back now and recognize that in these events I needed to be far more willing to get my all chips in, with even the smallest edge. A single four or five figure score would easily wipe out all my losses and could have put me firmly in profit. As it was I was often timid when I needed to be bold, simply because I perceived the stakes as so high and my opponents as so tough. I need to let go of these fears, because in the end (save for one score at Hollywood Park, my biggest cash of the year at $900+) it made no difference that I played timid. Sure I might have squeaked a min-cash here and there, but I know if I had really gone for it earlier and more often (not reckless or spewy, but aggressive at the right times) I could very easily have been in the black this year.
I have to remind myself - in every tournament I play. I'm NOT playing to cash. I'm playing to finish FIRST. Period. I found this a lot easier to do in my own $40 home game tournament or similar events in other garages and living rooms, and thus had better results in them. I got a bit chicken shit when I plunked down a 3 figure entry fee. I really need to remember that I should have no difference in the way I approach different buy ins. The goal is to bring the A-Game and that means be ready to embrace flips early on so I can chip up and get deep so I can make use of ammo to keep accumulating through aggressive small ball even when the deck is cold.
So I guess this last point is my big poker resolution for the year. But even bigger than this approach, more revolution than resolution in my poker thinking this year - is the idea that I can play this game with an open and honest heart.
Now don't get me wrong, when I'm on the felt - peeking at my hole cards or pondering a three bet, I will still keep it all close to the vest. But when a non-poker conversation erupts at Commerce, I won't be shy about joining in. And when I'm at my home game or others, I don't even mind talking about the game or previous hands. It's way too fun not to, and as I've said here before, I'm not worried about damaging my results against the vast majority of other home gamers who are just like me and not playing first and foremost to make money. They are poker players because they love the game - and I'm going to embrace that to the fullest.
As part of this openness, I plan on sharing this blog with my home game and link it directly from it's website. I'm not going to make a big announcement or big deal about it, but I want the players in my game to be able to see what I've been up to - and how I approach the game if they choose. Stupid? Probably. But frankly I don't care. I like almost all of them an awful lot, and would enjoy feedback on all this work that I've been putting in here over the past several years. After all, if a tree falls in the forest by itself does it make a sound? Who knows. But I know if you have a blog and no one reads it, then WHAT'S THE POINT?
I hope more than a few will read and enjoy, and hopefully forgive the handful of times I trash talked about them over the years. I've mended my ways on this point, and if they read recent posts they'll see that.
I also plan to make my crazy poker library available to them. I have over 40 poker books just sitting on a shelf collecting dust in my house. I need to move them out into the garage and loan them out so they get read and used. Probably more than half of the books have dated advice, but almost all of them are worth a look-see, and there are also quite a few non-strategy books that are highly enjoyable.
Yep, I feel good about this open book (so to speak) approach. Because I know I'll likely never be a Phil Ivey or even a Jerry Yang - but that's not what this journey is about. It's about trying my best to be sure, but first and foremost it's about indulging my love of the game. And the best way for me to do this and not get beaten down into a bitter gambling degenerate, is to approach my fellow players with an open heart and occasionally an open mind.
Up next on the horizon for me - the wife and kiddo are visiting grandpa up north, so Imma take the opportunity for a couple of days to get some serious poker playing in. First and foremost I want to take a shot at the WSOPC which is arriving at The Bike on Jan. 2nd. I'm very excited to be playing in at least one "Ring" event. It's $365 which is a higher 3 figure buy-in than I'm used to, but the guarantee will be pretty massive no doubt - plus there's the allure of scoring a ring (the World Series of Poker Circuit equivalent to a bracelet). That would be pretty flippin' cool if I could luckbox that!
If I don't cash in this I'll probably stick to a regular daily or two at Commerce or HPC, plus I've scheduled a cash game at home for Friday night. Hope I run and play good, but even more I hope I have fun!
Monday, December 31, 2012
Friday, November 9, 2012
Travelers
I've had a spate of good results lately, a lovely and lethal combination of running good and playing better has brought my results back in to the realm of acceptable for 2012.
First of all, I took down my home game tournament in October. Though it was a slightly smaller than usual group of 16 players and thus only $240 (plus another $30 in bounties) it still was very gratifying to finally take one down after three years. The last tournament I won in my garage was September 2009!
My other big win for the month was at Hollywood Park Casino. I half reluctantly signed up for their Sport of Kings main event, a 100K guarantee for only $100 and two $50 rebuys. This was a two day event with 10 heats over 5 starting days. Only the top 6% of each heat would advance to day two, but the top 10% would make the money.
I've played in a couple of these before, and they are not only exceedingly hard to cash in but almost impossible to advance to day 2. Dog, from my home game, did it last winter though, so I figured if I could learn to not be such a spew-tard when I got around 20 bigs and be more disciplined like him, I might squeak into some monies.
123 runners. Almost as many rebuys too, but crazy enough I didn't rebuy. My tournament started off with a bang - I tripled up in a 3 way pot when my set of tens somehow quadded up on the turn with a flush draw and aces also committing after the flop. Boom. Didn't bother to use my re-buys in the 2 hour period before the break, I sat on over 60K at one point, well over 200 big blinds. I always rebuy as many chips as I can as soon as I can, but for some reason, for a mere 30 more bigs at the break, the spirit didn't move me here. It was probably a mistake, bullets are bullets, but what are you going to do.
After the break I small balled a bit, which is always fun, and I was shocked to see the money approaching after only about 6 hours.
I was card dead for a long while, which would have been okay but I got moved pretty early on to a very aggressive table, and my stack couldn't help but dwindle to about 30 bigs as the bubble approached.
I woke up with kings in the big blind after the cutoff had raised and the small blind had shoved. They both had me covered so I called off and to my horror so did the cutoff. I figured he had to have a monster, but he had A10 sooted. The small blind had AK.
Flop was A 10 4. A beautiful case king peeled off on the turn and the river blanked. Big exhale.
I was okay with just folding to the money after this. Almost everyone at the table was short and was folding or jamming. My cards were so bad that I didn't have room to do much. I probably stole the blinds twice out of four attempts.
Then this hand happened. I was back down to about 25 bigs on the big blind with a pair of red eights. A fairly rude fellow in MP who had been inactive for awhile opened for 3x and I defended. The board came all low cards with two spades. I checked and he fired a teeny and shitty bet.
I had seen him do this twice before and shove the turn only to have his opponents fold. I simply determined at that point to snap call if the board remained safe after the turn. It was a spade. Yuck. I checked and he shipped it.
I actually, genuinely tanked a bit. For him it was a massive overbet. He had me covered, maybe by twenty bigs. It was really a shove that made no sense if he had made the flush. It kind of made sense in a stupid way if he had flopped a set, only his flop c-bet was waay to small to give me the wrong price to draw on a wet board. I concluded I was for sure seeing monsters under the bed, so I called and fast rolled my pair.
He incredulously turned up a red ace and a red queen. "I don't believe this guy..." he muttered in disgust. The river paired one of the flops sixes and I had doubled through him. Back around 50 bigs, feeling pretty great. I may have not played the hand expertly, by any means, but I had really thought through the sequence of the hand, reflected on what I had seen him do before and come to a correct decision.
The money bubble burst just before the 7 hour mark and I was glad to see they were advancing 7 of us to day 2. Before I knew it, I was at the final table. There were a couple of HUGE stacks to my left, so I expected them to pillage the table with the 2 day bubble looming large.
Surprisingly, they were absurdly tight. We played for almost 3 hours, nearly midnight (after a noon start) before things finally started happening.
Let me pause to say this. I have often berated not just other people's play on this blog, but sometimes the players themselves. Occasionally it has been justified, such as the drunk in Vegas who wanted to punch my lights out at 1am, but for the most part I have been out of line.
Tommy Angelo, a great poker writer who is all about Zen at the table, has put it beautifully. To paraphrase - "You don't want to insult other poker players. Not because you want keep them happy and keep them in the game, but because it's not right to insult people. They are just fellow travelers. Be nice because it's the right thing to do, not because it's profitable."
I have always appreciated this truth, but I've had a hard time always living by it, especially when writing. Whether it be snidely berating someone's play or even going so far as to call them an a-hole. It's not right, but I do it on a somewhat regular basis.
This is likely to change after my experience at the final table two weeks ago at Hollywood Park.
We were a final table of 10, and one of the players 5 to my left was in a wheelchair. He was young and fairly quiet. His body was a bit bent and his arms were twisted and hands rather balled into fists with what looked to be symptoms of cerebral palsy. Hollywood Park of course let him play his chips out of a rack, he had just enough dexterity to do this fairly well and he could also look at his cards with a medium amount of effort.
All the same I couldn't help but feel sorry for him - what a shitty deal in life. I was instinctively happy for him that he had made the final table.
Like I said, he was very quiet and seemed friendly enough. He played a grand total of three pots in the 3 plus hours of final table play.
He had no problem speaking clearly, so he I thought he maybe did slow roll his aces the first time he played a pot and another player got it all in against him, and I don't mean physically, he took forever to tell his opponent that he had rockets. But it was probably just my cynical poker imagination, right?
The second time he played a hand, he shoved, he again had aces. This time all folded and he showed.
After almost 3 hours into final table play, 8 players remained with only 7 advancing. Wheelchair dude was not the short stack, but for sure one of the smaller ones. I was too, with probably 8 bigs. He open shoved from under the gun. I released my pocket 5's and it folded to the button who was one of 3 monster stacks, though now he probably had under 40 bigs.
He had actually been the chip leader for most of the tournament, and I had not been impressed with his play. With so much ammo at his disposal he had managed to spew quite a bit unnecessarily. On this, what would be the final hand of the night, he hemmed and hawed and then finally called with AJ sooted.
It wasn't the worst call I've ever seen, but it was reasonably lousy. Wheelchair guy disgustedly turned up his Jacks and looked rather pissed off.
The flop came all hearts. The chip leader indeed had flopped the nuts.
After the rest of the board ran out harmlessly the wheelchair fellow leapt out of his chair - or rather he would of if he had been able to. He was SO angry his whole body shook and turned and twisted - "How the FUCK can you call there! That is terrible! You are absolutely terrible! Jesus Christ!"
He was beyond angry, he was both furious and crushed.
"You are right man, that was a lousy call..." said the chipleader, to no avail. Wheelchair guy kept pouring it on for a good five minutes as the rest of us sheepishly waited to bag up our chips. "I mean, you've seen me play two fucking hands in 3 hours, both times aces, how the hell can you call there? God!"
No one said a word. Everyone at that table felt lousy for the same reason. Here was a guy who had been fucked by life, and now he was getting fucked by poker. Make no mistake, we were all also glad to be advancing to day two, but the normal jubilation that would have occurred was kept in check.
Finally he wheeled away. Everyone breathed a small sigh of relief and most guys allowed themselves a little smile at having advanced.
Then he wheeled back and started in again.
The chipleader, to his credit, had been pretty rude to everyone else during the tournament but kept his cool and apologized again.
I at this point began to feel that wheelchair guy was out of line. Had any fully able bodied player acted in this manner, he would have long ago been reprimanded and very likely escorted off the property had he continued.
But as I said, it was plain to everyone that this guy had been dealt a shitty hand in the game of life. So we all put up with it. Eventually he did run out of steam and by the time I had bagged up and left it looked like he wanted to cry in the worst way. I thought he had for sure acted like a childish dick, but I wasn't the least bit mad at him.
It got me thinking. No one said much to him because everyone knew a big part of his story just by looking at him. But how many players in that room also have stories, some very possibly far more horrific than this fellow. Yes he's boned from a disease, but he likely has many people in his life who love him. (Since they listed wheelchair guy's name under tournament results on the HPC website, a quick check of him on facebook actually confirmed this. He has twice as many friends as I do.) I know for sure there are men at Hollywood Park that don't have anyone.
So really, even though the rude guy that I snap called with 88 earlier in the tournament came off as an arrogant douche - he could have a really bad story that I can't see. I just don't know. What if he had been molested as a child? What if his daughter had been murdered? What if? If I knew either of these things to be true I would see him as I saw the guy in the wheelchair. I wouldn't be angry at his anger, I would feel only compassion. Isn't that how we're supposed to feel about everyone?
Poker is a funny game, in that you think you know your opponent. The better player you are the more you can get into his head. But you'll never really KNOW someone just by playing cards.
Tommy Angelo's words rang in my ears on the drive home. I also reflected on my faith. I for sure believe that everything happens for a reason. God allows all manner of horrible things to happen, and many of them can't be explained. But in this case his plan was pretty clear - I had learned a lot from wheelchair guy. Not really about him or how shitty his disease is, but how we should all strive to remember that not all scars are visible.
Anyway, I advanced with 8 big blinds, but they rolled back the levels on day 2 to what had been the lowest levels of the many day 1's, so I actually started with 16 bigs.
I folded for an hour until I got AK on the big blind. I 3 bet shoved the button's raise and he snap called with aces.
I had folded long enough to make a pay jump to $910, which is my best result of the year both in amount and percentage of buy-in. Hopefully I can bink one or two more before the year is up and get out of the $1000 plus hole that I'm in. But if not, that's okay. I've been very lucky in my life to be able to play this silly game a lot and never more than this year. It's been a great experience and I know my game is sharper than it's ever been.
The future is bright.
First of all, I took down my home game tournament in October. Though it was a slightly smaller than usual group of 16 players and thus only $240 (plus another $30 in bounties) it still was very gratifying to finally take one down after three years. The last tournament I won in my garage was September 2009!
My other big win for the month was at Hollywood Park Casino. I half reluctantly signed up for their Sport of Kings main event, a 100K guarantee for only $100 and two $50 rebuys. This was a two day event with 10 heats over 5 starting days. Only the top 6% of each heat would advance to day two, but the top 10% would make the money.
I've played in a couple of these before, and they are not only exceedingly hard to cash in but almost impossible to advance to day 2. Dog, from my home game, did it last winter though, so I figured if I could learn to not be such a spew-tard when I got around 20 bigs and be more disciplined like him, I might squeak into some monies.
123 runners. Almost as many rebuys too, but crazy enough I didn't rebuy. My tournament started off with a bang - I tripled up in a 3 way pot when my set of tens somehow quadded up on the turn with a flush draw and aces also committing after the flop. Boom. Didn't bother to use my re-buys in the 2 hour period before the break, I sat on over 60K at one point, well over 200 big blinds. I always rebuy as many chips as I can as soon as I can, but for some reason, for a mere 30 more bigs at the break, the spirit didn't move me here. It was probably a mistake, bullets are bullets, but what are you going to do.
After the break I small balled a bit, which is always fun, and I was shocked to see the money approaching after only about 6 hours.
I was card dead for a long while, which would have been okay but I got moved pretty early on to a very aggressive table, and my stack couldn't help but dwindle to about 30 bigs as the bubble approached.
I woke up with kings in the big blind after the cutoff had raised and the small blind had shoved. They both had me covered so I called off and to my horror so did the cutoff. I figured he had to have a monster, but he had A10 sooted. The small blind had AK.
Flop was A 10 4. A beautiful case king peeled off on the turn and the river blanked. Big exhale.
I was okay with just folding to the money after this. Almost everyone at the table was short and was folding or jamming. My cards were so bad that I didn't have room to do much. I probably stole the blinds twice out of four attempts.
Then this hand happened. I was back down to about 25 bigs on the big blind with a pair of red eights. A fairly rude fellow in MP who had been inactive for awhile opened for 3x and I defended. The board came all low cards with two spades. I checked and he fired a teeny and shitty bet.
I had seen him do this twice before and shove the turn only to have his opponents fold. I simply determined at that point to snap call if the board remained safe after the turn. It was a spade. Yuck. I checked and he shipped it.
I actually, genuinely tanked a bit. For him it was a massive overbet. He had me covered, maybe by twenty bigs. It was really a shove that made no sense if he had made the flush. It kind of made sense in a stupid way if he had flopped a set, only his flop c-bet was waay to small to give me the wrong price to draw on a wet board. I concluded I was for sure seeing monsters under the bed, so I called and fast rolled my pair.
He incredulously turned up a red ace and a red queen. "I don't believe this guy..." he muttered in disgust. The river paired one of the flops sixes and I had doubled through him. Back around 50 bigs, feeling pretty great. I may have not played the hand expertly, by any means, but I had really thought through the sequence of the hand, reflected on what I had seen him do before and come to a correct decision.
The money bubble burst just before the 7 hour mark and I was glad to see they were advancing 7 of us to day 2. Before I knew it, I was at the final table. There were a couple of HUGE stacks to my left, so I expected them to pillage the table with the 2 day bubble looming large.
Surprisingly, they were absurdly tight. We played for almost 3 hours, nearly midnight (after a noon start) before things finally started happening.
Let me pause to say this. I have often berated not just other people's play on this blog, but sometimes the players themselves. Occasionally it has been justified, such as the drunk in Vegas who wanted to punch my lights out at 1am, but for the most part I have been out of line.
Tommy Angelo, a great poker writer who is all about Zen at the table, has put it beautifully. To paraphrase - "You don't want to insult other poker players. Not because you want keep them happy and keep them in the game, but because it's not right to insult people. They are just fellow travelers. Be nice because it's the right thing to do, not because it's profitable."
I have always appreciated this truth, but I've had a hard time always living by it, especially when writing. Whether it be snidely berating someone's play or even going so far as to call them an a-hole. It's not right, but I do it on a somewhat regular basis.
This is likely to change after my experience at the final table two weeks ago at Hollywood Park.
We were a final table of 10, and one of the players 5 to my left was in a wheelchair. He was young and fairly quiet. His body was a bit bent and his arms were twisted and hands rather balled into fists with what looked to be symptoms of cerebral palsy. Hollywood Park of course let him play his chips out of a rack, he had just enough dexterity to do this fairly well and he could also look at his cards with a medium amount of effort.
All the same I couldn't help but feel sorry for him - what a shitty deal in life. I was instinctively happy for him that he had made the final table.
Like I said, he was very quiet and seemed friendly enough. He played a grand total of three pots in the 3 plus hours of final table play.
He had no problem speaking clearly, so he I thought he maybe did slow roll his aces the first time he played a pot and another player got it all in against him, and I don't mean physically, he took forever to tell his opponent that he had rockets. But it was probably just my cynical poker imagination, right?
The second time he played a hand, he shoved, he again had aces. This time all folded and he showed.
After almost 3 hours into final table play, 8 players remained with only 7 advancing. Wheelchair dude was not the short stack, but for sure one of the smaller ones. I was too, with probably 8 bigs. He open shoved from under the gun. I released my pocket 5's and it folded to the button who was one of 3 monster stacks, though now he probably had under 40 bigs.
He had actually been the chip leader for most of the tournament, and I had not been impressed with his play. With so much ammo at his disposal he had managed to spew quite a bit unnecessarily. On this, what would be the final hand of the night, he hemmed and hawed and then finally called with AJ sooted.
It wasn't the worst call I've ever seen, but it was reasonably lousy. Wheelchair guy disgustedly turned up his Jacks and looked rather pissed off.
The flop came all hearts. The chip leader indeed had flopped the nuts.
After the rest of the board ran out harmlessly the wheelchair fellow leapt out of his chair - or rather he would of if he had been able to. He was SO angry his whole body shook and turned and twisted - "How the FUCK can you call there! That is terrible! You are absolutely terrible! Jesus Christ!"
He was beyond angry, he was both furious and crushed.
"You are right man, that was a lousy call..." said the chipleader, to no avail. Wheelchair guy kept pouring it on for a good five minutes as the rest of us sheepishly waited to bag up our chips. "I mean, you've seen me play two fucking hands in 3 hours, both times aces, how the hell can you call there? God!"
No one said a word. Everyone at that table felt lousy for the same reason. Here was a guy who had been fucked by life, and now he was getting fucked by poker. Make no mistake, we were all also glad to be advancing to day two, but the normal jubilation that would have occurred was kept in check.
Finally he wheeled away. Everyone breathed a small sigh of relief and most guys allowed themselves a little smile at having advanced.
Then he wheeled back and started in again.
The chipleader, to his credit, had been pretty rude to everyone else during the tournament but kept his cool and apologized again.
I at this point began to feel that wheelchair guy was out of line. Had any fully able bodied player acted in this manner, he would have long ago been reprimanded and very likely escorted off the property had he continued.
But as I said, it was plain to everyone that this guy had been dealt a shitty hand in the game of life. So we all put up with it. Eventually he did run out of steam and by the time I had bagged up and left it looked like he wanted to cry in the worst way. I thought he had for sure acted like a childish dick, but I wasn't the least bit mad at him.
It got me thinking. No one said much to him because everyone knew a big part of his story just by looking at him. But how many players in that room also have stories, some very possibly far more horrific than this fellow. Yes he's boned from a disease, but he likely has many people in his life who love him. (Since they listed wheelchair guy's name under tournament results on the HPC website, a quick check of him on facebook actually confirmed this. He has twice as many friends as I do.) I know for sure there are men at Hollywood Park that don't have anyone.
So really, even though the rude guy that I snap called with 88 earlier in the tournament came off as an arrogant douche - he could have a really bad story that I can't see. I just don't know. What if he had been molested as a child? What if his daughter had been murdered? What if? If I knew either of these things to be true I would see him as I saw the guy in the wheelchair. I wouldn't be angry at his anger, I would feel only compassion. Isn't that how we're supposed to feel about everyone?
Poker is a funny game, in that you think you know your opponent. The better player you are the more you can get into his head. But you'll never really KNOW someone just by playing cards.
Tommy Angelo's words rang in my ears on the drive home. I also reflected on my faith. I for sure believe that everything happens for a reason. God allows all manner of horrible things to happen, and many of them can't be explained. But in this case his plan was pretty clear - I had learned a lot from wheelchair guy. Not really about him or how shitty his disease is, but how we should all strive to remember that not all scars are visible.
Anyway, I advanced with 8 big blinds, but they rolled back the levels on day 2 to what had been the lowest levels of the many day 1's, so I actually started with 16 bigs.
I folded for an hour until I got AK on the big blind. I 3 bet shoved the button's raise and he snap called with aces.
I had folded long enough to make a pay jump to $910, which is my best result of the year both in amount and percentage of buy-in. Hopefully I can bink one or two more before the year is up and get out of the $1000 plus hole that I'm in. But if not, that's okay. I've been very lucky in my life to be able to play this silly game a lot and never more than this year. It's been a great experience and I know my game is sharper than it's ever been.
The future is bright.
Monday, October 1, 2012
Yep.
Tournament. I can't seem to win these things, even after spiking top pair on the flop and going from a 60% favorite to a 75% favorite.
I had just sat down at this table and this was the first hand. I managed to ask a player on my left if the villain, who had a huge chip lead, was running over the table, to which the player said "Yeah, he's been bulldozing and hitting everything." Good enough for me to stick it in with 25 bigs pre-flop, knowing he was likely raising light from the hijack. He was, sort of. But he was also priced in to call, which I don't mind. Just wish I could run a little better in these spots.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
WSOP 2012
So naturally I write this great blog post about Antonio Esfandiari and how he got boned at a final table in the World Series of Poker, and how tournament variance is a bitch and yaddah yaddah yaddah... and of course he then binks the million dollar Big One for One Drop tournament for 18 million dollars. Nice.
As for me, I fell a bit short of that mark this summer.
I played tournaments, non-stop, for five days. 18 events, five cashes. Paid $1825 in entry fees, and finished stuck $635.
To be fair, all in all, this is a pretty decent result. A very cheap five days of immersive entertainment. But no doubt my results would have been better had I avoided a few key mistakes. No, I'm not talking about poker decisions (though they did come into play), I'm talking about planning and playing choices that were at times exceptionally poor.
First off - the whole five day thing has got to stop. Three days is my sweet spot, four is pushing it but doable. Five days is simply unacceptable, as it was on this fifth day that I had my biggest poker screw up and I attribute it directly to sleep deprivation.
Case in point - my good buddy Jason joined me for a bit of the trip, and probably played half of the events I did. He finished up in profit, no doubt aided greatly because of his more thoughtful time management. Yes, he also happens to be a very good player with the patience of Jobe.
Secondly, one evening turbo is sufficient. I must have been truly brain damaged to think that going from one shitty tournament to another to another (T.I. to Monte Carlo to Harrah's) in one evening could ever be profitable. What's even worse is that I re-entered in the T.I. donkament when the table (yes they put me back in my same seat) was clearly -EV. That evening alone was hugely responsible for my loss in profits and if I had just used any semblance of judgement it could have easily been avoided. Instead of being stuck $50 (the cost of a single entry to the T.I. tournament) I ended up dumping $200 plus because I stubbornly tried to get unstuck by double dipping at T.I., entering the 11pm at Monte Carlo AND playing the notoriously bad structured 1am at Harrah's. Even though I cashed in the final event, and the monetary damage was mitigated, it was no doubt made much worse in the long run over the following days because I was playing catch up with the sleep my body needed.
Anyway, enough beating myself up - at least my poker decisions (for the most part) were good. Overall I'm very happy with my play, I had more than a handful of shining moments where everything clicked and became clear. Like that beautiful drive on the 16th fairway that keeps us coming back for more after stinking it up for most of the day, I was able to cling to these brief flashes of greatness and keep my love of the game intact.
DAY 1
All by myself - I hit the noon $130 Grand Series Event #58 at the Golden Nugget.
First let me say, that is one fucking cool swimming pool. Yes, that is a water slide that goes through a shark tank.
Second, the structure of this tournament was amazing. Perhaps too amazing. 15K in chips to start, and 40 minute levels, that were (as far as I can tell) gradual from beginning to end.
With well over 100 runners, it became pretty obvious to me fairly quickly, that I could easily play in this tournament for 8 hours and not cash. This probably didn't help me mentally, as I got tangled up and stupidly busted against a large stack about 4 hours in.
Card dead for awhile, I finally woke up with AQ in the cutoff. With 2 limpers behind, raised it up nice and fat and was flatted by the button - a dude with a gang of chips who had just arrived at our table. Everyone else released.
The flop came xJx and I c-bet. Big stack raised me. I flat called. I didn't know if he was dicking me around, but that was for sure my instinct. He was older, but had the air of a regular, so I guessed he was capable of making a move.
Of course an ace peeled on the turn. I checked planning to check-raise jam. He bet half the pot and I followed through. He actually tanked for a moment before declaring "You and I probably have the same hand or you have a set, either way I call" He had AJ.
He wasn't fooling around, he was a typical TAG, of course. In a way I was relieved that I wouldn't be subjected to potentially four additional hours of play with nothing or very little to show for it. But this is a big indicator that this tournament was probably not for me.
On a side note, one great thing about the event, I met up with North Bay Bill from my online league. It was great to finally put a face to a name and discover that he's even more of a cool guy outside of a chatbox, even though he is a Giants fan. Bill did indeed cash, yes he's far more patient than I am, and you can read his report here.
That evening I carried on with one of my favorite turbos, the 7pm Mirage for $60. Sure it's silly, but at 6 tables the prize pool is no joke and most of the players are soft.
I had a great evening and played well. I was very aggressive when I got involved, and pushed people around quite a bit. My bust out hand was just one of those unfortunate things that happens in this game. WARNING: CRY BABY BAD BEAT STORY BELOW.
Sitting on 15 big blinds (just above average in chips) with the money 6 spots away I raised large with A6hh from the button after multiple limpers came in behind. I had been doing this successfully for awhile now, and likely most players at the table were fairly sick of it. I only got one caller however.
The flop came 9hQh6s. The caller donked it and I shoved. He tanked FOREVER. He had me covered so I was excited for a call. Of course he had a queen, but I didn't care, this was a great opportunity to get a decent stack and really do some damage on the bubble. Finally, he talked himself into calling and turned up... wait for it...
Two black fives.
Oooookay.... This was awesome. I was actually ahead.
A red five hit the turn. Not a heart. Good game me.
Even at this stage in my amateur career, one outers still sting. I winced a bit, but that was it. Tapped the table and took my leave.
I had one more in me, the 10pm Flamingo for $60. I've never played there before, and likely won't again. The field was beyond soft, but it was only 1 table. Plus the "poker room" was completely open to the smoke and noise of the sprawling pit.
I have to say, my play was still pretty exceptional, despite my requisite bad beat earlier in the evening.
In the end though, it was still not to be. I bubbled, missing out on $90 of third place monies. Oh well.
DAY 2
I have to say, staying at Harrah's is pretty damn awesome. They have a completely enclosed poker room with a friendly floor and good dealers - plus regular turbo tournaments that are perfectly timed around the rest of the daily majors in Vegas.
Best of all, I can stagger down from my room in the morning or stagger up to my room late at night directly to and from poker tournament goodness!
I didn't quite make the 8am $25 stupidament on Friday, but I did pull up a chair in the 10am $60 only slightly absurdament.
This was my biggest cash of the trip (by ratio of entry to prize). I took a very generous chop, finishing second in chips. I got $350 and the chip leader got $400. Probably not surprisingly, I remember very little from this tournament - as there were no real bad beats to speak of. No doubt the euphoria of most of my opponents falling away with a pile of money at the end has muddied memory of my play considerably.
Thankfully, I have my twitter feed which does say this -
Poker tip: don't announce to the table that you're "never slowing down."
Yes, I do remember this guy, that was the first thing he said to me after I floated him on the button and again on his c-bet. I relented on his second barrel on the turn and that's when he made the proclamation above.
Then this unfolded between us -
Aforementioned announcer 3 bets my aj in mp from the button. I flat, flop A92. I check he fires half pot. I call. Turn is an ace.
I check, he barrels half pot. I call. River blanks, I check he shoves, snap call, ship it.
He staggered away from the table, muttering something about fish and donkeys. Whatever dude. Twitter also helps me recap the whole thing -
Finished second with a nice chop for 350, chip leader got 400. Ran like crap, have to say I played great. Abused the bubble without mercy.
No pocket pairs above nines, 1 ak, a handful of aj, aq, k10 ish stuff. Biggest hand at show down ws a rivered broadway, on which i got paid.
Then Jason showed up and we headed for the Rio!
It really is a sight to behold, the World Series of Poker!
I didn't end up playing any major events - my lone cash in the Rio Deepstack wasn't enough to justify entry. But I was more than content to indulge in a greater quantity of tournaments, rather than one or two quality bracelet events.
Jason was originally supposed to be a representative for Pepper Street Poker in a $1500 event - but a recent sudden tragedy in his life has deferred that pursuit until next year. Jason didn't feel up to the task of a bracelet event, as none of us would, especially with other people's money - but I'm glad he got to come to Vegas anyways and gamble it up on a smaller scale.
The 2pm Rio Deep Stack really came into it's own this year. On the Friday we played there were 1500+ runners! First place was just under 60K! Wow!
I loved my first table and was able to accumulate nicely. Everyone at the table was soft for the most part, including a mouthy Brazilian on my immediate right who thought he was way funnier than he was. Although he didn't shut up he did occasionally make a sincere enough remark which kept me from tilting too hard.
I got whittled down at first from 15 to 12K and then got it in with the nut flush draw and two overs on the flop which thankfully hit on the turn. The chip and a chair player across from me was disgusted, oblivious that I was actually the favorite against his made hand when the chips went in.
I began to chip up with standard small ball, the table was very recreational and it wasn't difficult. I eventually did bust the mouthy Brazilian by shoving my 1010 from the big blind on his umpteenth 3 bet from the button. The original raiser left and Brazilian called for his tournament life with KQ which thankfully didn't hit.
Two hands later I had 1010 again and this time flatted the hijack's standard raise. Both blinds defended.
I smashed the world with a flop of 1022. Thankfully the original raiser never took his foot off the gas, and the small blind came along! I slow played them both into oblivion, knocking out the older guy in the small blind who was drawing dead on the turn looking for the nut flush and crippling the raiser who could not let go of his rockets. Now I had 60K!
But when I moved to the second table all the green lights over the heads of weaker players vanished and transformed into red "X"'s. Lots of three betting and even four betting made it very hard to chip up, I got frustrated and had a couple of disastrous hands. They were ill-planned, and by ill-planned I mean I had no plan. Always a recipe for disaster. Eventually, with 8 bigs, I had to jam with A10 pre-flop which naturally ran into A3 which naturally binked a 3 on the turn.
It didn't hurt too much. I felt I deserved to be on the rail after spewing, even though the new table was exponentially tougher. In hindsight I felt better and better as time passed. These "Deep" stack things are actually turbos - but 60K is fairly hard to beat for a less than 1% investment.
After my bust out Jason was still going strong so I meandered a bit through the different rooms. I had quite a few celebrity poker sightings including Andy Block (who shipped a bracelet earlier in the summer) Todd Brunson, Bill Chen, David Williams, David Sklansky (google that one will ya!) and Eric Lindgren.
After a couple of hours of fairly enjoyable meandering, it was time for me to head out. I had missed the Rio Poker room's 7pm donkament, so after recovering from a very tasty but gastronomically disastrous Sasquatch Big Stick of beef jerky, I was off to the calamitous evening that I mentioned at the start of this report - T.I. double dip, Monte Carlo and Harrah's 1am. I did cash in the last of these for $180, but I would pay over the following days, my exhaustion certainly cutting into my results as you will see shortly.
DAY 3
Saturday! My twitter read that "Sleep is for losers!" And so it was. Again I missed the 8am, but stumbled into Harrah's poker room just in time for the 10am $60.
I didn't play especially well, but my bust out hand was comical. With 20 bigs or so I raised from late position with A7, the big blind defended with A5 and the flop was 557. Is there much more to say?
But that bad beat was extremely small compared to what I endured at 2pm. After I sat down at the $235 Rio Deepstack an announcement came on that the field had been capped at 440 players! WTF?!!
This was a turbo event where the only incentive to play was the gi-normous first place prize of 60K. Today that prize was cut by 2/3rds. Suck.
Oh well. Good thing I don't make my living at this game, as did more than a few players I ran into that day do. They were pretty pissed.
I decided I wasn't going to let it bother me and I had a good time.
Again my first table was soft. There was a regular to my left which wasn't great, but she was savvy enough to pick on softer targets than me, so it was a mutual avoidance which worked out well. If I raised it up, she almost always folded. When she didn't I basically shut it down and did indeed see a premium from her when she did get to showdown with someone else in a hand she had entered with me that I had left.
I also got my first ever penalty in this tournament - later on at a different table I fast rolled my AK to another guys shove but didn't see that an old slow poke with his hands over his cards was still in the hand. The floor was called, the hand was ruled live, the old guy slowly folded. The shover was then slow to turn up his card and when he did he had AK also.
"They're never going to kill my hand" I mentioned to him because he was slow to turn up, the floor overheard my remark and then tacked on my one hand penalty. I had already apologized, the floor seemed to be done with it, I guess I should have kept my mouth shut. Again I apologized and the floor seemed to be fine.
I was around average in chips as the second break approached. I had been moved twice, each table got tougher than the last. This last one was full of savvy regulars and serious recreational players.
Of course with such an abundance of aggros I missed reading the one nit at the table correctly. He was in the small blind, I was on the button. Another player in early position raised it up. I flat called with jacks. The small blind shoved.
I had about 50 bigs, but I knew the hour was nigh - after the break I would have 25 bigs and it would be go time. This shove looked extremely squeezy, so after the original raiser released I called off with jacks and ran into queens.
Had I been in the zone I might have found a fold, old guy across from me had barely played a hand and when he had gotten involved had shown the goods. Ah well.
Once again Jason was still in - which means he's either very good or just a massive nit (don't think it's the latter) - so this time I made it in time for the 7pm donkament in the Rio poker room.
The Rio poker room is entirely separate from and on the opposite side of the Rio property from the WSOP. It's a nice little room, but unfortunately the tournaments are structured beyond bad (even for turbos) and they typically are held out on the casino floor amongst the rattle and hum (and smoke) of the casino floor.
I'd like to say that in this tournament I ran the most awesome bluff of my trip, but the victim was too drunk to fold - and I was too tired to realize this, so really I can't get too excited about it. It was for my tournament life so at least I can say I've got HAAAAAART. (Say the word "heart" in an Australian accent like Tony G. - no, not our Tony G., the poker whale from down undah).
After this fairly fun but still futile exercise I actually found it in me to go to bed. I was burnt toast.
DAY 4
Awake and refreshed, I finally made it for the 8am $25 three table brain damageament at Harrah's.
Thanks to a bit of luck and a complete ignorance of inflection points by my opponents, I took third place for $90. I got it in behind more than once, much to the incredulity of a nice guy with a huge coin card protector, but my decisions were all easy and correct. It's very reassuring to know that there are lots of players who simply don't have a clue about ICM or even M.
The 10am had already started by the time I finished, so I registered as an alternate. I finally sat down with 30 bigs at the start of the third level.
To my immediate right was Jason. I was at this point very jealous of him as he had cashed twice already in the big Rio Deepstacks (min-cashes, but still impressive) so I had some fun by bluffing him off a hand on the turn with an absolute trash hand, J4, that I delighted in showing him and the table.
Unfortunately this silliness didn't pay off later as I managed to get my aces cracked anyways, AIPF.
So it was off to the Rio deep stacks for what I figured would be the third and final time. Thankfully the field wasn't capped - 1500 runners, 60K for first!
Again I had a regular on my immediate left as I sat down, and he was a bit mouthy. Thankfully he spewed off within a couple of levels and I could open up a bit and accumulate.
Towards the second break I got tangled up in a bizarre hand that ended with me shoving on the river with zip and pip because the flush got there and I knew the guy in the 10 seat already had a medium strength hand. He tanked for a bit and did find a fold.
It was a great relief, and also a great hand for me because I had a plan as soon as I flatted a very wet board. He checked behind on the blank turn as did I, then he led out on the river which had hit a third spade. I immediately shoved, as had been my plan. It worked. Yay me.
During the second break I almost ran headlong into these guys.
Yes that would be Lon and Norman, commentators of the WSOP on ESPN. They were wandering down the hall together, I was tweeting, and I kid you not that there was almost a head on collision with both of them.
Then I saw Greg Raymer held hostage by a fan in conversation down another hallway.
Then to my surprise I saw Tom Dwan, playing in the million dollar Big One for One Drop tournament. I didn't like how they had the seating, it was full and closed off - but you could see Mr. Dwan plainly through the entrance. He had been AWOL from the World Series this year, cleaning up in monster cash games in Macau, but the allure of an 18 million dollar score had finally been enough to pull him away.
Back at the table after dinner I had accumulated the biggest stack in my life. 170K. But the funny part was, it was only 30 bigs or so, even though it was twice the chip stack average.
I had gleaned a big chunk of it from a three way hand that I must say I played ok save for one big mistake, but the third person involved played terribly all the way through.
I had pocket 8's and 3 bet after a medium stack had raised behind. A bigger stack in the small blind flat called for... wait for it... about a third of her stack. Yeesh.
The original raiser shoved for the rest of his chips, which I had pre-planned to call. But the problem was the third player in front of me. I should have re-shipped it or folded, but I chickened out and flat called. This is a terrible play on my part, because now when overs come on the flop I'm fucked.
The bigger stack... wait for it... also flat called. Now half of her chips were in the middle. I still have her covered by a wide margin though, so it's not an absolute disaster for me yet.
The flop comes all threes.
I think and think and then realize I have to shove. There's just too much money in the pot. If she has a bigger pair, then I got massively unlucky. 99, 1010 and JJ are really what I'm worried about. QQ or better she seems good enough that she would have 4 bet PF. More likely she has AK or any number of pretty but shitty broadway card combos.
She mucks and the poor short stack turns up 77 and is drawing dead to 2 cards which mercifully he doesn't hit.
Like I said, the most chips I've ever had in front of me in any tournament ever. Felt pretty good.
But all that was washed away after a disastrous hand after the break at my 5th and most difficult table.
EP big stack, though about half of my chips, raises it up. I flat with 1010 in the hijack.
This is the biggest and stupidest mistake of the hand entire.
Strangely but thankfully we get no other players to come along. The board is xKx and he donks. I three bet, he shoves and I snap call.
Very fucking stupid. Of course he has KQ. Everyone knows that's a great hand. (Insert eye roll here).
The problem with this hand is that there was no thinking involved - either on my part or on his.
It became very apparent to me after the tournament as I played this back over and over that this guy to my right is the perfect opponent to have in a tournament. My image at that table was nowhere near maniacal, yet he was willing to insta-stack off with top pair meh kicker.
If I had flopped anything - TPTK, 2 pair, a set - I'd get all of his chips immediately with his mediocre hand that he is popping from EP. Instead, after a flop in which I have no business continuing with, I spew with nothing.
Very dumb. But I can't blame fatigue this time, I was rested, and otherwise played very well. I recognized the scope of my idiotic error at the table quickly but moved on and locked down considerably, squeaking into the money in 125th place and getting $390 for my time.
I was both elated that I hadn't played for 9 hours for nothing, and also pretty disappointed that my one amateurish brain fart had cost me a chance at a deeper run.
For once Jason had busted without cashing, so we both adjourned to Harrah's for some silly evening play.
The money bubble had burst around 11pm, so it looked like my only choice was the 1am.
I had my only unpleasant experience of the trip in this one. A drunk angry fellow unloaded on me verbally when I had the temerity to suggest that maybe he should shut his fucking mouth when other players were in the hand. I quickly disengaged when I realized that this guy was on just enough drugs that he might take a swing at me at the table. I apologized and he cooled off, then I made it my business to open shove just about every hand until I busted. I was never really scared, I play on a regular basis in Inglewood after all, but I didn't want to have to deal with such infantile thuggery at 2 in the morning. I was glad to get out.
The incident left a bitter taste in my mouth that was thankfully washed away with some yummy soup and good conversation with Jason before retiring for the night.
DAY 5
I didn't plan to play the Deep Stack again, I felt one cash was good enough, and now I was pretty darn tired - so I was cognizant of the fact that I was pretty negative EV in any major event.
But fate intervened and I scored $180 in the 10am Harrah's, so I figured why not take a $60 shot at 60K?
Jason and I were a bit late so I sat down at the start of the third level. And then this guy joined my table.
The dealer, who spoke passable English (certainly better than my Mandarin no doubt), simply stared at him and said "I.D. please." Mr. Woods (yes, the actor James) blinked in disbelief at first, then shrugged his shoulders and ponied it up. Welcome to the table Mr. Glengary Glenross.
Our table broke after 10 minutes, but I got to see him play a few hands where he 3 and 4 people large post flop to take it down. "He seems to have it a lot" said the guy to my right. "Yeah, well he also acts for a living." I remarked. Light chuckles floated around.
My new table had to be the toughest I'd faced yet. Plus I was also pretty beat. I dragged a big pot here and there, but eventually was whittled back down to about 15 bigs.
Then came the implosion.
There were a couple of softer targets I had my sights set on to my left. I had been super card dead and so I decided that the next target that had a big blind, if it was open folded to me, I would standard raise and shove on a safe flop to take it down.
It was folded to me, I was in the 1, and my big blind target was up, so I raised. She defended.
I had Q7 by the way. Flop was x7A. The ten seat led out. Wait, what? There was a third player in the hand? He had raised, I had thought I was raising but was just calling.
He also happened to be the best player at the table by far.
Shit.
I hadn't seen him, it's tough to see the ten seat, but I was so tired and frustrated at my inability to chip up, that I stuck it in anyway. Big blind released, 10 seat snapped with AK. Tournament over.
I played in one more tournament, the 8pm bounty at Harrah's. It was fun because it was loaded with recreational players who were utterly clueless, but I was way too fried to make anything meaningful happen. I busted and went to bed.
***********
Another great trip is in the books - next year I VOW to make it four days maximum. I have no doubt I would have turned a profit if I had paced myself better and had fewer days. By giving myself five I didn't have enough requisite fire in the belly to fight harder for bigger results. When I was awake I figured "Eh, there's three more days" instead of "This is it! Dig deep!" Ah well.
Can't wait for 2013!
As for me, I fell a bit short of that mark this summer.
I played tournaments, non-stop, for five days. 18 events, five cashes. Paid $1825 in entry fees, and finished stuck $635.
To be fair, all in all, this is a pretty decent result. A very cheap five days of immersive entertainment. But no doubt my results would have been better had I avoided a few key mistakes. No, I'm not talking about poker decisions (though they did come into play), I'm talking about planning and playing choices that were at times exceptionally poor.
First off - the whole five day thing has got to stop. Three days is my sweet spot, four is pushing it but doable. Five days is simply unacceptable, as it was on this fifth day that I had my biggest poker screw up and I attribute it directly to sleep deprivation.
Case in point - my good buddy Jason joined me for a bit of the trip, and probably played half of the events I did. He finished up in profit, no doubt aided greatly because of his more thoughtful time management. Yes, he also happens to be a very good player with the patience of Jobe.
Secondly, one evening turbo is sufficient. I must have been truly brain damaged to think that going from one shitty tournament to another to another (T.I. to Monte Carlo to Harrah's) in one evening could ever be profitable. What's even worse is that I re-entered in the T.I. donkament when the table (yes they put me back in my same seat) was clearly -EV. That evening alone was hugely responsible for my loss in profits and if I had just used any semblance of judgement it could have easily been avoided. Instead of being stuck $50 (the cost of a single entry to the T.I. tournament) I ended up dumping $200 plus because I stubbornly tried to get unstuck by double dipping at T.I., entering the 11pm at Monte Carlo AND playing the notoriously bad structured 1am at Harrah's. Even though I cashed in the final event, and the monetary damage was mitigated, it was no doubt made much worse in the long run over the following days because I was playing catch up with the sleep my body needed.
Anyway, enough beating myself up - at least my poker decisions (for the most part) were good. Overall I'm very happy with my play, I had more than a handful of shining moments where everything clicked and became clear. Like that beautiful drive on the 16th fairway that keeps us coming back for more after stinking it up for most of the day, I was able to cling to these brief flashes of greatness and keep my love of the game intact.
DAY 1
All by myself - I hit the noon $130 Grand Series Event #58 at the Golden Nugget.
First let me say, that is one fucking cool swimming pool. Yes, that is a water slide that goes through a shark tank.
Second, the structure of this tournament was amazing. Perhaps too amazing. 15K in chips to start, and 40 minute levels, that were (as far as I can tell) gradual from beginning to end.
With well over 100 runners, it became pretty obvious to me fairly quickly, that I could easily play in this tournament for 8 hours and not cash. This probably didn't help me mentally, as I got tangled up and stupidly busted against a large stack about 4 hours in.
Card dead for awhile, I finally woke up with AQ in the cutoff. With 2 limpers behind, raised it up nice and fat and was flatted by the button - a dude with a gang of chips who had just arrived at our table. Everyone else released.
The flop came xJx and I c-bet. Big stack raised me. I flat called. I didn't know if he was dicking me around, but that was for sure my instinct. He was older, but had the air of a regular, so I guessed he was capable of making a move.
Of course an ace peeled on the turn. I checked planning to check-raise jam. He bet half the pot and I followed through. He actually tanked for a moment before declaring "You and I probably have the same hand or you have a set, either way I call" He had AJ.
He wasn't fooling around, he was a typical TAG, of course. In a way I was relieved that I wouldn't be subjected to potentially four additional hours of play with nothing or very little to show for it. But this is a big indicator that this tournament was probably not for me.
On a side note, one great thing about the event, I met up with North Bay Bill from my online league. It was great to finally put a face to a name and discover that he's even more of a cool guy outside of a chatbox, even though he is a Giants fan. Bill did indeed cash, yes he's far more patient than I am, and you can read his report here.
That evening I carried on with one of my favorite turbos, the 7pm Mirage for $60. Sure it's silly, but at 6 tables the prize pool is no joke and most of the players are soft.
I had a great evening and played well. I was very aggressive when I got involved, and pushed people around quite a bit. My bust out hand was just one of those unfortunate things that happens in this game. WARNING: CRY BABY BAD BEAT STORY BELOW.
Sitting on 15 big blinds (just above average in chips) with the money 6 spots away I raised large with A6hh from the button after multiple limpers came in behind. I had been doing this successfully for awhile now, and likely most players at the table were fairly sick of it. I only got one caller however.
The flop came 9hQh6s. The caller donked it and I shoved. He tanked FOREVER. He had me covered so I was excited for a call. Of course he had a queen, but I didn't care, this was a great opportunity to get a decent stack and really do some damage on the bubble. Finally, he talked himself into calling and turned up... wait for it...
Two black fives.
Oooookay.... This was awesome. I was actually ahead.
A red five hit the turn. Not a heart. Good game me.
Even at this stage in my amateur career, one outers still sting. I winced a bit, but that was it. Tapped the table and took my leave.
I had one more in me, the 10pm Flamingo for $60. I've never played there before, and likely won't again. The field was beyond soft, but it was only 1 table. Plus the "poker room" was completely open to the smoke and noise of the sprawling pit.
I have to say, my play was still pretty exceptional, despite my requisite bad beat earlier in the evening.
In the end though, it was still not to be. I bubbled, missing out on $90 of third place monies. Oh well.
DAY 2
I have to say, staying at Harrah's is pretty damn awesome. They have a completely enclosed poker room with a friendly floor and good dealers - plus regular turbo tournaments that are perfectly timed around the rest of the daily majors in Vegas.
Best of all, I can stagger down from my room in the morning or stagger up to my room late at night directly to and from poker tournament goodness!
I didn't quite make the 8am $25 stupidament on Friday, but I did pull up a chair in the 10am $60 only slightly absurdament.
This was my biggest cash of the trip (by ratio of entry to prize). I took a very generous chop, finishing second in chips. I got $350 and the chip leader got $400. Probably not surprisingly, I remember very little from this tournament - as there were no real bad beats to speak of. No doubt the euphoria of most of my opponents falling away with a pile of money at the end has muddied memory of my play considerably.
Thankfully, I have my twitter feed which does say this -
Poker tip: don't announce to the table that you're "never slowing down."
Yes, I do remember this guy, that was the first thing he said to me after I floated him on the button and again on his c-bet. I relented on his second barrel on the turn and that's when he made the proclamation above.
Then this unfolded between us -
Aforementioned announcer 3 bets my aj in mp from the button. I flat, flop A92. I check he fires half pot. I call. Turn is an ace.
I check, he barrels half pot. I call. River blanks, I check he shoves, snap call, ship it.
He staggered away from the table, muttering something about fish and donkeys. Whatever dude. Twitter also helps me recap the whole thing -
Finished second with a nice chop for 350, chip leader got 400. Ran like crap, have to say I played great. Abused the bubble without mercy.
No pocket pairs above nines, 1 ak, a handful of aj, aq, k10 ish stuff. Biggest hand at show down ws a rivered broadway, on which i got paid.
Then Jason showed up and we headed for the Rio!
It really is a sight to behold, the World Series of Poker!
I didn't end up playing any major events - my lone cash in the Rio Deepstack wasn't enough to justify entry. But I was more than content to indulge in a greater quantity of tournaments, rather than one or two quality bracelet events.
Jason was originally supposed to be a representative for Pepper Street Poker in a $1500 event - but a recent sudden tragedy in his life has deferred that pursuit until next year. Jason didn't feel up to the task of a bracelet event, as none of us would, especially with other people's money - but I'm glad he got to come to Vegas anyways and gamble it up on a smaller scale.
The 2pm Rio Deep Stack really came into it's own this year. On the Friday we played there were 1500+ runners! First place was just under 60K! Wow!
I loved my first table and was able to accumulate nicely. Everyone at the table was soft for the most part, including a mouthy Brazilian on my immediate right who thought he was way funnier than he was. Although he didn't shut up he did occasionally make a sincere enough remark which kept me from tilting too hard.
I got whittled down at first from 15 to 12K and then got it in with the nut flush draw and two overs on the flop which thankfully hit on the turn. The chip and a chair player across from me was disgusted, oblivious that I was actually the favorite against his made hand when the chips went in.
I began to chip up with standard small ball, the table was very recreational and it wasn't difficult. I eventually did bust the mouthy Brazilian by shoving my 1010 from the big blind on his umpteenth 3 bet from the button. The original raiser left and Brazilian called for his tournament life with KQ which thankfully didn't hit.
Two hands later I had 1010 again and this time flatted the hijack's standard raise. Both blinds defended.
I smashed the world with a flop of 1022. Thankfully the original raiser never took his foot off the gas, and the small blind came along! I slow played them both into oblivion, knocking out the older guy in the small blind who was drawing dead on the turn looking for the nut flush and crippling the raiser who could not let go of his rockets. Now I had 60K!
But when I moved to the second table all the green lights over the heads of weaker players vanished and transformed into red "X"'s. Lots of three betting and even four betting made it very hard to chip up, I got frustrated and had a couple of disastrous hands. They were ill-planned, and by ill-planned I mean I had no plan. Always a recipe for disaster. Eventually, with 8 bigs, I had to jam with A10 pre-flop which naturally ran into A3 which naturally binked a 3 on the turn.
It didn't hurt too much. I felt I deserved to be on the rail after spewing, even though the new table was exponentially tougher. In hindsight I felt better and better as time passed. These "Deep" stack things are actually turbos - but 60K is fairly hard to beat for a less than 1% investment.
After my bust out Jason was still going strong so I meandered a bit through the different rooms. I had quite a few celebrity poker sightings including Andy Block (who shipped a bracelet earlier in the summer) Todd Brunson, Bill Chen, David Williams, David Sklansky (google that one will ya!) and Eric Lindgren.
After a couple of hours of fairly enjoyable meandering, it was time for me to head out. I had missed the Rio Poker room's 7pm donkament, so after recovering from a very tasty but gastronomically disastrous Sasquatch Big Stick of beef jerky, I was off to the calamitous evening that I mentioned at the start of this report - T.I. double dip, Monte Carlo and Harrah's 1am. I did cash in the last of these for $180, but I would pay over the following days, my exhaustion certainly cutting into my results as you will see shortly.
DAY 3
Saturday! My twitter read that "Sleep is for losers!" And so it was. Again I missed the 8am, but stumbled into Harrah's poker room just in time for the 10am $60.
I didn't play especially well, but my bust out hand was comical. With 20 bigs or so I raised from late position with A7, the big blind defended with A5 and the flop was 557. Is there much more to say?
But that bad beat was extremely small compared to what I endured at 2pm. After I sat down at the $235 Rio Deepstack an announcement came on that the field had been capped at 440 players! WTF?!!
This was a turbo event where the only incentive to play was the gi-normous first place prize of 60K. Today that prize was cut by 2/3rds. Suck.
Oh well. Good thing I don't make my living at this game, as did more than a few players I ran into that day do. They were pretty pissed.
I decided I wasn't going to let it bother me and I had a good time.
Again my first table was soft. There was a regular to my left which wasn't great, but she was savvy enough to pick on softer targets than me, so it was a mutual avoidance which worked out well. If I raised it up, she almost always folded. When she didn't I basically shut it down and did indeed see a premium from her when she did get to showdown with someone else in a hand she had entered with me that I had left.
I also got my first ever penalty in this tournament - later on at a different table I fast rolled my AK to another guys shove but didn't see that an old slow poke with his hands over his cards was still in the hand. The floor was called, the hand was ruled live, the old guy slowly folded. The shover was then slow to turn up his card and when he did he had AK also.
"They're never going to kill my hand" I mentioned to him because he was slow to turn up, the floor overheard my remark and then tacked on my one hand penalty. I had already apologized, the floor seemed to be done with it, I guess I should have kept my mouth shut. Again I apologized and the floor seemed to be fine.
I was around average in chips as the second break approached. I had been moved twice, each table got tougher than the last. This last one was full of savvy regulars and serious recreational players.
Of course with such an abundance of aggros I missed reading the one nit at the table correctly. He was in the small blind, I was on the button. Another player in early position raised it up. I flat called with jacks. The small blind shoved.
I had about 50 bigs, but I knew the hour was nigh - after the break I would have 25 bigs and it would be go time. This shove looked extremely squeezy, so after the original raiser released I called off with jacks and ran into queens.
Had I been in the zone I might have found a fold, old guy across from me had barely played a hand and when he had gotten involved had shown the goods. Ah well.
Once again Jason was still in - which means he's either very good or just a massive nit (don't think it's the latter) - so this time I made it in time for the 7pm donkament in the Rio poker room.
The Rio poker room is entirely separate from and on the opposite side of the Rio property from the WSOP. It's a nice little room, but unfortunately the tournaments are structured beyond bad (even for turbos) and they typically are held out on the casino floor amongst the rattle and hum (and smoke) of the casino floor.
I'd like to say that in this tournament I ran the most awesome bluff of my trip, but the victim was too drunk to fold - and I was too tired to realize this, so really I can't get too excited about it. It was for my tournament life so at least I can say I've got HAAAAAART. (Say the word "heart" in an Australian accent like Tony G. - no, not our Tony G., the poker whale from down undah).
After this fairly fun but still futile exercise I actually found it in me to go to bed. I was burnt toast.
DAY 4
Awake and refreshed, I finally made it for the 8am $25 three table brain damageament at Harrah's.
Thanks to a bit of luck and a complete ignorance of inflection points by my opponents, I took third place for $90. I got it in behind more than once, much to the incredulity of a nice guy with a huge coin card protector, but my decisions were all easy and correct. It's very reassuring to know that there are lots of players who simply don't have a clue about ICM or even M.
The 10am had already started by the time I finished, so I registered as an alternate. I finally sat down with 30 bigs at the start of the third level.
To my immediate right was Jason. I was at this point very jealous of him as he had cashed twice already in the big Rio Deepstacks (min-cashes, but still impressive) so I had some fun by bluffing him off a hand on the turn with an absolute trash hand, J4, that I delighted in showing him and the table.
Unfortunately this silliness didn't pay off later as I managed to get my aces cracked anyways, AIPF.
So it was off to the Rio deep stacks for what I figured would be the third and final time. Thankfully the field wasn't capped - 1500 runners, 60K for first!
Again I had a regular on my immediate left as I sat down, and he was a bit mouthy. Thankfully he spewed off within a couple of levels and I could open up a bit and accumulate.
Towards the second break I got tangled up in a bizarre hand that ended with me shoving on the river with zip and pip because the flush got there and I knew the guy in the 10 seat already had a medium strength hand. He tanked for a bit and did find a fold.
It was a great relief, and also a great hand for me because I had a plan as soon as I flatted a very wet board. He checked behind on the blank turn as did I, then he led out on the river which had hit a third spade. I immediately shoved, as had been my plan. It worked. Yay me.
During the second break I almost ran headlong into these guys.
Yes that would be Lon and Norman, commentators of the WSOP on ESPN. They were wandering down the hall together, I was tweeting, and I kid you not that there was almost a head on collision with both of them.
Then I saw Greg Raymer held hostage by a fan in conversation down another hallway.
Then to my surprise I saw Tom Dwan, playing in the million dollar Big One for One Drop tournament. I didn't like how they had the seating, it was full and closed off - but you could see Mr. Dwan plainly through the entrance. He had been AWOL from the World Series this year, cleaning up in monster cash games in Macau, but the allure of an 18 million dollar score had finally been enough to pull him away.
Back at the table after dinner I had accumulated the biggest stack in my life. 170K. But the funny part was, it was only 30 bigs or so, even though it was twice the chip stack average.
I had gleaned a big chunk of it from a three way hand that I must say I played ok save for one big mistake, but the third person involved played terribly all the way through.
I had pocket 8's and 3 bet after a medium stack had raised behind. A bigger stack in the small blind flat called for... wait for it... about a third of her stack. Yeesh.
The original raiser shoved for the rest of his chips, which I had pre-planned to call. But the problem was the third player in front of me. I should have re-shipped it or folded, but I chickened out and flat called. This is a terrible play on my part, because now when overs come on the flop I'm fucked.
The bigger stack... wait for it... also flat called. Now half of her chips were in the middle. I still have her covered by a wide margin though, so it's not an absolute disaster for me yet.
The flop comes all threes.
I think and think and then realize I have to shove. There's just too much money in the pot. If she has a bigger pair, then I got massively unlucky. 99, 1010 and JJ are really what I'm worried about. QQ or better she seems good enough that she would have 4 bet PF. More likely she has AK or any number of pretty but shitty broadway card combos.
She mucks and the poor short stack turns up 77 and is drawing dead to 2 cards which mercifully he doesn't hit.
Like I said, the most chips I've ever had in front of me in any tournament ever. Felt pretty good.
But all that was washed away after a disastrous hand after the break at my 5th and most difficult table.
EP big stack, though about half of my chips, raises it up. I flat with 1010 in the hijack.
This is the biggest and stupidest mistake of the hand entire.
Strangely but thankfully we get no other players to come along. The board is xKx and he donks. I three bet, he shoves and I snap call.
Very fucking stupid. Of course he has KQ. Everyone knows that's a great hand. (Insert eye roll here).
The problem with this hand is that there was no thinking involved - either on my part or on his.
It became very apparent to me after the tournament as I played this back over and over that this guy to my right is the perfect opponent to have in a tournament. My image at that table was nowhere near maniacal, yet he was willing to insta-stack off with top pair meh kicker.
If I had flopped anything - TPTK, 2 pair, a set - I'd get all of his chips immediately with his mediocre hand that he is popping from EP. Instead, after a flop in which I have no business continuing with, I spew with nothing.
Very dumb. But I can't blame fatigue this time, I was rested, and otherwise played very well. I recognized the scope of my idiotic error at the table quickly but moved on and locked down considerably, squeaking into the money in 125th place and getting $390 for my time.
I was both elated that I hadn't played for 9 hours for nothing, and also pretty disappointed that my one amateurish brain fart had cost me a chance at a deeper run.
For once Jason had busted without cashing, so we both adjourned to Harrah's for some silly evening play.
The money bubble had burst around 11pm, so it looked like my only choice was the 1am.
I had my only unpleasant experience of the trip in this one. A drunk angry fellow unloaded on me verbally when I had the temerity to suggest that maybe he should shut his fucking mouth when other players were in the hand. I quickly disengaged when I realized that this guy was on just enough drugs that he might take a swing at me at the table. I apologized and he cooled off, then I made it my business to open shove just about every hand until I busted. I was never really scared, I play on a regular basis in Inglewood after all, but I didn't want to have to deal with such infantile thuggery at 2 in the morning. I was glad to get out.
The incident left a bitter taste in my mouth that was thankfully washed away with some yummy soup and good conversation with Jason before retiring for the night.
DAY 5
I didn't plan to play the Deep Stack again, I felt one cash was good enough, and now I was pretty darn tired - so I was cognizant of the fact that I was pretty negative EV in any major event.
But fate intervened and I scored $180 in the 10am Harrah's, so I figured why not take a $60 shot at 60K?
Jason and I were a bit late so I sat down at the start of the third level. And then this guy joined my table.
The dealer, who spoke passable English (certainly better than my Mandarin no doubt), simply stared at him and said "I.D. please." Mr. Woods (yes, the actor James) blinked in disbelief at first, then shrugged his shoulders and ponied it up. Welcome to the table Mr. Glengary Glenross.
Our table broke after 10 minutes, but I got to see him play a few hands where he 3 and 4 people large post flop to take it down. "He seems to have it a lot" said the guy to my right. "Yeah, well he also acts for a living." I remarked. Light chuckles floated around.
My new table had to be the toughest I'd faced yet. Plus I was also pretty beat. I dragged a big pot here and there, but eventually was whittled back down to about 15 bigs.
Then came the implosion.
There were a couple of softer targets I had my sights set on to my left. I had been super card dead and so I decided that the next target that had a big blind, if it was open folded to me, I would standard raise and shove on a safe flop to take it down.
It was folded to me, I was in the 1, and my big blind target was up, so I raised. She defended.
I had Q7 by the way. Flop was x7A. The ten seat led out. Wait, what? There was a third player in the hand? He had raised, I had thought I was raising but was just calling.
He also happened to be the best player at the table by far.
Shit.
I hadn't seen him, it's tough to see the ten seat, but I was so tired and frustrated at my inability to chip up, that I stuck it in anyway. Big blind released, 10 seat snapped with AK. Tournament over.
I played in one more tournament, the 8pm bounty at Harrah's. It was fun because it was loaded with recreational players who were utterly clueless, but I was way too fried to make anything meaningful happen. I busted and went to bed.
***********
Another great trip is in the books - next year I VOW to make it four days maximum. I have no doubt I would have turned a profit if I had paced myself better and had fewer days. By giving myself five I didn't have enough requisite fire in the belly to fight harder for bigger results. When I was awake I figured "Eh, there's three more days" instead of "This is it! Dig deep!" Ah well.
Can't wait for 2013!
Friday, June 22, 2012
80 Percent
So I had to go to Colorado for work for 10 days. The Golden Gates casino in Blackhawk had pretty awesome $120 tournaments every night at 7:30. Unfortunately, we were in Denver which was an hour away and then mid-trip we moved to Colorado Springs which was nearly a two hour drive from Blackhawk. I couldn't really justify the gas money on a company vehicle. Plus I was always too tired to go anyway. So no poker for 10 days! A record for me this year.
Actually, I've enjoyed the break. I was shooting in Vegas for one night a couple of days ago and I did finally return to the felt in an 11pm donkament at the Monte Carlo. I love the room, but I was basically lighting $60 on fire. A preposterous structure where a real poker player with 10 bigs finds himself jamming with A3 utg an hour and 20 minutes after the start time. The rest of the table shakes their heads and clucks their tongues when said real player runs into queens which hold. No worries. Good times.
Looks like I won't get too much more time on the felt before my WSOP Vegas trip on the 28th, but that's okay. I'm looking forward to my home game this Saturday night and hopefully I can avoid spazzing out like I did last time - snap calling for most of my chips with only an open ended straight draw. Yuck.
Recently all 3 of my horses and a good friend busted out of their events in the WSOP - I got mini trip reports from them and you can find 3 out of 4 on the Pepper Street blog.
All the reports I got back were pretty full of disappointment. Yes, the first timers were also grateful and excited for the experience - but overall they felt more than a twinge of sadness at having not cashed or done better.
This minor melancholy is inevitable for us recreational players I suppose, but I got a good dose of perspective last night watching the World Series of Poker online.
For those who don't know, the WSOP is streaming live every single final table in all 62 events this year at www.wsop.com. It's pretty awesome. I enjoy the young kid who commentates and his wide variety of guests (including big names like Hellmuth and the like).
Last night it was Event #36, a $3000 shoot-out event. The chip leader was Antonio Esfandiari, a one time bracelet winner and multi-WPT event winning semi-poker celebrity. He has occasional flashes of douche-ness, but overall is pretty likable and is certainly a formidable player.
He for 5 hours he put on a clinic on how to use a monster stack with very little risk to dominate a table and accumulate chips. It was pretty inspiring.
He got very lucky against the other big stack at the table and busted him by flopping the top end of a straight when his opponent had flopped the bottom end. Then it was 3 handed and Antonio cranked up the aggression even more.
His two opponents, professionals but clearly outclassed, did their best to hang on in a battle for second place.
Then, it was unclear from the webcast exactly how it happened, there was some discussion of a deal between them to split second and third place money, effectively removing the pay jump pressure that Antonio had been so expertly exploiting.
Antonio objected to the "deal" (this sort of thing isn't a chop or a deal, it's basically collusion if you exclude another player) and the WSOP stepped in and put a stop to it. You won't read any of this at www.wsop.com, it's conveniently expurgated, but as it turns out it didn't really affect the outcome after all.
Antonio had 80% of the chips and a few hands later he got all his money in as an 80% favorite, snap calling off with pocket nines - he was up against sevens.
Bam.
A seven on the flop and that was that. Antonio was hurt badly. 1.5 million in chips, over half of his stack, slid over to the sucker outer.
A hand or two later, Antonio got it in with AJ suited, a monster in 3 handed play, and found himself against the other short stack who had open shoved for the umpteenth time, and this time happened to have AK which held. A genuine cooler for Antonio.
Now crippled, Antonio made a stand with Q10 and ran into K10. He was out in third place.
He did nothing wrong, he played perfect poker for almost 6 hours - including the hands he went out on.
He's a hell of a cash game player who has been crushing the mid-upper stakes live levels for years, and he has millions in tournament winnings.
He had 80% of the chips, outclassed his opponents by a mile and got his money in as an 80% favorite on the most crucial hand of the tournament.
Poker smacked him upside the head hella hard and he didn't even flinch. It had to hurt, it had to sting, but Antonio was stoic and classy till the end.
Very impressive.
The announcer made a great observation - I'm paraphrasing - "To Antonio the money is meaningless, but I know he wanted that bracelet so badly. Still, he's a professional in every sense of the word, Antonio has had a million of these bad beats and he'll have a million more." True dat.
So I say to all my friends, the horses, Babs, Allen and Nick, and to my poker buddy Dog who took a shot in the largest single starting day tournament in history - it is unlikely you didn't make mistakes. But even if you were perfect, as Antonio was, and even if you were an 80% favorite (in chips or in odds) - you could still have gotten fucked. Hard.
Thems teh pokerz.
I'm very much looking forward to my WSOP odyssey next week - I plan to play two or maybe three Rio Deepstack events. The 2pm events have been averaging over 1000 runners with first place prizes of 50K or more - an incredible value for a $240 investment. I was going to try to satellite into a bracelet tournament, but I think I want to concentrate on going deep in one of the DS events.
If the poker God's are favorable and I cash and if the spirit moves me I can still put some of my winnings towards a seat in the Sunday 1K bracelet event.
Otherwise it's looking like this -
Thursday - $130 Noon event at the Nugget.
Friday and Saturday - 2pm Deepstack at the Rio.
Sunday - $150 Nooner at Binion's.
Monday - If I haven't cashed - a smaller daily like Aria or Mirage. If I have cashed then probably the Wynn Classic or maybe the Venetian DSE.
Can't wait!
Actually, I've enjoyed the break. I was shooting in Vegas for one night a couple of days ago and I did finally return to the felt in an 11pm donkament at the Monte Carlo. I love the room, but I was basically lighting $60 on fire. A preposterous structure where a real poker player with 10 bigs finds himself jamming with A3 utg an hour and 20 minutes after the start time. The rest of the table shakes their heads and clucks their tongues when said real player runs into queens which hold. No worries. Good times.
Looks like I won't get too much more time on the felt before my WSOP Vegas trip on the 28th, but that's okay. I'm looking forward to my home game this Saturday night and hopefully I can avoid spazzing out like I did last time - snap calling for most of my chips with only an open ended straight draw. Yuck.
Recently all 3 of my horses and a good friend busted out of their events in the WSOP - I got mini trip reports from them and you can find 3 out of 4 on the Pepper Street blog.
All the reports I got back were pretty full of disappointment. Yes, the first timers were also grateful and excited for the experience - but overall they felt more than a twinge of sadness at having not cashed or done better.
This minor melancholy is inevitable for us recreational players I suppose, but I got a good dose of perspective last night watching the World Series of Poker online.
For those who don't know, the WSOP is streaming live every single final table in all 62 events this year at www.wsop.com. It's pretty awesome. I enjoy the young kid who commentates and his wide variety of guests (including big names like Hellmuth and the like).
Last night it was Event #36, a $3000 shoot-out event. The chip leader was Antonio Esfandiari, a one time bracelet winner and multi-WPT event winning semi-poker celebrity. He has occasional flashes of douche-ness, but overall is pretty likable and is certainly a formidable player.
He for 5 hours he put on a clinic on how to use a monster stack with very little risk to dominate a table and accumulate chips. It was pretty inspiring.
He got very lucky against the other big stack at the table and busted him by flopping the top end of a straight when his opponent had flopped the bottom end. Then it was 3 handed and Antonio cranked up the aggression even more.
His two opponents, professionals but clearly outclassed, did their best to hang on in a battle for second place.
Then, it was unclear from the webcast exactly how it happened, there was some discussion of a deal between them to split second and third place money, effectively removing the pay jump pressure that Antonio had been so expertly exploiting.
Antonio objected to the "deal" (this sort of thing isn't a chop or a deal, it's basically collusion if you exclude another player) and the WSOP stepped in and put a stop to it. You won't read any of this at www.wsop.com, it's conveniently expurgated, but as it turns out it didn't really affect the outcome after all.
Antonio had 80% of the chips and a few hands later he got all his money in as an 80% favorite, snap calling off with pocket nines - he was up against sevens.
Bam.
A seven on the flop and that was that. Antonio was hurt badly. 1.5 million in chips, over half of his stack, slid over to the sucker outer.
A hand or two later, Antonio got it in with AJ suited, a monster in 3 handed play, and found himself against the other short stack who had open shoved for the umpteenth time, and this time happened to have AK which held. A genuine cooler for Antonio.
Now crippled, Antonio made a stand with Q10 and ran into K10. He was out in third place.
He did nothing wrong, he played perfect poker for almost 6 hours - including the hands he went out on.
He's a hell of a cash game player who has been crushing the mid-upper stakes live levels for years, and he has millions in tournament winnings.
He had 80% of the chips, outclassed his opponents by a mile and got his money in as an 80% favorite on the most crucial hand of the tournament.
Poker smacked him upside the head hella hard and he didn't even flinch. It had to hurt, it had to sting, but Antonio was stoic and classy till the end.
Very impressive.
The announcer made a great observation - I'm paraphrasing - "To Antonio the money is meaningless, but I know he wanted that bracelet so badly. Still, he's a professional in every sense of the word, Antonio has had a million of these bad beats and he'll have a million more." True dat.
So I say to all my friends, the horses, Babs, Allen and Nick, and to my poker buddy Dog who took a shot in the largest single starting day tournament in history - it is unlikely you didn't make mistakes. But even if you were perfect, as Antonio was, and even if you were an 80% favorite (in chips or in odds) - you could still have gotten fucked. Hard.
Thems teh pokerz.
I'm very much looking forward to my WSOP odyssey next week - I plan to play two or maybe three Rio Deepstack events. The 2pm events have been averaging over 1000 runners with first place prizes of 50K or more - an incredible value for a $240 investment. I was going to try to satellite into a bracelet tournament, but I think I want to concentrate on going deep in one of the DS events.
If the poker God's are favorable and I cash and if the spirit moves me I can still put some of my winnings towards a seat in the Sunday 1K bracelet event.
Otherwise it's looking like this -
Thursday - $130 Noon event at the Nugget.
Friday and Saturday - 2pm Deepstack at the Rio.
Sunday - $150 Nooner at Binion's.
Monday - If I haven't cashed - a smaller daily like Aria or Mirage. If I have cashed then probably the Wynn Classic or maybe the Venetian DSE.
Can't wait!
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Memorial Day Round-Up
Had a chance to visit the in-laws and the wife/kiddo in Vegas, so I couldn't pass up on an evening tournament. Especially with my better half indulging in the slots - I'm way more +ev than her, even as a recreational poker player who almost only plays tournaments.
Almost.
I wanted to play in Alliante station's big Sunday night $90 freeze out, but alas, the room is small and they shut it down after a mere 6 tables. Turns out it was their monthly 100% payback tournament, so I had very little chance of getting in as all the locals had already locked up their seats.
I did put in as an alternate, but I was 16th. They ended up taking 4.
So after haplessly standing around for 45 minutes while the wife played slot jockey, I reluctantly plopped down to a 2-4 fixed limit game with a hundred dollar rack.
I remember fixed limit poker from back in the day, enjoyed it then, and believe it or not still enjoy it now. These days it's completely unbeatable, as the old "no flop no drop" axiom doesn't apply. Chips are taken regardless, up to 10% or $6 which is absurd in a $40 pot. Still, it beat draining my bank account on the machines, and I wasn't really in the mood to mix it up with the sunglass wearing punks at the 1/2 tables.
Anyway, the game can be an absolute beast of a grind - but if approached with a light heart and the spirit of fun, well, you get a few hours of entertainment and if you're lucky (as I was) you may turn a tiny profit.
I ended the night up over $30, thanks mostly to good fixed limit habits that I haven't lost. It all came back to me. When I speculated, which is very tempting to do in limit - it was almost always with cards that had some post flop equity and almost always in position. I didn't limp in early position with small suited connectors, but I confess I did with small pairs.
If I had a premium I would raise, knowing I was bound to get multiple callers anyway - but I did get value when my hands held, and I was able to get away on wet boards with action behind or in front.
I felt very comfortable, but also recognized the futility of actually making any money. The table was friendly, fairly fishy and mostly locals. A fine way to spend a Friday night.
My biggest hand of the night came early on. Bunch of limpers, the button raised, I defended my big blind and only one folded (why?) behind. I flopped four to a nut flush with Ah5h. I led out (semi-bluffing is a great tool, though often overused by older players, in Limit) and it was folded to the button who re-raised me and I flatted. The turn brought me the nuts and I led again, he 2 bet me and I 3 bet and he capped. Awesome. The turn was a blank. I fired, he flatted. With all the pre-flop limp/callers the pot was about $50. Silly but fun.
I also dragged a biggish pot on my last hand before I racked up. I was down a few dollars when I looked down at queens from EP and raised. Got 3 customers. Board was a low rainbow. I fired, all 3 called. Great. Turn was an ace, I checked - SO DID EVERYONE ELSE. Awesome. The river was a king. I bet, though I don't know why really. 2 callers, I had the best hand. Maybe $40 in the pot. Funny game.
The next night I figured it would be more family time, but after a way too large breakfast buffet at Red Rock, the wife surprised me by wanting to go play slots. She had ended up a bit after her binge the previous evening, so I was happy to let her. Meanwhile, I took the munchkin bowling and we had a great time.
Later in the evening when things settled down, I was able to go back to Red Rock and enter their super turbo $65 splash-a-ment.
Less than one orbit in, I had aces in the big blind. Limp, limp, limp, limp - and it was on me. Big ass raise, 10x. All folded save for the small blind. Stubborn.
Flop came 566. He checked, I bet large, 2000, a third of my stack and almost a pot sized bet. He called.
On the turn he checked and I should have checked behind here for pot control. Also his check/call on the flop should have set off the alarm bells. A big value bet by him on the river and I should have been able to find a fold.
Unfortunately because I was so pumped to be playing and because I instinctively knew that this home game hero had binked it - I jammed the turn and he snapped with a baby six.
I suck.
Re-entered and went to another table.
Let me just say - I ended up min-cashing in this one, so I made $10 more than my investment; but there were times along the way that were pretty great for me as a poker player. Not the badly played aces or the first hand at my new table though.
I was so tilted that when I re-entered I almost ended up triple barrel bluffing away all my chips.
I watched the table at first, maybe half an orbit. Lots of limpers, very passive.
As I said, I was steamed, so I decided to bet with 2 limpers behind me, I had 65. I made it 3x plus 3 more blinds, 6x total.
All folded but the one older and mouthy guy to my right.
The flop came with a king and two hearts. He checked, I c-bet half the pot, he called. Turn was a black ace. He checked, I c-bet half the pot, he called. River was a blank.
Sigh. I was pretty steamed at this point; both from my badly played aces and the fact that my gut said mouthy didn't have shit for a hand. I knew he was drawing, and I knew that he had missed. He checked, I pushed.
I'm guessing he was a long time vet of live poker, so that's probably why he tanked so long before folding to my river shove (which was another c-bet for half the pot) - he sensed weakness from me, but he knew the only thing he could beat was a bluff, and he didn't have the stones to make the hero call.
It was a big pot. Ship it. Everyone was curious, so I stuck the needle in and showed the bluff.
Felt great afterwards and relieved that my steam 3 barrel bluff had worked out. If a heart had come on the river I likely would have had to give up and been down to a third of my original stack. As it was, I had more than doubled up. I had gotten lucky that my read was right, and even luckier that he hadn't looked me up anyway with ace high.
For the next two hours I was able to accumulate almost exclusively through small ball moves and selective aggression in position.
The nice lady on my left clucked her tongue as I brutalized the limpers. Finally, in a battle of the blinds, she came along into a hand with me when it was folded to my SB and I limped with AJ.
The flop came with an ace and I check called her 3 barrel bluff all the way to the river with top pair to scoop an ass load of chips from her. Perfect read, perfect line to extract the most chips.
As I mentioned, there were a few really transcendent moments - I felt I had absolute control for a good two hours. I finally busted mouthy with pocket kings when he limped and then check raise shoved into me with KJ. Image truly is everything.
I'm trying to remember specific hands, and can't really - but I really felt (at least for those two hours) that I had entered a different level.
I was very disinterested in playing from early position - I folded QJ I don't know how many times, plus loads of baby aces.
In position however, I was a beast, and played all of the hands I folded in EP and more.
Occasionally, if the targets were right, I didn't even bother to look at my cards until the turn if they had stuck around. It was great.
Then the third table broke and we were down to 18 players. I was the tournament chip leader when a young guy and an older gent with sunglasses (usually a bad thing) came to our table.
The young guy I pegged as a better player and avoided him until I couldn't. I raised in the cutoff with a pair of threes and he defended his big blind. The flop came a perfect ragged board with a king. I c-bet, but he wasn't going anywhere. I also c-bet the turn, which I don't remember. He check raised me big. He was full of shit, I felt it, but I had blanked and had to let it go.
Deflated a bit, it was my first significant loss the entire tournament at this table, I took my foot off the gas until I got tangled up with the old guy.
Again, I was in position, but again I had blanked and he check raised me big on the turn. I probably shouldn't have fired a second barrel, but the specifics of the hand escape me.
After those two big hits to my stack we broke for the final table.
Since an average stack was less than 10 bigs at this point, I'm happy to report that my monster stack of 15 bigs managed to hold on just pass the bubble before my AK lost to AQ after all the chips were in pre-flop.
Great time and great fun, but I wish I had adjusted quicker to the two new guys. As it would turn out, the old guy knew what he was doing, the young one not so much - as he managed to spew away most and then all of his chips with absolutely horrific calls that he made POST-FLOP. Crazy.
He didn't make the money, and it was gratifying to see I have to admit. He came off very confident, borderline cocky, but he really didn't have a clue. Earlier I took a hit when I called a tiny stacks shove with aces, and they were cracked yet again.
"OMG that is so sick! How sick is that Oh my God!" he went on and on and on. I didn't say anything, but the old guy chimed in.
"Actually that's pretty standard if you do this long enough..."
It was a remark that was very much appreciated by this fish. The good side of poker once again coming to light.
Speaking of that, my recent post on this blog made it onto 2+2 when I also happened to start a thread on the matter of Barbara Enright.
It is now officially an "epic" thread as it's numbers have climed north of 350 posts and show no signs of slowing.
Predictably, most of the comments are negative towards me, including some rather personal and nasty ones - but it's okay. I called Enright, a woman that I've never actually spoken too, a few nasty names on this blog, and I know she doesn't care. I don't care either.
You see, I'm old enough to understand that adults sometimes get carried away with the name calling, and in the end it doesn't really matter. Was I wrong to drop the c-bomb? Probably. Would I be embarrassed were I to run into Enright and she somehow recognize me or call me out on the name calling? For sure. But I would deal with it like a grown up, and I know she would too. The same can't be said for a lot of the trolls on 2+2, but in the end I hope they could at least recognize the difference between a passionate argument and true malice. I have none of the latter for Ms. Enright and in fact said so in my original post.
As for the bigger picture, I'm really quite thrilled that I seem to have really touched a nerve, that is - the truth hurts and people lash out when someone hits the mark.
My good poker buddy Mixer said he disagreed with my point of view until we discussed it a bit - I actually mostly agree with him and the 2+2 community. I never said I thought it was wrong to say no to any kind of chop. It's always a poker players prerogative to say no. And most chops are indeed bad poker, especially taking a bit off the top to pay the "bubble". I for the most part agree that it's stupid, because it just makes the next guy out the bubble.
But where I depart from the majority, is that more important than having the facts and figures, in the real world I like to live my life by the golden rule, that is, I try to treat others the way I would want to be treated. And in this particular instance, I agree with Barry Greenstein, who is famous for saying - "Math is idiotic."
If I was a life long grinder, a professional poker player - If I had spent most of my waking hours at the table - I would hope that I could still be able to remember back to when I first started and what it was like to be a wide eyed recreational player and what I would have thought if my first ever cash had been callously denied by a humorless senior citizen. In other words, no matter how much the game had beaten me down, I would hope that could put myself in someone else's shoes and weigh that against my own financial interests.
Taking $330 out of $5600 that is almost certain to be chopped up anyway is on it's face an easy choice when it is weighed against the reward of simply thinking of others before yourself. Doing the right thing isn't always the smartest thing, strictly by the numbers. But in the context of this tournament, nearly nine hours into a $75 buy-in event, stuffed to the gills with amateur poker enthusiasts, to make a motion to refuse such a minor safety, after the motion has been announced to the jubilation of the entire room is quite simply a dick move. And I called her on it, and the outrage across 2+2 bears out that I hit very close to home and that I am almost certainly in the right.
Could I have been nicer about it? Sure. Name calling does indeed always weaken an argument; but I've been blogging on a regular basis about poker and lots of other stuff for going on 8 years now, and what I love about it is that I can be brutally honest. More often than not I am brutally honest on myself, but occasionally if I see an injustice, I'm going to call it like I see it. A dick move is a dick move, and if the person pulling the dick move happens to be a douche about it, I'm going to call them a douche. That's just the way it is.
Anger from the other side will often focus on the name calling, because they know they are wrong about the actual issue. That's fine. They are welcome to focus on this minor point because I can sleep well at night knowing I don't bear anyone, even the dicks and douches, any real ill will. But I absolutely will not waste energy and focus trying to walk a super narrow path of righteousness when my opponents have long forsaken any sense of decorum or restraint themselves. There is a line that I won't cross in vitriol, but I am no saint and I will not beat myself up over occasional name calling, especially if it's the truth.
So anyways, I returned to L.A on Memorial Day. without the wife and munchkin, they were to stay on vacation, I had to go back to work. But before work I still had the entire evening before me - so I headed out to the Bike for their Deep Stack poker series - $135 for 18K in chips and a pretty good structure.
I knew going in that this one was a beast, we would be playing till the sun came up if I final tabled and even if I went deep it could be 2am before the money bubble burst. Still, the guarantee was 40K, so it would be a nice payday if I could get to the top half of that final table.
Alas, it was not to be as I busted 64th out of 540 runners, about ten players shy of the money.
Overall I was very happy with my play - I was fine early on with getting all my chips in pre-flop with kings, despite my experience and my gut screaming that I was indeed about to see aces (and I did, it hurt me but I still had 50 bigs or so). I was also very good with my target selection and stealing, up until I made two or three bad moves out of position against monster stacks that hurt me quite a bit. Afterwards I played the shortstack very well and simply got unlucky when my AK lost to AQ - AIPF of course.
The aforementioned bad moves were simply ill advised. I knew the blinds were set to skyrocket and it was time to accumulate, but I really needed to pick a better spot or even abstain for a few more orbits. I loved my first few tables, and managed to score a lot of chips from them, but really the table with the mistakes was more of a table of doom, and I knew it almost immediately after sitting down. The problem was, I had two factors weighing against me - 1) my stack size was medium, a perfect target and not large enough to maneuver post flop effectively, and 2) the table was top heavy with competent (ie, better than me) villains. A deadly combination that thankfully only whittled me down from just under 50 bigs to about 25.
Of course when the levels really got big, it was simply shove or fold. I did get moved to a much better table, so that kept my head above water for a long while. I'm happy to report that when I did pull the trigger I did at least have 15 bigs and hadn't waited too long to get it in. If my AK had held it would have been almost a triple up (all the antes and another short stack caller were in too) and virtually guaranteed me a min-cash.
Yes, I would have loved that, as it was indeed almost 2am when I hit the rail. But on the other hand, I'm glad I wasn't chicken shit about sticking it in. The real money is only at the end, and despite my mishandled steals at the doom table earlier, I feel I could've climbed back if I'd recovered to 40 bigs or so. Ah well. Good times, though I was pretty much dead at work the next day.
Coming up - I'm hoping to get a few more big events under my belt before the WSOP at the end of June. I missed out on Eric's game this week, but that's okay, I think he invited Babs who is one of the WSOP staked players from my home game. She needs the practice. She also did a Bike Deepstack last night and I think it was pretty worth it to go through a bigger card room event like that.
Almost.
I wanted to play in Alliante station's big Sunday night $90 freeze out, but alas, the room is small and they shut it down after a mere 6 tables. Turns out it was their monthly 100% payback tournament, so I had very little chance of getting in as all the locals had already locked up their seats.
I did put in as an alternate, but I was 16th. They ended up taking 4.
So after haplessly standing around for 45 minutes while the wife played slot jockey, I reluctantly plopped down to a 2-4 fixed limit game with a hundred dollar rack.
I remember fixed limit poker from back in the day, enjoyed it then, and believe it or not still enjoy it now. These days it's completely unbeatable, as the old "no flop no drop" axiom doesn't apply. Chips are taken regardless, up to 10% or $6 which is absurd in a $40 pot. Still, it beat draining my bank account on the machines, and I wasn't really in the mood to mix it up with the sunglass wearing punks at the 1/2 tables.
Anyway, the game can be an absolute beast of a grind - but if approached with a light heart and the spirit of fun, well, you get a few hours of entertainment and if you're lucky (as I was) you may turn a tiny profit.
I ended the night up over $30, thanks mostly to good fixed limit habits that I haven't lost. It all came back to me. When I speculated, which is very tempting to do in limit - it was almost always with cards that had some post flop equity and almost always in position. I didn't limp in early position with small suited connectors, but I confess I did with small pairs.
If I had a premium I would raise, knowing I was bound to get multiple callers anyway - but I did get value when my hands held, and I was able to get away on wet boards with action behind or in front.
I felt very comfortable, but also recognized the futility of actually making any money. The table was friendly, fairly fishy and mostly locals. A fine way to spend a Friday night.
My biggest hand of the night came early on. Bunch of limpers, the button raised, I defended my big blind and only one folded (why?) behind. I flopped four to a nut flush with Ah5h. I led out (semi-bluffing is a great tool, though often overused by older players, in Limit) and it was folded to the button who re-raised me and I flatted. The turn brought me the nuts and I led again, he 2 bet me and I 3 bet and he capped. Awesome. The turn was a blank. I fired, he flatted. With all the pre-flop limp/callers the pot was about $50. Silly but fun.
I also dragged a biggish pot on my last hand before I racked up. I was down a few dollars when I looked down at queens from EP and raised. Got 3 customers. Board was a low rainbow. I fired, all 3 called. Great. Turn was an ace, I checked - SO DID EVERYONE ELSE. Awesome. The river was a king. I bet, though I don't know why really. 2 callers, I had the best hand. Maybe $40 in the pot. Funny game.
The next night I figured it would be more family time, but after a way too large breakfast buffet at Red Rock, the wife surprised me by wanting to go play slots. She had ended up a bit after her binge the previous evening, so I was happy to let her. Meanwhile, I took the munchkin bowling and we had a great time.
Later in the evening when things settled down, I was able to go back to Red Rock and enter their super turbo $65 splash-a-ment.
Less than one orbit in, I had aces in the big blind. Limp, limp, limp, limp - and it was on me. Big ass raise, 10x. All folded save for the small blind. Stubborn.
Flop came 566. He checked, I bet large, 2000, a third of my stack and almost a pot sized bet. He called.
On the turn he checked and I should have checked behind here for pot control. Also his check/call on the flop should have set off the alarm bells. A big value bet by him on the river and I should have been able to find a fold.
Unfortunately because I was so pumped to be playing and because I instinctively knew that this home game hero had binked it - I jammed the turn and he snapped with a baby six.
I suck.
Re-entered and went to another table.
Let me just say - I ended up min-cashing in this one, so I made $10 more than my investment; but there were times along the way that were pretty great for me as a poker player. Not the badly played aces or the first hand at my new table though.
I was so tilted that when I re-entered I almost ended up triple barrel bluffing away all my chips.
I watched the table at first, maybe half an orbit. Lots of limpers, very passive.
As I said, I was steamed, so I decided to bet with 2 limpers behind me, I had 65. I made it 3x plus 3 more blinds, 6x total.
All folded but the one older and mouthy guy to my right.
The flop came with a king and two hearts. He checked, I c-bet half the pot, he called. Turn was a black ace. He checked, I c-bet half the pot, he called. River was a blank.
Sigh. I was pretty steamed at this point; both from my badly played aces and the fact that my gut said mouthy didn't have shit for a hand. I knew he was drawing, and I knew that he had missed. He checked, I pushed.
I'm guessing he was a long time vet of live poker, so that's probably why he tanked so long before folding to my river shove (which was another c-bet for half the pot) - he sensed weakness from me, but he knew the only thing he could beat was a bluff, and he didn't have the stones to make the hero call.
It was a big pot. Ship it. Everyone was curious, so I stuck the needle in and showed the bluff.
Felt great afterwards and relieved that my steam 3 barrel bluff had worked out. If a heart had come on the river I likely would have had to give up and been down to a third of my original stack. As it was, I had more than doubled up. I had gotten lucky that my read was right, and even luckier that he hadn't looked me up anyway with ace high.
For the next two hours I was able to accumulate almost exclusively through small ball moves and selective aggression in position.
The nice lady on my left clucked her tongue as I brutalized the limpers. Finally, in a battle of the blinds, she came along into a hand with me when it was folded to my SB and I limped with AJ.
The flop came with an ace and I check called her 3 barrel bluff all the way to the river with top pair to scoop an ass load of chips from her. Perfect read, perfect line to extract the most chips.
As I mentioned, there were a few really transcendent moments - I felt I had absolute control for a good two hours. I finally busted mouthy with pocket kings when he limped and then check raise shoved into me with KJ. Image truly is everything.
I'm trying to remember specific hands, and can't really - but I really felt (at least for those two hours) that I had entered a different level.
I was very disinterested in playing from early position - I folded QJ I don't know how many times, plus loads of baby aces.
In position however, I was a beast, and played all of the hands I folded in EP and more.
Occasionally, if the targets were right, I didn't even bother to look at my cards until the turn if they had stuck around. It was great.
Then the third table broke and we were down to 18 players. I was the tournament chip leader when a young guy and an older gent with sunglasses (usually a bad thing) came to our table.
The young guy I pegged as a better player and avoided him until I couldn't. I raised in the cutoff with a pair of threes and he defended his big blind. The flop came a perfect ragged board with a king. I c-bet, but he wasn't going anywhere. I also c-bet the turn, which I don't remember. He check raised me big. He was full of shit, I felt it, but I had blanked and had to let it go.
Deflated a bit, it was my first significant loss the entire tournament at this table, I took my foot off the gas until I got tangled up with the old guy.
Again, I was in position, but again I had blanked and he check raised me big on the turn. I probably shouldn't have fired a second barrel, but the specifics of the hand escape me.
After those two big hits to my stack we broke for the final table.
Since an average stack was less than 10 bigs at this point, I'm happy to report that my monster stack of 15 bigs managed to hold on just pass the bubble before my AK lost to AQ after all the chips were in pre-flop.
Great time and great fun, but I wish I had adjusted quicker to the two new guys. As it would turn out, the old guy knew what he was doing, the young one not so much - as he managed to spew away most and then all of his chips with absolutely horrific calls that he made POST-FLOP. Crazy.
He didn't make the money, and it was gratifying to see I have to admit. He came off very confident, borderline cocky, but he really didn't have a clue. Earlier I took a hit when I called a tiny stacks shove with aces, and they were cracked yet again.
"OMG that is so sick! How sick is that Oh my God!" he went on and on and on. I didn't say anything, but the old guy chimed in.
"Actually that's pretty standard if you do this long enough..."
It was a remark that was very much appreciated by this fish. The good side of poker once again coming to light.
Speaking of that, my recent post on this blog made it onto 2+2 when I also happened to start a thread on the matter of Barbara Enright.
It is now officially an "epic" thread as it's numbers have climed north of 350 posts and show no signs of slowing.
Predictably, most of the comments are negative towards me, including some rather personal and nasty ones - but it's okay. I called Enright, a woman that I've never actually spoken too, a few nasty names on this blog, and I know she doesn't care. I don't care either.
You see, I'm old enough to understand that adults sometimes get carried away with the name calling, and in the end it doesn't really matter. Was I wrong to drop the c-bomb? Probably. Would I be embarrassed were I to run into Enright and she somehow recognize me or call me out on the name calling? For sure. But I would deal with it like a grown up, and I know she would too. The same can't be said for a lot of the trolls on 2+2, but in the end I hope they could at least recognize the difference between a passionate argument and true malice. I have none of the latter for Ms. Enright and in fact said so in my original post.
As for the bigger picture, I'm really quite thrilled that I seem to have really touched a nerve, that is - the truth hurts and people lash out when someone hits the mark.
My good poker buddy Mixer said he disagreed with my point of view until we discussed it a bit - I actually mostly agree with him and the 2+2 community. I never said I thought it was wrong to say no to any kind of chop. It's always a poker players prerogative to say no. And most chops are indeed bad poker, especially taking a bit off the top to pay the "bubble". I for the most part agree that it's stupid, because it just makes the next guy out the bubble.
But where I depart from the majority, is that more important than having the facts and figures, in the real world I like to live my life by the golden rule, that is, I try to treat others the way I would want to be treated. And in this particular instance, I agree with Barry Greenstein, who is famous for saying - "Math is idiotic."
If I was a life long grinder, a professional poker player - If I had spent most of my waking hours at the table - I would hope that I could still be able to remember back to when I first started and what it was like to be a wide eyed recreational player and what I would have thought if my first ever cash had been callously denied by a humorless senior citizen. In other words, no matter how much the game had beaten me down, I would hope that could put myself in someone else's shoes and weigh that against my own financial interests.
Taking $330 out of $5600 that is almost certain to be chopped up anyway is on it's face an easy choice when it is weighed against the reward of simply thinking of others before yourself. Doing the right thing isn't always the smartest thing, strictly by the numbers. But in the context of this tournament, nearly nine hours into a $75 buy-in event, stuffed to the gills with amateur poker enthusiasts, to make a motion to refuse such a minor safety, after the motion has been announced to the jubilation of the entire room is quite simply a dick move. And I called her on it, and the outrage across 2+2 bears out that I hit very close to home and that I am almost certainly in the right.
Could I have been nicer about it? Sure. Name calling does indeed always weaken an argument; but I've been blogging on a regular basis about poker and lots of other stuff for going on 8 years now, and what I love about it is that I can be brutally honest. More often than not I am brutally honest on myself, but occasionally if I see an injustice, I'm going to call it like I see it. A dick move is a dick move, and if the person pulling the dick move happens to be a douche about it, I'm going to call them a douche. That's just the way it is.
Anger from the other side will often focus on the name calling, because they know they are wrong about the actual issue. That's fine. They are welcome to focus on this minor point because I can sleep well at night knowing I don't bear anyone, even the dicks and douches, any real ill will. But I absolutely will not waste energy and focus trying to walk a super narrow path of righteousness when my opponents have long forsaken any sense of decorum or restraint themselves. There is a line that I won't cross in vitriol, but I am no saint and I will not beat myself up over occasional name calling, especially if it's the truth.
So anyways, I returned to L.A on Memorial Day. without the wife and munchkin, they were to stay on vacation, I had to go back to work. But before work I still had the entire evening before me - so I headed out to the Bike for their Deep Stack poker series - $135 for 18K in chips and a pretty good structure.
I knew going in that this one was a beast, we would be playing till the sun came up if I final tabled and even if I went deep it could be 2am before the money bubble burst. Still, the guarantee was 40K, so it would be a nice payday if I could get to the top half of that final table.
Alas, it was not to be as I busted 64th out of 540 runners, about ten players shy of the money.
Overall I was very happy with my play - I was fine early on with getting all my chips in pre-flop with kings, despite my experience and my gut screaming that I was indeed about to see aces (and I did, it hurt me but I still had 50 bigs or so). I was also very good with my target selection and stealing, up until I made two or three bad moves out of position against monster stacks that hurt me quite a bit. Afterwards I played the shortstack very well and simply got unlucky when my AK lost to AQ - AIPF of course.
The aforementioned bad moves were simply ill advised. I knew the blinds were set to skyrocket and it was time to accumulate, but I really needed to pick a better spot or even abstain for a few more orbits. I loved my first few tables, and managed to score a lot of chips from them, but really the table with the mistakes was more of a table of doom, and I knew it almost immediately after sitting down. The problem was, I had two factors weighing against me - 1) my stack size was medium, a perfect target and not large enough to maneuver post flop effectively, and 2) the table was top heavy with competent (ie, better than me) villains. A deadly combination that thankfully only whittled me down from just under 50 bigs to about 25.
Of course when the levels really got big, it was simply shove or fold. I did get moved to a much better table, so that kept my head above water for a long while. I'm happy to report that when I did pull the trigger I did at least have 15 bigs and hadn't waited too long to get it in. If my AK had held it would have been almost a triple up (all the antes and another short stack caller were in too) and virtually guaranteed me a min-cash.
Yes, I would have loved that, as it was indeed almost 2am when I hit the rail. But on the other hand, I'm glad I wasn't chicken shit about sticking it in. The real money is only at the end, and despite my mishandled steals at the doom table earlier, I feel I could've climbed back if I'd recovered to 40 bigs or so. Ah well. Good times, though I was pretty much dead at work the next day.
Coming up - I'm hoping to get a few more big events under my belt before the WSOP at the end of June. I missed out on Eric's game this week, but that's okay, I think he invited Babs who is one of the WSOP staked players from my home game. She needs the practice. She also did a Bike Deepstack last night and I think it was pretty worth it to go through a bigger card room event like that.
Monday, May 21, 2012
2 More Cashes
Crazy month. Two more cashes for a total of over $1000 paid to me in May.
First cash -
The aforementioned single table home game at Eric's house last Tuesday night panned out beautifully for me - mostly because I was invited, but also because I was the chip leader at the end and got a nice chop for $200 +$15 in bounties ($225 was the full 1st place prize).
I played well, stealing and bluffing just enough to not only stay ahead of the blinds but to accumulate through all stages of the very well structured and genuine 6 hour deep stack.
Eric runs a great weekly game and his garage always has good guys in it.
I would say I am one of the stronger players, but my edge isn't super big - and every time I play there I know my EV will drop just a bit as they get used to me and are adjusting each time I show up. But thankfully there are a couple of clueless exceptions who are stations and spewers of the highest order that will hopefully keep the game pretty juicy for a long time to come.
Eric, the host, is not one of these chip fountains. He is a solid player who has cashed in the WSOP and a super cool guy who has a great and open approach to hosting and playing that is infectious and fun. One of the things I really look forward to at his game, and even participate in sometimes, is the exchange of information and strategy talk.
I know, I know - why would I ever do that? Well I've talked about it before on this blog, but the short of it is - in my mind, at a home game full of friends, even more important than "making money" (which is kind of silly anyway when you're talking about bar tab stakes, and cheap bar tab stakes at that) is having fun. And the table talk at Eric's game, the genuine and sincere dissections of hands immediately after they unfold, is pure pleasure. Plus I really believe that what little info is divulged, even sometimes more than a little, has minimal impact or influence on the softer players in the game anyway. And even if it didn't, I'd still indulge. I actually get a lot out of it - not so much the thought process of my "opponents" but rather it gets me thinking about hands and optimal or different lines to take with them.
Eric's partner in crime, who helps him organize the game, is Matt, who is also one of the better players and is even more of a strategy chatter box. In fact, he's probably the grand champion - which is actually a pretty wonderful thing. I learn from him, and Eric, and I really get a big enjoyment buzz that makes the evening more than worthwhile, even the ties when at the end I am stuck $55.
On any given night both of these guys can be better than me, and the third player I'd put in that category in Eric's garage is my old poker pal Mixer. He and I have been talking poker for years, so it's a great fit. Last week Matt was chuckling at the banter between us, thinking there was some kind of rivalry - I guess in a way there is; whenever you have two players that respect each other greatly, there is a natural tendency to do your best and use every weapon at your disposal, knowing that even if you come up short you'll be glad it was against both a worthy adversary and a friend.
Last Tuesday though there was very little skill on my part on Mixer's final hand as I coolered him in sick fashion when we were on the bubble - I bet first UTG, my standard 2.5x, I had kings. Mixer looked down and casually tossed in his bounty chip - he was all in with queens and I called super quick and fast rolled my cowboys.
Not sure if I would open shove as he did, but truthfully I don't mind his line - as I recall we were both around 30-40 bigs, and with an eye on a first place finish there's not much maneuvering room post flop. If the board comes low all the monies are going in anyway - I don't think I'm ever finding a fold in that situation if he pulls the trigger on a board that doesn't have an ace on it. Not to mention that Mixer's play is for sure profitable, if I fold (as I would with any steal) that's almost 5 not insignificant big blinds. If I have a strong hand like JJ, 1010, 99, 88, AQ or AJ I'm probably calling and I'm for sure calling with with AK. He's only worried about two hands which, odds are, pretty slim that I have. For the record, I'm never folding QQ pre-flop on the bubble in a 6 hour $55 home tournament.
Later I cracked third place finisher Nick's aces in a disgusting manner when my open shove of QJ (me with 125K and him with about 20K) ran into his bullets. Running queens on the turn and river, gross. Still, correct decision on my part but got unlucky and then massively lucky. Poker is a nasty ass bitch sometimes.
And that brings me to my thoughts and concerns about Eric. He has been in a long dry spell, bereft of cashes for the last few months and I couldn't help overhear the other night after the tournament was over that he is likely to take a break for the rest of the year if he doesn't cash soon.
This makes me sad and I wish there was something I could say to get him to see the really big picture, that tournament poker is so heavily influenced by variance that even the best in the world go through long (and I mean long) fruitless stretches.
Daniel Negraneau, who despite being a bit of a douche nozzle at times, is no doubt one of the very best tournament specialists the game has to offer. He played in 33 events in last years WSOP. He cashed twice. One min cash and a deepish run in the Main. In the end he was stuck over half a million bucks. That is a hell of a lot of poker to play to come out so far behind. And this is a guy who plays the game as a full time occupation and also has natural gifts in reading people that most of us will never have.
Eric plays every other week in his house with people he knows very well, but they also know him very well too. As I said above, in time, my edge in his game will get smaller and smaller - I'd like to think it won't vanish, but at a certain point I would not be surprised whatsoever if I went a dozen or two dozen tournaments in that garage without getting a nickel. It's simply inevitable, even for the trickiest of players, that when you face the same guys over and over and over, they are going to mostly know what you are up to. Throw in a hefty dollop of bad luck, and it's not surprising at all that the bankroll takes a hit.
However, all that info really is meaningless to someone who has slipped into the dark pit of despair of poker. I've been on the brink several times in my amateur career - where premium cards seem to evaporate quicker than spit on a skillet and any move that you make seems to backfire every single time. But like that weekend warrior golfer who sucks all day but then hits a superb drive on the 15th hole and then long puts a birdie, I always manage to find a gem of a bluff or maneuver to keep me coming back for more.
And in that little glimmer of hope, amongst all the shit when I go without cashing for long stretches, I still find the fun in the game. If Eric can't find the fun, then a break is probably the best thing. But I really think the rest of the year is too drastic.
I routinely take mini-breaks (say two or even three weeks) and usually find when I return that I'm more psyched than ever to be playing. I think that if Eric stops his game for a month or so he'll probably be jonesing really hard to get back into it and quick.
Second Cash -
After a great weekend with the fam, I was granted a hall pass late Sunday afternoon to gambool it up at the Bike.
The new tournaments that they are offering, called "Quantum-Reload" are intriguing. I didn't quite grasp it from the literature, but what it basically boils down to is a single tournament with a two flight or tiered entry system; if you bust in flight A you can only re-enter in flight B.
Flight A (levels 1 & 2 blinds at 25/50 and 50/100 respectively) is $70 (including a rebuy) for 10K in chips and flight B is $115 (including a rebuy) for 14K in chips (levels 3&4 blinds at 75/150 and 100/200).
So it's a bit weird, but it's a 10K guarantee.
You can't buy more chips if you use your rebuy in flight A and don't bust, so I found myself unable to get more ammo when I was around 6K going into flight B, I chipped up a little bit and was sitting on roughly 50 bigs when the second break and the end of re-entries hit, FOUR HOURS after the tournament started.
Yes, that's not a typo. The first four levels are 55 minutes! Yikes! Afterwards, the entire tournament reverts to the typical lowstakes MTT formula of turbo-ish structure and 20 minute levels. They do it this way, I think, to give people plenty of chances to bust, re-enter, re-buy, etc. and build up the prize pool. With well over 250 runners, they easily met this number.
The result of having such a deep structure to start, is that you get a lot of hands early on and a lot of chances to speculate. Recreational players, me included, do appreciate that it gives a LOT of play value - you will get to see a ton of hands for a very low price point. I could see where a regular or semi-pro might want to avoid this one as there is a better than good chance that you can play for 8 hours and fall short of the money. Also, I'm probably never going to play one of these on a school night ever again.
Anyway, so there I was around 50 bigs after the four hour quantum-reload thing ended. But backing up just a scotch - for the first 3 hours of the 4, I found myself slipping very easily into passive and speculative poker. This was easy to do because everyone at the table was limping, with nary an aggressor to be found. Occasionally someone would three bet, but always too small and typically with a big hand.
It was cool for awhile to limp along and hope to smash some flops, but after awhile it became apparent that this was a very spewy proposition. It's one thing to occasionally flat with a small pocket pair to set mine or a suited ace to fish for flushes, but I found myself taking it further (because there was no immediate incentive not to) and really stretching the definition of the word "speculate".
Q3 sooted. 910 off suit. J8. Blech. What was I doing? It was only after about 3 hours when I realized, just how bad the players around me were, calling with hands like these and even worse, when I kind of snapped out of it and started raising. Raising large with multiple limpers, raising the sb when he limped, just raising in general instead of passively pissing chips away.
It worked. People laid their hands down time and time again - even grousing that this used to be a "friendly" table. Again, I had discovered that it truly pays to shift gears into a mode that is opposite of what the table is doing.
Like I said, I was doing okay when the re-load phase ended.
A ditzy, super skinny and blinged out 35something idiot (who happened to be African American and embodied many of the unfortunate stereotypes thereof) whom I've played with before, had the whole table on tilt (including me I'm afraid) from her incessant non-poker related chatter (including graphic sex talk, but not the good kind - the PC horseshit condoms = health care and should be provided to 7 year olds kind) and her endless slow play. If she remembered to put a blind or ante out on her own occasionally it was a shocking moment.
The news was on one of the television screens and I saw that the Lockerbie bomber had died, I mentioned to a nice lady on my left - and Ditz just had to chime in...
Her: "Who?" Me: "The Lockerbie Bomber"
"Who's that?"
"He was a terrorist who blew up a Pan Am jet in 1988, killed 270 people."
"Huh..." She said, dumbfounded. "And how do they know it was him?"
Really lady? Is it always the fault of the Po-Po? You moron. I didn't answer. She prattled on and on about "terrorists, so called..." even ending up saying that he didn't look like such a bad guy. Awesome.
Anyway, she busted in a multi-way hand with the worst of it the entire way and then got really incredulous "I knew you didn't have nothing."
Okay sweetie, that guy should remember to fold the nuts more often.
Anyway, not sure the point of the story - other than I've played with this imbecile before and I'm sure I will again, and she always makes for an interesting test. She always puts the table on edge and truly alters the game for as long as she is around, which typically isn't very.
So really I shouldn't be passing such harsh judgement on a fellow traveler - it's kind of sad really. She has no clue or wherewithal about how the world at large is. She can only see as far as her neighborhood and the admittedly sad things that go on there. And the fact that she owns this ignorance with absolutely zero shame is what truly gets to me.
I need to step back and recognize how pathetic she is and pray that she somehow finds happiness and somehow grasps the concept that other people than her exist and have thoughts and feelings and experiences that can add to, rather than distract from her own life's journey.
I moved tables, then quickly was moved again.
I hovered around 20-30 bigs for several hours with no giant hands of note in my memory. I still had just enough to fire a 2.5x and then follow up with a c-bet just under half the pot. This worked often enough that I kept my head above water. Occasionally I would just shut it down on the flop, especially if there were multiple players calling behind.
Then I was moved once more and I dipped to around 15 bigs. No real room to maneuver much if at all.
Each table move had brought me to a more and more active group and this fourth bunch was the wildest yet. There were some monster stacks here and they were not shy about being aggressive.
Particularly impressive was a hand that had a big stack four bet shoving with rags, on a squeeze move that he showed with great relish after it had worked.
This same player though made other moves that to me seemed a bit spewey. I was ready for him.
On the big blind I defended his MP 2.5x raise with A8. I still had 15 bigs behind. Heads up, the flop came ragged with an ace. I checked, he c-bet large, I shoved, he was committed and called with bottom pair. Easy double up.
A few orbits later, back down to just under 20 bigs, a nice older fellow to my left defended my SB raise into his BB.
I had nothing, but he had been super tight so I took a stab. The flop came with a king and two hearts, the perfect board to fire a second barrel for half the pot. He considered for a bit and then flat called.
At 12 or so bigs it was time to shut it down or get him off his draw - he had me covered but not by much. The turn was a black 3. I shoved.
He quickly mucked. I had read him exactly right and I got a big rush of adrenaline. He was drawing and the turn was a massive blank. I had gained another 10 big blinds and had room to standard raise again.
But this didn't last. Eventually I was back down to 15. I occasionally would open shove if the timing was right and fortunately it always was, I stole the blinds and antes every 2nd or 3rd orbit as the number of players in the tournament dropped and dropped.
At some point the light bulb went off in my head. I had been moved again, to my fifth table, and looking around at the stacks, there were a few monsters, a few like me, and some really tiny ones. They were paying 27, and there were 35 players remaining.
As much as it pained me, the realization had struck that if I kept at open shoving I could easily go busto and have spent almost 8 hours playing with nothing to show for it. If instead, I shut it down for anything less than jacks to shove and anything at kings or better to call, I stood a very decent mathematical chance at squeaking into the money for $165.
If I played this game for a living, I wouldn't give a shit. As it was, I really wanted something to show for the full work day that I had put in.
Lockdown mode worked out well. Sure enough, the teeny stacks, and even a few medium and big ones fell by the wayside. I first in shoved queens once and got no callers, so my stack was around 12 bigs when we were down to 29 players.
A motion was made to take $330 from the $5600 first place prize and pay two extra players. Motion approved! We're in the money!
But wait...
There was an objection after all. One player wasn't having it.
Okay, that's certainly their right. A little odd considering it's such a small slice of a massive first place prize, which is nearly 50% of the price pool entire and will likely be chopped up anyway, but whatever, it's not the end of the world. It's also bad form and kind of a dick move, but who cares really.
Then I heard who the person was, and it was a name I recognized.
Barbara Enright, is a member of the poker hall of fame. She was put there primarily because she is the only woman to have ever made the final table of the Main Event. She also has two bracelets, including an open event - and she was the first woman to win one of those. Good for her. A results search on the Hendon Mob shows that she hasn't been doing that fantastic of late, binking teeny cashes in teeny events, but hey, she for sure deserves to be in the hall.
So okay, good for you. So here you are in a $70 tournament full of recreational players like me who work hard all week in 9-5 jobs just so we can go out and have some fun playing poker and donate to people like you. We play for 8 hours, the money is in sight and what do you say to that?
A big "fuck you fishy" apparently. You can't see that there might be a modicum of +EV to have two more amateurs happy that night? And that there might be a hell of a lot of -EV, both in the game and outside of it, for you when word gets out that you're a miserable bag of meat who delights in making other people miserable too?
Guess not.
Most ridiculous of all, she wasn't chip leader, or anywhere close to it for that matter. Roughly 60 bigs, which was pretty puny compared to the mountainous piles around her.
The entire room was abuzz with disgust at Ms. Entright's stubborn and apparently spiteful edict, which she had insisted on AFTER the official "you've made the money" announcement was made. I got an earful from the regulars at my table how "she does this shit all the time" and how "she's a miserable old bat" who thinks of no one but herself on and off the felt.
Okay, I'm convinced.
Really, the biggest strike against her as far as I'm concerned is that visible pros, especially ones in the freakin' Poker Hall of Fame, have a very real obligation to be ambassadors of the game.
Poker is indeed a brutal sport and often ruthless, but what makes it magnificent is the flashes of generosity and honor that flare up on occasion. I have witnessed this myself many times at the table - whether it's a group of Vegas regulars digging into their own pockets to pay the tourist bubble who just busted or a crusty old dealer misreading the board and a young internet kid politely correcting him so that HIS OPPONENT would rightfully get the pot - it DOES happen, and every time it does, a little bit, a tiny bit, of the stigma that the game still carries from the riverboat days when it was known as "the cheating game", washes away.
Then a first class douche nozzle like Barbara Enright comes along and takes a big dump on that goodwill, and recreational players like the fellow across from me who did indeed turn out to the bubble walk away discouraged and bitter.
Worst of all, the bigger point is, because of Miss Enright's short sightedness, we had to go hand for hand. I've never experienced this before, in my 7 years of live tournament play, simply because nobody, not even one of the biggest chip leaders I've ever seen who literally had half the chips in play in front of him, had the classlessness to insist on boning the bubble boy.
The guy who finally busted out 28th, the aforementioned fellow across from me, was eliminated in heart wrenching fashion. Forced to go all in blind, he flopped the wheel, and lost to a higher straight on the river!
Good job Barbara Enright, hope it was worth it. That guy ain't coming back and he's going to tell every single one of his friends and family what a raging cunt you are.
And some people might even blog about it.
Anyway, back to me. We redrew for the final three tables I was moved to Miss Enright's tables, but had no interest in saying anything to her or even acknowledging her presence. She for sure sensed this from around the table, but she truly did not give a massive fuck. I do admit I have a teeny bit of respect for that, but moreso, my compassion creeps in and I feel more than a twinge of sadness for a lifelong degenerate that is so empty inside.
19-27th place would only make $165, so I happily loosened up and shoved here and there, no callers, so I kept my head above water. Then I got queens! I shoved my 8 BB stack and got called very light by a mongo stack and my hand held for a nice double up.
Now I had a real shot to make a pay jump, and by the skin of my teeth I did, booking $245 for 18th place after my first in A6 from the button was called by the big blind with 57 and turned trip 5's.
It was 130 in the morning, but I was happy - happy to have lasted and (excluding a couple of lovely moments of genius on my part) mostly folded into the money.
Recreational player happy, Barbara Enright still miserable.
Speaking of miserable, one last dreadful story.
After the bubble had burst and I was at Enright's table, there were three monster stacks down at the opposite end. It was time to color up, removing the 500's and cutting down on the sheer volume of 1000's. With most of the players gone I watched the floor do their thing with the racks and the chips.
The 3 big ass stacks each had most of their 1K chips replaced with bright yellow 10K chips, the blinds were huge, and this would make it easier for them and for everyone. Standard. All rooms do this.
The owner of the biggest stack of all came back and immediately launched into a half serious/ half typical So Cal cardroom douche = humor rant about "The sickness you guys have with touching my chips". It was explained to him that TDA rules call for it and he bitched and moaned as if he was hilarious and all casino staff were idiots. Standard So. Cal jackass / bad stand-up comedian.
So a few hands go buy. A big stack to douche's right three bets an EP raise. Douche ships it. Original raiser folds, 3 better calls and fast rolls his rockets.
Douche turns up A10!
After AA dodges a suckout douche loses his shit. Not on AA, but on the TD!
All sorts of nasty names come out and before he knows it, he's on a full round penalty. He stalks off and rants and raves to his friends near by.
What. A. Moron.
It was going to take a lot to make Barbara Enright seem like a nice and normal person by comparison, but this guy did it.
Kudos to the TD for swiftly penalizing the dick hole and then following up with a stern threat of disqualification which actually silenced the douche as he stormed off in a huff.
A casino not taking shit from a regular is a rare thing in So Cal. If the Bike would do it more often they'd have a much nicer place to play. As of now, the lack of shit taking is the exception rather than the rule, and the inmates are pretty much running the asylum. Hollywood Park is a much more civilized place to play, and that's really saying something.
Anyway, really looking forward to a fun Friday night with with home game. Thanks to my run goot, my confidence is pretty high right now and that always helps me play better.
First cash -
The aforementioned single table home game at Eric's house last Tuesday night panned out beautifully for me - mostly because I was invited, but also because I was the chip leader at the end and got a nice chop for $200 +$15 in bounties ($225 was the full 1st place prize).
I played well, stealing and bluffing just enough to not only stay ahead of the blinds but to accumulate through all stages of the very well structured and genuine 6 hour deep stack.
Eric runs a great weekly game and his garage always has good guys in it.
I would say I am one of the stronger players, but my edge isn't super big - and every time I play there I know my EV will drop just a bit as they get used to me and are adjusting each time I show up. But thankfully there are a couple of clueless exceptions who are stations and spewers of the highest order that will hopefully keep the game pretty juicy for a long time to come.
Eric, the host, is not one of these chip fountains. He is a solid player who has cashed in the WSOP and a super cool guy who has a great and open approach to hosting and playing that is infectious and fun. One of the things I really look forward to at his game, and even participate in sometimes, is the exchange of information and strategy talk.
I know, I know - why would I ever do that? Well I've talked about it before on this blog, but the short of it is - in my mind, at a home game full of friends, even more important than "making money" (which is kind of silly anyway when you're talking about bar tab stakes, and cheap bar tab stakes at that) is having fun. And the table talk at Eric's game, the genuine and sincere dissections of hands immediately after they unfold, is pure pleasure. Plus I really believe that what little info is divulged, even sometimes more than a little, has minimal impact or influence on the softer players in the game anyway. And even if it didn't, I'd still indulge. I actually get a lot out of it - not so much the thought process of my "opponents" but rather it gets me thinking about hands and optimal or different lines to take with them.
Eric's partner in crime, who helps him organize the game, is Matt, who is also one of the better players and is even more of a strategy chatter box. In fact, he's probably the grand champion - which is actually a pretty wonderful thing. I learn from him, and Eric, and I really get a big enjoyment buzz that makes the evening more than worthwhile, even the ties when at the end I am stuck $55.
On any given night both of these guys can be better than me, and the third player I'd put in that category in Eric's garage is my old poker pal Mixer. He and I have been talking poker for years, so it's a great fit. Last week Matt was chuckling at the banter between us, thinking there was some kind of rivalry - I guess in a way there is; whenever you have two players that respect each other greatly, there is a natural tendency to do your best and use every weapon at your disposal, knowing that even if you come up short you'll be glad it was against both a worthy adversary and a friend.
Last Tuesday though there was very little skill on my part on Mixer's final hand as I coolered him in sick fashion when we were on the bubble - I bet first UTG, my standard 2.5x, I had kings. Mixer looked down and casually tossed in his bounty chip - he was all in with queens and I called super quick and fast rolled my cowboys.
Not sure if I would open shove as he did, but truthfully I don't mind his line - as I recall we were both around 30-40 bigs, and with an eye on a first place finish there's not much maneuvering room post flop. If the board comes low all the monies are going in anyway - I don't think I'm ever finding a fold in that situation if he pulls the trigger on a board that doesn't have an ace on it. Not to mention that Mixer's play is for sure profitable, if I fold (as I would with any steal) that's almost 5 not insignificant big blinds. If I have a strong hand like JJ, 1010, 99, 88, AQ or AJ I'm probably calling and I'm for sure calling with with AK. He's only worried about two hands which, odds are, pretty slim that I have. For the record, I'm never folding QQ pre-flop on the bubble in a 6 hour $55 home tournament.
Later I cracked third place finisher Nick's aces in a disgusting manner when my open shove of QJ (me with 125K and him with about 20K) ran into his bullets. Running queens on the turn and river, gross. Still, correct decision on my part but got unlucky and then massively lucky. Poker is a nasty ass bitch sometimes.
And that brings me to my thoughts and concerns about Eric. He has been in a long dry spell, bereft of cashes for the last few months and I couldn't help overhear the other night after the tournament was over that he is likely to take a break for the rest of the year if he doesn't cash soon.
This makes me sad and I wish there was something I could say to get him to see the really big picture, that tournament poker is so heavily influenced by variance that even the best in the world go through long (and I mean long) fruitless stretches.
Daniel Negraneau, who despite being a bit of a douche nozzle at times, is no doubt one of the very best tournament specialists the game has to offer. He played in 33 events in last years WSOP. He cashed twice. One min cash and a deepish run in the Main. In the end he was stuck over half a million bucks. That is a hell of a lot of poker to play to come out so far behind. And this is a guy who plays the game as a full time occupation and also has natural gifts in reading people that most of us will never have.
Eric plays every other week in his house with people he knows very well, but they also know him very well too. As I said above, in time, my edge in his game will get smaller and smaller - I'd like to think it won't vanish, but at a certain point I would not be surprised whatsoever if I went a dozen or two dozen tournaments in that garage without getting a nickel. It's simply inevitable, even for the trickiest of players, that when you face the same guys over and over and over, they are going to mostly know what you are up to. Throw in a hefty dollop of bad luck, and it's not surprising at all that the bankroll takes a hit.
However, all that info really is meaningless to someone who has slipped into the dark pit of despair of poker. I've been on the brink several times in my amateur career - where premium cards seem to evaporate quicker than spit on a skillet and any move that you make seems to backfire every single time. But like that weekend warrior golfer who sucks all day but then hits a superb drive on the 15th hole and then long puts a birdie, I always manage to find a gem of a bluff or maneuver to keep me coming back for more.
And in that little glimmer of hope, amongst all the shit when I go without cashing for long stretches, I still find the fun in the game. If Eric can't find the fun, then a break is probably the best thing. But I really think the rest of the year is too drastic.
I routinely take mini-breaks (say two or even three weeks) and usually find when I return that I'm more psyched than ever to be playing. I think that if Eric stops his game for a month or so he'll probably be jonesing really hard to get back into it and quick.
Second Cash -
After a great weekend with the fam, I was granted a hall pass late Sunday afternoon to gambool it up at the Bike.
The new tournaments that they are offering, called "Quantum-Reload" are intriguing. I didn't quite grasp it from the literature, but what it basically boils down to is a single tournament with a two flight or tiered entry system; if you bust in flight A you can only re-enter in flight B.
Flight A (levels 1 & 2 blinds at 25/50 and 50/100 respectively) is $70 (including a rebuy) for 10K in chips and flight B is $115 (including a rebuy) for 14K in chips (levels 3&4 blinds at 75/150 and 100/200).
So it's a bit weird, but it's a 10K guarantee.
You can't buy more chips if you use your rebuy in flight A and don't bust, so I found myself unable to get more ammo when I was around 6K going into flight B, I chipped up a little bit and was sitting on roughly 50 bigs when the second break and the end of re-entries hit, FOUR HOURS after the tournament started.
Yes, that's not a typo. The first four levels are 55 minutes! Yikes! Afterwards, the entire tournament reverts to the typical lowstakes MTT formula of turbo-ish structure and 20 minute levels. They do it this way, I think, to give people plenty of chances to bust, re-enter, re-buy, etc. and build up the prize pool. With well over 250 runners, they easily met this number.
The result of having such a deep structure to start, is that you get a lot of hands early on and a lot of chances to speculate. Recreational players, me included, do appreciate that it gives a LOT of play value - you will get to see a ton of hands for a very low price point. I could see where a regular or semi-pro might want to avoid this one as there is a better than good chance that you can play for 8 hours and fall short of the money. Also, I'm probably never going to play one of these on a school night ever again.
Anyway, so there I was around 50 bigs after the four hour quantum-reload thing ended. But backing up just a scotch - for the first 3 hours of the 4, I found myself slipping very easily into passive and speculative poker. This was easy to do because everyone at the table was limping, with nary an aggressor to be found. Occasionally someone would three bet, but always too small and typically with a big hand.
It was cool for awhile to limp along and hope to smash some flops, but after awhile it became apparent that this was a very spewy proposition. It's one thing to occasionally flat with a small pocket pair to set mine or a suited ace to fish for flushes, but I found myself taking it further (because there was no immediate incentive not to) and really stretching the definition of the word "speculate".
Q3 sooted. 910 off suit. J8. Blech. What was I doing? It was only after about 3 hours when I realized, just how bad the players around me were, calling with hands like these and even worse, when I kind of snapped out of it and started raising. Raising large with multiple limpers, raising the sb when he limped, just raising in general instead of passively pissing chips away.
It worked. People laid their hands down time and time again - even grousing that this used to be a "friendly" table. Again, I had discovered that it truly pays to shift gears into a mode that is opposite of what the table is doing.
Like I said, I was doing okay when the re-load phase ended.
A ditzy, super skinny and blinged out 35something idiot (who happened to be African American and embodied many of the unfortunate stereotypes thereof) whom I've played with before, had the whole table on tilt (including me I'm afraid) from her incessant non-poker related chatter (including graphic sex talk, but not the good kind - the PC horseshit condoms = health care and should be provided to 7 year olds kind) and her endless slow play. If she remembered to put a blind or ante out on her own occasionally it was a shocking moment.
The news was on one of the television screens and I saw that the Lockerbie bomber had died, I mentioned to a nice lady on my left - and Ditz just had to chime in...
Her: "Who?" Me: "The Lockerbie Bomber"
"Who's that?"
"He was a terrorist who blew up a Pan Am jet in 1988, killed 270 people."
"Huh..." She said, dumbfounded. "And how do they know it was him?"
Really lady? Is it always the fault of the Po-Po? You moron. I didn't answer. She prattled on and on about "terrorists, so called..." even ending up saying that he didn't look like such a bad guy. Awesome.
Anyway, she busted in a multi-way hand with the worst of it the entire way and then got really incredulous "I knew you didn't have nothing."
Okay sweetie, that guy should remember to fold the nuts more often.
Anyway, not sure the point of the story - other than I've played with this imbecile before and I'm sure I will again, and she always makes for an interesting test. She always puts the table on edge and truly alters the game for as long as she is around, which typically isn't very.
So really I shouldn't be passing such harsh judgement on a fellow traveler - it's kind of sad really. She has no clue or wherewithal about how the world at large is. She can only see as far as her neighborhood and the admittedly sad things that go on there. And the fact that she owns this ignorance with absolutely zero shame is what truly gets to me.
I need to step back and recognize how pathetic she is and pray that she somehow finds happiness and somehow grasps the concept that other people than her exist and have thoughts and feelings and experiences that can add to, rather than distract from her own life's journey.
I moved tables, then quickly was moved again.
I hovered around 20-30 bigs for several hours with no giant hands of note in my memory. I still had just enough to fire a 2.5x and then follow up with a c-bet just under half the pot. This worked often enough that I kept my head above water. Occasionally I would just shut it down on the flop, especially if there were multiple players calling behind.
Then I was moved once more and I dipped to around 15 bigs. No real room to maneuver much if at all.
Each table move had brought me to a more and more active group and this fourth bunch was the wildest yet. There were some monster stacks here and they were not shy about being aggressive.
Particularly impressive was a hand that had a big stack four bet shoving with rags, on a squeeze move that he showed with great relish after it had worked.
This same player though made other moves that to me seemed a bit spewey. I was ready for him.
On the big blind I defended his MP 2.5x raise with A8. I still had 15 bigs behind. Heads up, the flop came ragged with an ace. I checked, he c-bet large, I shoved, he was committed and called with bottom pair. Easy double up.
A few orbits later, back down to just under 20 bigs, a nice older fellow to my left defended my SB raise into his BB.
I had nothing, but he had been super tight so I took a stab. The flop came with a king and two hearts, the perfect board to fire a second barrel for half the pot. He considered for a bit and then flat called.
At 12 or so bigs it was time to shut it down or get him off his draw - he had me covered but not by much. The turn was a black 3. I shoved.
He quickly mucked. I had read him exactly right and I got a big rush of adrenaline. He was drawing and the turn was a massive blank. I had gained another 10 big blinds and had room to standard raise again.
But this didn't last. Eventually I was back down to 15. I occasionally would open shove if the timing was right and fortunately it always was, I stole the blinds and antes every 2nd or 3rd orbit as the number of players in the tournament dropped and dropped.
At some point the light bulb went off in my head. I had been moved again, to my fifth table, and looking around at the stacks, there were a few monsters, a few like me, and some really tiny ones. They were paying 27, and there were 35 players remaining.
As much as it pained me, the realization had struck that if I kept at open shoving I could easily go busto and have spent almost 8 hours playing with nothing to show for it. If instead, I shut it down for anything less than jacks to shove and anything at kings or better to call, I stood a very decent mathematical chance at squeaking into the money for $165.
If I played this game for a living, I wouldn't give a shit. As it was, I really wanted something to show for the full work day that I had put in.
Lockdown mode worked out well. Sure enough, the teeny stacks, and even a few medium and big ones fell by the wayside. I first in shoved queens once and got no callers, so my stack was around 12 bigs when we were down to 29 players.
A motion was made to take $330 from the $5600 first place prize and pay two extra players. Motion approved! We're in the money!
But wait...
There was an objection after all. One player wasn't having it.
Okay, that's certainly their right. A little odd considering it's such a small slice of a massive first place prize, which is nearly 50% of the price pool entire and will likely be chopped up anyway, but whatever, it's not the end of the world. It's also bad form and kind of a dick move, but who cares really.
Then I heard who the person was, and it was a name I recognized.
Barbara Enright, is a member of the poker hall of fame. She was put there primarily because she is the only woman to have ever made the final table of the Main Event. She also has two bracelets, including an open event - and she was the first woman to win one of those. Good for her. A results search on the Hendon Mob shows that she hasn't been doing that fantastic of late, binking teeny cashes in teeny events, but hey, she for sure deserves to be in the hall.
So okay, good for you. So here you are in a $70 tournament full of recreational players like me who work hard all week in 9-5 jobs just so we can go out and have some fun playing poker and donate to people like you. We play for 8 hours, the money is in sight and what do you say to that?
A big "fuck you fishy" apparently. You can't see that there might be a modicum of +EV to have two more amateurs happy that night? And that there might be a hell of a lot of -EV, both in the game and outside of it, for you when word gets out that you're a miserable bag of meat who delights in making other people miserable too?
Guess not.
Most ridiculous of all, she wasn't chip leader, or anywhere close to it for that matter. Roughly 60 bigs, which was pretty puny compared to the mountainous piles around her.
The entire room was abuzz with disgust at Ms. Entright's stubborn and apparently spiteful edict, which she had insisted on AFTER the official "you've made the money" announcement was made. I got an earful from the regulars at my table how "she does this shit all the time" and how "she's a miserable old bat" who thinks of no one but herself on and off the felt.
Okay, I'm convinced.
Really, the biggest strike against her as far as I'm concerned is that visible pros, especially ones in the freakin' Poker Hall of Fame, have a very real obligation to be ambassadors of the game.
Poker is indeed a brutal sport and often ruthless, but what makes it magnificent is the flashes of generosity and honor that flare up on occasion. I have witnessed this myself many times at the table - whether it's a group of Vegas regulars digging into their own pockets to pay the tourist bubble who just busted or a crusty old dealer misreading the board and a young internet kid politely correcting him so that HIS OPPONENT would rightfully get the pot - it DOES happen, and every time it does, a little bit, a tiny bit, of the stigma that the game still carries from the riverboat days when it was known as "the cheating game", washes away.
Then a first class douche nozzle like Barbara Enright comes along and takes a big dump on that goodwill, and recreational players like the fellow across from me who did indeed turn out to the bubble walk away discouraged and bitter.
Worst of all, the bigger point is, because of Miss Enright's short sightedness, we had to go hand for hand. I've never experienced this before, in my 7 years of live tournament play, simply because nobody, not even one of the biggest chip leaders I've ever seen who literally had half the chips in play in front of him, had the classlessness to insist on boning the bubble boy.
The guy who finally busted out 28th, the aforementioned fellow across from me, was eliminated in heart wrenching fashion. Forced to go all in blind, he flopped the wheel, and lost to a higher straight on the river!
Good job Barbara Enright, hope it was worth it. That guy ain't coming back and he's going to tell every single one of his friends and family what a raging cunt you are.
And some people might even blog about it.
Anyway, back to me. We redrew for the final three tables I was moved to Miss Enright's tables, but had no interest in saying anything to her or even acknowledging her presence. She for sure sensed this from around the table, but she truly did not give a massive fuck. I do admit I have a teeny bit of respect for that, but moreso, my compassion creeps in and I feel more than a twinge of sadness for a lifelong degenerate that is so empty inside.
19-27th place would only make $165, so I happily loosened up and shoved here and there, no callers, so I kept my head above water. Then I got queens! I shoved my 8 BB stack and got called very light by a mongo stack and my hand held for a nice double up.
Now I had a real shot to make a pay jump, and by the skin of my teeth I did, booking $245 for 18th place after my first in A6 from the button was called by the big blind with 57 and turned trip 5's.
It was 130 in the morning, but I was happy - happy to have lasted and (excluding a couple of lovely moments of genius on my part) mostly folded into the money.
Recreational player happy, Barbara Enright still miserable.
Speaking of miserable, one last dreadful story.
After the bubble had burst and I was at Enright's table, there were three monster stacks down at the opposite end. It was time to color up, removing the 500's and cutting down on the sheer volume of 1000's. With most of the players gone I watched the floor do their thing with the racks and the chips.
The 3 big ass stacks each had most of their 1K chips replaced with bright yellow 10K chips, the blinds were huge, and this would make it easier for them and for everyone. Standard. All rooms do this.
The owner of the biggest stack of all came back and immediately launched into a half serious/ half typical So Cal cardroom douche = humor rant about "The sickness you guys have with touching my chips". It was explained to him that TDA rules call for it and he bitched and moaned as if he was hilarious and all casino staff were idiots. Standard So. Cal jackass / bad stand-up comedian.
So a few hands go buy. A big stack to douche's right three bets an EP raise. Douche ships it. Original raiser folds, 3 better calls and fast rolls his rockets.
Douche turns up A10!
After AA dodges a suckout douche loses his shit. Not on AA, but on the TD!
All sorts of nasty names come out and before he knows it, he's on a full round penalty. He stalks off and rants and raves to his friends near by.
What. A. Moron.
It was going to take a lot to make Barbara Enright seem like a nice and normal person by comparison, but this guy did it.
Kudos to the TD for swiftly penalizing the dick hole and then following up with a stern threat of disqualification which actually silenced the douche as he stormed off in a huff.
A casino not taking shit from a regular is a rare thing in So Cal. If the Bike would do it more often they'd have a much nicer place to play. As of now, the lack of shit taking is the exception rather than the rule, and the inmates are pretty much running the asylum. Hollywood Park is a much more civilized place to play, and that's really saying something.
Anyway, really looking forward to a fun Friday night with with home game. Thanks to my run goot, my confidence is pretty high right now and that always helps me play better.
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