That's what I inevitably hear when I'm playing a tournament and I fire chips into a 'dry' side pot.
I sincerely believe that each situation where one player is all-in and others are still active is different and should be treated on it's own merit.
But I am certainly not a player who believes, as the vast majority of recreational players do, that when in a tournament if one player is all-in in a multi-way hand that the players who still have chips should ALWAYS check it down.
It really does depend, and quite often there is great merit to blasting away.
Here are the reasons players give for always checking it down.
1 - One less player in the tournament means you are that much closer to the money.
2 - You could make me fold the winning hand.
3 - If we are on the bubble, either to make the money or a big pay jump, you are costing yourself $.
I can not only refute every one of these answers, I can actually see these 'reasons' as great arguments for blasting away into that 'dry' side pot.
1 - CLOSER TO THE MONEY
This is probably the weakest argument for not betting into a side pot, especially if we are well away from the money, especially if there are a ton of players in the tournament.
When deciding whether or not if I should bet to try to get my opponent to fold when another player is all in, the first thing I ask myself is "Am I ahead the all in players range?" (In other words, what hands does the all-in player have versus what hands do I have) If my hands are overall stronger, then I will very likely bet; that I may miss out on getting 'one player closer to the money' is a very minor concern when there are a gang of players between me and a cash. I'd rather have the chips.
2 - BUT I FOLDED A WINNER!
Yes, I can make you fold the winning hand, in poker, imagine that! This reason is the very pinnacle of level 1 thinking, the recreational player who pretty much only thinks of the cards that he has.
This actually gives me another reason to bet -
If there's any chance I am ahead of the all-in player then I will jump at the chance to get the player who still has chips to lay his hand down, especially if I know he will be tilted by it.
I never try to tilt players by behaving badly either by word or action, but I do seek to tilt them by my style of play. I strive to be the guy who never wants to fold his big blind and who will 3 bet from the cutoff and button and the blinds with a good amount of hands other than premiums, among many other exasperating and aggravating playing tendencies.
If I think I can get you off of hands often enough I'm going to go out of my way to get into pots with you. If I think you are an emotional player, I'm going to go out of my way to get into pots with you. If I know you are dying to cash... well, you get the idea.
3 - BUBBLE TIME
This is the strongest argument for everyone to silently collude. But the way I see it, quite often I can turn this argument on it's head.
Whenever I find myself lucky enough to be deep in chips on the bubble (in the money/pay jump/final table) of a tournament, I absolutely 100% want to PROLONG the bubble as much as I possibly can. When you have a big stack the bubble is by far the best and easiest time there is in tournament poker to easily accumulate chips with little or no risk. Why in a million years would I ever want that to end?
Now if I find myself on the nub, yes I am going to want to check it down with another player all in - but if a big stack carves out chips and gets me off of my middle pair and all he has is king high, I have zero right to be irritated with him. I would do exactly the same thing.
In fact, I have - even knowing that I was likely behind the range of the all in player. Giving up a small amount of chips is well worth it to prolong the period of time that I can pillage away to my hearts content.
Bottom Line - to fire or not to fire at a dry side pot - it depends. And it depends ENTIRELY on what is in my best interest. Poker is selfish that way.
So that's really my thoughts on this. I'd love to hear what you all think! There's a gazillion ways to play this game - a few are entirely incorrect, but most have at least some merit and good arguments to be made on their behalf.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Friday, July 14, 2017
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
WSOP 2017
Another year another epic journey to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas!
This time around, for the first time ever, it actually wasn't a furnace - aka a hairdryer in my face. Vegas was a lovely 82 degrees when I arrived late Friday night at the Rio.
The bad news - I tried to check in and was told that the tower my room in was closed for "a bacteria issue in the water" and that I would be moved to the Flamingo.
The good news - it meant my room was now free. Sounds good to me!
Bad news, I got to the Flamingo (courtesy of cab fair provided by the Rio) and there were at least 300 people in line in the same boat I was in trying to check in. It was 1am.
The good news - I said screw this noise and got in the empty Platinum status line, got called up to the counter and just pretended that I belonged. "Hi there, they just sent me from the Rio!" I chirped. My ruse worked. Checked in in 10 minutes and fast asleep five minutes after that in a brand new "Go" room with a strip view.
Morning came early and I was off to gamble - since I was in the neighborhood I hit up one of my old reliable haunts.
Unfortunately my usual run-good in the ultra crap structured Harrah's turbo was absent - and I was out in just over an hour. I snapped what would be a recurring photo, in black and white in tribute to YouTube poker Vlogger Jeff Boski. Check out his awesome Vlog if you get a chance!
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| And we are out! |
I ran up my stack quickly, though with 50 runners the field was surprisingly capable, not the usual super soft recreational field I usually find at the "timewarp" that is the Mirage.
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| Easy game. |
So then as dinner approached, I made my way to El Rio.
It was great to be back and wandering the familiar halls. But this year things were shifted around a bit, the mother ship was moved from the Amazon to the Brasilia.
The room was a wee bit cozier, but really the difference wasn't that noticeable.
Definitely noticeable was this thing in the Pavillion -
This was a high stakes cash game area, which really amounted to what has been in this spot in years past. Crazy big ass cash games, with black, purple and sometimes yellow and cranberry chips flying in every direction. It's pretty crazy to look over and see games where the average stack could buy you into the main event several times over. Whenever I get delusions of playing this game for anything more than fun, I just watch degenerates like these slinging yellow frisbees (that would be 1K cash chips) around like they mean nothing. Cray cray.
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| Poker nerd sighting - Mercier the BEAST. |
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| Lobot shows no mercy. |
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| Tournament poker - thy name is beatch. |
I almost didn't pull the trigger the next day, but in the end, the gorgeous sight of 3000 poker players, all with million dollar dreams floating in the ether, was too much for me to take and I bit the bullet.
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| Cool right on the rail so all my buddies can watch the action! Oh wait... |
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Two of the fellows were aspiring pros, but both were spewy and I predicted they would be gone with in an hour or two. Glad to say I was 100% right. Everyone else was purely recreational and I managed to build up chips quickly.
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| From this... |
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| ...to this! |
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| The dealer was a little Dusty. |
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| #bagandmovetotheotherroom |
Alas, my table in the amazon was a true table of doom. It's not that the players were all that great, but at least 4 of them had gargantuan piles of chips and they were all boisterous and opening basically every hand.
It's tough to make moves when one is utterly card dead as I was, but it's basically impossible when you are surrounded by maniacs with mountains of chips.
The next hour and a half was about the most miserable time I've ever experienced at a poker table. A real shame because the day had started out so promisingly. In the second hour I ran a double barrel bluff against a regular that I recognized from the Bike, and it got through. Absolutely awesome and a highlight poker-wise for the trip.
But now I was 37, 63, Q2, etc. etc. etc. and everyone was catching premiums left and right.
I finally had to take a stand with 10s7s in middle position with 7 big blinds. Normally I would never wait that long to get it in - but I had been genuinely bereft of anything playable. I got it in first and promptly ran into AA. The End.
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| F U Poker. |
I've got a big trip to Europe coming up with the family here in another week, so my summer had already been booked. I was only able to get away to Vegas for 2 days. In other words, had I made it to day 2 I would've had to call in sick to work, which I really didn't want to do. What does that say about my state of mind in approaching the Millionaire Maker? It says to me that this is the WRONG place to be mentally.
Next year, if I have a massive vacation planned in June or July, I will not be playing in a four figure entry event - perhaps a $235 deep stack or two, but not a bracelet tournament. If my summer is pretty open, then yes, I will throw down the big bucks for a big score - and I will book my room in anticipation of making the final table. If I somehow fall short, I will still be in town to play the deep stacks and enjoy myself.
So farewell for 2017 WSOP - next time I will be in a better state to get down to business and rock it no matter what you throw at me. Once again, a lesson learned by me!
The good news was for Sunday night, that my room was now available at the Rio.
The bad news was - I found out online that the reason the tower had been closed was for Legionnaires Disease. Google that one if you want a good laugh.
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| Not ominous at all. Sleep well! |
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
Man with a Plan
Once again the World Series of Poker is fast approaching - and I'm blessed enough in life and in bankroll right now to be able to take a shot.
I blew up spectacularly in my home game's WSOP Satellite Series - quite literally gave my chips away in the Step 2 Championship tournament - but that's another story, so this time around I will be fronting my own entry almost entirely.
I say almost because I do have one backer, my dear friend Sven who has bought 15% of my entry into my bracelet event. That event this year will be my first ever Millionaire Maker, a Saturday bracelet event in June that boasts a guaranteed first place prize of at least a million smackers.
In preparation for this event - I've decided to reapply myself to playing tournaments on a more regular basis. Up until this week I've been well off my usual pace of a hundred live tournaments a year. This is good because I've had more balance in my life and all - but for the WSOP on mostly my own dime, I really want to bear down for a few weeks until it's time to go to the big dance.
So the plan is - two tournaments during the week, Tues and Thurs nights, at Hollywood Park. It's a cheap tournament, with enough decent regulars to make it worth my while in terms of getting sharp, staying aggressive and being practiced in live poker.
In addition to this, I also will be hitting my own Friday night Sit-N-Gos in my garage, always a lot of fun and a different vibe than going to a casino - but it will likely be very beneficial to my confidence as I tend to do very well in my home game (satellites excepted of course!).
Beyond that, I also have a Moose Lodge game this Saturday, and I've also got my eyeball on a Survivor event at the Bike two weeks from tomorrow night. It will be a nice change of pace and probably more in line with what my level of aggression will end up being in Vegas. Both in Vegas and at the Bike, the field will likely be tougher, and my stack will likely be shorter throughout - it will be a good thing to do.
So all told by my count it will likely be 10 tournaments between now and Saturday June 10, the date of the Milly Maker. Hopefully that will knock off the dust and rust, and hopefully I will play and run well enough to have a good amount of confidence going in.
If and when I bust from this event, I will have to take stock on how I am feeling - if I make the money and am up, or if I feel I played really well, I might just treat myself to something I've always wanted to do - play in a mixed game tournament at the WSOP.
Now I know what you're thinking, and yes I agree with you, I'm dead money in such an event. BUT, there are two factors that weigh heavily on my mind. I have actually played in enough mixed game tournaments over the years to know that they are incredibly card-centric and that luck is a much bigger factor than with no-limit games. Everyone is stupidly deep for hours, and then suddenly everyone is stupidly shallow. As long as I remember to make good decisions, they don't even have to be great, and to re-raise a lot when the cards demand it, I think I can hang.
The second factor is this - last year I walked through the Brasilia room during the $1500 eight game mix tournament, and every single active tournament professional that you could ever think of was playing in that tournament. They were all bracelet hunting, and I know that if I sit down in this tournament, I am almost guaranteed to be up against one or more recognizable opponents. Translation - even if I stink and bust early, I'm likely to have a story for the ages. It's not that I'm that star-struck, but it would be great to be able to tell my grandkids about when I stared down Phil Hellmuth and then folded like a little bitch.
If I don't feel like I played well in the Milly Maker, I will likely just go home or failing that (if the airfare's too expensive to change) I will simply throw down in the 2pm Deepstack on Sunday. These turbos are always good for a dream that is inevitably dashed upon the rocks of 12 big blinds or less after the second break.
Yes, it's World Series time I'm so gosh darn excited. Can't wait to go!
I blew up spectacularly in my home game's WSOP Satellite Series - quite literally gave my chips away in the Step 2 Championship tournament - but that's another story, so this time around I will be fronting my own entry almost entirely.
I say almost because I do have one backer, my dear friend Sven who has bought 15% of my entry into my bracelet event. That event this year will be my first ever Millionaire Maker, a Saturday bracelet event in June that boasts a guaranteed first place prize of at least a million smackers.
In preparation for this event - I've decided to reapply myself to playing tournaments on a more regular basis. Up until this week I've been well off my usual pace of a hundred live tournaments a year. This is good because I've had more balance in my life and all - but for the WSOP on mostly my own dime, I really want to bear down for a few weeks until it's time to go to the big dance.
So the plan is - two tournaments during the week, Tues and Thurs nights, at Hollywood Park. It's a cheap tournament, with enough decent regulars to make it worth my while in terms of getting sharp, staying aggressive and being practiced in live poker.
In addition to this, I also will be hitting my own Friday night Sit-N-Gos in my garage, always a lot of fun and a different vibe than going to a casino - but it will likely be very beneficial to my confidence as I tend to do very well in my home game (satellites excepted of course!).
Beyond that, I also have a Moose Lodge game this Saturday, and I've also got my eyeball on a Survivor event at the Bike two weeks from tomorrow night. It will be a nice change of pace and probably more in line with what my level of aggression will end up being in Vegas. Both in Vegas and at the Bike, the field will likely be tougher, and my stack will likely be shorter throughout - it will be a good thing to do.
So all told by my count it will likely be 10 tournaments between now and Saturday June 10, the date of the Milly Maker. Hopefully that will knock off the dust and rust, and hopefully I will play and run well enough to have a good amount of confidence going in.
If and when I bust from this event, I will have to take stock on how I am feeling - if I make the money and am up, or if I feel I played really well, I might just treat myself to something I've always wanted to do - play in a mixed game tournament at the WSOP.
Now I know what you're thinking, and yes I agree with you, I'm dead money in such an event. BUT, there are two factors that weigh heavily on my mind. I have actually played in enough mixed game tournaments over the years to know that they are incredibly card-centric and that luck is a much bigger factor than with no-limit games. Everyone is stupidly deep for hours, and then suddenly everyone is stupidly shallow. As long as I remember to make good decisions, they don't even have to be great, and to re-raise a lot when the cards demand it, I think I can hang.
The second factor is this - last year I walked through the Brasilia room during the $1500 eight game mix tournament, and every single active tournament professional that you could ever think of was playing in that tournament. They were all bracelet hunting, and I know that if I sit down in this tournament, I am almost guaranteed to be up against one or more recognizable opponents. Translation - even if I stink and bust early, I'm likely to have a story for the ages. It's not that I'm that star-struck, but it would be great to be able to tell my grandkids about when I stared down Phil Hellmuth and then folded like a little bitch.
If I don't feel like I played well in the Milly Maker, I will likely just go home or failing that (if the airfare's too expensive to change) I will simply throw down in the 2pm Deepstack on Sunday. These turbos are always good for a dream that is inevitably dashed upon the rocks of 12 big blinds or less after the second break.
Yes, it's World Series time I'm so gosh darn excited. Can't wait to go!
Friday, March 24, 2017
Vegas Bender Spring 2017 - March Madness! PART 2 of 2
Morning came early and I dragged myself downstairs for some overpriced and over processed breakfast at the cafeteria style eatery at Harrah's. Orange juice and a jumbo blueberry muffin - the breakfast of champions.
I met up with A8Fold at Treasure Island - or T.I. as the hipsters call it, for a change of scenery and some fresh meat, er, fresh faces. On the way over I had some time to kill and happened to wander into the lobby/gift shop of an exhibit called Marvel's Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. It looked pretty cool, these fellows were rather buff...
I made a mental note to bring the kid on Monday as she and her mom were driving out for spring break. (It did happen, and we had fun, though sadly it was drastically overpriced for what it was - a slick but short walk amongst props, costumes and fictional "exhibits". I would have much preferred a behind the scenes look at the making of the movies, rather than a comic book universe setting that pretends that this stuff is real. The kid, who is a pretty big MCU fan, liked it but didn't love it. Wife was irritated.)
And so we sat down for some morning degeneracy. Yes, this was another turbo - a $50 chance to maybe win a couple hundred bucks. There was literally two tables of players.
Still, it was a lot of fun. A8Fold was at the same table which was a kick. But unfortunately he soon found himself with a chip and a chair, literally.
The good news is that he and the regular on my left both picked up very early that I was a capable recreational player, as opposed to the rest of our table which was a group of typical home gamers. None of us said one word to each other about it, but very early on there was an unspoken understanding that we weren't going to be getting involved with each other unless there were big hands running into each other.
When Casey would open, I would almost always fold. One time I three bet him with KK, and I made sure to show after he had folded and the hand was over. The guy on my left would literally open every hand that Casey and I had folded - except once he did three bet me, and showed AQ when I let my hand go. I'd had KJ.
Intentional collusion is a bad thing at the poker table, but when it's completely unspoken it can work out to be very helpful. They didn't want to tangle with me or each other and the feeling was mutual and we really didn't at all, save for the occasional time when the cards demanded it.
The reg on my left eventually got too active and spewy and made his exit. A short while later Casey got coolered and crippled with QQ vs KK and was out on the very next hand - I had to call him with A10. And with that I was much more free to get a lot more active as the final table approached.
We'd had 57 runners, including A8Fold who was still in - and just as 1am approached it was final table time.
I had generated quite a stack and was the chip leader at my old table - it had been easy to accumulate simply by staying active and following through with c-bets. Players were almost entirely 'fit or fold' types, which made it easy to drag a pot or let it go if they resisted.
But at the final table I was not the big cheese. A soft spoken kid had a literal Mount Chip-more, a massively prohibitive stack that had me at 4 to 1 and the rest of the table at 6, 8 or even 10 to 1.
The bubble approached super fast. Unfortunately mega-stack was directly to my left, so I had to fold quite a bit, as he loved to flat my opens and fire if I slowed down at all. After about half an hour when we were two from the money, he knocked out two micro stacks and we were in the monies with five players remaining.
I had gotten fairly short with 15 big blinds or so, I was still second in chips - I had been keeping my head above water by looking for good spots to 3 bet jam. I knew it was only a matter of time before big stack looked me up light. Thankfully it came right after the bubble burst, he called my AJ with A7 and I mercifully avoided a suck out. Now I was 30 bigs and his chip lead had shrunk by quite a bit to where he had me at a bit more than 2 to 1.
The two tiniest stacks fell pretty quickly, I busted one with AA. He had been waiting forever, literally hadn't played a hand and then finally shoved with AK. My bullets held and we all got to hear how much he hates AK for about 20 minutes. Even after he got up and shook hands, even after he had been payed out. It never gets old and is always enjoyable.
So with three of us left, big stack (who had me quite a bit less than 2 to 1) and a friendly fellow who barely spoke English - my thoughts turned to a chop. But before I could mention it, the friendly fellow brought it up. The kid wasn't having it, he was very nice and very naive; he said "I've never been in this position before, I want to play it out." I said that was fine but there were only 28 big blinds on the table total and we would each get $695 if we divided it up. He still declined and I smiled and said okay, and I didn't mention it again. Friendly fellow was pretty annoyed with the kid.
The very next hand I looked down at KK and opened from the button. The kid carved out chips and three bet me very large. Hallelujah, was all I could think. Please let him have 1010, JJ, QQ or AK or even AQ, any of those hands and all the chips are going in. I took a moment and four bet shoved, he snap called.
For an instant I was worried about AA, but then he turned over...
Wait for it....
K3. Suited.
I was fairly aghast. This was a side I hadn't seen from this kid before, and I really liked it.
The board bricked out and he was crippled. I had the chip lead now and it was fairly substantial. The very next hand he was out when he threw his chips in blind and the friendly fellow and I called and checked it down. I rivered a jack with my KJ sooted and the kid was gone.
I shook his hand, he had offered it to me, and wished him a good night. Then I looked at the friendly fellow and before he could open his mouth I made the karate chop motion with my hand on the rail. He got a huge grin across his face before extending his hand to mind. We each took home $885.
This was technically my second takedown according to my dubious qualifications, but it really did feel like I had won it. We finished heads up and I had a 3 to 1 chip lead, but there were literally 28 big blinds on the table total and the blinds were set to double in a few minutes. I know I made a +EV decision to divide it up. We both made $200 better than second place money. Nice!
For the third night in a row I climbed into bed super happy, too tired to do anything but sit down to that big poker table in my dreams. You know, the one that includes the anteater from the Pink Panther cartoon, Donald Trump, an ex-girlfriend and the oldest dealer at the Mirage. Sweet sweet dreams.
*****
For once I slept in a little bit. I figured there was no way I was going to make the Monte Carlo. I had planned to go to the 9am Sunday morning tournament to pay my respects and say goodbye. The room closes on April 24. We are down from a high of 25 poker rooms in Vegas in 2008, to just 18 only eight years later. The game isn't truly dying, but it is definitely cooling off.
But as I made my way down in the elevator for breakfast, I looked at pokeratlas.com and saw that the Sunday morning tournament at M.C. was no longer at 9am - it was at 11. I could make it.
I hustled my bustle on over, taking the east sidewalk route all the way to the entrance of the casino - the shortest walk, but in the glare of the sun, and made it with half an hour to spare. A8Fold managed to meet me there right before the tournament started. It was on like Donkey Kong!
There was only 1 table, and 11 entries. Barely any money at stake. Everyone, as usual at M.C. was super friendly and super chill. Holly, the cantankerous but sweet dealer who is probably older than all of the hotels on the strip, was in a bittersweet mood as she lamented losing her job and saying goodbye to her colleagues which were also her true friends.
To my right was a French woman who literally had never played poker before. Her British husband on my left helped her along through her betting options. One player in the 10 seat across from me (I was in the 7) started to grouse and was promptly scolded by Holly. She was absolutely right to say, "If you've never played poker before, you are in the absolute best room in the world by far to give it a go." Yep, this was the time and the place. The grouser shut his trap.
French lady was the first to bust. A8Fold got a bit unlucky as I recall and busted out as the money approached, but he seemed happy enough to go play cash. An Irish gentleman, or rather an Irish dude (maybe 25 years old at most) had an incredibly thick brogue and was hard to understand, but the whole table did get that he was hitting on Holly. She was absolutely cracking up. I texted to A8Fold before he busted - "Irish guy is rock hard". A8 had to stifle his laughter. It was very funny, but also kind of gross and creepy because the Irish dude was deep down pretty serious that he would take Holly home given half the chance. Ew.
In the end they were paying 2. There was so little money involved that I didn't mention a bubble safety and neither did anyone else. It came down to me, the English man and the Irish dude. English man folded way way way too much - and had less than one big blind a couple of times that he was forced to put in. He doubled up once, then twice, then busted out when my 87 sooted cracked his pocket 10s.
Irish dude got a little mad at me when I called his all in bet without looking and this hand cracked his K8...
I simply smiled and said "You're right, I probably should've looked." He said "No worries" (at least I think that's what he said) and seemed happy enough with his hundred and something dollar 2nd place money. I myself got $290 I believe - and got the satisfaction of actually taking down a casino tournament for the first time in my life. I've always chopped before, this time I had so many chips that no one including myself bothered to suggest it. GG me.
It was just after noon and we made our way over to Bellagio to plunk down $200 for the 2pm 'Shot Clock' tournament.
Let me just say this once - SHOT CLOCK IN POKER = BEST THING EVER.
I truly believe it is the future of the game. I made sure to loudly and frequently praise the format to everyone around me. It was truly great that all of the potentially slow and absent minded players had a fire under them in the threat of their hand being killed. They all to a man were forced to pay attention and act within a reasonable time frame. Loved it, loved it, LOVED IT.
Speaking of great things - I played the best poker I had played all weekend in this one. Follow along with the chippies...
My table was soft but not T.I. soft. Still, I stayed active and got involved and made correct decision after correct decision. Busting a swarthy regular on my left who turned beet red when one of my 17 outs hit on the turn after all the chips had gone in. "You are very lucky my friend." he grumbled as he stormed off. "Yes sir, I am, and the harder I work on my game the luckier I seem to get." Is what I would've said if I had been the type to do so.
So as you can see from above - I made the final table; and I was third in chips at that point. Two very good players were on my right, so I was able to tread water pretty well. They were only paying four and there were 7 of us left. I had just dipped below 15 big blinds and I knew I needed a double up for a chance at the cheddar on top, almost 5K for first place. I ripped with 44 on the button, and got called by A7 by the friendly but spacey recreational in the small blind. This was for most of his chips, he barely had me covered. A seven on the turn and that was that.
Sigh. I was disappointed but it was okay. I shook hands and turned away to go tell A8Fold who was playing cash. Out of the corner of my eye I could see them all of the sudden launch into a chop discussion. They were still two from the money so I figured they were talking a double bubble safety, mildly disappointing but not crazy.
Well that's not what they were discussing - they were discussing chopping up all the money. Paying 6 instead of four. I felt a bit sick to my stomach as they came to an agreement. The two big chip leaders divided up first place money and each got just over 2K, the remaining four divided the remaining two payouts evenly, getting just over 900 apiece.
Well that sucks. Had I known I was actually on the bubble, I would've found a fold with 44. ICM is just too big to ignore in such a situation. But none of these guys knew each other as far as I could tell, and literally not one word had been mentioned by anyone about any kind of deal until I had stood up. Bummer. Ah well.
And so that was it for me officially for poker. A8Fold talked me into the 10pm Mirage, so I played, but my mind was elsewhere and I had decided not to count my results, even if I cashed.
All told I finished up almost $1000 in profit, a record for me in Vegas for a weekend of play.
I am super super happy with my play - I feel my game is stronger than it's ever been. This last Wednesday night I got invited to a new home game, I promptly sat down and laid waste to all 8 of my friendly recreational opponents. I suggested an even chop with the host when we got heads up, he gratefully accepted as I had a 2 to 1 chip lead. I do want to be invited back after all.
If you're still here I want to thank you so much for reading. I truly get a lot of enjoyment out of putting all my poker experiences to paper - er... computer screen, and I am very much looking forward to my next adventure on the felt. Looks like it's going to be at the WSOP, the second weekend in June for the Millionaire Maker, regardless of whether I win my home game's satellite or not. I've got enough cheddar now to justify the entry fee - I am very much looking forward to a larger bracelet event.
In the meantime I have my home game's monthly tomorrow night - I don't plan on bulldozing people, but hopefully I can make enough good decisions and that just might be the result.
I met up with A8Fold at Treasure Island - or T.I. as the hipsters call it, for a change of scenery and some fresh meat, er, fresh faces. On the way over I had some time to kill and happened to wander into the lobby/gift shop of an exhibit called Marvel's Avengers S.T.A.T.I.O.N. It looked pretty cool, these fellows were rather buff...
Look who I ran into at T. I.! #avengersassemble pic.twitter.com/m0EG90DwuT— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
I made a mental note to bring the kid on Monday as she and her mom were driving out for spring break. (It did happen, and we had fun, though sadly it was drastically overpriced for what it was - a slick but short walk amongst props, costumes and fictional "exhibits". I would have much preferred a behind the scenes look at the making of the movies, rather than a comic book universe setting that pretends that this stuff is real. The kid, who is a pretty big MCU fan, liked it but didn't love it. Wife was irritated.)
And so we sat down for some morning degeneracy. Yes, this was another turbo - a $50 chance to maybe win a couple hundred bucks. There was literally two tables of players.
— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
Still, it was a lot of fun. A8Fold was at the same table which was a kick. But unfortunately he soon found himself with a chip and a chair, literally.
I managed to hold on for quite a bit longer - running up my stack quite a bit.
I on the other hand... #horseshoeupmybutt pic.twitter.com/yzjCuQZVwc— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
Unfortunately it was not to be another cash. I played well but got massively unlucky twice, once colliding my AK into AA with the only other big stack at the table - which was the final table and no one was deep, and finally going out when my JJ ran into QQ.
Still it was a good time and I knew if we returned for the 10pm there would be a lot more players - the brush informed me that they'd had 58 on Friday night.
It was after 2pm and we found ourself at that odd time when there were no desirable tournaments running, so we grabbed some food and took a long walk through the Caesar's shops. Mike Tyson was at the sports collectable store and there was a massive line to see him. Great. Celebrate a convicted rapist everyone! Awesome!
Finally 7pm rolled around and we ponied up for a non-Bounty Mirage tournament.
This is the tournament I remember the least - but I can tell you that this was the first time that I never ran up a stack. I was under my starting chips the whole time and completely unable to accumulate. A good amount of this was that I was card dead, the other part of the equation is that my table was extremely active and somewhat capable, there was very little limping allowed. I finally got my chips in the middle in good shape with AQ vs AJ, but a jack hit the turn and that was that.
It had been an enjoyable but still disappointing day after so much success in less than 48 hours. We boarded Vegas's crummiest Tram - the one between Mirage and T.I. - and ponied up $65 for the 10pm shove-a-ment.
T.I. At 11am - meh. T.I. at midnight? Now we're talking! 57 runners in a tiny room, four figures up top. #HereWeGo pic.twitter.com/Ot6szRoJY7— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 19, 2017
The bad news was, I had a regular on my left and a chatty regular on my right. I actually knew him and have played with him probably every time I've shown up for an evening tourney at T.I. His name was Casey and he's a local radio personality who spends his nights playing tournaments at T.I. and a handful of other smaller rooms on the strip. Nice guy, very active and capable poker player.
The good news is that he and the regular on my left both picked up very early that I was a capable recreational player, as opposed to the rest of our table which was a group of typical home gamers. None of us said one word to each other about it, but very early on there was an unspoken understanding that we weren't going to be getting involved with each other unless there were big hands running into each other.
When Casey would open, I would almost always fold. One time I three bet him with KK, and I made sure to show after he had folded and the hand was over. The guy on my left would literally open every hand that Casey and I had folded - except once he did three bet me, and showed AQ when I let my hand go. I'd had KJ.
Intentional collusion is a bad thing at the poker table, but when it's completely unspoken it can work out to be very helpful. They didn't want to tangle with me or each other and the feeling was mutual and we really didn't at all, save for the occasional time when the cards demanded it.
The reg on my left eventually got too active and spewy and made his exit. A short while later Casey got coolered and crippled with QQ vs KK and was out on the very next hand - I had to call him with A10. And with that I was much more free to get a lot more active as the final table approached.
We'd had 57 runners, including A8Fold who was still in - and just as 1am approached it was final table time.
I had generated quite a stack and was the chip leader at my old table - it had been easy to accumulate simply by staying active and following through with c-bets. Players were almost entirely 'fit or fold' types, which made it easy to drag a pot or let it go if they resisted.
But at the final table I was not the big cheese. A soft spoken kid had a literal Mount Chip-more, a massively prohibitive stack that had me at 4 to 1 and the rest of the table at 6, 8 or even 10 to 1.
The bubble approached super fast. Unfortunately mega-stack was directly to my left, so I had to fold quite a bit, as he loved to flat my opens and fire if I slowed down at all. After about half an hour when we were two from the money, he knocked out two micro stacks and we were in the monies with five players remaining.
I had gotten fairly short with 15 big blinds or so, I was still second in chips - I had been keeping my head above water by looking for good spots to 3 bet jam. I knew it was only a matter of time before big stack looked me up light. Thankfully it came right after the bubble burst, he called my AJ with A7 and I mercifully avoided a suck out. Now I was 30 bigs and his chip lead had shrunk by quite a bit to where he had me at a bit more than 2 to 1.
The two tiniest stacks fell pretty quickly, I busted one with AA. He had been waiting forever, literally hadn't played a hand and then finally shoved with AK. My bullets held and we all got to hear how much he hates AK for about 20 minutes. Even after he got up and shook hands, even after he had been payed out. It never gets old and is always enjoyable.
So with three of us left, big stack (who had me quite a bit less than 2 to 1) and a friendly fellow who barely spoke English - my thoughts turned to a chop. But before I could mention it, the friendly fellow brought it up. The kid wasn't having it, he was very nice and very naive; he said "I've never been in this position before, I want to play it out." I said that was fine but there were only 28 big blinds on the table total and we would each get $695 if we divided it up. He still declined and I smiled and said okay, and I didn't mention it again. Friendly fellow was pretty annoyed with the kid.
The very next hand I looked down at KK and opened from the button. The kid carved out chips and three bet me very large. Hallelujah, was all I could think. Please let him have 1010, JJ, QQ or AK or even AQ, any of those hands and all the chips are going in. I took a moment and four bet shoved, he snap called.
For an instant I was worried about AA, but then he turned over...
Wait for it....
K3. Suited.
I was fairly aghast. This was a side I hadn't seen from this kid before, and I really liked it.
The board bricked out and he was crippled. I had the chip lead now and it was fairly substantial. The very next hand he was out when he threw his chips in blind and the friendly fellow and I called and checked it down. I rivered a jack with my KJ sooted and the kid was gone.
I shook his hand, he had offered it to me, and wished him a good night. Then I looked at the friendly fellow and before he could open his mouth I made the karate chop motion with my hand on the rail. He got a huge grin across his face before extending his hand to mind. We each took home $885.
 |
| Bink! |
 |
| Yay. |
*****
For once I slept in a little bit. I figured there was no way I was going to make the Monte Carlo. I had planned to go to the 9am Sunday morning tournament to pay my respects and say goodbye. The room closes on April 24. We are down from a high of 25 poker rooms in Vegas in 2008, to just 18 only eight years later. The game isn't truly dying, but it is definitely cooling off.
But as I made my way down in the elevator for breakfast, I looked at pokeratlas.com and saw that the Sunday morning tournament at M.C. was no longer at 9am - it was at 11. I could make it.
I hustled my bustle on over, taking the east sidewalk route all the way to the entrance of the casino - the shortest walk, but in the glare of the sun, and made it with half an hour to spare. A8Fold managed to meet me there right before the tournament started. It was on like Donkey Kong!
Sun morn tourney, always friendly, always fun. @MonteCarloVegas I will miss your amazing poker room very much. #Sad pic.twitter.com/2XhCFy3WEk— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 19, 2017
There was only 1 table, and 11 entries. Barely any money at stake. Everyone, as usual at M.C. was super friendly and super chill. Holly, the cantankerous but sweet dealer who is probably older than all of the hotels on the strip, was in a bittersweet mood as she lamented losing her job and saying goodbye to her colleagues which were also her true friends.
To my right was a French woman who literally had never played poker before. Her British husband on my left helped her along through her betting options. One player in the 10 seat across from me (I was in the 7) started to grouse and was promptly scolded by Holly. She was absolutely right to say, "If you've never played poker before, you are in the absolute best room in the world by far to give it a go." Yep, this was the time and the place. The grouser shut his trap.
 |
| Ran it up right away. |
In the end they were paying 2. There was so little money involved that I didn't mention a bubble safety and neither did anyone else. It came down to me, the English man and the Irish dude. English man folded way way way too much - and had less than one big blind a couple of times that he was forced to put in. He doubled up once, then twice, then busted out when my 87 sooted cracked his pocket 10s.
Irish dude got a little mad at me when I called his all in bet without looking and this hand cracked his K8...
 |
| Powerhouse hand. |
It was just after noon and we made our way over to Bellagio to plunk down $200 for the 2pm 'Shot Clock' tournament.
Let me just say this once - SHOT CLOCK IN POKER = BEST THING EVER.
I truly believe it is the future of the game. I made sure to loudly and frequently praise the format to everyone around me. It was truly great that all of the potentially slow and absent minded players had a fire under them in the threat of their hand being killed. They all to a man were forced to pay attention and act within a reasonable time frame. Loved it, loved it, LOVED IT.
Speaking of great things - I played the best poker I had played all weekend in this one. Follow along with the chippies...
Ooooooh time extensions! #neeto pic.twitter.com/9Adl2BG0Jg— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 19, 2017
— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 19, 2017
Hanging in there as the bubble approaches. Tough opponents at the #finaltable pic.twitter.com/BJlxpi7m7l— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 20, 2017
So as you can see from above - I made the final table; and I was third in chips at that point. Two very good players were on my right, so I was able to tread water pretty well. They were only paying four and there were 7 of us left. I had just dipped below 15 big blinds and I knew I needed a double up for a chance at the cheddar on top, almost 5K for first place. I ripped with 44 on the button, and got called by A7 by the friendly but spacey recreational in the small blind. This was for most of his chips, he barely had me covered. A seven on the turn and that was that.
Sigh. I was disappointed but it was okay. I shook hands and turned away to go tell A8Fold who was playing cash. Out of the corner of my eye I could see them all of the sudden launch into a chop discussion. They were still two from the money so I figured they were talking a double bubble safety, mildly disappointing but not crazy.
Well that's not what they were discussing - they were discussing chopping up all the money. Paying 6 instead of four. I felt a bit sick to my stomach as they came to an agreement. The two big chip leaders divided up first place money and each got just over 2K, the remaining four divided the remaining two payouts evenly, getting just over 900 apiece.
Well that sucks. Had I known I was actually on the bubble, I would've found a fold with 44. ICM is just too big to ignore in such a situation. But none of these guys knew each other as far as I could tell, and literally not one word had been mentioned by anyone about any kind of deal until I had stood up. Bummer. Ah well.
And so that was it for me officially for poker. A8Fold talked me into the 10pm Mirage, so I played, but my mind was elsewhere and I had decided not to count my results, even if I cashed.
All told I finished up almost $1000 in profit, a record for me in Vegas for a weekend of play.
I am super super happy with my play - I feel my game is stronger than it's ever been. This last Wednesday night I got invited to a new home game, I promptly sat down and laid waste to all 8 of my friendly recreational opponents. I suggested an even chop with the host when we got heads up, he gratefully accepted as I had a 2 to 1 chip lead. I do want to be invited back after all.
If you're still here I want to thank you so much for reading. I truly get a lot of enjoyment out of putting all my poker experiences to paper - er... computer screen, and I am very much looking forward to my next adventure on the felt. Looks like it's going to be at the WSOP, the second weekend in June for the Millionaire Maker, regardless of whether I win my home game's satellite or not. I've got enough cheddar now to justify the entry fee - I am very much looking forward to a larger bracelet event.
In the meantime I have my home game's monthly tomorrow night - I don't plan on bulldozing people, but hopefully I can make enough good decisions and that just might be the result.
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Vegas Bender Spring 2017 - March Madness! PART 1 of 2
So if you've read this blog you've likely read this post which detailed my plan of attack for Vegas on the first weekend of March Madness, the NCAA Basketball tournament where anyone with gamble in the veins throws down for drunken degeneracy.
Well I'm happy to say that for the most part I stuck to my plan, and the good news is it worked like a charm. I played in seven tournaments and cashed in four of them, for a grand total of $920 in pure profit - which is my best Vegas bender on record. The number would have been over $400 higher had I adhered entirely to my plan - I played in two larger buy in tournaments and failed to cash in both.
But in both larger events I played well, and in fact I bubbled in the second event, more on that later - so in hindsight I don't really regret deviating from the plan.
Thursday night I arrived and took the very first Uber of my life from the airport to Harrah's.
I have to say, why on earth would anyone ever take a taxi like, ever? It was $11 with no tip required or expected, a friendly driver who got me there quickly in his lovely Hyundai accent. I had also eschewed a rental car, as the hotels have now decided to start charging for parking. So Budget rental got screwed out of my business, so there's that.
I wandered up to my room at about a quarter to 10 and was all set to get a good night's rest, but as you all probably know there was a gambling itch I needed to scratch, and a tournament just so happened to be starting in 15 minutes right downstairs in the very hotel I was staying at.
Harrah's 10pm tournament, well, all their tournaments actually, are positively terrible in structure and in rake. 27% juice plus 20 minute levels that literally double with each step so tournaments are all done in about 3 1/2 hours. Just what I needed though if I was to start at 10pm and have any chance at being coherent the next day.
I figured this was just to get my feet wet, to shake the rust off and to have some silly fun. I sat down right into the middle of a heated conversation about the NCAA brackets. Yes, I was in the right place.
In an effort to avoid sounding like a broken record - I will state this once here, and then at the end of this post.
SOFT PLAYERS > GOOD STRUCTURE
PERIOD.
Everyone was limping. Everyone was passive. Everyone was weak.
There was not one regular at the table, or at the next table when mine broke. I was in poker heaven. Except I'm guessing in poker heaven the chips don't look like this...
The chips would give The Bike a run for it's money in terms of grossness. Still, I didn't shy away from scooping up a load of them quickly - when a fine fellow stacked off to my flopped two pair with a gut shot draw on the turn that mercifully missed on the river. Drawing to a 3 outer for your tournament life on the fifth hand of the night? Absolutely. Who doesn't do that?
There were other similar hands over the next hour and by the first break I was the chip leader in a tournament with 54 entries. Then the blinds got absolutely preposterous and I had to get it in light a few times as people were shoving left and right and even by opening a pot I would be committed to call. A few times I hit and busted people, a handful of times I took a hit.
A super active player let it rip for the umpteenth time and I found an easy call with AJ, he of course had AK which held. This was my first substantial hit, and two orbits later I was under 10 big binds. I woke up with 1010 and got it in, unfortunately my opponent had queens which held. Now I had 3 big blinds.
I stuck my chips in when I saw one ace and got 3 other callers! The board ran out all low cards, with everyone checking it down of course, including two sixes, I didn't know what sort of shape I was in until I turned up my kicker, it was a six. Quadruple up baby!
Now I had 12 bigs, which was a lot for the table, though I still wasn't the chip leader. They were only paying 3 with 6 of us remaining.
The very next hand I got it in with AQ and ran into AK, but a queen popped up as the middle card in the flop and held. Now I was the chip leader by quite a bit, the fellow I sucked out on was crippled and out thereafter.
Then another player busted on the very next hand that I wasn't in, a short stack collision.
Someone proposed a bubble safety - I looked around and saw everyone was about even, but I had a two to one chip lead over all 3 of them. So I said this -
"I'm good with that. But what if we just chop it evenly right now? We each get $290. There's only 45 big blinds on this entire table right now."
The other players looked at each other, a bit stunned. In turbos I always make it routine to use my phone calculator to know exactly how many bigs are on the table and what an even chop will bring everyone. One by one the other guys nodded in agreement. It was a great deal for them, especially I knew because they were all tourists who played passively and had all been simply waiting for big hands and folding way too much. It was also a good deal for me, as even though I had 20 big blinds, in one or two bad hands I could be out with nothing but my money back.
So we all shook hands and collected our monies, I toked $10 and went upstairs to bed. Already in the positive! It was great to get that out of the way so quickly. It was 2am.
********
The morning came early and I was up with the sun despite my short hours of sleep. My good friend A8Fold was arriving soon and we had agreed to meet up at the Aria for their 11am $240 tournament.
I love the room at Aria, I love the structure and the payout of their tournaments. It's class and quality all the way. Plus the dealers and floor are generally very friendly. Unfortunately someone had pissed in the young lady's cornflakes at the registration cage - "Um, just give me a minute. Anyone in line here to cash out for a live game?" she said gruffly. Silence from the line, here we were at one of Vegas' most popular dailies and I wasn't surprised given what time it was that everyone was here to donk it up in the tourney.
So she stood there for literally a minute. Then she screamed at the floor across the room "Lonny you ready?" Pause. "Are you ready for tournament players?" Pause. She stood there popping her gum for another 30 seconds or so. Finally she took my money with a sigh and nary a smile in sight.
Normally not worth mentioning - but it was very out of character for Aria. Thankfully everyone else I encountered was the usual friendly and top notch efficient.
I chipped up early and was very comfy at my table. Once again the topic of conversation was pretty much all basketball. Bettors were starting to feel the pain of busted brackets and I was hoping they would also feel the pain of the back o' me hand. Hey, it's a poker metaphor ok? Also it was St. Paddy's day.
This was the tournament where I took the most detailed notes so here are 3 interesting-ish hands.
With blinds at 50/100 and my stack at about 80 bigs I raised from the high-jack 3x with 9d10d. The big blind had just sat down, a younger fellow with dark sunglasses and a surly demeanor, and he defended.
Flop was 7h8hAd. With 650 in the pot he checked and I c-bet for 500. He flat called. Honestly it's so silly to see someone scowling behind dark sunglasses in a $200 tournament. I couldn't help but chuckle inwardly.
Turn was a great card, the 5 of diamonds giving me a flush draw to go with my open ender and giving him a chance to hit the bottom end if a ten or a six came. He checked I bet 1500 into 1650, he - wait for it... check raised me to 4500! If I called I would have invested 6800 with less than 1500 behind. It was a fold or jam moment, that I didn't think too long about at all. I got it in and he snap called frighteningly fast.
He had 68o, he had top pair and he also had a six which was one of my outs, and a 9 was no good for me as he was open ended. Still, there were 13 cards I could hit (I think) and the river was one of them - another 6 to give me a higher straight. He looked disgusted. I happily raked the chips.
I'm okay with my line, I don't think there's any getting away from that turn regardless of how deep we were to start when he bombs it with the check raise. There is some argument for me checking back the turn for a free card, I don't know how good he was but I suspect (to be entirely results oriented) that I wouldn't have gotten much value on the river.
So I had double up and the future was bright.
The next hand of note took place on the next level - 100/200, I had over a hundred big blinds. Middle position player opened for 3x, the cutoff called and so did I on the button with Kh10h. The big blind defended. Flop was 10d 6h 4c, the big blind led out for 1000, there was 2500 in the pot to start. All folded to me, I called. Turn was a 3 of hearts, big blind led again this time for 1500 into 4500, a terribly undersized bet that reeked of weakness. I called again and the river peeled off a beautiful 8h. With a 7500 pot the big blind shockingly fired a third barrel, this time for 8K! I didn't take long, just a beat, but I jammed the rest of my stack in - I had him covered, he had another 8 thousand behind after investing 10500 so far, I figured there was no way he could fold. I was wrong. He let it go and I scooped the pot.
Somewhere in the midst of this I doubled up again with quad nines. The hand itself wasn't too interesting, but I did slow play it and had the good fortune to run into a flush draw that got there on the river and paid me off.
With blinds and antes at 50/200/400 UTG+1 threw out a 1K chip but forgot to say 'raise' and so he found himself with 4 callers, myself included in the SB with KQo. A king and two rags hit the flop and he took me to value town on all three streets, his bets were pretty thin but I for sure should have gotten away from the river bet of 5K - absolutely terrible call by myself. All the pieces of the puzzle were there, I just didn't think to put them together. The player had been super inactive, he was clearly recreational and not angel shooting with his 'oops I meant to raise' call, and the sizing was a very big indicator of a good but not great hand on each street. I called with top pair, but with a 10 kicker, there are so many ways he could have AK or AQ there, not to mention the AA that he actually had.
Levels at 75/300/600, with 60 big blinds or so, active player UTG+2 opened for 2.5x, I called on the button with JJ, both blinds defended. 7K in the pot. Flop was 466o, UTG+2 c-bet 3500, I flatted, both blinds folded. Turn was a 10, opponent flicked out a 5K chip. Here's where I took a read and made the call, based on him being so active, and now getting almost 3 to 1. River was another 10 and he whipped out another 5K chip. So tiny I had an easy decision and quickly said call, expecting to be good and fast rolling my JJ. I was good indeed, he showed 99. A relatively easy hand for me, in which I based my decisions about 80% because of his sizing and the other 20% because he had been so active. Again, if a rock had taken this same line with me, I probably still would have paid off his AA, KK or QQ only because the bets were so small. I look forward to the day when I can sniff out strong hands that are backed by weak and small bets, but these days I am pretty helpless in the face of bets that allow me to chase draws and see the next card for cheap.
By this stage in the tournament nearly all the soft players at my table had busted or moved, and I was surrounded by capable every-days. I was forced to tighten my range of hands, because I knew getting tangled up with speculative holdings, even in position, could very quickly see me spewing off chips. So naturally, when I shifted gears to be more selective, I became massively card dead. Finally I caught a pair of jacks. I raised it from the button and the big blind, a brand new player at our table - a woman with a massive stack who had just sat down - flat called me. The board came 8x8 and I c-bet. The turn was a blank, and I really wanted to value bet her hard because I had quickly sized her up as a fish based on her demeanor and chip handling. She sighed and called my sizable c-bet rather quickly. A bad sign, I knew I was being Hollywood-ed. I knew I was in trouble when she carved out 20K and slid it forward, about a third of my remaining chips. This was going to suck. I winced and paid her off - she rolled over quad 8's.
Boo. Getting over 2 to 1 on the call I was incapable of letting it go. Again, in hindsight, all the signs were there that should have let me get away with less damage.
An orbit or so later I woke up with QQ. MP raised, the highjack flat called and I 3-bet from the cutoff. MP shipped it and the high jack snap called. Crap. The highjack had been very inactive, even as the table had ramped up the aggression overall. A voice deep inside me told me I was no good. I let it go. MP had 1010, the highjack had KK. Yay me.
From that point on though. it was down hill, I had gone from 60 to 35 blinds in one hand and after my 3 bet with queens I rapidly got grounded down into a shove or fold stack. I got through a couple of times, and then I got snapped off by AA. Good game me.
So the day wasn't a total loss. I had played for 4 1/2 hours, and for the most part had done fine. I was pretty mad at myself for a handful of hands, especially paying off AA on all three streets, but I resolved not to sweat it. The Mirage, aka The Timewarp, was next.
Up until after the Aria tournament I had been shooting short videos of myself during breaks, giving updates to my future YouTube audience on a channel that right now only exists in my mind. After I busted the tournament with no money to speak of, I decided that I would blow off the video shooting after all. Not because I had failed to cash, but because I had come to realize that shooting video and eventually editing it is something that I have been doing my entire adult life, as it is my job, and I didn't want to work on something that felt like work on what was supposed to be a mini-vacation. Still, I love watching poker vlogs these days, there are some truly great ones out there - maybe someday I will really go for it and finish what I start in documenting a poker bender. Maybe. In the meantime, here's one of my favorite vloggers, Andrew Neeme - filming on the same weekend that I was in Vegas, and showing off the Monte Carlo before it it goes away forever.
I settled into my chair for the 7pm Mirage, there had been time to grab a quick bite at Earl of Sandwhich on the way back - no line and my favorite "The Original" a dope ass sandwich that tasted hella good. I was ready to go. It wasn't until the first player at our table busted out that I realized that once again I had inadvertantly entered a bounty tournament. Bleh. The last time I played this tournament I had recouped half of my buy-in back. This time I hoped to do more.
I was off to a good start on the very next orbit - my twitter feed documented my progress.
I played exceptionally well, and yes, the Mirage lived up to the nickname I've given it. It was indeed the Timewarp, even as the evening wore on - the table didn't fill up with regulars, it was more and more recreationals, and most of them had been drinking. There was one guy who was clearly at least a semi-pro. We both avoided each other as much as we could. When I three bet him I made sure to show my KK. When he did the same he flashed me AQ. There was for sure an unspoken mutual understanding between us. Why go to war with another tree when we could both pick low hanging fruit all around us?
The final table approached, and then we were there. I was the chip leader, but took a hit when I got it all in pre with KK vs. 77 against a stack about half my size - yep, he spiked a set on the flop.
So I was down but not out. Back to the grind. Turned out, it wasn't a grind. The very next hand I looked down at 22 in the small blind. I limped, as four others had as well. I flopped a set and check called the flop and turn against a single opponent and shipped it in, a perfectly sized 3/4 pot bet on the river. My opponent looked deep into his soul and found a call with top pair Jack kicker. Well done sir.
Time marched on, but even as blinds escalated to absurd levels and the pressure mounted to make the money, I didn't panic. I truly did not give a shit about a min-cash and was still able to exert pressure by three bet shoving in a couple of good spots to apply pressure and pick up dead money.
41 players, they were paying 4. Normally I would mention a bubble safety at 5, but the 'pro' managed a double knock-out and we were into the cash. I didn't bother to mention a chop because he had about a 2 to 1 chip lead over the rest of us. We played for a bit, and someone mentioned that maybe we should just get our bounties back. Actually, it was the dealer. Good idea! The 'pro' said no.
All good. We kept going, eventually I got tangled up with the big stack and managed to put a considerable dent in it when my small flush draw got there on the turn and I check-called two streets of tasty value from his weak probe bets. If I had been a pimp I would have check raised him, but I'm a bit chicken shit in getting thin value sometimes.
So now was the moment. I was well prepared. "There's 38 big blinds total on the table right now. In five minutes there will be just over 30. How about we look at numbers for a chop?" The two short stacks were excited. The pro's response? "I'll take first place and the rest of you divide up the remainder." Back in the day I might have agreed to this. But he didn't have a 2 to 1 chip lead anymore. He had about 5 more big blinds than I did. "Let's just play." I said.
At this point we played, but one of the short stacks, in tandem with the dealer oddly enough, kept chirping about how it was all bingo at this point and that we were flipping for hundreds of dollars for no reason. I couldn't help but agree out loud more than once.
Then big stack took a hit from one of the shorties, the very one that had been chirping, and I was the chip leader.
"Alright, I'll chop just so I don't have to hear it any more." Really? I thought to myself. "Okay sounds good. We get $575 apiece including our own bounties if we divide it evenly. I'm happy to do that as this could all go away in a hand very easily." He sighed, rolled his eyes, and agreed. The other two players were ecstatic and we divvied up the monies. Grand total for me with five bounties total - $650.
Three tournaments - two cashes, including one for first place, at least in my mind, I count it as first if I have the chip lead when play ends!
But truly, it was anyone's tournament at that point, luck would be heavily involved if we had continued.
So A8Fold, who had decided to play cash games, and I went to the burger place in Mirage to celebrate. I had a salted caramel shake that kicked all KINDS of ass. Good times.
I crawled into bed about half past midnight - exhausted but ecstatic to have binked such a nice score. Images of flops and rivers filled my head as I drifted off to sleep.
Well I'm happy to say that for the most part I stuck to my plan, and the good news is it worked like a charm. I played in seven tournaments and cashed in four of them, for a grand total of $920 in pure profit - which is my best Vegas bender on record. The number would have been over $400 higher had I adhered entirely to my plan - I played in two larger buy in tournaments and failed to cash in both.
But in both larger events I played well, and in fact I bubbled in the second event, more on that later - so in hindsight I don't really regret deviating from the plan.
Thursday night I arrived and took the very first Uber of my life from the airport to Harrah's.
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| Harrah's - home of Buck and Winnie. I love this so much. |
I wandered up to my room at about a quarter to 10 and was all set to get a good night's rest, but as you all probably know there was a gambling itch I needed to scratch, and a tournament just so happened to be starting in 15 minutes right downstairs in the very hotel I was staying at.
Harrah's 10pm tournament, well, all their tournaments actually, are positively terrible in structure and in rake. 27% juice plus 20 minute levels that literally double with each step so tournaments are all done in about 3 1/2 hours. Just what I needed though if I was to start at 10pm and have any chance at being coherent the next day.
I figured this was just to get my feet wet, to shake the rust off and to have some silly fun. I sat down right into the middle of a heated conversation about the NCAA brackets. Yes, I was in the right place.
In an effort to avoid sounding like a broken record - I will state this once here, and then at the end of this post.
SOFT PLAYERS > GOOD STRUCTURE
PERIOD.
Everyone was limping. Everyone was passive. Everyone was weak.
There was not one regular at the table, or at the next table when mine broke. I was in poker heaven. Except I'm guessing in poker heaven the chips don't look like this...
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| So nasty. |
There were other similar hands over the next hour and by the first break I was the chip leader in a tournament with 54 entries. Then the blinds got absolutely preposterous and I had to get it in light a few times as people were shoving left and right and even by opening a pot I would be committed to call. A few times I hit and busted people, a handful of times I took a hit.
A super active player let it rip for the umpteenth time and I found an easy call with AJ, he of course had AK which held. This was my first substantial hit, and two orbits later I was under 10 big binds. I woke up with 1010 and got it in, unfortunately my opponent had queens which held. Now I had 3 big blinds.
I stuck my chips in when I saw one ace and got 3 other callers! The board ran out all low cards, with everyone checking it down of course, including two sixes, I didn't know what sort of shape I was in until I turned up my kicker, it was a six. Quadruple up baby!
Now I had 12 bigs, which was a lot for the table, though I still wasn't the chip leader. They were only paying 3 with 6 of us remaining.
The very next hand I got it in with AQ and ran into AK, but a queen popped up as the middle card in the flop and held. Now I was the chip leader by quite a bit, the fellow I sucked out on was crippled and out thereafter.
Then another player busted on the very next hand that I wasn't in, a short stack collision.
Someone proposed a bubble safety - I looked around and saw everyone was about even, but I had a two to one chip lead over all 3 of them. So I said this -
"I'm good with that. But what if we just chop it evenly right now? We each get $290. There's only 45 big blinds on this entire table right now."
The other players looked at each other, a bit stunned. In turbos I always make it routine to use my phone calculator to know exactly how many bigs are on the table and what an even chop will bring everyone. One by one the other guys nodded in agreement. It was a great deal for them, especially I knew because they were all tourists who played passively and had all been simply waiting for big hands and folding way too much. It was also a good deal for me, as even though I had 20 big blinds, in one or two bad hands I could be out with nothing but my money back.
So we all shook hands and collected our monies, I toked $10 and went upstairs to bed. Already in the positive! It was great to get that out of the way so quickly. It was 2am.
********
The morning came early and I was up with the sun despite my short hours of sleep. My good friend A8Fold was arriving soon and we had agreed to meet up at the Aria for their 11am $240 tournament.
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| Similar to Harrah's - NOT. |
So she stood there for literally a minute. Then she screamed at the floor across the room "Lonny you ready?" Pause. "Are you ready for tournament players?" Pause. She stood there popping her gum for another 30 seconds or so. Finally she took my money with a sigh and nary a smile in sight.
Normally not worth mentioning - but it was very out of character for Aria. Thankfully everyone else I encountered was the usual friendly and top notch efficient.
I chipped up early and was very comfy at my table. Once again the topic of conversation was pretty much all basketball. Bettors were starting to feel the pain of busted brackets and I was hoping they would also feel the pain of the back o' me hand. Hey, it's a poker metaphor ok? Also it was St. Paddy's day.
This was the tournament where I took the most detailed notes so here are 3 interesting-ish hands.
With blinds at 50/100 and my stack at about 80 bigs I raised from the high-jack 3x with 9d10d. The big blind had just sat down, a younger fellow with dark sunglasses and a surly demeanor, and he defended.
Flop was 7h8hAd. With 650 in the pot he checked and I c-bet for 500. He flat called. Honestly it's so silly to see someone scowling behind dark sunglasses in a $200 tournament. I couldn't help but chuckle inwardly.
Turn was a great card, the 5 of diamonds giving me a flush draw to go with my open ender and giving him a chance to hit the bottom end if a ten or a six came. He checked I bet 1500 into 1650, he - wait for it... check raised me to 4500! If I called I would have invested 6800 with less than 1500 behind. It was a fold or jam moment, that I didn't think too long about at all. I got it in and he snap called frighteningly fast.
He had 68o, he had top pair and he also had a six which was one of my outs, and a 9 was no good for me as he was open ended. Still, there were 13 cards I could hit (I think) and the river was one of them - another 6 to give me a higher straight. He looked disgusted. I happily raked the chips.
I'm okay with my line, I don't think there's any getting away from that turn regardless of how deep we were to start when he bombs it with the check raise. There is some argument for me checking back the turn for a free card, I don't know how good he was but I suspect (to be entirely results oriented) that I wouldn't have gotten much value on the river.
So I had double up and the future was bright.
The next hand of note took place on the next level - 100/200, I had over a hundred big blinds. Middle position player opened for 3x, the cutoff called and so did I on the button with Kh10h. The big blind defended. Flop was 10d 6h 4c, the big blind led out for 1000, there was 2500 in the pot to start. All folded to me, I called. Turn was a 3 of hearts, big blind led again this time for 1500 into 4500, a terribly undersized bet that reeked of weakness. I called again and the river peeled off a beautiful 8h. With a 7500 pot the big blind shockingly fired a third barrel, this time for 8K! I didn't take long, just a beat, but I jammed the rest of my stack in - I had him covered, he had another 8 thousand behind after investing 10500 so far, I figured there was no way he could fold. I was wrong. He let it go and I scooped the pot.
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| No grime on these bad boys. |
With blinds and antes at 50/200/400 UTG+1 threw out a 1K chip but forgot to say 'raise' and so he found himself with 4 callers, myself included in the SB with KQo. A king and two rags hit the flop and he took me to value town on all three streets, his bets were pretty thin but I for sure should have gotten away from the river bet of 5K - absolutely terrible call by myself. All the pieces of the puzzle were there, I just didn't think to put them together. The player had been super inactive, he was clearly recreational and not angel shooting with his 'oops I meant to raise' call, and the sizing was a very big indicator of a good but not great hand on each street. I called with top pair, but with a 10 kicker, there are so many ways he could have AK or AQ there, not to mention the AA that he actually had.
Levels at 75/300/600, with 60 big blinds or so, active player UTG+2 opened for 2.5x, I called on the button with JJ, both blinds defended. 7K in the pot. Flop was 466o, UTG+2 c-bet 3500, I flatted, both blinds folded. Turn was a 10, opponent flicked out a 5K chip. Here's where I took a read and made the call, based on him being so active, and now getting almost 3 to 1. River was another 10 and he whipped out another 5K chip. So tiny I had an easy decision and quickly said call, expecting to be good and fast rolling my JJ. I was good indeed, he showed 99. A relatively easy hand for me, in which I based my decisions about 80% because of his sizing and the other 20% because he had been so active. Again, if a rock had taken this same line with me, I probably still would have paid off his AA, KK or QQ only because the bets were so small. I look forward to the day when I can sniff out strong hands that are backed by weak and small bets, but these days I am pretty helpless in the face of bets that allow me to chase draws and see the next card for cheap.
By this stage in the tournament nearly all the soft players at my table had busted or moved, and I was surrounded by capable every-days. I was forced to tighten my range of hands, because I knew getting tangled up with speculative holdings, even in position, could very quickly see me spewing off chips. So naturally, when I shifted gears to be more selective, I became massively card dead. Finally I caught a pair of jacks. I raised it from the button and the big blind, a brand new player at our table - a woman with a massive stack who had just sat down - flat called me. The board came 8x8 and I c-bet. The turn was a blank, and I really wanted to value bet her hard because I had quickly sized her up as a fish based on her demeanor and chip handling. She sighed and called my sizable c-bet rather quickly. A bad sign, I knew I was being Hollywood-ed. I knew I was in trouble when she carved out 20K and slid it forward, about a third of my remaining chips. This was going to suck. I winced and paid her off - she rolled over quad 8's.
Boo. Getting over 2 to 1 on the call I was incapable of letting it go. Again, in hindsight, all the signs were there that should have let me get away with less damage.
An orbit or so later I woke up with QQ. MP raised, the highjack flat called and I 3-bet from the cutoff. MP shipped it and the high jack snap called. Crap. The highjack had been very inactive, even as the table had ramped up the aggression overall. A voice deep inside me told me I was no good. I let it go. MP had 1010, the highjack had KK. Yay me.
From that point on though. it was down hill, I had gone from 60 to 35 blinds in one hand and after my 3 bet with queens I rapidly got grounded down into a shove or fold stack. I got through a couple of times, and then I got snapped off by AA. Good game me.
So the day wasn't a total loss. I had played for 4 1/2 hours, and for the most part had done fine. I was pretty mad at myself for a handful of hands, especially paying off AA on all three streets, but I resolved not to sweat it. The Mirage, aka The Timewarp, was next.
Up until after the Aria tournament I had been shooting short videos of myself during breaks, giving updates to my future YouTube audience on a channel that right now only exists in my mind. After I busted the tournament with no money to speak of, I decided that I would blow off the video shooting after all. Not because I had failed to cash, but because I had come to realize that shooting video and eventually editing it is something that I have been doing my entire adult life, as it is my job, and I didn't want to work on something that felt like work on what was supposed to be a mini-vacation. Still, I love watching poker vlogs these days, there are some truly great ones out there - maybe someday I will really go for it and finish what I start in documenting a poker bender. Maybe. In the meantime, here's one of my favorite vloggers, Andrew Neeme - filming on the same weekend that I was in Vegas, and showing off the Monte Carlo before it it goes away forever.
I settled into my chair for the 7pm Mirage, there had been time to grab a quick bite at Earl of Sandwhich on the way back - no line and my favorite "The Original" a dope ass sandwich that tasted hella good. I was ready to go. It wasn't until the first player at our table busted out that I realized that once again I had inadvertantly entered a bounty tournament. Bleh. The last time I played this tournament I had recouped half of my buy-in back. This time I hoped to do more.
I was off to a good start on the very next orbit - my twitter feed documented my progress.
1st bounty. #rockintheturbo pic.twitter.com/MzVg8CQDfq— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
Numero dos. #halfwaythere pic.twitter.com/lDYMZnHllf— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
Hat trick. #25fromafreeroll pic.twitter.com/VaW3ekw85n— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
Free roll baby. pic.twitter.com/8GZiwB7Fsl— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
I played exceptionally well, and yes, the Mirage lived up to the nickname I've given it. It was indeed the Timewarp, even as the evening wore on - the table didn't fill up with regulars, it was more and more recreationals, and most of them had been drinking. There was one guy who was clearly at least a semi-pro. We both avoided each other as much as we could. When I three bet him I made sure to show my KK. When he did the same he flashed me AQ. There was for sure an unspoken mutual understanding between us. Why go to war with another tree when we could both pick low hanging fruit all around us?
The final table approached, and then we were there. I was the chip leader, but took a hit when I got it all in pre with KK vs. 77 against a stack about half my size - yep, he spiked a set on the flop.
So I was down but not out. Back to the grind. Turned out, it wasn't a grind. The very next hand I looked down at 22 in the small blind. I limped, as four others had as well. I flopped a set and check called the flop and turn against a single opponent and shipped it in, a perfectly sized 3/4 pot bet on the river. My opponent looked deep into his soul and found a call with top pair Jack kicker. Well done sir.
Time marched on, but even as blinds escalated to absurd levels and the pressure mounted to make the money, I didn't panic. I truly did not give a shit about a min-cash and was still able to exert pressure by three bet shoving in a couple of good spots to apply pressure and pick up dead money.
41 players, they were paying 4. Normally I would mention a bubble safety at 5, but the 'pro' managed a double knock-out and we were into the cash. I didn't bother to mention a chop because he had about a 2 to 1 chip lead over the rest of us. We played for a bit, and someone mentioned that maybe we should just get our bounties back. Actually, it was the dealer. Good idea! The 'pro' said no.
All good. We kept going, eventually I got tangled up with the big stack and managed to put a considerable dent in it when my small flush draw got there on the turn and I check-called two streets of tasty value from his weak probe bets. If I had been a pimp I would have check raised him, but I'm a bit chicken shit in getting thin value sometimes.
So now was the moment. I was well prepared. "There's 38 big blinds total on the table right now. In five minutes there will be just over 30. How about we look at numbers for a chop?" The two short stacks were excited. The pro's response? "I'll take first place and the rest of you divide up the remainder." Back in the day I might have agreed to this. But he didn't have a 2 to 1 chip lead anymore. He had about 5 more big blinds than I did. "Let's just play." I said.
At this point we played, but one of the short stacks, in tandem with the dealer oddly enough, kept chirping about how it was all bingo at this point and that we were flipping for hundreds of dollars for no reason. I couldn't help but agree out loud more than once.
Then big stack took a hit from one of the shorties, the very one that had been chirping, and I was the chip leader.
"Alright, I'll chop just so I don't have to hear it any more." Really? I thought to myself. "Okay sounds good. We get $575 apiece including our own bounties if we divide it evenly. I'm happy to do that as this could all go away in a hand very easily." He sighed, rolled his eyes, and agreed. The other two players were ecstatic and we divvied up the monies. Grand total for me with five bounties total - $650.
Three tournaments - two cashes, including one for first place, at least in my mind, I count it as first if I have the chip lead when play ends!
— Christopher Manzoni (@PepperStChrisM) March 18, 2017
But truly, it was anyone's tournament at that point, luck would be heavily involved if we had continued.
So A8Fold, who had decided to play cash games, and I went to the burger place in Mirage to celebrate. I had a salted caramel shake that kicked all KINDS of ass. Good times.
I crawled into bed about half past midnight - exhausted but ecstatic to have binked such a nice score. Images of flops and rivers filled my head as I drifted off to sleep.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
A history of me.
Using some of the clues from this blog and my home game blog, along with my ever increasingly foggy memories - I'm going to try and reconstruct a timeline of my relationship with this game known as teh pokerz.
My earliest memory of the game comes at around 13 or 14 - I can remember gathering with my buddies in my friend Jay's house on Ashby St. in Berkeley around a round wooden dining room table to throw down with literal nickels, dimes and quarters. Or was it those plastic Bicycle chips?
I dimly recall trying to learn what beat what, and then trying to keep up with how the betting worked. The games we played were almost all permutations of 7-card stud and without exception they all had wild cards and/or some wacky twist.
Follow the Queen, Hi or Lo Chicago, Black Mariah, Anaconda and Baseball just to name a few. Most fun was Night Baseball in the Rain, which involved rolling your cards one by one, not knowing what your down cards were (I think) and craziest of all if you had the Queen of Spades in the hole you automatically got half the pot. Good times. All skill.
So poker as I was introduced to it and played it through high school was a blast, but truthfully it was only one thing on a pretty decent sized list of fun things to do with my buds. I would say we averaged maybe 3 or 4 poker nights a year, increasing by one or two nights every year as time went by.
Through college poker was this way for me. Then out of school finally, my work took me to Tucson Arizona and then Portland Oregon from 1993-1995 until I finally moved to LA in December of 95.
During this time it's safe to say that I only played poker at Christmas time when I would reunite with my compadres. I was deeply in like with this game that I thought was poker - but I had no problem abstaining for most of the year.
This continued in Los Angeles through the new millennium. At one stage, I dimly recall I bought a round octagonal poker table for almost $200 at a mall. Total impulse buy, I think I played maybe 2 or 3 times on it total in my apartment.
One particular game on it sticks out - it was with my good friend Tobias and his fiancee' visiting from out of town along with another good friend Tom from across the hall. We played our usual game, and the fiancee' (who come to find out had been playing card games since she could walk) basically cleaned everyone's clocks. Good times.
So I would play when I could, again usually around the holidays back home. When I would go back I would hear stories around the table of my friend Daniel's regular game in Oakland. It sounded fantastic - higher stakes, super crazy games, matching the pot games like Guts, dealers having to throw in a dollar when they misdealt, etc. I never got to play in the game, but I always wish I had.
My company (that I had joined in 1995) moved to a bigger office building on Wilshire Blvd. in 2000. Talking with Sven and another poker compatriot/co-worker Dan, I believe it was in 2003 when somehow Dan had gotten wind that I liked poker and he invited me to a game in Hancock Park, literally just a few blocks from work.
The game was every other Wednesday night from 7:30 to 10:30 without fail, and it was fantastic. This is where I fell in love with poker. It's also where I met Sven, Tony, Tommy and Fred - four of what would be my good friends. Fred passed away a few years back, click here to read about him.
I was familiar with a lot of the game already - it was also nickel/dime/quarter and plenty of the games were wacky, although many with the same names as the ones I knew had substantial variations to them. But new to me was Texas Hold-em and Omaha High-Low.
These two games we played full orbits of, and we played strictly fixed limit. 50c bets pre and on the flop, a dollar on the turn and 2 dollars on the river. This is where the mild crush blossomed into full blown passion. It was also inflamed because of two other things happening at the same time.
One - the World Series of Poker began to broadcast on ESPN. This was the year that saw amateur Chris Moneymaker turn an $86 online satellite seat into a 3 million dollar payday at the Main Event. It changed the game forever and it certainly changed me as well.
Two - online poker started to boom in the US, and I was completely hooked. I never deposited, and you can read pretty much my whole online experience at the beginning of this blog. A lot of it involved a private game between my friends down here and up north on a site called Poker Academy, but I also went on quite a run on Full Tilt, getting into real money play by cashing for a few bucks in a free roll and then being lucky enough to grind up to several hundred dollars.
With the Hancock game, the WSOP on tv and online action - I was well and truly hooked.
Of these three things, which happened pretty much in this order, it was the first thing - the Hancock Park game - that really got me into it, because after about a year of playing, which was always a ton of fun anyways, I started winning. A lot. Okay, so I wasn't walking away rich, but I remember pretty well turning profit after profit week after week.
A lot of this profit (on average being up anywhere from $40 to over $100 in profits every game) came at the expense of the host, who had always seen himself as God's gift to poker and who was so set in his ways that he didn't adjust his game when I and Sven and a few others started figuring him out.
And so it came to pass that one particularly memorable night Tony brought a female friend of his to the game, and it turned out she was an actual poker player with a lot of casino experience - and she basically bludgeoned our host. The game was supposed to end at 10:30, but about an hour before that time after he lost a particularly large pot, the host stated abruptly "Okay, that's it!" Everyone looked at each other. Awkward silence followed. Yes, he really did want the game to end and everyone to GTFO.
Not only that, but he emailed the next day and said that the game was over, most likely for good.
This was 2006. Coincidentally at my house we had begun construction on a brand new detached garage. I knew right from the moment we started building that it would make for a great poker palace. Now I knew that I would have to host fairly regularly to get my fix, and I knew it would mostly be tournaments instead of cash game.
Side note about the Hancock Park game - as crazy as it sounds, we never played Hold-em or Omaha correctly. After the flop we would start the action with the last player to bet or raise, instead of simply starting to the left of the button. Crazy right?
Somewhere, sometime just before my after work game ended - I attended a friend of a friend's home poker tournament in an apartment in Westwood. I still remember the hand I went out on - I overplayed my QQ and my friend Stephen took all of my chips when I shoved on a board with a King on it that he of course had paired.
The reason I remember this so vividly no doubt is because I was absolutely inspired by the way the host had put everything together. He had put the chips in individual baggies at each seat, he had a timer, he had snacks, and everyone had a great time. I knew this was the kind of game I wanted to have at my garage.
I believe my first tournament took place toward the end of 2006. We had one of those shitty oval poker table toppers set upon a banquet table - and there were 11 of us crammed in. Of course the host of the Hancock game won it, but the evening was still a blast.
In early 2007 I attended my first poker tournament at Hollywood Park Casino. It was great. I didn't come anywhere near the money. But I promptly structured my own tournament after theirs. $20 buy in, unlimited $10 re-buys. A lot of work for me but a whole lot of fun.
Over the next year, all of my regulars who weren't already there came into my game. My neighbor Mike from down the street, another Mike aka P-Money on this blog, the inimitable Rooster and of course the one and only Barb who made the game so much more fun than I ever imagined by setting the best example of how to behave at the table.
Before this year ended I had banned the host from the Hancock game, a thoroughly unpleasant experience that taught me a lot on how to deal with players that get out of line. Nipping it in the bud is 100% always the way to go, by the way.
I also found blogger and timidly posted this.
You'll notice that the post says "coming up in 2009". This is because I didn't post at all in 2008. But 2008 was a great year in poker for me and the game at Pepper Street. It was the year we worked out all the kinks, the year when I discovered that my numbers doubled when I hosted a Hold-Em tournament as opposed to H.O.R.S.E. It was a great, great time. Everyone still pretty much sucked, myself included, and everything felt fresh.
In the meantime, I WAS posting nearly every month on the blog that you are reading now, meticulously chronicling my trials and tribulations in my online home game.
My appearances at HPC increased, including a 2K+ score. I still remember dropping all those hundreds into my wife's lap afterwards. A great day.
And from 2009 on out Pepper Street became and remains pretty much what it is today. I built my own poker table in 2012, and got custom chips then - shortly thereafter I made the game a $40 freeze out and started everyone with 20K in chips. The format hasn't changed since.
In 2011 I played in the WSOP for the first time after only visiting the year before. I've gone back almost every year since.
Starting at around that time I also started making yearly excursions to Vegas just to play poker. The very first time I did this I had my best results, no doubt because players were worse and we were also there on NASCAR weekend. A great trip.
And it's been a mostly great, mostly healthy relationship with the game ever since. Yes, I've overindulged at times, but I feel like I'm in a pretty good place these days. I still yearn to go deep in a big event, but no doubt that will come, as long as I keep working on my game.
I'm glad I took the time to do this - I know my brain won't be firing on all cylinders forever and I'm grateful to have this post at the very least too stumble across and remember how I fell in love back in the day.
My earliest memory of the game comes at around 13 or 14 - I can remember gathering with my buddies in my friend Jay's house on Ashby St. in Berkeley around a round wooden dining room table to throw down with literal nickels, dimes and quarters. Or was it those plastic Bicycle chips?
Follow the Queen, Hi or Lo Chicago, Black Mariah, Anaconda and Baseball just to name a few. Most fun was Night Baseball in the Rain, which involved rolling your cards one by one, not knowing what your down cards were (I think) and craziest of all if you had the Queen of Spades in the hole you automatically got half the pot. Good times. All skill.
So poker as I was introduced to it and played it through high school was a blast, but truthfully it was only one thing on a pretty decent sized list of fun things to do with my buds. I would say we averaged maybe 3 or 4 poker nights a year, increasing by one or two nights every year as time went by.
Through college poker was this way for me. Then out of school finally, my work took me to Tucson Arizona and then Portland Oregon from 1993-1995 until I finally moved to LA in December of 95.
During this time it's safe to say that I only played poker at Christmas time when I would reunite with my compadres. I was deeply in like with this game that I thought was poker - but I had no problem abstaining for most of the year.
This continued in Los Angeles through the new millennium. At one stage, I dimly recall I bought a round octagonal poker table for almost $200 at a mall. Total impulse buy, I think I played maybe 2 or 3 times on it total in my apartment.
So I would play when I could, again usually around the holidays back home. When I would go back I would hear stories around the table of my friend Daniel's regular game in Oakland. It sounded fantastic - higher stakes, super crazy games, matching the pot games like Guts, dealers having to throw in a dollar when they misdealt, etc. I never got to play in the game, but I always wish I had.
My company (that I had joined in 1995) moved to a bigger office building on Wilshire Blvd. in 2000. Talking with Sven and another poker compatriot/co-worker Dan, I believe it was in 2003 when somehow Dan had gotten wind that I liked poker and he invited me to a game in Hancock Park, literally just a few blocks from work.
The game was every other Wednesday night from 7:30 to 10:30 without fail, and it was fantastic. This is where I fell in love with poker. It's also where I met Sven, Tony, Tommy and Fred - four of what would be my good friends. Fred passed away a few years back, click here to read about him.
I was familiar with a lot of the game already - it was also nickel/dime/quarter and plenty of the games were wacky, although many with the same names as the ones I knew had substantial variations to them. But new to me was Texas Hold-em and Omaha High-Low.
These two games we played full orbits of, and we played strictly fixed limit. 50c bets pre and on the flop, a dollar on the turn and 2 dollars on the river. This is where the mild crush blossomed into full blown passion. It was also inflamed because of two other things happening at the same time.
One - the World Series of Poker began to broadcast on ESPN. This was the year that saw amateur Chris Moneymaker turn an $86 online satellite seat into a 3 million dollar payday at the Main Event. It changed the game forever and it certainly changed me as well.
Two - online poker started to boom in the US, and I was completely hooked. I never deposited, and you can read pretty much my whole online experience at the beginning of this blog. A lot of it involved a private game between my friends down here and up north on a site called Poker Academy, but I also went on quite a run on Full Tilt, getting into real money play by cashing for a few bucks in a free roll and then being lucky enough to grind up to several hundred dollars.
With the Hancock game, the WSOP on tv and online action - I was well and truly hooked.
Of these three things, which happened pretty much in this order, it was the first thing - the Hancock Park game - that really got me into it, because after about a year of playing, which was always a ton of fun anyways, I started winning. A lot. Okay, so I wasn't walking away rich, but I remember pretty well turning profit after profit week after week.
A lot of this profit (on average being up anywhere from $40 to over $100 in profits every game) came at the expense of the host, who had always seen himself as God's gift to poker and who was so set in his ways that he didn't adjust his game when I and Sven and a few others started figuring him out.
And so it came to pass that one particularly memorable night Tony brought a female friend of his to the game, and it turned out she was an actual poker player with a lot of casino experience - and she basically bludgeoned our host. The game was supposed to end at 10:30, but about an hour before that time after he lost a particularly large pot, the host stated abruptly "Okay, that's it!" Everyone looked at each other. Awkward silence followed. Yes, he really did want the game to end and everyone to GTFO.
Not only that, but he emailed the next day and said that the game was over, most likely for good.
This was 2006. Coincidentally at my house we had begun construction on a brand new detached garage. I knew right from the moment we started building that it would make for a great poker palace. Now I knew that I would have to host fairly regularly to get my fix, and I knew it would mostly be tournaments instead of cash game.
Side note about the Hancock Park game - as crazy as it sounds, we never played Hold-em or Omaha correctly. After the flop we would start the action with the last player to bet or raise, instead of simply starting to the left of the button. Crazy right?
Somewhere, sometime just before my after work game ended - I attended a friend of a friend's home poker tournament in an apartment in Westwood. I still remember the hand I went out on - I overplayed my QQ and my friend Stephen took all of my chips when I shoved on a board with a King on it that he of course had paired.
The reason I remember this so vividly no doubt is because I was absolutely inspired by the way the host had put everything together. He had put the chips in individual baggies at each seat, he had a timer, he had snacks, and everyone had a great time. I knew this was the kind of game I wanted to have at my garage.
I believe my first tournament took place toward the end of 2006. We had one of those shitty oval poker table toppers set upon a banquet table - and there were 11 of us crammed in. Of course the host of the Hancock game won it, but the evening was still a blast.
In early 2007 I attended my first poker tournament at Hollywood Park Casino. It was great. I didn't come anywhere near the money. But I promptly structured my own tournament after theirs. $20 buy in, unlimited $10 re-buys. A lot of work for me but a whole lot of fun.
Over the next year, all of my regulars who weren't already there came into my game. My neighbor Mike from down the street, another Mike aka P-Money on this blog, the inimitable Rooster and of course the one and only Barb who made the game so much more fun than I ever imagined by setting the best example of how to behave at the table.
Before this year ended I had banned the host from the Hancock game, a thoroughly unpleasant experience that taught me a lot on how to deal with players that get out of line. Nipping it in the bud is 100% always the way to go, by the way.
I also found blogger and timidly posted this.
You'll notice that the post says "coming up in 2009". This is because I didn't post at all in 2008. But 2008 was a great year in poker for me and the game at Pepper Street. It was the year we worked out all the kinks, the year when I discovered that my numbers doubled when I hosted a Hold-Em tournament as opposed to H.O.R.S.E. It was a great, great time. Everyone still pretty much sucked, myself included, and everything felt fresh.
In the meantime, I WAS posting nearly every month on the blog that you are reading now, meticulously chronicling my trials and tribulations in my online home game.
My appearances at HPC increased, including a 2K+ score. I still remember dropping all those hundreds into my wife's lap afterwards. A great day.
And from 2009 on out Pepper Street became and remains pretty much what it is today. I built my own poker table in 2012, and got custom chips then - shortly thereafter I made the game a $40 freeze out and started everyone with 20K in chips. The format hasn't changed since.
In 2011 I played in the WSOP for the first time after only visiting the year before. I've gone back almost every year since.
Starting at around that time I also started making yearly excursions to Vegas just to play poker. The very first time I did this I had my best results, no doubt because players were worse and we were also there on NASCAR weekend. A great trip.
And it's been a mostly great, mostly healthy relationship with the game ever since. Yes, I've overindulged at times, but I feel like I'm in a pretty good place these days. I still yearn to go deep in a big event, but no doubt that will come, as long as I keep working on my game.
I'm glad I took the time to do this - I know my brain won't be firing on all cylinders forever and I'm grateful to have this post at the very least too stumble across and remember how I fell in love back in the day.
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