The Bat Cave

There it is. My worst table draw yet. I’m starting the day with 51 bigs, so I’m far from the danger zone, but the five players on my left are all more accomplished than I am and four of them have me covered.

Josh Arieh has almost $8 million in career earnings and at least two WSOP bracelets that I saw, plus a (infamous?) 3rd place finish in the 2004 WSOP Main Event.

Max Altergott is a German high roller that seems to have disappeared from the live scene mostly over the last few years, but I’d guess he’s been playing a lot online.

Stanley Lee has a 3rd place finish in the WSOP Monster Stack and various other NL results that back that effort up.

Dustin Goff seems to have had all his success in the past month, so he’s probably feeling very confident.

The table chipleader is on my immediate right and seems to have very little live experience. That’s a plus, but I’m not in a great position to abuse him.

The player in seat 9 has no recorded cashes… and a short stack.

I imagine the tables in Brasilia will be breaking after the Pavilion, but I’m not sure. I wouldn’t mind seeing this table break early, but you always have to be careful what you wish for. Fist bump as you bag your chips and you might find yourself headed to a televised feature table with Phil Ivey and his mountain of chips and… his sunglasses. Sunglasses!!!

Chances are this lineup is not going to let me get away with opening 15% of my starting hands, so I will have to pick my spots wisely.

Chief Wiggum bagged up a stack of 56.2k and he’ll be tangling with Washington state notable Darren Rabinowitz.

Cards in the air in an hour. Stack updates here and on Facebook and I’ll post some notable hands here on breaks if I have time.

Let’s get it.

11:29 PM: Huge pot brewing:

Arieh re-jams here on T53cc.

Wow. S1 lays down AK of clubs, Arieh has 55, and s4 has AT! What a punt.

Josh Arieh sitting on over 400k now.

1 PM: I stacked the shortest stack at the table when he jammed KQ into my AA.

I just 4-bet jammed over a button open and small blind 3-bet with QQ right before the break. Button makes it 5k, small blind makes it 16k. I had about 130k and I’m not sure if I have any other reasonable line. They both folded.

I’m at 153k on break. Chief Wiggum has 63k.

Two other interesting hands I wasn’t involved in:

Two players limp and Josh Arieh makes it like 5.5x. Max Altergott on his immediate left makes it 18k, the limpers fold, and it’s back on Arieh. He starts breathing super heavy and when he makes it 55k I can see his hands shaking. Max stares him down for quite some time. I’m sure he sees what I’m seeing. Stuffs it on him. Arieh snap folds. (Later he says he won’t be lasting long if he keeps putting 55k in with T6 of diamonds.)

A bit later, Max raises under the gun and Arieh defends the big blind. Arieh check-raises the A62 flop and Max calls. They both check the turn. Josh makes a sizable bet on the river. He is breathing normal and looks calm. Max looks him over for a very long time. Looks at his legs and feet. Leans over and looks at his neck. It’s brutal. He makes the call after like four minutes. Arieh asks the dealer, “can I turn over my cards now?” and then tables A6 and immediately puts Max’s call in his stack and then says something about “maybe my live tells aren’t so obvious, huh?”

I don’t know about that. He looked completely different on both hands. I’m not really planning to make moves on Arieh because of this. My only real takeaway is that I’m never bluffing Max Altergott. Holy shit. I can’t be looked over for five minutes and not want to murder someone.

1:26 PM: Jack Effel just announced they are planning to have us play to the money tonight.

These guys and their waters. I can barely move. Wth.

2:22 PM: So bitter. I’m running at 16% VPIP and 5% PFR for the day, so obviously 63o defends when I raise KK under the gun. Flop is 763 with two diamonds. He check-raises me and I’m not deep enough to even consider folding. I jam and the board runs out clean for him.

Sigh.

So sick.

It hurts.

Now I have an 18 hour drive to Seattle that I’m ready to start five minutes ago.

Thanks for sweating everyone.

2:50 PM: Ugh. I dunno. Maybe I don’t have to go broke here. I’m not going to beat myself up about going bust with KK and I really am not interested in hearing anyone else’s take on the situation, but I’m going to reevaluate it anyway.

I started the hand with something like 150k, so I have a bit over 60 bigs. I make it 6k at 1200/2400 and he defends with 63o which is obviously horrible. I’m opening under the gun and I’ve been playing very tight. His defend is straight up terrible.

The flop is 763 with two diamonds. I have the king of diamonds. I’ve been playing a lot of small ball and I strongly considered checking back this flop (goddammit why didn’t I?), but I also thought there are too many turn cards I will hate, so I bet 8k and he made it something like 25k.

At this point I have 14k of 150k invested and still have 136k (56 big blinds) behind. The pot size has now ballooned to about 50k. I am never, ever folding on the flop, so the question is, do I call and reevaluate on the turn or jam it in here?

If I call, the pot will be about 67k and I’ll have 119k behind. Its hard to imagine folding the turn if the board comes clean. The problem is when it doesn’t come clean… like 4s and 5s and diamonds. Those cards are obviously better for his range and I can actually be folding the best hand a lot of the time.

That’s what was going through my head when I decided to jam. If he has me beat, he has me beat, but I won’t have to play any guessing games on bad run outs.

Checking back KK on this flop isn’t a must, but it does make those bad turns and rivers easier to navigate. Let’s say I check back and the turn comes the ace of clubs like it did. He actually might try to check-raise me there and if he does, I’m probably checking back that card also and looking to show down as cheap as possible on the river. If he leads, I can call a smallish turn bet and reevaluate on the river, probably calling smaller bets and folding more often to more polarizing ones.

Pretty frustrating spot. Annoying that he defended the 63o and even more annoying that I took the flop line that got him max action. I mix in some flop checks with strong hands so it sucks that I didn’t take that line here. I’d still be in there.

Oh well. I’m obviously extremely dejected but I can’t wait to take another shot next year.