I don’t have a ton of chips (26.5k) but day one is all about survival. I lost about 13k chips on the 2nd to last hand of the night where I opend from EP with red aces, guy on my left calls, MTT pro on the button 3 bets I just flat, guy on my left flats. Flop is 8s7s3h, we both check to MTT pro who bets 3800 into the 10k pot, I make it 10k and guy on my left ships like 40k in the middle and I have to fold. The guy told me he had 77 so I’m pretty happy with how I played, but it’s still rough losing a huge portion of your stack at the end of the night.
If you’re wondering about the other tournaments I played I busted the 10 game pretty uneventfully. I had Venessa Selbst(the eventual winner) all in and was ahead on day one so it was kind of tilting to see her win but whatever.
I only played one other NL 1500 event where I had the biggest stack I’ve ever had early but just ended up donking it. I had 13k at 200/400/50 and had just been moved to a new table. Utg opened to 825 and I decided to defend Jh5h out of the big blind. It was only a minraise so I thought it was worth it at the time, but I just think it’s better to let it go vs utg in hindsight. Anyways, flop was Ah8hAs, he bets 850, I checkraise to 2500 (I should have just called) he flats. Turn is a brick and I shove for about pot (he started with 10k) and he calls with ATo and I brick river. After that I shoved my 8bb with 64s and got called by Tens and was out.
The last NL 1500 event I was planning on playing I was providing ATM tech support for a couple hours that morning and didn’t want to buy in late so I didn’t play. I’m going to need some run good on day 2 of the main so wish me luck!
I’m getting excited to head back to Vegas today. My flight is in a couple hours and I’m just finishing up packing now. I’m meeting up with some peeps tonight and then planning to play the $2500 10 game tomorrow. I’ve been working on my Badugi and 2-7 Single Draw for the past week or two and hope I’m not a complete fish in the those games tomorrow, but we’ll see. After that I’ll play two more NL $1500s and then the main. I think it’s about 50/50 whether I get any more cashes if my ITM rate is the usual 15-20%.
I did a lot while I was back home in Seattle these past few weeks. I went to Portland for a day to visit some of my Fiancee’s relatives that were in town, I booked a bunch of wedding stuff (the venue, caterer and photographer), I raced in the Urban Dare Adventure Race which was a lot of fun and went on a quick hike yesterday.
Here’s a hilarious welcome home poster my fiancee made for me when I got back last time which I forgot to post.
More tourney updates to come! Hopefully this is me when I come back.
So in case you haven’t figured out by now I ended up busting the shootout. The second table was pretty tough. I hadn’t really thought about it til I showed up that morning, but the level of skill after the first table of the shootout goes way up. Normally in an MTT you’re still going to be playing with a few fish up until the very end, but not so much in a shootout I think. Mark Seif was on my left, but no Ivey. Everyone else was unknowns to me. I think I played bad, but I’m going to chalk it up to any of these excuses
- Tough table, I’m more willing to gamble
- Like Ricky Bobby says if you ain’t first you’re last in a shootout. 2nd at your 2nd table pays the same as 9th. I’m more willing to gamble
- Got invited out to dinner with some friends that night and didn’t want to miss it nursing a shortstack for no extra pay
- Fatigue. At this point I’d been in Vegas seven days including the day I arrived and played in tournaments on six of those days. It wears on you.
In reality I think I psyched myself out a bit over all these factors and blew them a bit out of proportion. I should have just played my game and not think about these things. The first real hand I played UTG(who looked exactly like the android from Prometheus but younger) opens and I decide to just flat call QQ in the BB as we’re still 9 handed at this point. Flop is 68T. I check call. Turn is a brick deuce or something I check call again. River is another ten and I lead/block bet a bit less than half pot and he snaps with 9Ts. Not sure how I feel about this one.
Next hand I’m in the small blind with pocket 7s and flat a CO open. Flop is pretty gin 79T two or three spades(I forget, it was like 2 weeks ago!). I lead out and he calls. The turn and river were bricks, I led out and then shove the river to double up to 60k or so. I lose a couple pots after that bleeding away until my final bust out hand arrives.
Same villain from first hand opens utg+1 to 2500, but we’re six handed at this time. I know he’s opening very wide from his 9Ts hand earlier and have 75o in the big blind at 600/1200/200. My stack is 55kish. It folds around and I decide to defend. The flop is 6d9dTd and I have the 7d for the one card seven high straight flush draw. A suckers draw really, but I decide to lead out for 5k. He calls and we see the 3s turn giving me three additional straight outs. I decide to lead out again for 10k and he shoves. It feels like he has a pair in which case its a bit less than 50/50 if he has a diamond if he has a pocket pair, and a bit less than 25% if he has a pair matching the board. Of course he can have the made straight or flush already, but he could also have a set or two pair with no diamond. I have to call 35k into what would be a 115k pot or so I need 30% equity for it to be +EV. I could fold and wait for a better spot and still have 20 big blinds, but I decided to gamble and call it off.
Vs his actual hand I was slightly +EV (34% equity) as he showed up with KT no diamonds but vs his range it’s definitely a -EV call. I kind of hate every decision I made in the hand and think I should just fold preflop despite the great pot odds because of situations exactly like this. Whatever, in my head I justified it with the excuses above, but there’s really no excuse for the hand. Live and learn I guess. If anyone has comments on it I’d appreciate them.
Since I’ve been back I’ve just been relaxing mostly. I had some business to catch up on initially(installed two ATMs my first couple days back) but that’s about it. I went to go see Prometheus Spoiler Alert and it was decent, but felt like such a let down. It was hyped up pretty good and I along with a lot of other people were expecting awesomeness but it just turned into your typical slasher film with better special effects on another planet. Here’s a good link summarizing the gripes http://www.juliansanchez.com/2012/06/11/whats-wrong-with-prometheus-a-partial-list/ I mostly have two complaints about the movie
1. The movie goes through the trouble of coming up with a reasonable explanation for how the humans will be able to communicate with the alien humans (the android studied ancient languages and sorted it out). Then when the climax of the movie comes and they finally meet the alien human face to face and start talking to him he just rips peoples heads off and starts trying the kill the rest of the gang without saying a word. Really? It might as well have been freddy krueger at that point. The best movies are the ones where the villain has reasonable motives. The Rock he was just trying to honor soldiers who died for their country, Predator is big game hunting Alien wants food and to breed. Alien humans? Wants to kill people just cause. Lame.
2. The casting. They dressed up Guy Pearce
as a ninety year old man and put him in the movie for maybe 10 minutes. Why didn’t they just cast an actual old man? I just found out a week after seeing the movie it was even him.
Then they put smokin hot Charlize Theron
as the supporting role and left the lead to Noomi Rapace
Why didn’t they oh I don’t know maybe let the stars be the stars of the movie?
Random, but I stumbled across the best summary I’ve ever found of Obamacare on reddit today.
http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/vb8vs/eli5_what_exactly_is_obamacare_and_what_did_it/
If you have no idea what Obamacare does like I did and I’m sure 90% of Americans do read that. It’s ridiculous that the actual bill is almost 1000 pages. The constitution is six pages. There’s no reason any bill should ever be longer than the constitution.
Also please sign this poker petition. It probably won’t change anything, but it can’t hurt either. It takes less than 30 seconds.
https://www.change.org/petitions/let-s-tell-congress-to-pass-federal-legislation-licensing-online-poker
So I made another day 2. I’m obviously running good. I had one big suckout vs the best player at the table who won a bracelet in event #1 this year. I didn’t really mind gambling vs him and I had some fold equity when I limp shoved 25bb or so vs him with QJ and he called me with A9. Other than that I just got it in good and held. First pays $311k and I’m guaranteed $5k right now. Ivey is still in too. I’m not exactly rooting for him to be at my table for EV sake (I have a 1/12 chance) but it would be fun to play with him. Hopefully the run good continues.
Cardplayer pic from the re-entry
I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed to win $36k($33k if you subtract my buyins) in my life. I busted in a 3 way hand and 12th paid an extra $10k. Oh well. It’s nice, but changes my life in no way at all and once you get that close to a final table you really, really want to make it. At least it’s a personal best at the wsop, maybe next time. I’m playing the $1,500 shootout tomorrow.
Here’s my bustout hand if you’re curious.
http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2012-world-series-of-poker/event-9-no-limit-hold-em-re-entry/chips.27081.htm
Really day 4 for me since I busted on my first try at day 1. The bad news is that since it was such a large field there is still 33 people left and I’m not already at the final table. The good news is first pays almost $800k which would be sweeeeet. I have 230k going into 6000/12000/1000 tomorrow.
I played my first NL event today and played extremely well, but took some horrendous beats to bust. It reminded me of the good old run bad days haha. Kathy Liebert was seated at my starting table. She bluffed off like half her chips in the 2nd hour and was generally pretty quiet/tight after that. Some guy came up and had her sign his super system book. Not much else to report from her, she did scold some guy for eating carrots at the table while handling all the dirty poker chips and told him he was bound to get sick from it. Oh wells, that’s about it for Liebert stories.
As my tourney goes, I chipped up pretty easily to about 7.5k in chips when the last hand before the second 20 mins break is dealt. Utg(my nemesis) is a chubby, younger white guy completely decked out in the typical poker gear. He’s got the hoodie, the ipad, the sunglasses the headphones, the whole nine yards. He has about 4k in chips to start the hand and opens for 300 at 75/150. I have AKo in middle position and reraise to 800. Folds around back to him and he calls. Flop is K75 rainbow. He checks and I bet 600 into the 1825 pot trying to sucker him in. He obliges and we see a Qd turn. He check calls all in for another 2700 with 9dTd and obviously binks the flush on the river. wtf?
I double up vs him a couple a hands after the break when he opens from early position for 400, I shove for 3500 with red tens and he calls it off with AJ. Yay, up over 7k again.
About 20 minutes later I open utg with two jacks, the same player reraises me from middle position, I think about it for a bit as we are playing ten handed, but decide he’s too loose to fold and shove all in. He snap calls and shows two tens and binks another one on the flop to take down the 12k pot.
I’m down to 1300 chips at 100/200 at this point and manage to get AK in the cutoff and shove, the small blind calls me with A7 and manages to river a straight and I’m out. Not much I can do, I played really well and took some beats.
I’m going to re-enter the tournament again tomorrow. I’m thinking tomorrow should be softer since I’m playing against people who already busted day 1, but I’m also playing against people who can afford to blow $3k on one tourny so I’m not sure. Anyone have opinions on re-entry tournies? I’ve never played one before.
I got into Vegas Thursday and played my first event 5pm that day. It feels good to back playing poker. It’s been quite awhile. I was a little nervous sitting down for my first event as it’s been so long since I played, but after an hour or so I felt right at home again.
The first two hours of the stud event were pretty uneventful. I blinded down a bit to around 4k in chips. The next two hours I went a nice little heater hitting trip queens and trip aces and getting paid on both. I even won a couple pots off Chau Giang who got moved my table during this time. I’ve played a bit with him online and he’s a bit of a monkey, but during my play with him he was shortstacked and in a generally bad mood. He also missed like 10 hands taking smoke breaks lol. Anyways, I ended that session with around 10k chips.
The next hour I had already mentally prepared to lose a few pots, but I really imploded and lost all of them. I lost wired jacks to split tens, chased down two flushdraws to the river and bricked out both times, called a shortstacks all in with split 2s and lost and then threw my last 300 chips in with AJ6 only to lose to A86. Maybe I should have played tighter and let a couple of these go, I’m not really sure. Stud’s not my best game.
Funny story from my bartender at lunch the following day. I sit down and order a beer, burger and salad. The bartender cards me and says he’s from Seattle too (Queen Anne). We chat a bit and he brings back my beer. A couple minutes later a different server comes out with the salad, only problem is I have no silverware to eat it with. I flag down the bartender and ask for some. He says he only has chopsticks. I reply, “really?” and sit there contemplating eating my salad with chopsticks at TGIFs when there’s a guy not three seats over with silverware and am about to agree when he says he’s just effing with me. Good times bartender. You got me.
So I got engaged to my long time girlfriend about a month ago. We took a week long vacation down to Sedona, Arizona and the timing seemed right. I surprised her by waking up really early one day and going on a short little hike here where I did the deed.
No I was not wearing the hoodie or glasses at the time but I was for most of the trip. I can’t help that I’m vampire white. I ended up getting the ring off a great site I found through reddit, idonowidont.com If you’re in the market for a ring or some jewelry I highly recommend it. You buy directly from other sellers and the site verifies everything. As a result I was able to afford a much nicer ring and spend a lot less than I otherwise would have. If you’re worried about the yuck factor of it being second hand or anything I think that’s just dumb, just because you buy it from a jeweler does not mean someone else never wore it. Other stops on the trip were meteor crater
And the grand canyon. We ended up driving up from Sedona one evening to camp on the Grand Canyon South Rim so we could wake up super early the next day for our epic hike. We wanted to see/hike the whole canyon, but the camping permits in the bottom of the canyon at ghost ranch book up like six months to a year in advance and we didn’t reserve early enough so we ended up doing the whole hike in one day. I’m not gonna lie it was pretty brutal. We had been hiking a fair bit out in Seattle as preparation, but nothing like this. We hiked down the South Kaibob Trail
Across the Colorado River
And back up the Bright Angel Trail
In total is was 20 miles, 4500 elevation change and 9 hours of hiking. I’m not gonna lie, the last bit was pretty brutal, but overall it was a great experience and fun for the first 75% of the hike. The rangers tell you not to do it and I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re in pretty good shape and fairly experienced hiker (a couple people a year die every year from heat exhaustion, I’m sure it’s much harder in June or July) but it’s definitely doable and by far the best hike I’ve ever been on.
Overall it was a great vacation, but I’m ready to get back to work. I’m heading out to Vegas tomorrow and I’ll be there until June 10th. If anyone wants to meet up just contact me I’ll be staying at the Gold Coast. The first event I’m playing is the $1500 stud which starts 5pm tomorrow.
I’m sure my game is more than a little rusty, but I think I’ll be fine. I’ve been playing a bit of play money on Stars as it’s basically my only option if I don’t want to take a whole day to go play live. I’ve managed to get my account up to 100k chips starting with 1k about a week ago. I think that goes for something like 15 cents on the open market. Oh yea, probably earning like 1 cent/hour. It’s okay, but not exactly the same as real money games. The most tilting thing about it is there is no hand replayer so it’s really hard to go back and look at or analyze hands to look at equities and there’s no loading them into HoldemManager. Oh well, gotta make do. Good luck at the tables and I hope everyone has a great series!
Link to Video The question occurs 1:50 from the end. It’s a bit slow to load, so here’s the transcript if you don’t want to wait.
Host: “Are you a supporter of legalizing online gaming?”
Romney: “No. No, I’m not.”
Host: “Why not?”
Romney: “Uh, uh, gaming has a social affect on a lot of people. I don’t want to increase access to gaming and I feel that we have plenty of access to gaming right now through the various casinos and establishments that exist and in some states there are lotteries that are used to fund their schools and budgets and so forth and I don’t think online gaming would encourage or improve that setting.”
Ah, I get it you’re opposed for moral reasons and because you want to protect the lottery. So you must never do any friendly wagering yourself…