The Bat Cave

I headed for the Oregon Coast around 11 AM on Tuesday and arrived at my hotel in Lincoln City around 4:30 PM and sat down in the $240 H.O.R.S.E. tournament that started at 5 PM around 5:35.

My first hour was okay and I had chipped up from the 14k starting stack to around 18k by the first break, but I basically only won two decent sized pots the whole tournament and I was out by 8:30. Whoopee.

I’m not a big fan of the cash game options at Chinook Winds during this series. It is basically all big bet poker – Big O and no limit Hold’em only really. Those of you that read my blog regularly know that I almost never play either of those games. I probably have less than 200 hours of live NL cash experience and less than 10 hours of Big O cash under my belt. I saw 4/8 Omaha 8 on the board, but I don’t know if they actually had a game going or not because I had no interest in playing something that small. Not that I had any interest in playing 1/3 NL or 1/2 Big O either. I decided to sit down in a 1/3 game though and played for about 90 minutes before realizing I was bored out of my mind and couldn’t take it anymore. The pace of big bet cash games just drives me nuts and really tests my patience. I can’t stand watching people take forever to make what should be trivial decisions. Limit poker just moves along so much faster. I realize the decisions are much easier in limit games, but it’s the time being wasted in obvious spots that gets to me. Bro, you don’t need to balance your timing tells for every decision you make and you don’t have a difficult spot every time it’s your turn to act. Not everyone is guilty of being a primadonna, but there always seem to be a couple in any NL game I sit in. Can we just play, please?

I called it a night around 10 PM and booked a +$284 win; good enough to get me a little sugar on my first day of the trip. I spent the rest of my night playing online and watching Fleabag on Amazon Prime.

Wednesday was the $160 Omaha 8 or Better tournament. I got off to a rough start, doing cool stuff like getting scooped with AJhhQ9 on QQ4hh and AA42dd on T33d7dT in a heads up pot, plus AAJT on AJ6K5 because my opponent decided to limp along on the button with the mighty QT96. That left me with about half the starting stack after six levels of play.

On the hand that crippled me, I’m in the small blind with KQJJ on J976x against one limper and the big blind and both players have 85 somehow. The guy that limped in had 885 actually… and no ace obv… because who needs an ace when you have an 8 and a 5?

I busted shortly after that, sometime around 7:30 PM, and again found myself not wanting to play in any of the cash games. Here I was, out of the two tournaments I really wanted to play without making any sort of run in either of them and the Main Event wasn’t until Saturday. I didn’t want to play in any of the cash games, I didn’t want to play in the High Roller, and I wasn’t super excited about the Big Bounty NL tourney the next day either. I had two full days to kill and next to zero motivation to play poker on any of them. I really just wanted to go home. I’m not going to lie, I was feeling pretty depressed about the whole situation. Nothing like suffering from burnout when you’re 200+ miles away from home.

But I had paid for five nights at the hotel and it was non-refundable. Still, I didn’t play live that night. I just went back to my hotel and played online and watched more Fleabag.

The next day, I showed up for the $660 Big Bounty tournament right at the start of level 2 around 11:30 AM.

Early on, I was involved in a strange hand where middle position opens to 600 at 100/200, someone I know from Palace calls in position, I call with KQ from the small blind and the big blind defends. The flop is QJT and it checks to the PFR and he fires 1100 (we started with 27k in this one), the Lakewood player calls, I call, and then the big blind check-raises to 3500. The PFR gets out of the way, but the local guy makes the call, and the action is back to me. This is a pretty good flop for my hand, but this spot is looking dicey. It’s hard to imagine either of these guys having AK here, but K9 is certainly possible, and if either of them have a king in their hand, my draw is basically worthless. I decide to let it go. The turn card is a 2 and they both check. What? The river is a 4 and it goes bet 6000 and call. The big blind shows a set of queens and the local guy shows a set of jacks. Wow. Turns out AK is squarely in both of their ranges.

I chipped down when I opened with AK and checked back the T76 flop, before calling bets on an ace turn and jack river when the big blind had A7. He sized small on the river, giving me a very easy call, but that hand left me with a 17k stack.

I dwindled from about 30bb to 10bb before getting that stack in with AK only to get snap-called by A6o and watched in horror as that player collected my bounty.

The Big O tourney was about two hours deep, so I coughed up $160 and jumped in that. I had only played one Big O tournament in my life before, during the 2018 version of this same tournament, and, uh, that went okay.

I collected a mass of chips pretty early in this one, as multiple players were willing to punt entire stacks in horrible spots. On one hand, I saw a free flop from the big with Q7542 and potted into four players on Q22. The under the gun limper calls and calls another pot-sized bet on a ten turn. She has been playing super loose, so I’m not too concerned that she’s walking the dog here, but when the river is an ace, I expect that card to beat me almost all the time. It seems pretty obvious that she has a 2 and she almost certainly has an ace in her hand. But she has less that 25% pot let, so I put her all in, she calls, and… my hand scoops? Because she has 233Jx? Well, okay then.

After taking the add-on for $80 and an additional 10k in chips, I think I had around 48K when registration closed.

I call a raise in a multiway pot with AKJ52 double suited from the blinds and the board comes KQ3 with two spades (one of my suits). It checks around on the flop and when the king pairs on the turn, I pot it for 12k. A player that limped and called from early position is my only caller. I’m a little concerned, so when the river is a 2, I check it over to him even though I filled up. He fires 11k into 36k and I make the call. He shows KQxxx and scoops the pot.

I dwindled to 6bb from there and got that in with AQQ22 vs A6532 and got the QT8 flop, but still had to settle for a chop because two low cards – one of them an ace – hit the board. I didn’t chip up from there and busted a short while later, about 30 spots shy of cashing, sometime around 7:30 PM.

Again, I was in no mood to play cash games I didn’t really want to play. I’d already been playing poker for around 8 hours and while I had nothing planned on Friday, I decided to call it a night anyway. Online poker and Fleabag again!

I took my sweet time getting to the casino on Friday and I initially played in a 1/3 NL game for about 90 minutes and booked a small win before getting a seat in a 1/2 Big O game.

As I’ve mentioned, I have almost no experience playing this game, but it didn’t take me long to realize that almost the entire table was playing absurdly loose and that I should have an edge just by playing reasonably tight.

Naturally, I lost almost two full buy-ins getting my money in good and failing to realize my equity. I was willing to dust one more buy-in and I tried to do just that when I got involved in a massive 3-way pot with a pair and the nut low draw. I was pretty happy to call one player’s all in, but then a reasonable player check-raised the pot. There were two diamonds on the flop and I didn’t have a flush draw, so I was pretty sure this was probably a fold, but the longer I thought about it, the more I thought I wanted to go with it. I ended up going all in for slightly more and he called. I didn’t take a note on this hand and I wish I would have because I can’t remember what the cards were, but I’m pretty sure my opponent had the nut flush draw and the second nut low draw. What I do remember about this hand is that I somehow ended up scooping it and I think I was supposed to fold on the flop. I stuck around for a little while longer, but the game wasn’t as juicy as it was before and I had made all my money back and then some, so I booked the win and finished +$125 for the day.

My entire table taking a break at the same time

This is a 5-way Big O pot because, you know, no one actually needs aces in their hands

The Main Event was on Saturday and it’s one of the best tournaments in the Pacific Northwest all year. The initial buy-in is $600 for 40k starting stacks and 45 minute levels. I sat down about halfway through the second level and by the end of the third level I had a stack of 47k.

Someone makes it 1300 after a limper at 200/400 and the cutoff and button both call. I call with JT of hearts from the small blind and the big blind defends also. Six of us see a flop of T88 rainbow and it checks to the button and he fires 3000 into 7k+. I call. The big blind, limper and original raiser fold, but the cutoff also calls. The turn is a 3 and it checks around. The river pairs the 3 and I check, planning to call if someone bets and expecting to win most of the time. The cutoff fires 6000 and the button calls.

Well, that’s not what I was expecting. The cutoff is an aggressive younger guy that I had played NL cash with the night before. I think if he had an 8 or anything good, he would have bet the flop when the PFR checked, so I think he’s bluffing almost all of the time here. My dilemma is the button. He bet the flop and checked back the turn when a blank hit, so it’s hard to give him much of a hand here. I can see him stabbing the flop with pocket pairs and picking off river bluffs with those hands, so even though I don’t really beat any tens here, I think I have to make this call. I toss out the 6k, the cutoff snap folds and the button shows T9 and my hand is good.

It’s worth noting that I took my time on the river on this one, really thinking it over, and while I was doing so, the cutoff eventually expressed frustration and annoyance. Of course, this could be a reverse tell, but when he snap folds after I call, you really have to question his sense of decency.

This tournament has a $200 add-on for another 30k in chips that is pretty mandatory for just about anyone still in. For 33% of the original buy-in, you can get 75% of the starting stack. So even though I was sitting on just over 80k at the dinner break and close of registration, I did the add-on and went to dinner with a stack of 113k.

I was sitting on 132k after 8 levels when I doubled the same player up twice when he jammed on the button in consecutive orbits and I called from the small blind. The first time my KQ lost to his KJ and the second time my AT lost to another KJ. Those two pots left me with 93k after nine levels, the first time all tournament that I had chipped down during a level of play.

I then went the entire next two levels without winning a single pot, or really playing any hand of significance, and I dwindled down to 73k and was coming back to blinds of 1500/3000 with 500 antes (24 bigs).

And here’s my most insane hand of the entire series:

A good, solid player opens to 10k from early position at 4000bb and I defend in the big with KQ of spades and effective stacks of around 50 bigs.

The flop is KQ4 with two clubs and I check it over to him and he bets 14k. I decided to check-call here because I didn’t think he was going to have a ton of continues against a check-raise, although with the two clubs on board, I think there’s some merit to thinking I could get floats from clubs, Qx, AJ, AT type hands, so maybe that’s faulty logic.

Anyways, the turn is an ace and now my plan to check-raise has transformed into a plan of getting to showdown as cheaply as possible. An ace is literally the worst card in the deck for my hand, as I’m now losing to a bunch of hands I wanted him to have on the flop (AA, AK, AQ, JT). I check-call 18k.

The river pairs the queen and I now have a full house. Honestly, this doesn’t change many of the concerns I had on the turn other than I now beat AK and JT. It is worth noting that I don’t think this player would bet hands that had a pair and straight draw on the turn, so I don’t think he’s ever showing up with AJ, AT, QJ, or QT here. I think it is reasonable to lead out with a bet, but while I feel I have a pretty solid read on his range, I’m not sure I’m good enough to fold if he jams on me. Also, since I don’t think he double barrels the pair plus draw hands on the turn, I also don’t think he has a lot of hands to call with. So I check it over to him to see what he does. He thinks for a while and bets 18k again.

That’s actually a pretty small bet and my first instinct was to raise. The thing about raising is that it only makes sense if you think you are going to get called and I didn’t think this particular player would call, even with a hand as good as AK and, as previously mentioned, I didn’t think he could have a queen in his hand unless he now had a full house. So if I remove AK from his calling range, the next best hands he can call with are JT and KQ. Everything else has me beat. This didn’t seem like a range I wanted to target, so I said, “this is an insanely nitty call” and put out the 18k. He turned over 44 and I won the pot.

Obviously, I didn’t expect him to have 44 in his range here. I thought he was too tight to open small pairs from such an early position and didn’t even give it a thought. Still, I stand by my line here. My image was really nitty and solid at this point, so if I wake up with a raise on the river, I’m not even sure he calls with this hand. He might be good enough to lay it down. He’s better than I am. The only way I get called here is if he thinks I’m reckless enough to raise with naked trips in this spot (and obviously I am not). Interestingly, if I had check-raised the flop, I would have doubled up on this hand by getting it in bad.

That was a pretty key pot for me late in Day 1 and I ended up bagging 218.5k with around 120 players left and 45 of us cashing. Average stack at this point was around 175k, so I was in pretty good shape.

Actual tryouts for Wheel of Fortune taking place in the Bingo Hall of the casino

I was 3rd in chips at my Day 2 table and saw that I had the second most tournament success after researching my fellow players and I had direct position on the most seasoned vet.

I lost a big flip early on when I opened with JJ and a stack of 107k shoved from the small blind on me. This player was playing at the table behind me on Friday night in a cash game and was being super loud and obnoxious all night. I also noted that when he left his table, his entire table quit playing immediately. My takeaway? He’s a maniac. Which means I’m not folding here. I call and he shows AQ and makes a pair.

The very next hand I open with TT utg+1 and a 131k stack jams on me. The big blind is 6k so this is a 22bb shove and if I lose this one, I will have less than 10bb. I’m kind of reeling from the last hand and I can just picture how pissed I’ll be at myself if I call it off here and he shows JJ+. My read on this guy is that he’s pretty solid, so it’s not a snap call spot. Even if I give him a range of 88+, AJs+, AJo+, KQs, and KQo, my equity is barely 50%. I think that’s a pretty loose range for him though and when we start trimming the bottom of it off, the equity shifts in his favor. Just removing AJo and KQo, brings his equity up to 52%. Adding in the fact that I love my table draw, I think this is a fine spot to make a fold and move on. I muck it, but I don’t like it.

I made it to the 10k big blind level with around 223k and I had just over 20 bigs when I looked down at AK in late position and felt like this was going to be a tournament-defining spot. Sure enough, Ryan Stoker, a notable tourney grinder from the Spokane area opened to 25k and the dude that doubled through me with AQ jammed on him for more than I had. We were about 30-40 spots off the money at this point and I didn’t see much merit in folding here. I didn’t even really think about it. Let’s go. I called it off and Stoker folded. This time he had the JJ and this time I won the race and doubled up to an above average stack.

Of course, my opponent couldn’t take his loss in stride and had to try and ridicule me for making what I think is a pretty standard call.

Him: What, you just wanted to go home?

Me: Uh, yeah, since Wednesday night.

As we started to approach the bubble, I lost another flip, this time my AK < 99 for -100k, leaving me with 275k with the big blind at 12k, 8 spots off the money. 23 bigs is far from the danger zone, but it’s a stack size that could very well get in preflop in a coin flip situation.

I admittedly played extremely snug during this phase of the tournament, even finding myself doing embarrassing stuff like this:

It folds to the small blind and he makes it 32k at 12k big blind and I have A6o in the big. I had like 15 bigs at this point and I believe my opponent’s opening range is 100% here because of how tight I’ve been playing. So this is a slam dunk jam spot, but being a couple spots off the money, I just praised the Gods that I was not on a live stream so I could fold in peace (and blog about it publicly later). It feels gross, but with zero cashes on my ledger for the trip so far, I really didn’t want to go home without one when I was so close.

It’s worth noting that the small blind in the previous hand was playing extremely well this whole tournament and I was shocked at how adept he was considering my earlier research. Later on I discovered that Taylor Bleak with $0 in career cashes was actually Taylor Black with over $2.4 million in cashes. That made a lot more sense. Eh, just a little $2 million typo on the end of day reports!

Fortunately, I eeked into the money with about 12 bigs and doubled up in my first orbit by reshoving with A5 suited on the button against a cutoff open and had my opponent’s KQ dead by the turn.

I was peaking around 420k when I started getting moved around. I got moved into the big blind at my new table and after folding preflop on that hand, that table broke and I moved into another big blind at my third table in three hands. On that last hand, it folds to the cutoff who opens, gets called by the button, and I look down at 77 in the big blind. I have a great reshove stack here and should have some fold equity, so I jam it in and the cutoff folds but the button says he doesn’t think he can lay it down. He eventually calls with AJ and I hold for a huge double that puts me around 890k with 27 players left.

I open to 55k with blinds at 10k/20k from early position with TT and Tam Nguyen is next to act and makes it 300k, leaving himself with ~400k behind. It folds back to me. Tam is kind of an Oregon legend. He has over $1 million in lifetime cashes, ranks 9th on the all-time money list in Oregon and I believe he’s still #1 all-time in earnings at the Wildhorse Round Ups in Pendleton, Oregon. He’s basically a mid-stakes tourney crusher. My read on him is that he’s pretty nitty and straight-forward and this is a massive raise. It’s not a spot where I can call and see a flop and if I jam on him here, he’s never folding and much like the TT scenario earlier where I folded, I’m not in very good shape against what I perceive to be his range. Once again, I muck TT before the flop.

Action folds to the cutoff, the guy that stacked off with the AJ earlier, and he min-raises to 40k. Now that I have chips, I can do cool things like 3-bet the A9o on the button to 105k and punish these wide opens. What I don’t expect to happen is for my opponent to call, but he does.

The flop is QQT and he check-calls 65k quite fast and I’m not about to punt my newly acquired chips off, so I am going to give up here.

The turn is a blank and we both check.

The river pairs the ten and he leads out for 180k. Well, I don’t really see how I can fold here. All the draws missed and his medium and small pairs have all been counterfeit, although check-calling with those hands on the flop is pretty sick. He’s repping such a narrow range here and my hand doesn’t look like much, so I make the call. He shows T6 of hearts.

I don’t get it. I’ve played like two orbits at this table and this dude is calling my 3-bet with junk because… he thinks he can outplay me out of position? Perhaps I sized too small preflop? I need to be making it like 130k? I dunno. Maybe he’s just a maniac punter? Either way, it’s super gross and I can’t say I felt great about losing almost half my stack with ace high. I think my river call is fine on this runout, so maybe I’m just being results oriented here, but it sucks to lose these chips back right after I finally gave myself some breathing room.

I got moved yet again and was back in that 12-15bb region when I reshoved the button with KJdd over a hijack open and my opponent called with QQ to bust me in 21st place for $2320.

All in all, I was pretty bummed about my trip to Lincoln City. It was nice to cash in the Main, but it was also really disheartening to peak with three tables left only to be out a short while later, all because some dude couldn’t lay down the T6 suited before the flop. I think I may have made a bet-sizing mistake with my 3-bet before the flop, but still. That hurt. Also, I put in almost no volume in the cash games and was absolutely miserable for most of the week. It makes me wonder how eager I am to go back.

I’m not saying it’s a bad series… it’s actually quite good. I think the staff is top notch and I like that they do some different, non-Hold’em events, but cash games are my bread and butter and when I’m out of tournaments that’s what I want to be doing and they just don’t have games I want to play in. So when I’m out of a tournament, it’s like “now what?” I’ve been saying forever that I need to play more no limit Hold’em cash, so maybe I just need to embrace it and grind it out when I’m at Chinook Winds.

I ended up making about $630 for the trip overall, but my hotel room alone cost me $500+, so I can’t really say it was a good trip.

What I can say though… is that Fleabag is an amazing show. Holy shit. It’s definitely not going to be for everyone, but it blew my damn mind. Check it out on Amazon Prime.