FTOPS GG

Well. That's that. Just busted in 3216. These two hands had a lot to do it:

I knew you had nothing

And,
lol

ok well. back to my homework now.

FTOPS 1st break

ok here we are on the first break.

I'm sitting at 4290 chips, a bit under the starting stack of 5000. Haven't really been able to do much yet. My table seems unremarkable thus far, with a couple of the fish busting early so that doesn't really help things in terms of trying to get something going.

I had one potentially big hand that I think I screwed up:
J8d in big blind
Was hoping to get in a check-push on the turn, but whiffed. The river card sucks cuz it kills my action, and my hand looks exactly like a flush. But I figured at that point my best bet was an overbet to look like a bluff. Or in case HE has the flush, I'm making him pay for it. But his hand doesn't look like a flush at all; my guess is that he had a medium-big Jack. He did tank forever, but eventually folded :(

Here's another hand that went badly:
River bluff-raise
I wanted to pounce on that river bet of 200 since it looked so weak, and this guy has been playing tight so I thought I could make him fold. I guess the question is, what am I trying to represent? Well, I'd play a set this way, or a 5, and check that turn when I hit my house or trips. I also could have clubs. But my bet size sucks; I didn't do the math carefully because I'm only making him call 600 for a pot of 1400 at that point. So yeah, that's silly.

Anyways. Back at it.

FTOPS Main Event

So I've barely been playing any poker these days since school has been killing me.

But somehow, on Friday night, I won a satellite into the FTOPS Main Event, which is a $500+35 buy-in tournament.

This is gonna be interesting, since I don't even know if I remember how to play.

It just started, and there are 4371 entrants with top 585 getting paid. 1st place is just over $385,000.

And away we go...

Road Tripping

So as part of my roadtrip over the past week, I went to Vegas for one night with Kohn and Gabe. We picked up Gabe from UCLA the morning after Reeck and Crystal's wedding (which actually was a LOT of fun), as Crystal's mom insisted that we stop at their brunch that morning and to bring Gabe with us even though he didn't come to the wedding.

We arrived in Vegas around 5:30pm that evening. I actually wanted to go to church since I hadn't yet that day, so I went to mass at the UNLV Catholic Newman Center as Gabe and Kohn got started.

Gabe started out at the MGM, where Kohn and I met him soon after. I sat with Gabe at his 1/2 NL table as Kohn went off to the craps tables. This session didn't go well for Gabe. Kohn lost as well. Things weren't really going my way either, until one hand late in the session where I had A8d in late position so I limped after some limpers. Flop came with 2 diamonds and it checked to me so I bet $10 and got one caller after me. Turn was the Ace of hearts, so good card but I don't want this pot to get out of control in case I'm behind, so I check-called as he bet $20. River was the beautiful King of diamonds, I pondered, then bet $50, which at the time I thought was an overbet (which I intended) but after recalculating right now it's a pure value-bet. whoops. A few drinks can really hinder your ability to count the pot. Anyways, I tried to look like I was nervous and didn't want a call... I'm not sure if that is what did it, but I then heard the beautiful words "all-in" and I had to double-check that I indeed did have the nuts. No straight-flush was possible, and I did in fact have the Ace and Eight of diamonds, so I made the call and just turned over my cards to save him the time and trouble.

After that, Gabe and I had been waiting on a list for a 2/4 Mix game, which we were told was just a rotation where the game was decided at the beginning of each new dealer. Sounded like a lot of fun. But we were 1 and 2 on the list for like a good two hours; NO ONE was getting up from this game. Drats.

But Kohn was ready to call it a night, as he had lost as much as he wanted to and did not want to interfere with our poker. As soon as I realized he was serious about leaving, I said "no way," screw poker, convinced him to stay up and we would continue to drink. We abandoned the MGM and headed back to Bally's to play some video poker and get free drinks while doing so.

Then Gabe kept talking about somewhere that had $1 beers so we headed off in search of this, since Kohn did not want to gamble anymore so we had to find an alternative way to get cheap drinks. We stopped at Bill's Gambling Hall where they had 99 cent Margheritas, but those turned out to be extremely small. So we moved on, next to O'Sheas that advertised "Beer Pong." We went in to investigate, and it turned out to be $20 to buy the two pitchers of beer to play. And these were some fairly small pitchers so it was kind of a rip-off. But we found 2 other guys who wanted to play, so we agreed to play with them and loser would pay. Gabe offers to put the money up front to buy the pitchers, so he goes up to the bar to get them. He of course gets carded (see early Borgata trip report heh), and... it turns out that Gabe had just gotten his California license. But since they don't print them out immediately (they send them in the mail within 10 days), all he had was a paper document to use in the meantime. The bartender would not accept this. Ridiculous... I think we could've called the cops to take care of this since that paper is a legal document. But we instead chose to just argue. Then I said I'd just buy it, but the bartender said "ok, but he (Gabe) can't play." WTFLOL. We talk to the manager too, who won't hear any of it. So we bounce.

Next stop is at Casino Royale, Kohn's favorite place to gamble, and this turns out to be the place with $1 beers! Hooray!! So we hang out there for a bit. This place also has this weird version of Blackjack called Blackjack Switch. Basically, you play two hands, and before you decide whether you are going to hit or stand, you have to decide if you want to switch your cards or not. So for example, if in one hand you have A6 and in the other hand you have 5J, you can switch them so that you have AJ and 56, two far superior hands than previously. But you can only switch the 2nd cards that you receive. Also, blackjack only plays 1:1 (instead of 3:2), and the dealer doesn't bust on 22; if dealer hits 22 then it is a push. Anyways, we played this game for a bit, Gabe won about $100 and I won like $150. w00t.

Finally we head back to Bill's for the cheap breakfast. Except Gabe ordered the steak dinner.

We finally get back to our room at 5am, which was a complete shock to all of us that it was so late.

The next morning we wake up and nurse our hangovers, and head to the Venetian where Gabe and I go to buy tickets to the Blue Man Group, which I really wanted to see since Nick Kittle is in it right now; I know him from Michigan where he was a percussion performance major and in the Marching Band for a year. So we buy them, and then meet up with Nick for lunch/brunch at Peppermill which is a nice little place on the north end of the strip. Kohn unfortunately can't make it to the show since his flight is at 8pm and the show starts at 7pm. But Gabe and I go, and it's an awesome show. Definitely worth seeing. Then we take off after that and head back to LA.

btw it's such a good feeling to drive in Las Vegas. So much better than cab rides. Especially since I now have such a bitter taste in my mouth about Las Vegas cab drivers (see previous post). And it's like, every time I would drive somewhere, I'd just feel like I'm saving $10 or whatever the cab ride would have cost.

Oh also. Today I was driving in rural Oregon (on my way back north after a fun week in LA, San Diego, and Berkeley), and I saw a bunch of signs for a casino. I debated stopping at it... and as I was driving by, I actually missed it. So I was about to keep going, but then I decided that I really wanted to see it, just out of curiousity. So I turned around and went to it. It was... pretty small. But not shady at all, even though it was completely in the middle of nowhere and totally surrounded by woods in all directions. I guess it was sort of close to Crater Lake, but that's about it. Anyways, basically all they had was a bunch of slot machines and a few blackjack tables, with minimum bet of $5. I sat at one for a little bit, and left down $10. oh well.

Anyways this road trip is coming to an end but it's been an awesome one. I think I could see myself living someday in any of the places that I visited. Well, not Hood River. But LA, Vegas, San Diego, Berkeley/Bay area... yeah, I think so. If Seattle doesn't work out for the long run.

3-handed at Parkers 8/16 game

Somehow, last night, Mike and I ended up playing 3-handed in an 8/16 game at Parkers with one other random dude.

Not exactly the game sitution that I'd like to be in. But basically, we were on the list for 8/16, we got called, and as we were making our way to the table, the game completely broke. There was just one guy left who wanted to play, and suggested that we play 3-handed. I didn't really want to, but Mike did, and the other guy kept saying that more people will come if we keep the game going. So we did.

Anyways, I wound up winning a little bit (like $40) in about an hour. Mike dropped about $200.

Our game ended when the other guy got called for his 12/24 seat. Then Mike suggested that we play heads up. I wasn't sure if he was kidding or not, but I said HELL NO. haha. That kid is crazy sometimes.

Then we got our free comped food (we both ordered fried chicken wings) and left.

Also, I made a bet with Bill (one of Mike's old housemates) last night that he wouldn't get mugged in the next 12 months. He recently moved to First Hill, which is kind of a hit-or-miss neighborhood, in that some parts of it are nice and some are quite shady. But I don't think he will actually get mugged, he's a pretty big white guy, and I'd think that thieves would have better targets than him. So we made a $50 bet last night, if he doesn't get mugged in the next year then I win $50, and if he does get mugged, then I pay him $50. So he has a little insurance for if he does get mugged, heh.

Less than one week until Vegas!!

Unplanned trip

On Sunday, I was trying to return from Detroit to Seattle, on standby. Unfortunately, all flights out of Detroit were overbooked, even into Monday. Things were looking pretty grim. Furthermore, there were no direct flights; I would have to connect somewhere else to get to Seattle. But it looked like as long as I could get out of Detroit, my second flight would be fine.

Well Sunday went by as I did not get on any flight... until 11:45pm, somehow I got on a flight to Las Vegas!

I passed out for the entire flight. I had been drinking somewhat steadily for my last 4 hours in Detroit.

I landed at McCarran around 1:30am. The next flight out of Vegas to Seattle was at 9:30am. So, after wandering around the airport for a little bit, I started to ask myself the obvious question: Should I head to the strip? The answer was of course a YES!!

So I did. Of course, I did not have much cash with me, and could not pull that much out of the ATM either. So I wasn't even sure what I was going to play. Eventually I decided I would just keep it simple and play 4/8 at the Bellagio.

Quick side-note: On my cab ride from the airport, the driver took me through the tunnel onto I-15. This is the long way, and costs almost twice as much. I wasn't very pleased about this, and it hadn't actually happened to me before so I didn't really think about telling him not to beforehand (the first I had ever heard about it was when it happened to Emily sometime last year). More details about that can be found here: 2+2 thread

Anyways, I actually went first to Bally's to check my bags. Not that I couldn't have done that at the Bellagio, but Bally's is more familiar to me so you just go with what you know, you know? Also I had planned on ending the night/morning with a breakfast at the Barbary Coast (now called Bill's Gambling Hall or something?) as we had done on other trips, since they have a really cheap breakfast special from midnight to 7am, so that made Bally's a reasonable place to leave my stuff.

I eventually got to a 4/8 table at the Bellagio around 2:30am. The room was still pretty lively, I'd guess about 20 full tables of action. Pretty impressive for a random Sunday night.

The game was pretty good. Lots of pre-flop limping, lots of cold-calling, lots of junk showdowns. And I had a complete maniac directly to my right. He was raising pre-flop with hands such as Q3c, 65o, T2o, etc etc, even 3-betting with such hands. So I had good position on him. Unfortunately, on my best hand of the night, I hit two pair with ATo, only to lose to his set of 8s. And of course I gave him a LOT of action since I didn't figure him to have anything. Anyways, I dropped $200 in this game, but not before getting a coffee and two double Glenlivets neat. That would've cost me about $30 at a bar, so that softens the blow a little :)

There was one really talkative girl at my table. She kept telling the old man next to her how beautiful his daughter was, and then later when his wife came over, how beautiful she was as well. And she kept trying to talk to the guy next to me, who wouldn't respond to her at all. After he wouldn't talk to her, she kept calling him "quiet" and "unfriendly," and then to really get in his face, she stuck out her hand to him and said "My name is Heather, what's yours?" He still completely ignored her. She talked to me a bit too, told me how she wanted an Asian daughter because they are so pretty. Started flirting with me, asked if I was a California boy, I told her I was from Seattle, she asked if she could crash with me if she came up there, I jokingly said yeah! Then she was like "ok give me your number" and whipped out her phone to save it. At that point I waved my hands and was like "nah." Fortunately she didn't seem to take too much offense. She wasn't too bad looking but she was a bit older, and actually was getting quite annoying. And I wasn't about to shout my phone number across the table regardless. Anyways, after about an hour, the guy who wouldn't respond to her at all jumps up and yells "YES!!" sticks out his hand to her and says "Hi, my name is Andy. I just won a $25,000 bet for not talking to you until 4:45."

weird.

Anyways, it was about 6am when I busted my stack. I headed over for breakfast, went back to Bally's to get my bags, and went back to the airport. I may have dropped $200 but I was playing in a good game where I most certainly had +EV, and I got there for free (well, minus $35 for cab rides there and back), so I can't complain.

Oh and I got on the 9:30am flight to Seattle with no problems, and was at work by 3pm.

Next trip to Vegas in 1 1/2 weeks!!

Back from Vegas

Well, I didn't end up playing in any WSOP events this year. My plan had been to play some satellites on Friday night right when I arrived, but I missed my flight so I actually didn't get there until Saturday afternoon.

Rahul played in the $1500 NL event on Saturday. He had actually won his buy-in into this event at a 2/5 table the night before. Unfortunately, he busted in 2 hours.

I played in a $150 limit hold'em tournament at Binions on Monday. I thought this was a pretty good tournament, well run and nice structure. And lots of people really don't know how to play limit. I think I definitely had an edge in this tournament. Unfortunately I had a couple of rough beats and made a couple of mistakes, to bust in about 2 hours.

The video poker plan didn't really work out either, because I just never found much time to play. I spent most of my time at the poker tables. Which is well enough; I came out about +$320 on the trip.

Anyways, my new summer project is to learn Omaha hi/lo. I've wanted to branch out from Hold'em for a while now, but for some reason never really found the time or motivation to do so. But this summer seems like a pretty good time for this. I really didn't know much about Omaha strategy before I started reading and studying over this past week. It's amazing how NOT intuitive it is after playing Hold'em. So I have a lot to learn. I'm looking forward to the challenge. Maybe I'll even go for a WSOP bracelet in Omaha hi/lo someday. You heard it here first.

ONE WEEK UNTIL VEGAS

w00t

So excited for Vegas! Still sad that I won't be playing in the WSOP, but oh well. Maybe I can make something happen in a live satellite.

I'm a little concerned about my video poker plan (see previous entry), because I've been practicing on a simulator and I'm still making mistakes. I've been improving, but this game is a little trickier to play perfectly than I expected. Right now I tend to make about 5-10 mistakes per 100 hands, on Deuces Wild. I haven't been practicing Jacks or Better as much, because Deuces Wild actually has >100% EV, whereas JoB has just under 100%. But I should be practicing both. Hopefully I can get them both near perfect through this week, or else I will have to bag that plan.

Tomorrow I am going to try and satellite into the $40k Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt. This is a $150 buy-in tournament. I was debating between going for this one and going for the $1,000 buy-in that is also tomorrow, but that of course would be a longer shot to get into. So I think I'll go with the $40k, and see if I can make anything happen in that.

The other possible plan for tomorrow would be to just head up to Tulalip. I went last week, for some 3/5 NL with $300 max buy-in. I played ridiculously bad for the first hour, and still managed to pull $200 out of that game. I'm actually still really mad at myself for how I played at first, I was just playing absolutely stupid. Stuff like open-limping on the button, calling raises with A8h, and then not folding on the flop with just a pair of aces, bluffing into a loose player, etc etc. Just awful. Hopefully it's out of my system now, at least.

But anyways. I enjoy tournaments more than cash anyways. Unfortunately I think I'm better at cash. Particularly limit. sigh.

but yeah. VEGAS BABY!!

no wsop for me this year

Well my run for a Main Event seat has ended almost before it even started.

Since school has kept me so busy this year, I didn't really start playing any WSOP satellites until this week. The main one that I wanted to play in was $535 buy-in, the 100 seat guarantee. It is running right now, and the final count of entrants was 3,338 which means that actually the top 139 will get a seat.

Earlier, I played 3 satellites each for $69 (which I actually won seats into) to get into the $535, but could not connect on any of them. Then today, I played in a $109 buy-in satellite (which I also won my seat into) with about 1000 entrants and top 204 getting a seat into the $535. But unfortunately, I busted in 253 when I got so short that I had to push A9o, and ran into AK and got no help.

But, RAHUL is in this tournament right now, the 100 seat guarantee. Last update he said he was in about 600th, out of the 3,338. GOGOGOGOGOGO RAHUL.

I didn't really expect to win a seat this year, with my limited time and limited bankroll. But it'll be pretty sweet if Rahul does, again.

And I'm still going to try to play in some live satellites for a seat into one of the smaller WSOP events, like $1500 buy-in or so. We'll see how that goes.

No comps? :(

So we're going to Vegas from June 29th to July 3rd. My plane ticket is booked. Only problem is... we don't have a hotel room yet!

Jeff had a voucher for 2 free weekday nights at Bally's which we were going to use for Sunday and Monday nights, but unfortunately he hasn't called to book it yet, and I just heard from Emily who tried to book rooms with a deal that she got around those same dates, and they told her that the rooms were too booked up to let her use her deal.

So this does not bode well for us. Our only hope is that Jeff's deal is somehow different enough that they will let him use it despite what they told Emily.

Augh. Weekend rack rates are like $155, and weekday are like $70ish. So this could suck. Meanwhile I did not receive any comped rooms this time around so I have no control over this. Bummer. We've been so used to staying at Bally's for so cheap. I got a deal for our Christmas trip for like $29, I got free Paris rooms over the summer, and other Bally's deals in the past too.

The difference is that on my past trip, I didn't play any -EV games. Those are the ones that they like to give you stuff for, to make you come back. Jeff no doubt got his comps from that big rush in Blackjack that he went on, when he was betting like $100-$200 per hand. The way they rate your play is based on how big you're betting and how long you're playing. The outcome has absolutely no bearing on it. They just want people who will give them big action to come back.

In the past, I've played Blackjack and Pai Gow giving them action of like $25-$100 per hand. But I could never play Blackjack for very long because that game terrifies me, even when I had a decent roll, so I never even built up THAT many points. Just enough to get a free room here and there.

Well, lately I've been reading about video poker, because Mike told me that you can actually beat it. This really surprised me, and coming from just about anyone else I wouldn't have believed it. But as Mike is a 2nd year in the Biostatistics department (ha ha) and a reader of 2+2, I have some faith in what he says about gambling and EV. So I looked into it. There are tons of different variations of this, but some are better than others, and some even have positive expectation. These are of course quite rare, but a decent game that shouldn't be too hard to find is 9/6JoB.

This is Jacks or Better, and the 9/6 means as follows: the 9 is the payout for a full house and the 6 is the payout for a flush. Other games have different payouts for these two hands, like 8/6, 8/5, even 6/5. This of course makes a huge difference in the long run, and with perfect play, 9/6JoB has a longterm expectation of .9954 per hand.

This means that if I'm at a 25 cent machine betting the max (5 coins, so $1.25), playing 1000 hands per hour (about average), I can expect to be down about $57.50 in 10 hours.

Ok so you're probably not quite sold on this yet. Why stare at a screen for 10 hours just to lose 60 bucks? Where does "beating it" come in? Well, what I've found out is that playing 25 cents at max bet for an hour is roughly equivalent to playing $25 blackjack for an hour, as far as comps go. That's pretty decent. And I can't play blackjack for more than like one hour without having a heart attack. It just moves too fast. But the comps that can be generated by this level of play are nothing to scoff at, in the form of free rooms, cashback, and gift cards. This can add up to way more than the $60 expected loss.

You might wonder how they can do even this. Why give you back more money than you're losing to them? Well, two things. First, not everyone plays "perfect," so their expectation is quite a bit lower. I hope to learn "perfect" play by my trip, which appears to be feasible for this variant of video poker (others are tougher). Second, things like free rooms will be quite valuable to me but cost almost nothing to them, especially if I use it at an off-peak time. Even gift cards probably cost them less than face value, and if I use it at somewhere that I would shop anyways, it's the same as cash to me.

The other thing is that video poker machines are sometimes tied to progressive jackpots. These can get quite huge, and if it's big enough, you might be actually playing with positive expectation. Ok so the odds of hitting a jackpot are of course quite low even if it gives you positive expectation, but from a gambling perspective, we always have to think about things in terms of an infinite sample size. If you think about everything this way, your long term results will show it even if it does not manifest itself in a given trip.

So. 10 hours of play. Cost $60 on average. Chance to hit a sweet jackpot. Keep the free scotch coming. And hopefully comped rooms for my next trip and probably other comps as well.

Everyone wins.

I hope. Will report back on this.

Back to the real world

It's funny to think that exactly a year ago, I was in Las Vegas. With Emily, vk, Wendy and Rahul, for Memorial Day weekend. I was one week away from leaving my job to spend the summer playing poker full time and studying to prepare for entering my PhD program. I had WSOP seat in hand, and roughly a $10k bankroll.

Today, I'm not in Vegas, I have no WSOP seat, and I have about $1k in the "bankroll." Not even much of a roll at all. I did make a good amount through the summer, but I ended up spending way more than expected to cripple the roll, plus took a nasty downswing in December. I remember... at Mike's New Years party, we had a discussion involving how to rebuild from a $500 bankroll. yeah. So at least I've made some progress since then.

I haven't made much of a push for winning a seat this year. School has been taking way too much time. I've played one WSOP satellite so far, actually a satellite into another $500 satellite. I didn't win.

Mostly these days I am playing $10-30 single table tournaments. I ran from $200 up to like $880 in less than a week, but then it came crashing down. In there was a session of PLO where I dropped $160, getting stacked 3 times, once as a dog on the turn and twice as a favorite on the flop or turn. I don't really know how to play that game anyways though, so I probably shouldn't have been playing that while I'm still rebuilding.

My first year exam for my PhD program is on June 12th, so I plan to step up the poker after that. Full Tilt is running a huge WSOP 100 seat guarantee tournament on June 17th. What this means is that at least the top 100 will get a seat in the WSOP Main Event. Of course it's going to be huge, so there might not even be any overlay. The buy-in is $500, and this is the tournament I was trying to satellite into. I fully plan to play in this. The problem is that since it's just 5 days after my exam, that only gives me that much time to make a big push for it. Until then, I can only play satellites here and there... or maybe not even any until after the exam.

Full Tilt also has satellites into the smaller WSOP events. I'm going to try and win one of these too, although last year that didn't go so well; ironically I spent more money on that, with no succcess, than I did on winning a Main Event seat.

We are going to Vegas on June 29th. There is a $1500 NL event on June 30th that I would like to play in. Rahul plans to play in it as well, and it sounded like he was going to buy in directly. baller.

I'm toying with the idea of becoming a regular at Tulalip Casino this summer. They've got a 3/5 NL game with $300 max buy-in. So it's quite shallow, but I think I can beat it. I played in it a few weeks ago and pulled down about $400. Granted I was getting sick cards, but as much as I could objectively evaluate the play of the others while on my rush, it seemed to be beatable. We'll see. The main problem is that I'm nowhere near rolled for it with just $1000. But maybe I'll run hot to start out. That would be pretty sweet.

WSOP 2006: MAIN EVENT DAY 2

Before I get started on talking about Day 2 (which unfortunately won't take very long anyways), I should pause and give an update on our Michigan vs Ohio State last longer bet. In the end, we had 3 Wolverines vs. 4 Buckeyes, each of us putting down $100 and the winning team distributing the prize. I was hoping it would be easy to determine who the winning side was, i.e. that it would be fairly obvious who lasted longer and I wouldn't have to deal with splitting hairs down to the hour or anything. But I figured I'd cross that bridge when I got to it, if necessary.

Anyways, as a result of this bet, I got a nice shoutout on ESPN.com (scroll to the very bottom). And in case you can't find it, here's a screenshot:



Woooooo! so yeah, pretty sweet. And to fill in the gaps of knowledge, there were in fact two Buckeyes and two Wolverines heading into Day 2. So this bet was still way up for grabs.

We start play on Day 2 at Level 7, blinds at 250/500 with 50 ante. So with my 12,050 I'm certainly short-stacked but not in any critical range yet (my M is still above 10, for those of you who think about such things). And there were a couple guys at my table with about my same stack, and one guy with about 4000. Of course there were a couple of huge stacks too.

I went into the day knowing I'd need to make some moves early on, but I may have pushed it a little too hard. In one hand, I raised from UTG with KQo. I already talked in a previous post about this problem. There's really no point in raising from early position with this kind of hand, particularly with a stack the size of mine. Anyways, when I did this, the short stack moved all-in. It folded back to me, and it was about 2500 for me to call. I was getting almost 2:1 on my money, so if he's got a pocket pair, then I should definitely call. But if he's got AK/AQ then clearly I'm in big trouble. In retrospect, in guessing his range I think I should've put a lot more weight on those two hands since he's almost certainly pushing with them, and that should lean me towards a fold. However, I really put him on a pocket pair so I made the call. It turns out that I was right this time, he had JJ. So after my dubious pre-flop raise, the call here was mathematically correct to race getting odds. Unfortunately I got no help and he doubled through me. And I still think that I wouldn't be right often enough in this spot; I'm gonna see AK/AQ quite a lot here. Also, I should consider that 2500 represents more than 20% of my stack, which maybe should weigh in more than the straight pot odds here.

So that took me down to about 8k. A few hands later I get KK on the button. It folds to me, and I steal the blinds. sweet.

Next orbit I'm in the button and it again folds to me. This time I try to steal, the SB moves all-in. Of course, this time I have 32 offsuit. argh. Why didn't he do this last time?? Well, bye-bye chips.

Now I'm down to about 5k and again it folds to me. Well it's really go time now, my M is like 5. I'm pushing just about anything now. Next hand I get J9o one off the button, I push. Folds to BB, who thinks forever. It really looked like he was going to fold. So when he finally called, I was really surprised to see a hand as good as he had. He flips over TT. Come on 3-outer!! Well flop comes Q-high, no help. Turn comes T, which looks bad at first but wait, now I have 8 outs!! Unfortunately none came on the river, and I'm out the door in ~3000th place.

Of all these hands, the only one I'd change is raising from UTG with KQo. The hand I busted on was automatic with a stack that low, and the steal attempt with 32o was also standard, unless I have some kind of read on either blind, like I feel that they're itching to play back at me or something.

But what a ride. I dreamed of playing in the World Series of Poker ever since I got serious about the game, back in my first year at Hopkins. I never imagined it would happen so soon. I really do feel like I was well above the average player in this tournament though. Many were way too weak-tight. Some were too aggressive. Some over-played their marginal hands. I don't want to downplay the field too much -- it was certainly full of great players, no matter what Norman Chad or Lon Mcheron may say on tv. But I definitely want to take another shot at it; with a little luck and some more practice and studying, I think I can make something happen there.

WSOP 2006: MAIN EVENT DAY 1 continued

In my last post, I described the first part of my Day 1 in the Main Event. I had run up to about 20,000 chips, and was feeling in pretty good control of my first table. Just before dinner break, I got moved to a new table, where I immediately felt that things were going to be a bit more difficult.

We got a 90 minute dinner break. Anne graciously picked up a sandwich for me beforehand so I wouldn't have to fight the lines, and we went back up to our room there in the Rio so I could chill out for a bit. The others relayed some news to me about who they had seen, gotten pictures with, etc. Brownpa got a picture with Annie Duke, and Emily got a picture with Phil Hellmuth. eww. Well here they are:

Anyways. So at 7:30pm, we start play again. Word on the street was that we'd likely be playing until 2 or 3am. So, I sat down to my 20,000 chips, prepared for another long haul. We started after the dinner break at level 4, which seemed to go by without too much happening either way from my standpoint. I did manage to steal some small pots, but nothing major. Just enough to keep around 20k.

As I mentioned before, this table was a lot different from my first one. Lots of aggression, and lots of bigger stacks. One guy had a HUGE mountain of chips, probably around 70k when I got there and definitely got well over 100k. I managed to get myself in a confrontation with him, too.

This came in Level 5, blinds at 150/300 with 25 ante. In this hand, he opened from UTG+1 for 1000. It folds to me in the SB, I look down at AKh. I have 18k right now and I re-raise to 3000. He thinks for a good minute, and finally calls. Flop comes down 789 with two spades. Not a great flop for me but I make a standard continuation bet of 4500. He instantly moves all-in. AUGH. Of course I have to lay it down. This hand haunts me for the rest of the night though, as I just lost almost half my stack right there and I keep dwelling on how I could've played it differently. Maybe I didn't have to re-raise pre-flop. Maybe I didn't even have to make the continuation bet. I don't know. He had been really active so I knew his pre-flop raise meant very little and that AK is well ahead of his range. So I think I have to re-raise there. Maybe I should've re-raised more to make it clear that I'm playing for my stack with this hand, and to give him no room to outplay me. I don't know. All I do know is that this has re-enforced my belief that AK is really hard to play with deep stacks. It has no implied odds if you do hit, and it's just begging for you to lose a big pot with it if you misplay it.

And who was this guy that I lost all these chips to? That would be this guy. Yeah I didn't know who he was at the time; I just knew he had a mountain of chips. Note that he won the Bellagio Cup just after the WSOP Main Event, and also I have since seen him on tv at some WPT tournament.

Anyways. So that hand sucked. And a few more hands sucked too, and I then found myself down near about 5,000 chips. uh oh. Things were looking quite grim. In another hand, I managed to get myself all-in on a bluff. I made a standard open from late position, the BB called me. Flop came down 346 all hearts. He checked to me and I moved all-in for about 4k. Oh right what did I have? umm JT offsuit. haha. Fortunately he folded, though he did take a while to think about it.

Then, in another hand UTG opens for 900. Folds to me in the SB, I look down at 99. I thought about just shoving right there, but I thought I'd just see a flop with this guy. He had been a bit reckless, so in retropect maybe I should've just played it safe and move in to save the guess-work, especially with how short I was. But I thought maybe I could play a flop with him and get the best of it there, so I just called. BB folded and we saw a flop of 35Q. Not the greatest flop for me but not horrible either. I checked to see what he would do. He bet out 4000. WOW. I had just over 5k so basically I'm playing for my stack here if I go with it. I tanked forever. I stared at him to try and get some kind of read... and my read was, he doesn't like this flop. But, he could still hate this flop with TT or JJ. Then again, that's two very specific hands, and there's a much wider range that he probably has. As I'm thinking, Shannon Shorr calls time (which means a floorman comes over to start a 1 minute countdown for me to act on my hand or else it's dead). But no matter, by this point I had basically made my decision and as soon as he called time, I said "ok I'm all-in." My opponent is forced to call the extra 1k or so with his 78o, no pair no draw. YES. Turn comes a 7 and I'm like NO PLEASE DEALER DON'T DO IT but then river comes a 9 for an unnecessary set and I double up. This was definitely the most difficult decision I had to make in this whole tournament, to play for my whole stack here, and I felt really happy to have made the right move in this spot.

A little later, I get QQ in late position and bust the guy who gave me that difficult hand there. Now I'm back up to about 20k or so.

I dwindle back down a little bit though in Level 6, blinds at 200/400 with 50 ante. I get JJ in mid position and facing a raise in front to 1300. I think about re-raising but decide to just call. Flop comes down A-high and he bets out 2200, almost the size of the pot. Augh that looks weak but I don't know if I wanna play a big pot right here. I think briefly about raising or calling, but decide to just get out of his way and lay it down. I'm not happy about it though.

Then towards the very end of the night, I get 99 again, this time in mid-late position. Here's a hand that I brutally misplayed. Two people limp in front. I limp along. Two more limp behind me and we go 6-way to the flop, which is K42r. It checks to me and I bet about 1500. A guy behind me raises to 5000, it folds back to me and of course I have to fold. So ok there's a number of different ways I could've played this. I could have just shoved pre-flop with those two limpers in front of me and just picked up those chips. Or, I could have just NOT BET when the flop wasn't so good for me and I had a million other people in the hand. yeah. dumb dumb. oh well.

Anyways, I do make it through the whole night, with $12,050 chips to go into Day 2. Not great, but still alive. Here is proof:

After we finished play that night, my crew and I went to a restaurant/bar in the Rio to celebrate my survival through Day 1. I had my first beer in a few days. And even though the night could've ended a little better, I was still on a pretty big high just from being at the World Series of Poker and getting to play in Day 2.

WSOP 2006: MAIN EVENT DAY 1

Ok so here we are, after several posts telling about the first several days in Vegas, playing in various tournaments. It's now finally time for the whole reason of this trip: playing in the World Series of Poker Main Event. My start day was Day 1c, Sunday July 30th. Play began at 12pm, and I was well rested after having sequestered myself in my own room at Fitzgeralds with Emily (again, in separate beds...) while the rest of the party was at our room right there at the Rio. Emily and I stopped in before heading down. Here's a picture with Rahul in the room:

In case you're wondering about the pink shirt, it says "tracysangels.com," and we were wearing them in support of a woman named Tracy DuPont who was suffering from breast cancer. On the back of them, we wrote "TEAM CHI." Not a bad deal, we support a woman who needs help, and we get free uniforms. :)

Of course I also had to wear Full Tilt gear since that is part of the deal with winning a seat on their site. So I had my knit cap, and the pullover that they gave me. I also had a Full Tilt hoodie, but it was a little bit too warm for that.

So on to the tournament. Day 1c had notables Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harmon, Greg Raymer, Tuan Le, Nam Le, Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, and Mike Matusow, among others. Fortunately, I never came close to any of them. Odds weren't really in favor of that anyways since there were over 2000 people per day (a grand total of 8773 entrants, spread out over 4 starting days). Oh yeah and 1st prize was a cool $12 million. Top 800 or so would get paid, with the first level of prize money at ~$14,000, and to make it to the first money level would mean lasting until roughly somewhere in the middle of Day 3.

So we started at noon. Unfortunately, since the ballroom was so packed, they did not allow spectators in until somewhere after the 2nd break (4pm). So I was somewhat on my own for the first several hours, although my peeps would periodically peek in through the doorway since my table was actually visible from there. Actually here's a shot of my table from there:



So ok. First several hours. My assessment of the table was that it was a bit weak-tight. Not surprising, for a $10k event with many amateurs like myself. I'm sure that I was not the only one for whom this was the largest event they had ever played in. So nerves were running a bit high, and no one wanted to bust out early. So, this meant I had to open up my game and steal, steal, steal. Which is exactly what I did. For the most part, it was working pretty well. I did get played back at a couple of times, and there were definitely a couple of tough spots at the table, but for the most part I felt in pretty good control of things.


Early on, I had two hands go badly:

1) I find KK in mid position. Blinds are still quite small, I made a standard raise and got called in one spot. Flop was all low, I bet out, got called. Turn was a Q, I bet again, got raised. I didn't really think about folding since I still thought there was a pretty good chance I had the best hand, but turn raises aren't a very comfortable thing to deal with, because they generally indicate great strength, and you also have to have an idea of what you're going to do on the river when they (most likely) bet again. I'm certainly in no mood to go broke with one pair, though it's never easy to muck kings. Anyways, I called, intending to call any modest bet on the river. Luckily, the river brought 4 to a straight on the board, and even though there was basically no way that I had it based on the way the hand went down, it caused the man to check behind after I checked to him, and he took the pot with his set of Queens that he hit on the turn. So I definitely could've lost a bit more on that one.

2) The next one was with AKo (which I KNEW was going to be my worst hand because I am basically still a limit-donk as hard as I try not to be, and AK is incredibly easy to play in limit but might be one of the toughest hands to play in no-limit with deep stacks). It folded to me in late position, I made a standard raise, got one caller (the same guy with QQ) from the SB. Flop came down all hearts with an Ace, I had no hearts. He checked to me, I bet about pot. He thought and called. Turn came a blank, he checked, I put him all-in (he had just slightly over the pot remaining at this point, a few thousand). He deliberated for a while, and then finally called with AQ no heart. BEAUTIFUL. Until, of course, the river came a Q and he doubles through me.

That one hurt the psyche a bit and I actually had to get up from the table and go find Emily and BG who were at the Gaming Expo down the hall. They did a good job of calming me down and telling me I have nothing to worry about, this put me back down to about the 10k starting stack but at least I'm not in any danger, and I had to just relax and play my game.

So I went back to my table. One of the very next hands I picked up was KK, there were two limps and a raise in front of me. YUMMY. I thought about smooth calling, but I certainly did not want to play this hand 4-way. On the other hand, I don't know if my table thought I was crazy enough to re-steal here, so if I re-raise, I'm almost announcing that I have AA/KK. And even if someone did think I was re-stealing, there wasn't really anyone at the table with enough balls to play back at me without having something. So, I'm just hoping someone would call with a smaller pocket pair to try and flop a set but miss. I was laying just slightly worse than the right implied odds for that. If I had more confidence in my post-flop skills I think I could smooth call here, especially being that I was in position. But no messing around right now. I re-raised. Everyone folded to me and I took a couple thousand without even seeing a flop. Dang, I should be doing this with rags too.

Another semi-interesting hand... I was UTG, getting dealt my cards, and before I even looked at them, I started thinking, "You know what hand I hate getting UTG? AJ. I don't know how to play it out of position. Raising sucks, but I just hate folding. But, it's a tough hand to from early position... I think I should start folding it there." And then I look down at my cards, and what do I see? AJ. So I'm about to fold like I just told myself. But wait, it's SUITED! Ok, I raise!! haha. yeah... I get one caller. Flop comes down J-high no obvious draws, I bet out 300 (about half-pot), get raised to 900. AUGH, THIS IS EXACTLY WHY I SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING THIS HAND. But... I'm not quite ready to give it up yet. My opponent was a semi-aggressive young kid, so he could be making a play. I call. Turn comes another blank, I'm thinking... how can I best get to showdown without getting into a lot of trouble? I bet 1500. Probably not the best idea. However, he thinks for a second, and folds. Weird. I think I played that hand absolutely terribly, so I was feeling lucky to come out alive.

Around 4pm they allow spectators in, so my crew enters the arena. We're 2 hours from the dinner break. I get a nice run going, I bust someone with AA against his JJ, steal a few more pots, and run my stack up to about 20k and top 2 in chips at my table. At this rate, I'm thinking I can almost cruise into tomorrow with that stack which would be roughly average, though I do want a bit more.

But then, the table breaks. I get sent to a new table, and my early assessment is that this table is going to be a bit rougher. Way more aggression, and much bigger stacks. There were a couple with over 50k, and most people had like 30k. I was thinking that this table could be a lot of trouble.

I wasn't wrong.

We'll start there in the next post.

WSOP 2006: Interlude

Ok where were we. We're in the middle of my 2-week trip to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker. So far I have played in 3 other tournaments, lasting somewhat deep in each but no cash. My start day in the Main Event is on Sunday, and I left off on Thursday night with my last post.

So on Friday, we moved from MGM to the Rio. Wendy got in that day, with Anne and Rick in her car. I made Emily be my "secretary," because I was starting to feel the stress of everything so I just had her deal with it all. Also arriving that day was Steve, and then much later in the night, Rahul.

When Rahul arrived, he immediately announced that the party needed to get going, because he was only in town for less than 48 hours. Well, I was already in no-party mode so I couldn't join him. But Wendy and BG did. Apparently they partied quite late into the night and totally took over a craps table, haha.

That's about it for Friday. On Saturday, I had some business to take care of. On 2+2, the poker forum that I read, there happened to be some trash talking between Michigan and Ohio State. So I suggested a "last-longer" bet between those from the two schools playing in the WSOP. So each of us put down $100, and whichever side lastest the longest would split the prize. On Saturday, I had to meet up with the other participants and collect the monies. Which took more effort than one might expect. And the Rio was already bustling at this point because the Main Event started on Friday (even though I wasn't starting until Sunday).

Also on Saturday, Anne and I went to church. We found a nice Catholic church on the northern-ish part of the Strip, though I can't remember what it was called. Not surprisingly, they were accustomed to having tourists and catered to us nicely, i.e. being very clear on what path to take up there during communion and stuff.

I also had to check into my hotel room at Fitzgeralds. It was becoming quite the party room at the Rio, which I had anticipated. And since I wanted to get a good night's sleep before playing on Sunday, I decided to get my own hotel room for that night. And I had Emily come with me. No we did not share a bed :-P

I guess that's about it. Not very exciting, but I want to start on the Main Event as its own thing, so this post is just the interlude between everything else and that.

TOMORROW I PLAY IN THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER MAIN EVENT WOOOOOOO!!!!

WSOP 2006: Bellagio $1k

Again continuing with the WSOP 2006 story. We're now on Thursday of the ~2 week long trip. So far I've played in the $1500 NL WSOP Event #37, and a Caesars $220 daily tournament with no cash in either, lasting roughly 5 hours in each tournament. My start day for the Main Event is getting closer, just now 3 days away. It's still just me and Emily in Vegas at this point, with BG and Rebecca arriving that night.

Bellagio was running daily $1000 tournaments, so I wanted to try and satellite into this on Thursday. They were continually running single-table satellites for $240, with top 2 winning a seat into the $1000. I headed over there around 10am and took a shot at one of these, as Emily slept in and watched some episodes of Grey's on my computer.

Early on in the satellite, I picked up QQ but took it down on the flop for a small pot. I basically hovered through the first several levels, stealing blinds but not getting much else going on. The table was pretty soft though, not too much aggression and too much calling.

However, one guy was absolutely running over the entire table. The guy directly to my right. He doubled up through one guy with KK against 22 (yeah). Then just kept rolling after that, and eventually he had over half of the entire amount of chips on the table, with 5 players left. At this point it was a virtual certainty that HE was going to get a seat. But the remaining 4 of us had to fight it out with our small stacks at this point.

To make a long story short, I had to bust each of the remaining opponents out myself; I did not get ANY help from the super-stack in this matter :-P The blinds were big enough that it was push-or-fold mode at this point, and I had AT hold against A9, A9 hold against KJo (pretty bad and unnecessary call at that point IMO), and 55 hold against A3o (blinds had gotten even bigger that he HAD to call with that) to bust out 3 players and take one of the top 2 spots.

So WOOHOO I got my seat into the $1k tournament starting at 2pm. I called Emily to give her the good news, and she said she was on her way to play some 2/4 at Bally's or somewhere, and she would swing by the Bellagio if I made it deep.

There were 432 players in this tournament with top 50 getting paid, and a 1st prize of about $126,000. I was so incredibly jacked up for this tournament, I REALLY wanted to cash. Maybe even moreso in this tournament than in the Main Event; I wanted to try and get some momentum going into the weekend.

My first table was medium-tough. There was an old guy who was playing loose-aggressive pre-flop but then weak-tight post-flop. There was a guy wearing a WSOP bracelet (that was real, and not bought from the pawn shop). There were a few young guys who seemed to be playing fairly standard tight-aggressive. I couldn't take control of the table, so I sat back for a bit.

Starting stack was 5000, and level 1 blinds were 25/50 with 40 minute levels. Good, good tournament.

Somewhere around level 3, I had 99 in the big blind. Old guy raised pre-flop, small blind called, I called and we went 3-way to the flop. Flop came king-high with no obvious draws, I wasn't ready to put either of them on a king so I didn't think I was folding yet. I intended to check-raise the old guy if he bet and the SB did not call, but unfortunately, he checked behind after the two of us checked. I actually hadn't read him as weak-tight post-flop yet, so I was actually quite surprised that he didn't make the standard continuation bet. Turn came a blank, and now the SB bet. I insta-raised. In retrospect, I'm not sure that I like this because I didn't have that good of a read on him yet. I was just thinking that it was likely that I had the best hand still, even with the K on board. Anyways, the old guy folded, the SB tanked for like 2 minutes, finally folded and said he was laying down Jacks. Well, that worked out. :)

In another big hand, I had pocket 4s and we went 5-way to the flop in an unraised pot. I was in last position. Flop came with 2 spades, all low but no 4. It checked to me, I bet and got 1 caller. Turn came a 4!! ...but of SPADES. My opponent instantly moved in, for about 3 times the size of the pot. ummmm... NOW WHAT?? Well I tanked, thought about his range, thinking pair with A of spades was quite likely. And if he did just hit the flush already, well that's a weird bet. And I have a lot of outs even if so. So, I called. He turns over 67s so he actually had flopped a straight draw as well, damn he could've played that a bit stronger on the flop. Anyways, I start picking up my things, and then... BOOM the river comes 4!! w00t!!

Lucky me. I'm sitting at about 10k in chips now, as I hadn't really gotten too much going before that double-up. Then around level 5 or so, I got moved to another table. THIS one was MUCH softer than my 1st one. Less aggression and more mistakes. We're down to under 200 at this point.

I worked my stack all the way up to about 25k at this new table. Just got some bad calls from my opponents and had my hands hold up. I had AA to bust a guy who flopped 1 pair with T7o and committed his stack to that. And some other stuff too.

Then right before the 2nd break, I got AQo in late position. The guy to my right limps in. He had literally been playing any two cards, and his stack was on a wild roller coaster. At this point it was a bit on the low side. I raised, he called with not much left behind. I put him all-in on the flop, he called with Q7c and actually had flopped a pair of 7s AND club draw so I was way behind. No help came, and he doubled up through me.

Emily had just arrived around now and had to calm me down as I steamed a bit from this. Not exactly the way I wanted to go into the break. But I still had a healthy stack, just around average now instead of being a bit above.

Unfortunately, things didn't get much better. Blinds were still getting higher, so more drastic measures were now necessary. In a subsequent hand, the same guy playing any two cards raises from the button. I had AQo in the small-blind, and I thought at the time that this was an obvious all-in, which is what I did.

In retrospect, I'm uncertain. Button raises are often steals, but this guy, despite playing any two cards, actually hadn't been RAISING a whole lot. I get the two blended together sometimes; it's tough, when you see someone playing every hand, it's easy to think that their raising range might be quite wide as well. And this is probably true more often than not, but I think it's still important to pay attention and make sure that it is. With this guy, he really had not been raising often at all. Just limping with everything.

So, now he raised. I moved all-in. He calls, with KK. bah. No ace comes, and I'm now running on life-support as I did have him covered, but barely. I double up once, as pocket 6s holds against KJ or something, but it's not enough. I still only have like 4 big blinds, so I move in again with like K8 or something, get called twice, augh, and I'm out the door in 128th.

So once again I lasted about 5 hours and no cash. It was good practice, but I was feeling extremely frustrated after this one. I got some bad luck, and I could've played some spots better too.

Emily and I headed back to the MGM, intending to hit the gym so that I could blow off some steam. But the gym was closed!! :( So instead we went for a run.

BG and Bec came in later that night. When BG got in, we went to Bally's with him to get him playing some 2/4, which I believe was his first poker experience ever. He did ok, a little slow but not too bad :) Bec actually got in really late; her flight was delayed out of NYC due to some storms I think. She arrived around midnight, and BG took a cab from Bally's to McCarran to go and get her. aww. Emily and I stuck there a bit longer, and then eventually headed down to MGM where we met up with them again.

This was to be my last night of drinking before the tournament, as I wanted to put myself on 48-hour detox. But so I had to go out with a bang :) So yeah my memory is a little fuzzy, but I remember playing 3/6 at MGM and ordering a lot of drinks. Bec and BG were around, and actually Bec saw a guy from her flight in the poker room, who apparently was here for the WSOP as well. We started talking about that for a bit, and then so now my table knows I'm playing in the WSOP, but also currently playing like a drunken donkey. haha. There was one hand where I hit a full house with 62o, and the whole table just laughed as I raked in the pot. It was a happy, friendly table and I don't think I was even the most drunk one :)

Then eventually we ended up in one of the MGM's restaurant for a late-night/early-morning meal. I almost went pukey in the bathroom right before this meal, but nothing came out, for better or worse. I was able to take food down ok though. And when we were done, BG picked up the tab! ahh baller.

It's now like 6am and I'm about ready to call it a night. BG and Bec wanted to go to the pool though, so they hung out downstairs a bit longer until it opened, as Emily and I went to bed. They eventually joined us back at the room at whatever hour, I don't even know.

Friday was pretty uneventful, other than a whole bunch of my crew arriving that day, and switching hotels from MGM to the Rio so we could be at the heart of the action during the Main Event, and in a bigger room too as the Rio rooms are pretty amazing.

Next post will start somewhere in there.

WSOP 2006: More tournaments

Ok, continuing with the WSOP 2006 story. I left off with busting out of Event 37, $1500 NL on Tuesday, July 25th. But I still had a few more days to get in some more tournaments before the Main Event, as I didn't start playing in that until Sunday, July 30th.

So on Wednesday, I decided to play in the 7pm $220 tournament at Caesars Palace. They run a great tournament, one of the best smaller buy-in, daily tournaments on the Strip. Decent starting stack (4500), slow blind levels (40 minutes), and a great room to house all the players.

I think this tournament generally gets about 80-100 players. But this was WSOP season, which means Vegas is on steroids. The field for the tournament this day was around 300 players, with a first prize of ~$17,000 and top 30 getting paid.

After finding my seat and chatting briefly with those around me, I discovered that the two guys to my right had both won seats into the Main Event. Now that doesn't prove that they are good, but after some play it was clear that they were, as the three of us were in pretty good control of the table. I was feeling great to be in the best table position among us though, and about an hour in, the one furthest on the right says sarcastically, "I wonder who I need to thank for putting me to the right of you two." hah. Even worse, then we found out that the guy to my LEFT had just cashed in the WSOP stud hi-lo event earlier that day! Oy. Not an easy table. He seemed a bit too passive to cause any real trouble though, so maybe Hold'em wasn't really his strength.

At any rate. I don't remember a whole lot of hands from this event. I do remember opening from UTG with KQo, a rather dubious move in NL Hold'em. A total sign of me being primarily a Limit Hold'em player, as that is a reasonably standard move in that game (though still debatable). Anyways, in this hand a short-stack moved in on me, I was getting like 3-1 on my money so I had to call, but he had AA and I doubled him up. bah.

I did have a good number of hands go my way though, as I was cruising through the levels and found myself with a healthy stack about 4 hours into the tournament. I didn't even realize that we were down to about 70 players at that point, so the money was coming in sight.

Unfortunately, I started dwindling a bit, and the blinds did take some huge jumps that started to catch up to me. I got it all-in as a slight underdog in one hand and managed to suck out to stay alive.

But then about 5 hours in, we're down to 5 tables and I'm really holding on for life. I have QTo on the button, it folds to me and it doesn't even really matter what I have, I'm all-in. The small-blind folds but the big blind calls and I know I'm in trouble because she had been playing rather tight. She turns over QQ and I need a miracle board, which does not come and I'm out in 50th and no cash.

So now it's midnight, fairly early by Vegas time, but this was pretty much the end of that night because I wanted to get up early the next day to play in a satellite at the Bellagio for one of their $1000 buy-in tournaments going on at this time at the "Bellagio Cup."

Next post will start there.

WSOP 2006: Event 37 $1500 NL

ok so it's been a while but here we go

So the World Series of Poker Main Event started on Friday, July 28th. And the pre-lim event that Rahul was staking me in started on Tuesday, July 25th. So I needed to be there before that... and the Main Event ran all the way until August 10th I think, so while I didn't quite expect to make it to the Final Table, I was hoping to at least make it some distance, so this meant I needed to be ready to stay in Vegas for a little while.

Using the $2000 that Full Tilt gave me to spend on travel and lodging, I set up a series of hotel rooms over a period of two weeks, basically hopping around based on where I was getting the best deals, including stays MGM, Rio, Bally's, and Paris. And I invited my Vegas-inclined friends to come join me at any point in that time that they could, with hotel rooms on me.

Depicted below is the schedule of who was coming in and when:

So on Monday, July 24th, Emily and I flew from Rockford, IL to Las Vegas (long story as to why I flew out of there with her... partially because it was much cheaper). Unfortunately, due to a 6 hour delay in our flight, we arrived in the late evening instead of mid-afternoon as planned. I was slightly anxious to get there because I had been hoping to get in some time at the tables that day, just to get back into the swing of playing live poker. Well, we did manage to get over to the Rio around 9pm, where all of the WSOP action was taking place. And there were plenty of cash games going on. Emily got on a $4/$8 limit table, and I went to a $500 buy-in NL game, thinking this was the best way to prepare for a NL tournament the next day. Well I managed to drop about $300 in about two hours, so that was no good.

But no worries. I took Rahul's $1500, registered at the cage for Event 37, the $1500 NL tournament, and Emily and I headed back to the MGM for some sleep.

We started play at noon, and there were about 2800 entrants. The top 270 would get paid (WSOP events pay top ~10%), which probably meant needing to last until early in day 2 of this 3-day event to get any cash. First prize was $760,000.

As a $1500 event, we started with 1500 chips, and level 1 blinds at 25/25 with 1 hour levels. For the poker savvy people out there, you can see that this was quite a shallow event. This meant needing to make moves fairly soon.

As for the table conditions... the play didn't seem too remarkable in either direction, weak or tough. I did have Barry Greenstein two seats to my right. However, he was pretty quiet through most of it. I let him steal my blinds as much as he wanted, but that's about all I remember him even trying to do.

BG busted about 2 hours in, losing on a pre-flop shove with AJ against KK which held. Yes, that's how shallow this event was, that on level 2-3, we're having to push it with AJ and pray. A note on Greenstein -- he is such a class act. After busting out, he pulled out a copy of his book, autographed the first page, wrote out the hand that busted him, and gave it to his opponent. Coooool, I want one.

I don't really remember too many of my hands. I do remember one where I got unlucky and then lucky... I think I had AQo, flopped top pair, got it all-in on the turn when my opponent turned a straight, and I rivered a higher straight.

Humberto Brenes was at my table for exactly one hand... he moved in with 66 from UTG, and got called by the same guy who busted Barry Greenstein, again with KK, which again held. I could use some cards and spots like that, thanks.

From our starting stacks of 1500, I got as high as about 6000 by level 4 or 5. I gave Rahul a call at the 2nd break to check in and let him know that his investment was still alive and doing okay. Blinds were quickly catching up though, and I bled away a little bit too in the next couple levels. By level 6 we were at 150/300 + 25, and I was probably down to about 3000ish, so it's really time to move.

I'm in the big blind, and there's an all-in from middle position for about 4000. Then a call from late position. I haven't looked at my cards yet, but I'm just thinking, "Please let this be an easy decision. High pocket pair or crap, please." I look down at pocket 7s. Thanks, just about the hardest decision I could have.

I'm about to just muck it, when I'm thinking, these blinds aren't going to get any smaller. And this is a fairly easy shove with just one opponent and these blinds. Two is what makes it tough. Chances increase that I'm looking at an overpair, or at LEAST 3-4 overcards to have to dodge. But eventually, I decide that time is running out and I might not even get a better spot than this. I shove. They flip over 55 and AK. YES, just about the best scenario I could hope for. Just two overcards or a set to avoid.

Emily comes running over from the other side of the convention center from her cash game table as she saw me stand when I moved in. Unfortunately, I'm put out of my misery quickly as a K flops, and I get no help. I'm out in ~800th just before the dinner break.

After this, I drank free scotch while playing $4/$8 limit with Emily.

Next post will cover a few other tournaments that I played along the way before the Main Event.

WSOP 2006: Prelude

Alright the next several posts are gonna be my World Series of Poker recap. I figured I'd start from the beginning and go all the way through the two weeks that I spent there, so this is gonna be pretty long.

So, to start from the beginning, we have to go all the way back to when I started trying for my seat. This was around the end of February or so. I didn't tell many people that I was going for it, because I didn't want to make a big deal out of it in case I didn't make it. So. I set $2000 out of my poker bankroll, which at the time was around $8000 or so. And I took shots at Full Tilt, Party, and Stars. If I went through that $2000 without success, then I was done with it.

I'm not even sure what spawned this idea in my head. I mean I've always dreamed about playing in the World Series. But. I've been primarily a limit grinder for the past two years. That was my bread and butter, that was how I built my bankroll. Didn't play a lot of no-limit, either in cash games or tournaments. So why now? Well, the allure of the World Series of Poker is almost magical. I just knew I wanted to be there, and I thought I had a reasonable shot at it at that time, with my allotted bankroll and overall knowledge of poker and gambling theory to make up for my lack of no-limit experience.

There are an almost countless number of online satellite tournaments to qualify for the WSOP Main Event. Ranging anywhere from $3 to $1000ish. I didn't want to waste time with the huge fields of the tiny buy-ins, but I didn't want to plunk down $1000 on a shot either. So my primary method was to play $150 single-table tournaments into the $1060 tournament on Full Tilt. The players in the $150s were not terribly tough... only 1st place got a seat into the $1060, but 2nd place got some cash. Which happened to me twice, which was pretty frustrating despite the $300 consolation prize. Anyways, eventually I got it, to play in the $1060 on Monday, March 20th.

This field was incredibly... NOT soft. People were playing back at me left and right. I felt completely outmatched, and very nervous. But then... I had a few hands go my way, which helped. There were a total of 72 entrants, and the top 6 got a seat. It wasn't until we got down to around 3 tables, and I found myself in the top 5 in chips, that I thought it actually might happen.

We got down to the final table after about 2 hours of play. From there, we got down to 7 very quickly. But THEN... BUBBLE PLAY. No one wanted to be that guy. 7th place got absolutely nothing. 6th place was just as good as 1st place, for the $10,000 seat + $2000 travel expenses. All I need is for any one of those other guys to bust out before I do. For the most part, I was around the middle in chips. But not a whole lot of "poker" was being played. It was either, everyone folds to the big blind, or, one guy moves all-in and everyone else folds. This went on for what seemed like DAYS. At one point, a medium stack moved in. The big stack called him, with AK. The medium stack had... KQ!! I thought it was all over and I could book my tickets... until the flop came KQx and no ace to come. Then... a little later, a small stack moved in, got called by A4. Small stack had Q9. Flop came with an ace, and again I thought it was all over. Then the turn comes 9, and river Q. Again I must sweat some more.

I don't even remember many of the hands but eventually the previous big stack dwindled so much that he was forced to move all-in with crappy cards that didn't find any luck. And HOORAY I won my seat :D

It took me about $800 out of the allotted $2000. Now at this point, I started thinking, maybe I should play in one of the earlier WSOP events too, to prepare for the Main Event that I just won a seat into (For anyone who may not be familiar, the World Series of Poker is comprised of roughly 40 events or so, maybe even 50 this year. The $10,000 buy-in Main Event is just one of these, although it is often what people are referring to when they just say "World Series of Poker" without specifying any further). So, there were online satellites for these other events too, so I started going for that. Now, ironically, I blew through about $1100 in those satellites, with no luck at all. Yes, I got a $10,000 seat with $800, but I could not get a $1500-$2500 seat with $1100. Funny how that works.

The next part of the story involves Rahul. See, he's a pretty good poker player too. A couple months after I won my seat, I got an e-mail from him saying that he just won one on Party. WHAT?? Yes. For real. Buuuttt.... he couldn't play in the WSOP because he couldn't get time off of work. WHATTTTT?????? Yes. For real. So, he needed to sell his seat. He asked me if I could help him out with that, since I have connections in poker forums and such. And I was like sure I'll ask around. And he said, "How much should I ask for? Do you think $8000 is too much?" and I was like DOOD you can get more than that.

One day later, I got him a buyer for $9500.

Rahul was quite happy, and said he'd give me a cut. At first I was like nah don't worry about it. But then, I remembered that I wanted to play in a prelim WSOP event. And I knew that Rahul likes to gamble. So I asked him if he would be willing to stake me in the $1500 NL event right before the Main Event. Standard staking deal: he pays my buy-in, and if I cash, he gets 50% of whatever I win. He said "let's do it."

SWEET I'm now playing in two WSOP events.

On a side note, these actually were not the first WSOP events that I ever played in. Back in 2005, I went to Vegas with Emily during the WSOP (that trip was her Christmas present to me). Her dad dropped in for a few days too (he likes Vegas, and he likes to fly his plane). Well, while he was there, he knew that we were crazy about the WSOP. And he decided to buy himself, Emily, AND me into one of the $1000 NL events that was going on while we were there. WHAT???? Yes. For real. That was an amazing experience, as my first large buy-in event that I've ever played in. I got to sit with Jennifer Tilly, and Todd Brunson. Emily sat with Marcel Luske, and Kathy Leibert. She lasted the longest out of all of us, at about 3 hours. But the experience was awesome.

So I am hugely indebted to both Emily's dad and Rahul for their contributions to my poker education. I plan to thank the both of them in my first TV interview. Even if it is 30 years from now.

Next post will start in Vegas.

Vegas in December

After finishing finals, I headed to Vegas for a 4-night trip. The crew this time was myself, Wendy (my sister), our friends Rick and Rahul, our cousin Jeff, and my friend Mike - a 2nd year in my department. Due to prior play, we got a deal for a cheap room at Bally's (~$30ish per night). Bally's has become one of our favorite places to stay, mainly due to its location (right on the strip, near Bellagio & Caesars), and the rooms are pretty good too. Nothing too luxurious, but nice and clean. Some properties on the strip can be quite sketch... we discovered this after staying at Imperial Palace once, just down the street.

Anyways, Mike is a rockstar, because he got to Vegas at 8am on Sunday. At this time I was just waking up to go to church before catching my 2pm flight. We had talked on the phone the night before, and he told me to come over to the party at their house. I told him I was exhausted and needed to finish packing, and that I'd see him tomorrow. Then after I hung up the phone, I started realizing... if he's getting to Vegas at 8am, that means his flight must leave Sea-Tac at like 6am. That means he's gonna need to be up for his flight by like 4am at the latest. It was then 11pm and it sounded like the night was still young... Is Mike going to bed at all??? Talking to him the next day, I confirmed that that was a resounding "NO." To make things worse, he couldn't even check into the hotel since it was in my name... plus 8am would've been way too early anyways. So Mike rallied all the way until about 1am that night.

vk asked me to place $75 on red for him, due to the Vincent Chase phenomenon (watch Entourage if you don't already). He chose $75 as the amount because I currently owed him $175, so he was like, if we lose, you just owe me $100. Anyways, I found a friendly looking roulette table, put my money down... and lost. crud.

Well. On Monday night, Excalibur was running a special for Monday Night Football: If you could guess the score for each quarter of the game, you'd win some money. It was a rolling jackpot for each quarter all season, so if it didn't get hit one week, the money would just roll over into the next week. So, 1st quarter was $400, 2nd quarter was $800, 3rd quarter was $2000 (guess that hadn't been hit in a while), and 4th quarter was $1200. The game was Bengals at Indy. To make a long story short, we decided to go in on it together, each of us picking different scores and splitting whatever we won. Well, we got the 2nd quarter. Unfortunately, so did 7 other people, so we had to split it with all of them before even splitting it amongst ourselves. Well, we didn't get any other quarter right, so we just won $100 as a team. We ended up spending that on lunch at the Venetian.

Anyways, at the Excalibur, we were all ordering drinks fairly rapidly. I think I took the lead though, particularly because I was drinking straight whiskey. Despite the inebriation I managed to score about $100 playing 1/3 NL, even including a pretty bad suckout against me towards the end of the session where I flopped a straight against a pair+higher straight draw, which came after we got all the money in. Around midnight we left to head over to Alladin for their notorious 2am tournament. But we got there early, so we decided to play some craps. That was a bad idea... I don't really remember what happened, but I do know that we all lost $100 sooooo fast.

However, then Rahul went on a mad heater at blackjack. He sat down with all the chips he had left from craps (about $65), with us cheering behind him. First he started betting small... $15. lost. Another $15. lost. Screw that, put the rest on. WIN! Let it ride. WIN!! Unfortunately I don't remember any of the hands. But before I knew it, he was playing 3 hands at $100 each. Where did all those green chips come from??? I do remember that he had to pull from his wallet twice to double down. I think they were both successful, haha. When he ran up to $900, I told him that now seemed like a good time to stop. He agreed. He then tried to hand me a black chip since I lost that much in craps. I was like no dude that was my money, I lost it! Rahul is crazy-baller.

Meanwhile Jeff is getting clobbered in poker. In fact, around Wednesday, I think all of us are down. A lot. Mike suffered two massive suckouts at his 2/5 NL game, with all the money in already, $500 stacks each time. What else can you do but get your money in with the best hand. Me, I kept playing tournaments and not cashing. Things were looking pretty grim.

Then on Wednesday night, it seemed like rock bottom for Jeff. He was down well over a grand at this point, all at 1/2 NL. He came up to the room where I was checking e-mail, and told me of his misfortune, including losing with an ace-high flush to a straight flush (both of them using both cards). Then he was like, "I think I'm gonna go play some blackjack." Now, you all know I'm not the type of person to try and daddy somebody, but I seriously wanted to stop him. Things were looking so bad, I didn't want him to spiral out of control even further. Well, for better or for worse, Jeff in fact went on a heater of his own at the blackjack tables!! He sat with $100, and every time we went to check in on him, he had tall stacks of greens, and sometimes some blacks. About an hour later, he comes running over and was like "I cannot believe what just happened!!" Final total: +$2450.

After this, we all went to a nice dinner at Chinois in Caesars. The mood had changed dramatically over the past few hours, not just because of Jeff, but also Rahul and Mike each took some money down at the Wynn, Wendy and Rick won at Bally's 1/2 NL and Wendy was also very drunk, and I just ran up about $100 playing online in the room (shut up... :P). But Jeff had by far the biggest swing. But when he started saying things like, "man I just wanna go back there and see if I'm still hot, the cards were just loving me," I had to jump in and say "You do realize you're talking to two statisticians here right?" while laughing and pointing at Mike and myself. I didn't want to spoil his fun too much though so I didn't give him much more of a hard time than that, heh.

As for me, I still ended the trip down. Tournaments took a big chunk of money. I got deep in two of them (final table of one, final two tables of another), but no cash either time. I did get in one session of 15/30 at the Wynn... it was a pretty good table. Pretty aggressive though, which always causes headaches. I had some suckouts on me early, then came roaring back, but could not break above what I sat down with; took a small loss on that session. I got up from the table because it seemed like they all knew each other, which is never really a comfortable thing. I'm also not really rolled for 15/30 right now, so I figured I'd just get out.

oh, also, vk sent me another text saying "Put $100 on black for me, if we lose then you owe me nothing. If we win then keep $25 for yourself and you owe me $175 again." So yeah I did that at the Wynn, and BOOM we won. I actually just talked to vk today and said I'd send him the $175 soon, and he said, "Wait, I thought we lost all of that." hahaha. I was like dood didn't you get my text back when I told you black was good?? Anyways I set him straight. Man I'm such an honest guy... ;)

Around 5am we headed back towards Bally's, for the $3.99 breakfast at Barbary Coast. Wendy doesn't remember much of this meal.

Then Mike and I headed over to the Bellagio, I was hoping to get into another 15/30 game there, and he was gonna play 2/5 NL again. Well we got there, and the floor said "no 15/30 right now... we got 30/60" and I said, "ok... yeah, I don't have THAT." Then she said "hmm... no 8/16 either, but we do have 4/8." yeah not really what I felt like doing right then. They did have a 2/5 NL game for Mike though which he sat in. I watched it for a bit and if it looked good then I was gonna sit, but there was one aggro-Asian dude who seemed like trouble. I saw Mike get check-raised a few times while standing there. Anyways that seemed like enough of a sign for me to go to bed, so I did. Mike stayed a few hours, and said he came out a couple hundred up.

All in all it was a good trip. I think next time I go, I shouldn't play as many tournaments. I mean, even a championship tournament player expects to go through droughts of countless tournaments without cashes, which can be a big toll on the bankroll. I see each tournament as practice though, for the big one in July...