Out

Busted towards the end of level 4. A moderate number of interesting hands. I'll post these tomorrow....

neat little extra

I've recently ranted negatively about Interpoker. How about saying something nice for a change?

Well, here's one: A thoughtful little extra that was in the Interpoker swag package was a 25 minute massage.

I've never had a massage at the poker table before (primarily because I am too cheap), so here's to hoping I don't fall asleep at the table...

Ready to rumble

I arrived in Vegas late tonight. There was a whole mess with how I handled the accomodations, so I'm staying a couple of nights at Harrahs before moving to the Rio on Saturday. I have lots of material to write about if I get the time. (and I haven't finished up my event/trip reports from my earlier WSOP events...)

I'm starting tomorrow (Day 1A), Table #14, Seat 8.

You should be able to sweat me at Wicked Poker Chops. WCP is going to be providing some coverage for 5 bloggers.

Bad beat

I've been back home for almost three days now. I've got a couple of partially written posts from the trip. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish them soon although I have been a bit buried in crap from the day job.

The only bad beat I took last week that is worth mentioning came about when I stopped by the Will Call desk (for the 2nd time, as a last ditch check) to check on my Main Event registration.

Interpoker finally got around to registering me, and managed to squeeze me in for my last choice, Friday 1A. Great job Ryan Hartley! You only had 4 months to get the registration in. Too bad 1C and 1D are no longer available. I also appreciate how slow or unresponsive you have been to my emails for the past few months. Wasting time on simple administrative details leaves a warm fuzzy feeling.

For no apparent reason, next year I will be giving my online WSOP qualifier business to Stars and FTP.

Event #22: $2k NLHE - donking it up

I didn't make the first break yesterday. I gave way too much action in the early rounds, although from a meta game perspective this might have been helpful in the next couple of levels if I had got a hold of some chips.

~12th hand, level 1 25/25 (T$2000 effective stacks)
preflop: UTG raises to T$100, folded to hijack who cold calls, Hero makes it T$575 to go with JsJh, blinds muck, UTG quickly calls, cold caller mucks (2 players, T$1300)
flop: 4c5h5c, check, Hero bets T$1000, UTG check raises all in for T$425 more.

Given that UTG did not shut out the cold caller, I'd give him a range of QQ-JJ, AcKc. That is 8 hands, 6 of which I'm a 9:1 dog, 1 of which UTG is freerolling to a chop, and 1 is a coinflip. My on the spot math skills were spotty due to lack of sleep, but I guesstimated I was about a 4:1 dog getting about 8:1. (actual was actually 4.4:1 dog getting 8.8:1)

I relectantly called and UTG missed his freeroll, so we chopped.

John Juanda was sitting in UTG+1, and he remarked to UTG that he was almost certain UTG had me beat when I took a few seconds to make the crying call.
I chipped up to about T$2700 raising a lot of hands. Early in level 2 I think I got about 1/4 of Juanda's stack because of my loose image.

Halfway through level 2, I dropped back down to about starting chips when I open raised the button with a big A and my opponent made 2 pair on the turn. So I was in the undesirable position of having a loose image but not a lot of chips.

About 45 minutes into level 2, the following hand came up. I didn't properly consider my table image.

25/50 blinds
preflop: folded to hijack who raises to $T150, mucked to Hero in BB who calls with 6c8c (2 players, T$325)
flop: Kh5c4c, Hero checks, hijack bets T$250. (At that time I totally misread my opponent. I didn't have any physical read on him, and I interpretted the bet size as weak given the coordinated flop), Hero counts out T$250 and then adds T$600 to make it T$850 to go. Hijack tanks for 15 seconds and then pushes all in for T$850 more. (At this point, I'm concerned I was trapped againist a bigger flush draw and top pair, but I did have hijack covered by about T$500) Hero reluctantly makes the call only getting 3.4:1.

Hijack shows top pair Ks, J kicker with no draw and wins the coin flip.

Next hand I open push my 77 in the SB; BB wakes up with 66 and I went straight to hell on the flop...

Next up: Event #23 $3k LHE

!writer

Getting knocked out early today has given me a bit of time to catch up on some blogs. At one point, I was trying to write an entry to describe how Day 1 of the HORSE event went, and how I felt during my time there. I realize that I'm a terrible writer, and found a post by Paul Phillips that describes it very well.

While making the walk of shame, I briefly debated playing live cash games or online play for the rest of the day. I chose to head back to my room at the MGM for some online play. My reasoning is that I don't feel like donking around in lower limit cash games, and my psychological state is too weak to play mid limit games. Instead I'm multitabling a ton of smallish buyin WSOP bracelet races/supers/subqualifiers as they require very little decision making abilities....

Quick bustout

Arguably my only cold deck situation of the event. I can probably get away from the hand with 700 chips, but I'm too stuborn and annoyed to give it up.

preflop: Hero open raises in CO w KdQc (with 2.75BB behind), button (Joe Cassidy, overall chip leader) 3 bets on the button, blinds fold. (2 players, 7.5 small bets)
flop: AsKhKs, check, check (2 players, 7.5 small bets)
turn: AsKhKs5s, bet, quick call (2 players, 5.75 big bets)
river: AsKhKs5s8c, bet, raise, call all in. Villain shows AKo.

I start making the walk of shame, which is briefly interrupted by a quick trip to the registration desk to enroll in event #22, $2k NLHE.

Some random stuff from the HORSE

A photo of me and my $53k stack before my chips got Razz'ed by Mark Gregorich

I couldn't pull down a pot after the dinner break. So after playing 2 large pots in Razz and 1 large pot in Stud8, I've managed to drop from average chips to 124/129 with a chip count of just over 13k. At the next level I have a mere 4.5 big bets, so the action will go quickly on Day 2. Thankfully, the first level is Hold'em so I'll have a better idea of what I'm getting my remaining chips in with.
At the end of the night, there was a redraw for seating assignments. I drew Table 121, seat 8. Like my table on Day 1, Table 121 is along the rail.

Anyway, I'm pretty pooped, but these are some random things from the day:
- In my first ever WSOP event, I made the dinner break. Quite an accomplishment when you consider that 100% of the field made the dinner break....
- I was quite amused with Aaron Katz repeatedly calling me "Kid" as I suspect I'm at least 5 years his senior.
- My table on Day 1 was not an action table. Big pots only developed when big hands or big hand(s) vs. big draw(s) clashed. No one was eliminated at our table, and during level 14?, Chip Reese was moved to balance another table. On average, this puts players at our table at a slight disadvantage over other tables. However, given only an average of 1 player per table was eliminated on Day 1, it is not a substantial disadvantage.
- Pros whine just as much amateurs about bad cards, bad beats, missed draws, etc... My table featured Mark Gregorich, Ted Lawson, Chau "The game is on !!" Giang, Greg Mascio, Aaron Katz, "Chip" David Reese, and Tommy Hufnagel. The only player at the table who we didn't have to listen to cry about their hand at some point was Tommy H. This wasn't surprising as Tommy spoke about 50 words at the table in 13 hours. For example, he didn't say a word after he got cold decked in a HUGE pot in Stud Hi when he made Jacks full vs. Greg's quad 7s.
In general, I was surprised was with how childish some of the very experienced cash game pros were.
- A very small, but nice thing is getting Platinum status in Harrah's Total Rewards program which lets you get in the VIP lines. A nice time saver...

Vegas bound

My flight to Vegas leaves in less than 2 hours. The first event for me kicks off at noon tomorrow.

My expectations are pretty simple. I'm hoping I can sleep well during the trip, and have a few nice long days of poker. That's not much to wish for...
The one thing I hope to avoid is a trip to the bank where I walk in lighter on the way in than on the way out. I've made that trip already this month. Once is enough.

Anatomy of a $4k mistake

This was a really simple but stupid mistake:

Final table of the PR Big Deal $80k guar ($300+$20, 248 runners, 7.5% overlay)
- 8 players remaining
- average stack 19x bb
- Hero's stack 17x bb, Hero's rank 4th
- all opponents behind Hero have 10x bb or less in their stack EXCEPT for 2nd chip leader in CO.
preflop: folded to Hero in MP+1 who finds 88, Hero pushes for 17x bb, muck, insta call, muck, muck, muck (2 players, pot size 35.5x bb)
postflop: XXXXX, CO wins 35.5x bb w AA.

To more fully set the context: I was multi-tabling 3 big MTTs/Supers (in all MTTs, my stack value was higher than $1k real money). For the first ~8 seconds of my time in the PR hand, I was dealing with a decision in the Stars $1m guar. I'm not certain if PR has a time bank, but I assumed no (NOTE TO SELF: check if PR has a time bank for MTTs!!).
In the past ~1 hour of play, I had raised 3xbb/folded to reraise 3 times. Without much time to prudently analyze the situation, I pushed simply because I had all but 1 opponent covered.
I should merely have raised something like 3-4x bb, and mucked to a reraise from the big stack. My remaining stack is worth ~$4k.

The basic lesson here is, when multitabling, time-management priority MUST be given to the decisions that have greatest value. Yes, rocket science.

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Weekend MTT stats
ITM: 18.2% (2/11)
ROI: 18.9% (+$474.80)
Hours played: 12.5
Hourly rate: +$38/hr