Here’s a link to my final 2018 World Series of Poker schedule. I’ll be targeting non-NL events all around Vegas. Events highlighted in green are the ones I’m 100% to play unless a deep run in something else prevents me from doing so.
I am not selling action for anything except possibly the Main Event. I will know in the next week or so if that’s something I’ll need to do or not.
I can’t wait!
It’s a BLOG DAY.
4:04 PM: Happy to see 15/30 going bright and early today (well, at least since 3 PM)! Just missed the last open seat by seconds, but appears I might be getting in very shortly.
Current lineup: Chief Wiggum, Fleabag, Bill W, Part-Time… a new nickname Snack Pack… and an unknown.
Also, I’m pulling the trigger on this. The Gnat will be called TWO FACE from now on. It’s not a perfect fit but he qualifies in a lot of ways.
He’s probably been Bat enemy #1 for the last several weeks, so there’s that. However, unlikely attorney Harvey Dent, he’s never been a friend of Bruce Wayne. That ship had sailed long before he ever tried to say a nice word to me.
On the other hand, after playing the villain for the first several sessions with him, he did try to briefly extend an olive branch and while I was cordial, I was mostly standoffish because I already know – he’s not a nice dude; he’s a dick.
I’ve seen him berate dealers and cuss at players, but he’ll sing and whistle when he’s winning.
Congrats Gnat – you have been upgraded to a true Bat-villain. You are Big Bad Harv.
You are TWO FACE.
4:31 PM: So I sit down and post in cutoff, Flea opens, I 3-bet 66, the button calls and Bill W caps it from the small blind. Welp, I guess I’m gonna have to flop…
663
Checks to me, I bet (we are all in 25/50 Overs), button raises, Bill folds, Fleabag takes $50 to the dome, and I 3-bet. They both call. I lose Flea on the turn, but the other guy calls me down and I start my session off with not only a huge pot, but a $225 High Hand as well.
4:36 PM: Of course on the day I ordain Two Face a certified Bat-villain he’s slumming in 8/16 while we have an open 15/30 seat.
I guess his days of printing money at the Palace are in the rear view.
5:47 PM: I open under the gun with AA, Fleabag calls, Part-Time defends. Maybe one other player is in there. Flop is Q64 with two spades. Part-Time leads, I raise, Flea calls, PT 3-bets, and I cap.
Turn is ace of spades and PT still leads out. Hmmm. I don’t LOVE it, but I do think my hand is way too good to not raise here and if I wind up having to pay three big bets to see the river, it’s not the end of the world.
So I raise and Flea goes into the tank for… way too long. He finally calls, Part-Time 3-bets… sigh… I call, and Flea goes into the tank again. Are you kidding me? This dude is the biggest waste of everyone’s time I’ve ever seen in a limit game. Hilariously, he folds.
River is a blank and I pay off Part-Time’s Q3ss.
Naturally, Flea chimes in with “I knew you had it” and says something about me overplaying my hand. Oh my God. Please never change.
6:47 PM: Yaaaaaaaawn. There’s a call and raise in front of me, I 3-bet AK of clubs, Snack Pack caps it from the blinds. Everybody checks to me on K64 one club flop and two of them call. Turn is 9 of clubs and now Snack Pack check-raises me. So… I’m losing to like 99 only, yeah? Seems like a good time to take myself to value town, so I 3-bet and he goes ahead and caps it. I whiff river and pay off the 99.
Come.
On.
So much for the nice head start. I am now stuck.
6:53 PM: My friend Kung Fu Panda is in the game, but he’s getting a name change now also. I heard Snowflake call him Fan Boy last week and I guess it’s because he used to wear one of those tiny fans around his neck when he played poker. I like that name. Not exactly because of the reference but because it’s funny…. and there’s something derogatory about calling someone a Fan Boy.
Sigh. I limp along with A7 on the button and get two bets in four ways on A97 and in my head I’m thinking JT is the number one hand I’m looking to fade and BANG! There’s the 8 on the turn and they all check to me. How can I take a free card here? I can’t. I just CAN’T. So I bet and get check-raised by Snack Pack and then the original flop bettor leads out when the river is a 6, Snack calls, and I can’t even show my hand down.
Flop bettor has T9 and Snack Pack has 65.
Running hot all the sudden.
7:07 PM: I just flopped the nut flush in a raised pot.
The big blind defended pre and check-folded the flop.
SO I GUESS THINGS ARE TURNING AROUND.
7:37 PM: Snack Pack is straight murdering me. I have 99 vs his K8 on T96Q7. That is two 4-outers (granted he turned an 8-outer in this latest one) and one 2-outer he’s hit against me in less than an hour now – and every time I’ve been at the top of my range.
It has been quite painful.
7:49 PM: I open KJ suited under the gun, Bill W calls, big defends.
Flop is J74 with two diamonds. I bet, Bill W raises, the big cold calls, I 3-bet and they both call.
Turn is… 6 of diamonds. Of course it is. I check-fold and Bill W shows down KTdd.
And now I’m taking a patented steam walk around the building because things are starting to get absolutely silly.
8:10 PM: Here’s a picture of Snack Pack’s stack:
He bought in for zero green chips.
Actually, only one person bought green chips.
Spoiler alert.
It was me.
8:49 PM: Massacred Hit&Run when he opened and I 3-bet AA. Flop is AQQ with two hearts and he checks to me. It may seem like I have the deck crippled here, but it’s always worth betting the flop just in case he has a queen, plus most players are going to peel at least once with their gut shots and small pocket pairs here and he’s never folding a heart draw. So I go ahead and c-bet the flop and he does call.
Turn is the 3 of hearts and I expect to get check-raised here a lot. It’s why I bet the flop. People just don’t expect you to fast play AA here and they may give you unwarranted action. Whereas checking back the flop and raising a turn lead looks super strong.
I do get check-raised and he pays me $200 on the turn and river.
And then 20 minutes I get another $225 for the High Hand. That’s two top High Hands today already and FIVE High Hands in the last two days in 13 hours of play.
Okay, maybe I’m running decent.
9:18 PM: This place is cracking now. Second game looks on the verge. Snowflake, Jesus, Sandman, and The Leak all on the list and it looks about 9 deep from where I’m sitting.
Lots of Washington state LEGENDS up in here right now.
10:22 PM: Well that was crazy.
First, the Mariners staged an epic comeback in a game that they looked like they had already lost in the first inning.
Second, the homie Trevor253 was making multiple deep runs in the Rattlesnake Open PLO Low and Medium and I was trying to rail him. He ended up taking 2nd in the Medium for what was definitely a career high Global Poker score. Congrats bud! The pain of finishing runner-up will fade out by tomorrow.
Lastly, fools were just brawling in Palace. First time I’ve ever seen multiple blows connect and bodies moving so aggressively at each other. Kinda scary in this day and age. You really never know what people are capable of but you see it all the time on the news. Really not trying to catch a stray bullet because somebody rivered a gut shot against a set of aces.
10:29 PM: In other news, I got all those green chips back from Snack Pack.
10:30 PM: Because I bought them back from him before he left.
💪🏻
11:07PM: Here’s how you trap yourself for the max in a straddle pot. Button straddles, I defend A4 of spades, there’s a call, a 3-bet, button 4-bets, I call, someone 5-bets and suddenly there are twenty bets in the middle.
Flop is T53 with two hearts and one spade. Not the kind of flop I’m ever folding on in a pot of this size… even with Overs in play. I call two bets cold. We are all still fighting for this monster.
Turn is the king of spades and now we have some serious life. Fortunately, I only have to call one bet here and it’s from a new player…
…so when the board pairs with the five of spades on the river, I estimate my winning chances at 100%. I go the check-raise route and we have another new bettor, on my immediate left. There’s a call, I raise, and the river bettor pays me off with trip 5s.
11:25 PM: Hi baby.
11:34 PM: Two Face is playing 4/8 now. There are still two 8/16 games going and he has all his chips from 8/16 in front of him. Like $1000 worth. I think this is better for his ego. Lording over white chip players. Because his ego is definitely getting bruised in this game.
Good for him.
12:08 AM: The whole table is ROASTING Fleabag right now. I’m not participating but I am definitely enjoying.
Pretty epic hand that I wasn’t involved in. Flop is T96 with two clubs and there is a flurry of action. Turn is a blank and Flea bets, button calls and the third player check-raises. Flea says “I’ll get him out for you” referring to the third player and makes it three bets. The button is not phased and calls it all off. It gets capped.
River is a CLUB. I’m watching the button as the turn capper still leads and then Flea RAISES. Like wtf do you think the button has, fellas?
OH MY GOD. The button just 3-bet the river. I did not see that coming. First guy folds and Flea turns over his 87 of clubs to try to save some face before calling and losing to AK of clubs.
Then Flea starts berating the first player for leading the river… like that player somehow forced him to raise his inferior flush into someone that was quite obviously on a big flush draw.
So of course the rest of the table jumps all over him for trying to blame someone else for his stupid river raise… and it was quite hilarious.
12:56 AM: Here’s an odd one. I open cut off with A9 and Flea calls small blind and big blind defend. Flea donks out on my dreamy 942 two spade flop and the big blind raises. Well, I like my hand on this board so I 3-bet and the big caps it. Turn card is a blank and they both check to me. A little concerned but definitely have to bet here. They both call. River is another blank and they both check again. I bet, Flea folds, big says “I promise you’re good” and I know that’s true because how could I not be? I flip my hand and then he flips QQ. Haha. What?
1:21 AM: Sandman, Jesus, FanBoy, and Snowflake all in my game now.
And Tormund Swordsbane and Joker making special non-poker playing cameos. Joker is here with his fiancé… Harley Quinn. She’s a real person, folks. I’m guessing a lot of people lost money on the under on that one.
2:25 AM: A nice go home pot: Snowflake raises, Jesus and Flea cold call, I defend QTo. Flop is QT4 with two spades. Sno bets, Jesus calls, Flea raises, I check 3-bet and Jesus ends up back capping it.
No spade please.
Turn is a 3. I bet, Jesus is all in, Flea raises, I 3-bet, Flea calls.
River king of spades. Sigh. Just a nightmare card. I might even be losing to whatever Fleabag was overplaying now. I check-call him. He tables 43 of spades for the side and Jesus turns over A8 of spades for the main pot.
And it looks like I’ll be leaving stuck now.
3:07 PM: I ran JJ into Snowflake’s AA on a 8 high board on my last hand of the night.
Final Score: -$350
Since I last posted on Tuesday, something big happened: I finally won an event in a Global Poker series. If you’ve been following along here, you probably know I’ve had two runner-up finishes in the Rattlesnake Open already and I also took second in an event during January’s Grizzly Games as well. Needless to say, even though the money is nice, finishing in second is super frustrating – especially when things like oversized trophies and Global swag is on the line!
My final opponent in this tournament is super accomplished (based on his Sharkscope stats) on Global, but it didn’t take me long to see that I had a massive advantage over him in heads up play. He was playing very straight forward and letting me get away with murder, like getting folds in spots where it’s blatantly obvious that my range is weak and he seemed to almost never bluff. It’s pretty hard to win heads up if you are relying on having the best hand every pot. With a decent chip lead, I thought I was going to have to get very unlucky to let this one slip away… and then I did. I think I had about a 2 to 1 chiplead when we got all the chips in preflop with my AT vs his A2 and he spiked a deuce that held up and suddenly I had a 2 to 1 disadvantage. My wife was already asleep and my brother-in-law that lives with us was also asleep and I have to admit I was struggling to contain my volume after losing that hand.
Still, I recognized that I was a favorite and I wasn’t too worried about things, but I also knew that another unlucky all in confrontation would result in yet another second place finish. I could really feel the pressure I was putting on myself. I have to admit that shipping one of these events was pretty damn important to me. I ended up regaining the chip lead through pure exploitative poker and eventually got him all in with another dominated ace and managed to hold on this time for the win! Much like when I lost the chip lead, I was struggling to contain my volume and excitement as I was quietly celebrating my win all by myself. I did it. Finally!
My first Global Poker trophy! I’ll post a pic when I get this thing.
Not only did I finally ship a trophy event, but I finally had success in one of their bigger buy ins and the actual win was almost triple my previous high on Global. This also put my online bankroll north of $6k and gets me out of the $3-$3.5k range I seem to get stuck in before falling back down. I didn’t set out to do a bankroll challenge or anything, but it’s worth noting that I have only deposited $300 on Global. I feel totally comfortable putting money on there now, but initially I was pretty skeptical about depositing any serious money online and now I’m hoping I’ll never have to.
This win also boosted me back into the Player of the Series race. After playing only one of the three events on Tuesday, I had dropped all the way down to 41st. Apparently you get 10 points for every tournament that you play, so the 11 events I’ve missed so far was having a dramatic affect on my place in the standings. Prior to Wednesday’s win, the 110 points I would have from playing those 11 tournaments was the difference between 41st place in the PotS race and being in the top 8. Pretty sick. After managing one measly min-cash on the day of the series I’ve been looking forward to the most (Limit Hold’em Day), I now sit in 10th place on the leaderboard. Now missing 11 tournaments is the difference between 10th and… 1st. Assuming I cashed zero times in the 11 additional tournaments (unlikely), I would currently have a 20 point lead over second place. Ugh. Who needs an extra $5000 I guess?
My wife still doesn’t seem to embracing the opportunity here. We are heading to her parents house for Mother’s Day tomorrow and then my parents house for Mother’s Day on Tuesday and then next Saturday we are apparently attending a wedding. As has been noted, missing tournaments has been detrimental and Saturdays and Sundays are especially important as there are six events each day. I basically have the green light to play tomorrow – either by visiting for an hour in between the day and night events or by playing on the iPad while I’m there – but I’m not sure how I’ll manage Tuesday and there’s no way I can play next Saturday unless she shows mercy on my soul and doesn’t make me go to a wedding for two people I don’t even know. I suppose if I fall out of contention by then it won’t matter, but if I’m in the thick of it, those last two days are going to be super critical. I can’t really blame her though, especially since I’m going to be gone for six weeks for the World Series of Poker, but I’m right there! I can ship this thing!
Something else interesting has happened because of my recent win. I’ve been contacted by both a Global Poker representative for inclusion in their upcoming press release and by PokerNews. I’m still waiting for questions from PokerNews, so not exactly sure what that will entail, but seems like I’m going to be getting some publicity in the near future. The PokerNews editor mentioned reading my blog, so hopefully they will include a link in their write up and if I happen to get any new readers please feel free to subscribe and follow along!
I am definitely NOT a fan of multi-tabling on my iPad while playing live poker, but I kind of have to do it. My live play volume has been waaaaay down this month – mostly because I’ve been staying home to play online. Even with the iPad multi-tabling, I’m still only on pace for just over 80 hours of live play for the month of May. That’s roughly half my normal volume. Kind of inexcusable. The $3500 cash was really nice and the chance at a $5k package is appealing, but the kind of money I can make in these online tournaments pales to what I make playing live poker.
So I will be heading to Palace shortly and hoping that the 15/30 game gets off the ground if it hasn’t already (I haven’t checked for a bit). Unfortunately tonight’s Rattlensnake events are all 4-max tournaments, so it is going to be really challenging to play live while playing 4-max on my iPad, but I did manage a 2nd place finish doing exactly that last week.
Expect this blog to be live for a little over an hour or so before I get involved in the tournaments, then I will probably go mostly quiet for a few hours, and then back to regular updates when I’m back to playing live only.
See you in an hour!
4:25 PM: Sitting down in 8/16 and should get an hour worth of updates in before online poker takes over.
I was hoping to play 15/30 all night but the game looks a ways off. There are 8 names on the list but one of them (the Gnat) is MIA and there are multiple potential flakers. Looks like I’ll be playing 8/16 for a while, which is probably for the best considering the distraction level I’m about to experience.
8/16 lineup: The Queen, FBI Guy, Grumpy (yay!) and some other random I’m not overly familiar with.
4:53 PM: Wonderful start. Admittedly playing a little sloppy so far and then I get to add this gem to torment: two limpers, I limp T8ss, someone raises, some blinds call, FBI Guy comes through with the limp-raise and six of us see the flop for three bets. It’s pretty nice! J93 with two spades and one heart. FBI Guy checks and I start the fireworks as the original PFR helps me get it capped with five of us still in. Turn is gin: 7 of hearts! We have the nuts. I go ahead and lead because the PFR screams of draws that check the turn and three players call me. River is a 2 of hearts and now the PFR raises me. Jx of hearts is my primary candidate to be losing to but instead this guy was capping the J9x two spade flop with four opponents holding the KThh. AS YOU SHOULD.
I have spotted them a rack of blue already.
👏🏻👏🏻
5:10 PM: The Man is trying to start 15/30 super short-handed and as appealing as it is to play 3-handed with The Gnat, it’s going to be tough enough 3-tabling 4-max while playing in a full live game. That’s a pass from me for now.
5:15 PM: Here’s something that annoys me:
What the hell am I supposed to do with that chicken? Cut it up myself? Eat it like a Neanderthal? Seems like I shouldn’t have to ask the kitchen to cut my chicken in a way that makes sense for a salad.
5:25 PM: Sigh. They are starting 15/30 right as my tournaments are about to start and there are only four players that have bought chips so far. Spectacular.
This should be… interesting.
Finish 8/16 -$191.
5:29 PM: Part-Time, The Gnat and some random are in the game… and now The Man is sitting down to make it 5-handed while he’s working… because beating up on the floor man at 15/30 is what I want to do. 🤦🏻♂️
5:57 PM: The Global tourneys all have two rebuys and one add on. I have been playing splashy in the Low, running my stack all the way down to 270 from 3k starting before building it back up 1800 and getting stacked when my AA ran into the mighty 74 blind defend.
On the bright side, I’m back up to 3k stack.
6:20 PM: On bullet #2 of the $22 Medium. I open 66 and guy with 30 bigs left jams on me. It’s a rebuy so I’m willing to gamble here. I somehow hold against his T2o.
He reloads and then stuffs 100 bigs on the button. I have 77 in the small blind and even though I’m flipping most of the time I can’t resist the gamble. It’s not a flop – I have his Q7 crushed. But he spikes a Queen on the turn and now I have 30 bigs.
A few hands later, he opens on button and I try to induce by making a small raise. He jams, I snap call, and his 44 holds to bust me.
And then they move that player that player the next hand… only to replace him two hands later!
No justice!
6:38 PM: Final bullet of Medium, as my 30 big blind reshove with AQ can’t shake AJdd and he makes a flush to bust me.
6:51 PM: And QQ < KT to bust the Medium. Sometimes you just run awesome.
I have about 30 bigs in the Low and same in the High.
7:03 PM: And out of the Low. 12 big button jam with A2ss loses to 55.
Then I get 16 bigs in pre with JTdd vs TT, flop a jack and lose to the one-outer on the river in the High.
Second bullet there.
And now my live game waits for me to bust two tournaments before going on pause. We are 5-handed… one player is felted… and two others are on break.
😴😴😴
7:08 PM: Weird hand against The Gnat. Some limps in front of me, I raise KJo on the button, and then The Gnat check-raises and caps on J95. He checks to me on a blank turn and I’m wary, so I check back. River is another blank and he checks again so obviously I have to to bet now and he check-calls mewith… AJ!
Unknown opens, I 3-bet 66 on button and he caps out of position. I call down on Q7752 and he shows me 22.
What.
7:35 PM: On break in the High and I added on 3000 chips for $50 to my 7000 stack. Meh. Not great value but whatever.
I just flopped sets in back-to-back huge pots in the live game. I’m crushing it but the game is on fumes.
7:51 PM: The Gnat just went runner-runner flush on me, so he’s obviously singing now.
Gosh dang, he’s so good!
7:57 PM: And I’m out of the High. Solid 0-3 showing tonight. 3-tabling 4-max NL while playing 5-max live poker is haaaard.
I basically never input my own bet. Just bet half pot, pot, or whatever preset sizings there are.
Plus I do cool things like this:
Yes, that’s me timed out and folded with the nuts.
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
My wife is here now and we are about to have dinner and then time to focus up on this live game.
8:38 PM: Well I was up $1500 in the 15/30 game but it’s come crumbling down quickly.
First I lost with AK on QTxK9. Then I folded JJ on A77xK. Then I had TT vs QcJc on T98cc and never improved. And just now I bet the K65 flop, Gnat raises all in to $20, big blind calls, and I call because that’s the only thing I can do. The 6 pairs on the turn and the big blind fires the first $60 Overs bet of the evening. I’m perplexed but call. River 9, same action, and he rolls K9.
Solid -$700 swing in one orbit.
10:13 PM: We have gone card dead, folks. I did pick up the QQ once and got out flopped by KT and then I missed the nut flush draw in a 3-bet pot, but those have been my only hands of note. After turning the faucet on for an orbit, my downswing has becomemore of a slow drip.
10:17 PM: And immediately after posting that last update, I 3-bet KK and it goes cap and cold call behind me. Four of us see the T33 two hearts flop and I get it capped with the preflop capper. One player calls two bets but winds up folding so we are in Overs for the turn action. I’m running kind of bad at the moment so leading out for $60 feels almost spewy but I’m only losing to TT and AA, so bombs away! I’m quite relieved to see him just call. The river is the queen of hearts and now we are only beating JJ. So I check and he checks behind with the one hand we still beat.
10:57 PM: The Tick, Gnat, and Flea are all in the building and I left my insect repellent at home.
11:14 PM: Kung Fu Panda in the game! Threatening to buy in for less than $400…
👀👀
12:22 PM: Kung Fu Panda and Snowflake are sitting next to me totally distracting me. I am crushing though. These guys keep commenting on how I win every pot I play, I always have it, they give me too much action, etc.
One big connection I have KJdd in a 3-bet pot and then get the QT3dd flop with Overs in play. Bink the flush on the turn and get six bigbets from my opponent.
Here’s Kung Fu Panda’s stack:
So you can see why he’s jealous.
1:57 AM: Snowflake is now in the game and he’s possibly wasted and telling everyone he’s going to 3-bet me every hand. I have a feeling my variance is about to get tumultuous.
The Leak is also playing in this game for some reason.
The Gnat felted. The Flea is in.
2:06 PM: This just happened: Snowflake is being so annoying that The Flea just asked for a seat change to move away from him.
The fucking FLEA wants to move because someone is annoying HIM!
3:15 AM: Session is over. Sorry for the lack of content tonight. Snowflake was sitting behind me and Kung Fu Panda and talking to us for hours before he got in the game and writing about hands became very hard to do.
It was a good, smooth session though. Very minor hiccups for the last several hours as I cruised to a +$2209 finish.
It’s currently 2:30 PM and my wife is no where near ready to leave the house, so I might have to head to the casino without her. There are three 8/16 games going at Palace with five on the list for 15/30.
This has been a week of other priorities. Live poker has not been my focus. On Monday I played another house game with a dealer’s choice structure and had a much better performance than my first time playing in that game, finishing with a +$309 result.
Tuesday I had my dog neutered and that meant I stayed home with him while he was in pain over the next few days. That didn’t stop me from participating in Global Poker’s Rattlesnake Open, however. I only played one event on Monday and busted pretty quickly and then I went 0-3 in the Tuesday events (and 0-5 overall). Not a great start. Wednesday I went 1 for 6, but the one I cashed was a pretty good one as I finished 2nd of 416 entrants in the $11 PLO-Medium for $596.96 and put myself in the top 25 of the Player of the Series leaderboard.
With a hefty cash under my belt already, I decided to bring my iPad with me to Palace and attempt to multitable the 4-max NL rebuy events last night while also playing live poker. Seems like a bad idea, right? Well, I realized I had my hands full playing two 4-max NL tourneys while also playing 8/16 LHE and I ended up skipping the 4-max NL-High. Playing on an iPad is difficult enough just playing one table. You either have to type in every bet you make or bet half pot, pot, or all in. It’s pretty annoying. Somehow I managed to make deep runs in both tournaments I was playing – without rebuying in either of them – while crushing the 8/16 game. I ended up busting the 4-max-Low event somewhat near the money, but the deep run was on in the Medium.
Meanwhile, the staff was trying to start a 15/30 game and I honestly didn’t really want to move up. My focus was completely sapped and I was crushing the 8/16 game on total cruise control. I made a bad, unselfish decision and started the 15/30 game – not because I actually wanted to play in it, but because I didn’t want to be the reason it didn’t start. That game is my game and I sort of feel I need to do whatever is necessary to make it go.
Bad call.
I finished 8/16 at +$769 and while I was going deep in the 4-max-Medium event it was hard to ignore the fact that I was getting absolutely throttled in the 15/30 game. I played for 3.5+ hours and I think I won one or two small pots and lost every single big pot I played. I remember losing with KK to A6 on the T6266 run out and then with KK again when the button decided to randomly cold-4 bet with T7hh and made a full house. It was all bad.
But I was playing some amazing poker on my iPad, navigating my way to the final two again. I had the chip lead in my heads up match on Wednesday and I once again had a pretty sizable chip lead over my lone remaining opponent. With two agonizing second place finishes in Global series events already, I really, really wanted to close this one out. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. I got all in with 44 vs A9 for the match and he flopped top pair and I whiffed my club redraw. Then I had him all in again for the match with AJ vs his A9 and he flopped two pair. He had me all the way down to a 6:1 disadvantage and I evened the stacks again, but eventually I ran out of steam and finally he KO’d me when I snap-called my remaining ten bigs with KJ and his J9 flopped trip 9s.
Still, it was my best cash on Global to date: $1278.03. That puts my online bankroll at a new peak and also puts me in 9th place on the Player of the Series leaderboard. Needless to say, I will be bringing the iPad with me to the live game again tonight. I am going to the Kendrick Lamar concert in Auburn tomorrow and then the Mariners game on Sunday, so I’ll be missing the next twelve Rattlesnake Open events after tonight. That’s not going to help my POTS push, but I can’t stop living my life for this thing.
Also, this finally happened:
Yup. Only took me 239 tournaments to get a shark icon next to my name. About damn time! And I plan to keep it there.
As I mentioned, my 15/30 session was pure torture and threatened to undo all my good accomplishments for the day. The final damage: -$1492. Absolutely disgusting and, honestly, maybe I deserved it. With my focus completely on the online tournaments, I should have just stayed put in 8/16 and not moved up in limits over five hours into my session.
I’m heading to Palace shortly and I’m not exactly sure what kind of blog I will be doing today because I will be 3-tabling on my iPad while playing live poker starting at 5:30 PM, but I will try to post an update every hour or so. I don’t mind playing 15/30 if the game starts immediately, but if it struggles to get off the ground again and my focus is elsewhere, I’ll probably just play down tonight. I don’t mind splitting my attention, but what I do mind is getting destroyed in a short time period when I’m at the end of my day and feeling like I’m ready to leave a big loser when the game is primed for me to get my money back. The days of me chasing my losses into the wee morning hours are behind me. I typically like to be in bed before 3 AM, at the latest.
4:10 PM: Woof. Had to fight through some of the worst traffic I’ve faced in a while to get here. I’ve written about my issues with anxiety, traffic and being diabetic in the past – and I’d link it here if I could but I’m on my phone now and can’t. Search for it and check it out.
Link added: Anxiety: A New Mental Game Challenge
It’s still a thing. I can’t enter traffic without thinking about the possibilities of a panic attack. This has been going on for about 7 months now and I’ve been off and on medication to help me with this problem. Currently I am off it, hoping to fight my way through it with pure grit. I called my wife and she kept my mind occupied elsewhere for my drive and here I am.
The good news is I didn’t feel any real anxiety on my way here. There’s a difference between the threat of anxiety and actual anxiety and it’s pretty empowering when I can get through these situations without any real panic.
Anyways, starting 15/30 6-handed with Fleabag (Flea isn’t insulting enough), Chief Wiggum, Rocksteady, and a couple of non-regs.
I’m up a little bit after turning a flush on the first hand and then losing to a flush draw (that made two pair instead) on the third hand.
4:26 PM: Hopefully this game fills up. It would be really difficult to play 6-max poker while also trying to multitable on my iPad.
I’m already fed up with The Flea. I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing annoys me more than repeated tanking in limit hold’em. There are definitely some spots that require some real thought in LHE but they are few and far between. Taking 15 seconds every time it’s your turn to act just means you’re an asshole.
4:40 PM: On the bright side, the Snake Open events are all turbos tonight so shouldn’t take 5+ hours even if I make deep runs.
4:48 PM: Action Bronson makes us 7-handed and that’s good because it helps fill the game up and it’s bad because now I have to turn on my personality and I’m kind of in a mood to mind my own business today.
4:59 PM: So Palace got rid of one of their best promotions: Rakeback. Basically it amounted to $1.50/hour back to those so inclined to pick it up. Not much, but it’s MUCH better than not getting anything back, which is the new way of things. When you’re playing 160 hours a month, getting an extra $200+ back each month isn’t negligible. That’s our cell phone bill! Or with my wife’s hours it’s half our mortgage payment!
Instead of rakeback, Palace will be hosting a $5k freeroll every Tuesday at 7 PM. That’s my day off and my interest level in planning my night around it is 0% so… definitely not thrilled with the change.
I realize first place will probably be $2k or more and the field will be insanely soft, but I’m sure the structure will be garbage and I like having at least one day a week where I don’t feel compelled to play poker.
5:19PM: Everyone agrees to do a round of straddling at Action Bronson’s insistence… and then one player flakes on his turn. How stupid can you be? Dude’s name is ACTION for a reason and you don’t do things that upset people named ACTION. Put the fucking money out there.
Pro tip: if the whole the table is straddling and you don’t want to do it because you’re a nit or you think good players don’t do things like that, I have news for you: you are not a good player – you are a fish.
Sometimes you have to play loose once an orbit to keep everyone else playing loose every hand. The trade off is worth it.
$11 Rattlesnake Low starting in three minutes.
6:40 PM: Basically impossible to update right now. I’m out of the Low. Off to a bad start in the High. 20 bigs in the Medium.
7:01PM: Jammed like 12 bigs with 99 into 55 and QQ in the Low and the fives made quads.
Just jammed a little less than ten bigs in the High with 99 and got called by AK and AQ and they both flopped pairs and busted me.
I’m 29th of 70 left in the Medium, currently on break. I have 21.5k heading to 800/1600 and I thought we were ten spots off the money, but it’s actually 34 spots! Quite a ways to go.
I am honestly somewhat relieved to have less to focus on.
7:30 PM: Cashed the Medium. 12 of 32 left. Jammed my last 4.5 bigs with K8o and sucked out on 99 – and then got berated for my standard shove from the cutoff. I love how clueless some people are.
7:35 PM: Sigh. Crippled with AK vs A4 on K523 runout. Down to less than two bigs. Pretty annoying.
7:39 PM: Wow. All in in my big and double with Q7o. Then double again next hand with ATss. Back up to 8 bigs.
Down to 18 left.
7:49 PM: And I bust in 15th when I call off my last 4.5 bigs with AQ vs QJ and can’t fade another gutshot. That’s a cash of $117.85, which doesn’t even get me even for the three tournaments I played. 🤦🏻♂️
That cash bumps me to 7th on the POTS leaderboard, but who knows where I’ll be when all these events wrap up.
7:57 PM: Took a walk around the building… now let’s see how autopilot did for me in the 15/30 game.
8:00 PM: Answer: Uhmmm… +$1434
I can beat these people in my sleep…
…when they aren’t crushing me.
This has been an auto-straddle game. Basically. I haven’t suffered much negative variance. I’ve lost some decent pots but most of my big hands are holding up and I’ve done exceptionally well on my straddles.
Oh oh. Action Bronson just busted and left. That could change the game dramatically.
And we chop the first hand after he leaves.
😴
And the next one.😴😴😴
9:33 PM: I’ve dwindled a bit as I’ve been mostly card dead since my tournaments ended. I did have one shitty connection where I got four bets in pre like 4-ways with AQ suited and the flop came down AK8 and everyone check-calls. The turn card pairs the 8 and I bet without thinking and as soon as I did I thought maybe checking was the better play. Notice I’m beating NO aces now. Rocksteady ends up check-raising the other guys out and I call down and lose to AK.
11:04PM: Straddle variance: button straddles, a blind calls, Rocksteady 3-bets, I 4-bet 99, button and blind call, and Rocksteady 5-bets. Flop is 864 two spades. Rocksteady leads, I raise and everyone calls. Nice development, although Rocksteady did check-raise me on the turn in a similar spot earlier. Turn pairs the 8 and everyone check-calls me again. River is a jack and I lean towards betting this but something about this situation seems more likely than others for naked overcards to call down, so I check, the button bets, the other guys fold and I wind up losing to J6. Yay!
11:19 PM: I open QTss and five players call. Flop is QJT all clubs and I end up bet-calling the flop. Not the kind of board I’m trying to jam on with two cards to go. I’m actually planning to lead out on the turn if it bricks so when I end up making a full house with the ten, I stick to that plan and get raised again. I 3-bet. He caps. River is the ace of clubs. I check. It’s a mistake. He checks back. I’m not worried about my hand being no good but I should be concerned about how weak his hand is. I could see him taking this line with hands as weak as straights on the turn… and now I can see him taking this line with AQ… because I have now seen him take this line with AQ.
No. They don’t torch their chips to me at all.
11:44 PM: Same player opens, there some calls, I defend with two spades, one with a border (a face card) and the other a three liner (an 8, 7, or 6) – yes, we are playing this hand sweat style. Flop is Q72 with one spade. The queen is the spade, so I don’t have top pair, but I could have a 7. It becomes moot when the flop checks around and the turn comes ten of spades and the small blind leads out. Now I take a look and I call with J6 of spades. The PFR now suddenly wakes up with a raise and the small blind folds. I’m getting 8 to 1 so nothing to think about here. I call. River 4 of spades. I donk and he shows AA as he’s calling.
Good flop check.
12:09 AM: After maybe a month of passing on 15/30, Taz makes a return to the red chip arena.
12:13 AM: God. Of all the people I lose a super cooler to… Fleabag? Fucking FLEABAG? Dude is having a dream session and opens from mid, a bad player calls and I call on the button with A7ss because I’m trying to play pots in position against these yahoos. Flop is K97 one spade. I overcall. Turn is gin: a 7! Flea and I go four bets. If I had any respect for his game at all, I would just call his 3-bet on the turn, but torchers torch and I feel my hand is too good to call with. But then the river comes an ace and he still leads. Okay. I go into the tank. The ace doesn’t really change anything unless he’s in there donking around with K7 or 97. I finally just slide the call in and lose to 99.
A few hands later I run QQ into 98 on JT7.
A nice late session slide.
12:52 AM: My wife asked me to take her home and I was fizzling out anyway so I called it a session. Final score: +$1340
Going to see Kendrick Lamar and the rest of TDE tomorrow and I will probably put in a small session at Fortune beforehand.
I didn’t blog my session yesterday, but if you read my post on Friday, you know I didn’t get home until nearly 4 AM, so when I started getting texts around 10 AM that the 15/30 game was going short-handed, with players that had been playing all night, I wasn’t quite ready to make my return to the casino. Seriously, by noon, three different people had text me to tell me the 15/30 game was going short-handed. I have to say it’s pretty cool that people see something like that and feel the need to flash the Bat Signal in the sky.
I ended up taking my sweet time getting to the casino, running a lap around my block, updating my rosters on MLB The Show, playing a game, and drinking my coffee, but The Leak was REALLY taking her sweet time. I gave her a significant head start on getting ready and I still ended up sitting around twiddling my thumbs for nearly 45 minutes. It was one of her all-time greatest getting ready performances in our 6+ years of being together.
It was past 2 PM when we left the house and I knew the 15/30 game was currently three-handed and I knew that two of the players had been there since the night before and that one of them was The Gnat.
I made a bold prediction to my wife: I said that after playing for over half a day straight and all through the night, The Gnat would quit shortly after I sat down in the game. There are players that love the challenge of playing against me and there are players that really want no part of it (and, of course, the majority of the players don’t give any shits). I’m pretty good at sizing up which group people belong to and while almost everyone doesn’t mind playing with me in full games, it’s extremely common for people to abandon ship as the games get shorter. I could tell The Gnat was a ship-jumper. He puts on quite a bravado facade and when he’s sitting next to The Flea he has been extremely arrogant and condescending to a lot of players – especially me. But I know he doesn’t want any part of me. Not really.
He exceeded my expectations. After I bought in, he immediately took a break and never got dealt in another hand.
Then he surprised me. After walking around the casino and socializing for a half an hour, he came back to the table and racked up his chips and suddenly started talking to me like we are friends. He said he finally got even and had been playing all night long and straight up admitted to everyone at the table that he’s scared of me and said that I’m the best player he’s seen at Palace so far. Wow. It was quite the 180 from all the shit talking he had been doing previously. If you go back and read my blogs from the past couple weeks, while I didn’t give him the name of The Gnat yet, you can probably figure out when I’m talking about this player (usually sitting next to The Flea) and I had been getting nothing but condescending vibes and disrespect from him. Which was fine. I actually find joy in people giving me reasons not to like them because I mostly make my living winning money from genuinely nice people and that’s something I sometimes feel conflicted about. I would probably be happier playing at a table with eight pieces of shit.
Anyways, I’m still not a Gnat fan and I’m sure he was just feeling the high of being stuck on a bender and finally getting sugar. He’s the type of dude I expect to go right back to being a dick the next time I see him. Maybe I can finally give someone the Two Face nickname.
I ended up absolutely smashing those guys three-handed. Granted, the deck was slapping me in the face. I was dealt an insane amount of premium pocket pairs and my unpaired starting hands flopped top pair or better at a very favorable frequency. When you are playing short-handed against a good player that’s also running hot, you have zero chance. I ended up winning $1422 in less than 90 minutes before killing off one of the players. I then played 8/16 for two hours and realized the 15/30 game wasn’t going to restart at a decent hour and decided to go home and rest up for the tournament instead of grinding out at smaller stakes.
I’m about to hop in the shower and head to Muckleshoot to play this tournament with a ridiculous start time of 10 AM. There’s a scheduler that knows nothing about his player pool. Poker players don’t want to wake up at 8 or 9 AM to play tournaments on a Sunday. Generally, we’d rather start at noon and play til 2 AM if we have to.
One thing I’ll elaborate on before I head out: I mentioned that we might have a WSOP Main Event-sized last longer bet in this tournament and I guess I should elaborate on that. Originally, Palace was supposed to host a 10 player $1100 buy in one table satellite today and the winner of this table would use the money to travel to Las Vegas and buy in to the $10,000 WSOP Main Event. At the last minute, a decent amount of the players decided they wanted to play the Muckleshoot tournament today and the satellite was cancelled. It was proposed to me that we do an $1100 last longer bet in the tournament instead and the winner of the last longer could use the money for the same purpose. Since my backers are covering this 100% for me, I don’t care what we do, but this last longer sounds much more appealing than the one table satellite, so I’m in.
When the satellite idea was proposed to me, I balked. I would have to put up $1100 for a roughly 10% chance at having 73% of myself and have to piece out the remaining 27% nine different ways. This didn’t appeal much to me. I have had plenty of people offer to put me in the Main and my absolute worst case scenario plan is that I’m going to sell 80% of my action at 1.25 markup and play the Main Event at zero cost to myself. 20% of myself 100% of the time sounds better than 73% of myself 10% of the time. You can do the math there and see that it’s a pretty simple decision, especially when you consider one route costs $1100 and the other route costs $0. But then my backers said they would just buy me in and I couldn’t say no to that. I believe the same deal would apply to this last longer bet.
Getting in shower and leaving shortly.
10:32 AM: Well, I started this thing off in spectacular fashion. Before I can even digest the particulars I’m posting with the 53 of clubs and find myself in a 6-way limped pot.
The flop is 532, I bet 400 into 600 and three players call.
Turn is brutal, yet interesting: 4 of clubs. The 2 of clubs is on the flop. So I now have two pair and an open-ended straight flush draw and the current best hand 0% of the time. It checks to me, I check, the button bets 2k, the small blind calls, and the big blind makes it 5k. I have a pretty monstrous draw so I’m not interested in folding here, but I do have a bit of a dilemma because calling can create some problems. But let’s be real here – I’m not folding this hand during the rebuy period.
I call. And the bad things happen. The button jams for 18k, the small blind folds, and the big blind calls for 10.5k. I spent some time trying to do the math of the situation and determined that I needed to call 13k to win nearly 40k, so I’m getting 3 to 1 and need to win 25% of the time to break even. I have four full house outs and nine flush outs, so I’m going to win about 26% of the time, plus I’m guessing I have two straight outs. Calling here is correct. Plus I can still rebuy for another 90+ minutes. I stick it in and whiff against two 6x hands.
That cost me almost 80% of my stack on my first hand dealt in.
I guess this is a good time to mention that the last longer bet is NOT in play. If it was, I probably would have check-folded this hand on the turn because the button reraising is so likely.
I wasn’t planning on playing snug, survival poker with my remaining 6k and I dwindled down to 5k before squeeze-jamming over a 1200 open and call at 100/200 with ATdd. This is a total gamble since I really don’t expect a 6x open to fold to a jam of my stack size, but I’m not looking to sit on a 25 big blind stack this early in a re-entry tournament with deep stacks. Unfortunately the small blind reshoves with a huge stack, which is always Fuck City for me. The other two guys fold and I’m heads up against AA.
The board runs out QJxKx which looks good but the river is a fourth spade, giving him a flush and I head to the counter to buy my second bullet.
11:07 AM: I guess I can offer the particulars now. Starting stacks are 25k with blinds beginning at 100/100 and currently at 100/200 with an additional 200 ante from the big blind. Registration is open for another hour.
Big Daddy started his job as poker room manager at Muckleshoot yesterday so hopefully he makes an appearance at some point today.
11:34 AM: One of my buddies and fantasy baseball foes is currently sitting behind the Pacers bench at Game 7 of the Pacers-Cavs series and I’m trying to spot him on TV. You can too. He’s wearing a big blue clown wig so it should be hard. He says he directly under the State Farm sign to the right of the Pacers bench. So sick!
11:45 AM: Notables in the field: Solomon Grundy, John Kim (on his third bullet!), Bill W, and Chief Wiggum.
12:09 PM: Some gifts from Muckleshoot:
I actually like the jacket, but I’m not sure I can wear a jacket with my name on it in public and not feel like a tool.
12:11 PM: 21.7k @ first break. Blinds are 200/400 with 400 big blind ante. Registration is closed. 89 players entered and 73 remain.
12:39 PM: Obviously super card dead. I’ve won one pot when I opened with AJ and flopped an ace on a super dry board and got two streets of action. I’ve speculated with A3ss and 77 and whiffed in raised multiway pots. I opened AQ and whiffed and the man called a river bet when all the draws missed and the board paired, losing to J9o.
12:44 PM: Blinds just went up to 300/600 and I have 17.6K. The good news: even though I’ve had ZERO momentum, I still have 30 bigs nearly three hours into this tournament.
12:51 PM: Tourney life decision: folds to me in hijack, I make 1500 with AKhh, button 3-bets to 5100, and it folds back to me. One thing I know for sure is that I’m not folding. Standard 4-bet jam here. Calling would put almost a third of my stack in pre so that’s not an option and folding is just silly. The only play here is JAM. I stick it in and he winds up folding.
A short while later, I open KK to 1500 and the next player is my only caller. Flop is QQJ with two hearts and I decide to check-call 2k. Turn is a 9 and I take the same line and she checks back. River ace of hearts and I’m very happy to see her check behind because that means my hand is always good.
Not exactly a huge coup with the kings but it’s better than losing the pot on a very dangerous board.
27.7k
How good is Mitch Haniger at baseball? Didi Gregorius is getting all sorts of attention for his ridiculous start – and deservedly so – but Haniger is basically right there with him and has received almost zero national attention. Maybe it starts today?
1:26 PM: Heads up with Solomon Grundy in the blinds, he limps, and I check back T3o. He reads my blog sometimes so it’ll be fun if he winds up reading this hand.
Flop 654, he bets 1k and I call.
Turn is a 3 and he check-calls 2k.
River is a 2, bringing a final board of 65432 and putting a straight on the board and he checks to me. It would be pretty sick if he was inducing me with a 7 here, but I don’t think he’d take this line, so I bomb it for 10k and he folds.
1:31 PM: Two hands later and we have lift off! I have AA on the button and there’s a 2k open and a call from Solomon Grundy in front of me. I check the stack sizes and eventually make it 7500 because I’ve come to learn that my 3-bet sizing has been too small. Only the opener calls.
Flop is 876 with two clubs and I’m 100% committed and now I have to figure out the best way to get my remaining 24kish in. How likely am I to get action if I jam 20k into a 15k pot? Not really sure. It seems like he has an overpair or… nothing. I decide to go the milk route and bet 10k and if he has a set here, bless his soul. He calls.
Turn pairs the 6 and now I have an easy jam and, after acting like I have a decision, I put it all in and he snap calls with… KK, for the ultimate cooler. I dodge a king on the river and get a full double up.
62.2K
2:14 PM: 64k coming back to 600/1200.
Here’s my buddy at the Pacers game with the blue wig and the shellshocked face in the background:
2:45 PM: Middle position opens to 3200 and I flat on button with AA. Sometimes you have to take some risks to accumulate chips and I think he’s more likely to put more chips in the pot with a c-bet than calling my 3-bet. Plus other good things can happen. The small blind jams go over 30k, the big blind and opener fold, and I snap call and roll and hold vs AQ.
106k at 600/1200.
2:52 PM: Just called a 20k jam with JJ and held vs KTcc to bust a player. We are surging!
3:08 PM: Here’s Bill W’s bust out hand. 100k pot, all in on the flop. Doesn’t get any sicker than this (might have to zoom in):
3:23 PM: Currently at about 150k with blinds at 800/1600. 29 players remain and ten of us will cash. First place is $10.2k.
3:41 PM: Here I am trying not to be embarrassed as Aquaman stops by to blatantly take a picture of me:
And here’s what my wife is doing:
Eating bugs.
And spiders.
😮😮😮
4:11 PM: Here’s an aspect of no limit that drives me nuts: players that hold their cards in a way that blocks their chip stack so that you can’t see how much they have. It’s pretty damn relevant and it’s kind of awkward to ask the same person every time how much they have. Ugh.
Of course I could memorize the stack sizes but that seems to be a skill set I don’t have.
4:30 PM: Dinner break. 140k coming back to 1500/3000. I think there are 25 players left. Cards back in the air at 5 PM.
5:24 PM: One limper, cutoff makes it 15k at 1500/3000 and I call with 88 on the button. We are heads up to 752 flop and he leads 25k. He has about 55k behind and I have an overpair to the board. Not really sure what else I can do but put him all in here and hope my hand is good, so that’s what I do and he starts tanking and I’m ecstatic that I have the best hand.
He does wind up making the call though and I have to dodge… wait, what the hell? He has TT? Jesus. You can never be too careful, I guess, but he thought long enough that I was positive I had the best hand. Kind of a brutal unintentional slow roll. The turn is a 9, giving me straight outs, but I brick the river and I’m down to 52k just like that.
I know I had 52k because he opened the next hand and I jammed on him with AQ suites and he folded.
I’ve lost some more pots since then and I find myself in that special comfort zone of about 14 big blinds.
Not sure if that 88 hand qualifies as a blowup but it sure feels gross. I had 140k 36 minutes ago. 🤮
5:38 PM: Jammed AT right after posting that last update and busted a 32k stack when I outflopped his 88. Back up to 88k and we are down to 19.
5:55 PM: Open to 10k with KJdd and a loose player jams 27k. I snap and hold vs QTo.
Back to 111k. 16 left. Chief Wiggum and Solomon Grundy still in also.
6:06 PM: 14 players left and all seven at my table have 20+ bigs. Not sure what’s going on at the other table, but could be a bit of a bubble.
6:20 PM: Currently telling stories about getting arrested while I was playing poker at All Star Lanes and how I’ve been kicked out of every poker room in Kitsap County and Shoreline. Most people have a hard time seeing that but that’s because I’ve been sober eight years and basically no one on this side of the Narrows Bridge has ever seen that side of me.
6:31 PM: 13 players left. Blinds are up to 3000/6000 now and I have a little over 90k, which is the smallest stack at my table.
6:37 PM: 12 left.
6:49 PM: Dwindled all the way to 38.5k. Button opens 20k, I jam with A7dd and he calls, obviously, with… AJ.
Flop… all diamonds! And we are back to 90k.
6:55 PM: Cutoff opens 20k, folds to me in the big and I look down at JJ and all my chips go into the pot and he snaps so fast and excitedly I know I’m not going to see AK. Up against AA and there’s no miracle this time.
Bust in 12th for maximum time wasted and pain felt.
Ohhhhh it hurts.
No more poker today. Just gonna head home and lick my wounds.
Solomon Grundy still in with a short stack and Chief Wiggum has a very serious 300k+ stack, primed to make a run at first place.
There is a mixed house game tomorrow that I will most likely be attending and Global’s Rattlesnake Open events officially kick off at 5:30. I believe I will be multitasking but I haven’t talked to my wife about either, so who knows.
POSTSCRIPT
I went home and fell asleep before 9 PM which is absolutely absurd and woke up to messages from The Joker trolling me because The Gnat outlasted me in the tournament today.
That’s funny. The Gnat wasn’t there. But that’s not stopping him from telling everyone at the Palace that he made the final table and finished in 9th (a weird lie – why not say you took 1st or 2nd or 3rd?).
I’m sending Joker questions to ask The Gnat about his deep run and so far he has whiffed on everything: first place prize, tournament start time, did anyone from Palace go deep, etc. I thought there was some highly improbable chance that I overlooked this guy that is totally on my radar now, even though I walked through the whole room sizing every table up and seeing who I knew that was playing.
He is also claiming that he won this same tournament the last time it was played. Curious, I typed his first name on Hendon Mob and only four entries showed up and I quickly determined which one is his. He has three recorded cashes, all in the 2016 Muckleshoot Spring Classic:
13th in the $250 Shootout for $700
24th in the $300 NL for $500
9th in the $500 NL for $3070
That’s it. For his CAREER.
What a fucking clown. I’m half tempted to drive to Palace just to make him look stupid, but I need to be up around 8:30 AM for yoga and gym time.
First off, I made an edit on yesterday’s post about what it was that I’ve never seen before because there seemed to be some confusion:
Second off, if you are unfamiliar with Global Poker I wrote a pretty sizable write up about their online poker site last year. Click the link below to read about what Global Poker is and how to play for real money on the site… LEGALLY.
Global Poker: LEGAL Online Poker for U.S. Residents
Here’s a link to the schedule for the upcoming Rattlesnake Open:
If you want to play for real money, focus on the Sweeps Cash schedule. The Gold Coin schedule is play money. You might have to do some scrolling.
I will not be playing in the Global freeroll tomorrow because I will be playing Muckleshoot’s $400 5th Sunday event, but I will try to play as many real events as possible because winning Player of the Series is a thing that appeals to me. I would like to add to my trophy case.
I’m about to head to Palace for some 15/30 action, but I will not be live blogging because I’m going to save that energy for tomorrow’s tournament. We might be playing for a WSOP Main Event-sized last longer bet, so the sweat could be pretty serious.
I wasn’t planning to blog today, especially with live updates, but something happened that I just absolutely have to share. Maybe it’s not that remarkable, but as a poker player, it’s one of those “wow” moments that you just never expect to happen.
Here’s the lead up: I sit down in an 8/16 game and I’m in the big blind position and the dealer says, “I’ll deal around you,” because I guess the assumption is that any serious player is never going to sit down and post in the big blind.
❌
That’s not me. I’m here to play, not wait around looking like a nit. Plus, the first Royal Flush I ever hit was when I sat down and posted my big blind. That decision netted me an extra $2500 or so when I really needed it. I’m not saying that’s why you should sit down and post immediately, but nothing good is going to happen while you’re sitting hands out. Granted, nothing bad is going to happen either, but I’m not scared of short term variance (unless I’m 9 hours into a 12 hour session!).
So I post my big blind and get JJ and win a good pot.I get KK in my small blind, flop a set and win another nice pot.I get TT on my button and here it comes – something I’ve never seen before.
Preflop action goes as expected. There’s some limping and I raise, one of the blind and the limpers call. Flop is JTx and two players check-call me. The turn is a 7, they both check, I bet, the small blind check-raises, the other player calls two bets cold, I 3-bet and…
here it is…
THEY BOTH FOLD.
What? My head can’t compute it.
EDIT: There seems to be some confusion about what I’ve never seen before. While starting my session off with three premium pocket pairs is super rare and pretty remarkable, that’s not why I made the post. The reason I felt inclined to post something was because of the turn action on the JJ hand. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the parlay of someone check-raising the turn, a second player calling the two bets cold, and then both players folding for the third bet.
The reason I posted the two previous hands is because sitting down and raising my first three hands has some an affect on my image that makes the turn folds even more unlikely than they would be in a normal situation. I can see the first player check-raising as a move because of how aggressive I’ve been, so his fold makes some sense, but the other guy calling $32 cold and then being like “naw, this is getting out of hand” for the third bet? That’s just fucking incredible.
Obviously a great start to my session and I finished 8/16 at +$199 and I get to play a full 15/30 session.I wasn’t planning to do a live blog and I’m still really not, but this game looks like it could provide some good content. I’m not promising consistent updates, but go ahead and check in once in a while because I will make some posts.
Starting lineup: Cobra, Flea, Flea’s buddy, Chief Wiggum, a few decent regs, and one unknown.Flea’s buddy seems to be a new heavy regular and he probably needs a name. A Flea-like name. The Gnat. Tempting to use Cockroach but I think I need to save that for someone that really deserves it. This guy is more of a small nuisance.
8:37 PM: Things are going pretty well for me. I’ve made some flushes that have been good. I opened the 76dd and an uncreative and tightish player 3-bet me and I was able to check-raise both flop and turn on T98 because I have him pegged for an overpair.
My wife is now playing 3-handed 15/30 with The Joker and The Flea and the cards are no longer being dealt. They no joke started that game like 15 minutes ago with 12+ names on the list. That is an absolute JOKE. That’s insane amount of flaking.
Trying to talk Cobra into taking s1 before Joker’s annoying ass takes it. I really don’t want to go through the process of moving all my shit.
8:54 PM: Second game just broke. I now have a Joker on my direct left. I hate to say it, but having him on my left is super difficult – probably worth the trouble of moving all my shit. Sigh.
9:04 PM: I can tell The Gnat hates me. I don’t know why – probably because he thinks I think I’m good, or I carry myself with confidence, or, most likely, because he’s jealous. Who knows. But I can feel it. And that makes a hand like this super enjoyable.
Limpers and I raise KQo from small blind. Flop is A32 and everybody checks. Turn is a 5 and it checks to The Gnat in middle position, he bets, and everyone folds to me. My initial instinct is BULLSHIT. But then I have the dilemma of how I should act on that instinct. Check-raise? I feel like I’ve displayed genuine weakness so I don’t think it’s believable, especially on this bird texture. Am I ever playing AK this way? QQ? I also consider folding because he can be bluffing with better. I decide on call though and he checks back ten river and my king high is good.
💪🏻
3:44 AM: Sorry for the total lack of updates. Ended up finishing +$1286, which I’m starting to learn is a pretty solid win in a 3 chip/6 chip structure. Too tired to elaborate more. Will be back in action tomorrow, probably at Palace, and locked in for the $400 5th Sunday tournament at Muckleshoot he next day.
Cards are in the air! I’m committed to 12 hours today. First update coming soon.
Per usual, I took Tuesday and Wednesday off from the live pokers, but I did play a decent tournament slate on Global Poker Tuesday evening and I was having a miserable go of it, losing in spectacular fashion, before going deep in my last tournament standing for a possible day saver, and then this happened:
That’s my best cash on Global to date and gets me back a little closer to peak online bankroll position, which is nice because Global has their series coming up next month: THE RATTLESNAKE OPEN.
I’m not sure how many Rattlesnake events I’m going to play because we are going to be super busy next month, but I’m targeting the limit hold’em day, PLO days, and Main Event day for sure. I’d like to take a real shot at the tournament leaderboard but chances are I won’t be able to play enough.
12:44 PM: When playing loose goes wrong:
Everyone limps and I limp along on button with 76o and the small blind raises and all eight of us see the 764 rainbow flop. The first limper leads out, there are multiple callers, I raise, and then one of the original callers thinks it’s time to reveal his hand strength (or pump his straight draw), and we all call. Unfortunately, he fires the turn, which means I’m probably losing, so I call him down when the board runs out with a queen and a 9 and he shows me 44.
Next hand, the button straddles, four players call, and I feel like gambling with the K7ss and five of us get it capped on the T96 with two spades flop. The turn is a blank and the flop aggressor bets and everyone calls. River 3 of spades and now someone else leads and the aggressor says, “is that a spade?” before raising and my hand feels like a call only here. That player ends up showing A6 of spades and the genius that bet the river, in true backwards fashion, shows 87 for a flopped straight that he check-called the turn with when the whole field had one bet in and then leads river when his nightmare card falls. Well done, sir.
1:02 PM: I thought it would be busier in here since they are giving away $1500 per hour in High Hands, but there are currently three 8/16 games going (11 tables total) but a very weak list for 15/30. Still, I expect that game to start in the next hour or so.
Starting lineup in my 8/16 game features no notables, some 8/16 regs, one certified maniac (on my direct left 🤦🏻♂️), and a few players I don’t really know.
2:13 PM: Mostly just bleeding at the moment while my ATs and better keep whiffing and my pairs are topping out at 77.
One good connection: multiple limpers, I call with 66, one of blinds raises, we all call. Flop is T22 and the PFR bets, there’s two calls, and I think I have to peel here, not just mathematically, but also because I have the best hand some of the time. The turn is a 6 and the PFR checks, which is unfortunate because he once chastised me for making a standard preflop defend with A2o and basically said I’m no different than anyone else that plays here, so I would have really enjoyed seeing his reaction here if he had a big pocket pair. Alas, someone else bets and two players wind up calling my raise and river bet.
I am down about $200 at the moment and the 15/30 list is still weak and not that close to starting.
2:27 PM: A note about exercising: is there anything harder to start doing, yet so overwhelmingly gratifying? I don’t want to jinx it, but I’m dangerously close to getting into a groove. I woke up at 8:30 AM today and went to the gym before my session and put in my biggest workout yet and it felt AMAZING.
Also, how annoying are people that exercise regularly and go on and on about how beneficial and gratifying it is? Seriously, it’s obnoxious, but it’s worth the effort – and that’s something I know even when I’m idle.
I’m hoping I can continue this trend (and I’ve gone to 3 of the last 4 yoga sessions after falling off a cliff) because I think being in shape both mentally and physically can only help improve my chances of posting huge results at the WSOP.
3:34 PM: Playing short-handed before moving to the main game, I defend the KTo against a player that is unlikely expanding his raising range appropriately. But still, when I see the AJ7 with two spades (I have Ks), I think my hand plays better attacking than trying to get there, so I check-raise and he calls pretty quickly. The turn is a 9 and I continue my story but get snap called again. I’m planning to give up on river unimproved but one of the reasons I choose this hand to bluff with is because good cards like eights can river and we can bet for value. I bet and tell The Man sitting next to me propping the game, “he’s not going to like this one” and table my winning straight.
I’m in the main game now playing with The Leak, which I prefer to playing with The Queen because even though our pots go to the same household at least we play poker against each other.
Currently down about $150 and there are a sad-looking four names on the list for 15/30. That game isn’t starting until the working folk start rolling in – could be a few hours.
5:07 PM: Pretty uneventful last few hours. I just moved back to the third game and wish I had never moved. I thought it was breaking for sure and The Man helped keep it alive by propping 4-handed. Hopefully he lost less than $600!
15/30 now has 8 on the list, but two of them are call ins. I’m guessing it starts before 6, but much later than that and I’ll probably pass because I can only play until midnight.
5:29 PM: Here’s a fun one: limpers everywhere, I raise AK on button, calls everywhere. Flop is KJ6 with two spades and one of the limpers donks into me, I raise and two players cold call. Turn is kind of bad: 8 of spades. I don’t have any spades, so when it checks to me on the turn, I’m planning to bet-fold, but they all just call. River is a queen and they all check to me again but I think this is a pretty optimistic value bet, so I check behind expecting to win most of the time and immediately announce my hand. As basically always happens when I try to courtesy roll out of turn I wind up losing the pot. The second player tables 88… with no spade (obviously). Just takes two to the face on the flop and smacks it on the turn… and then plays the big bet streets to perfection.
👍🏻
6:27 PM: I don’t know what it is, but the hands I lose seem so much more interesting than the ones I win.
There’s a button straddle and a post in the cutoff. It folds to me in the hijack and I can’t resist putting the 3-bet out there with QTo and they both call. Flop is AJ9 with two clubs, I bet, the poster raises, and the button cold calls. I call also. Turn is the 8 of clubs. I check, poster bets, button calls, I raise, poster calls, and now the button 3-bets. Sigh. This is bad news but I do have a strong hand and the ten of clubs gives me an open-ended straight flush draw, so I have two outs if I need them. I call, river bricks and he shows me the nut flush.
I defended the 65o, flopped a pair and turned two pair against a likely big pair and won a decent pot. Yawn.
Somehow I am up a little bit even though I’m only posting hands I lose. That’s why I thought I should mention the 65 suck out.
6:52 PM: Two limps, I raise ATo, the big blind 3-bets, and we all call. Flop is T95, everybody checks to me, I bet, button calls, SB raises, BB calls all in, and one of the limpers cold calls, I reraise and everyone calls. Turn pairs the 5 and now the flop cold caller leads out. 🤦🏻♂️ It’s one of those reactionary leads where someone is so shocked to hit their magic card that they just bet without really thinking about what the best line is (I would obviously bet this card). With that in mind, I call down, expecting to lose and he winds up showing me… A5o. Groan.
Stuck now. And we are reaching the point where I’m not really willing to move up in limits this late inmy session.
8:14 PM: 15/30 finally getting off the ground and if the game was decent, I’d play – even this deep into my session – but it looks lame. I’m not saying the game is full of superstars, but so far I see zero players that I really want to play with. Everyone is closer to tight-solid than loose-anything.
I finally picked up the ole KK and got it capped in a multiway pot only to lose to 55 on a 98538 runout. It got capped on the flop by a rather passive player and I was reduced to calling down and accepting the fact that I was probably losing.
Down a little over $200 at the moment. I’m playing 3.5 more hours max, but I may not stick it out until midnight at this rate.
8:33 PM: Someone just asked me when the Seahawks next pick is.
My answer: I don’t know. Sometime after today’s Mariners game but before tomorrow’s Mariners game?
9:40 PM: So card dead. I asked my wife if she was willing to go see Avengers: Infinity War tonight but she was not with it, so I just took a lap around the building and considered stealing this:
I’m no bike guy, but I have to say I look better on one than The Riddler and I haven’t even seen him on one.
10:33 PM: It’s just one of those days. Find myself 3-betting AK and AJs+ a lot and flopping zero pieces in multiway pots and that’s how your stack stays in a state of constant decline. Those hand types have been murder on me today and I’ve been extremely card dead otherwise. Sitting at -400+ now, well past my normal reloading threshold, but I’m at the tail end of my session, so I’m far more likely to go home than to put more chips on the table.
I’m currently getting a massage and I might eat again, but I’ll probably be going home shortly after that if things don’t turn around soon.
10:42 PM: And here’s the nail in the coffin. I have Q6dd in small blind with four limpers, and I come along. Flop is 875 with one diamond and I’m planning to check-call but it gets bet and Bingo Man raises and honestly I should just fold here. The pot is small and I could be drawing to a lot of chops. Backdoor diamonds though. 🤤. I call the two cold and the jack of diamonds is a pretty good card but but the flop leader bets and Bingo Man gets to raise again. Now I definitely can’t fold. Whiff. And I can’t help but chuckle when I watch Bingo take himself to value town again with JT vs 85. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻.
That pot left me with $80 and I was leaving as soon as my massage was done. Then four players limped in front of me and I had the 65ss and limped also, then the button raised and we all called. Then the flop came T3s2s and someone had the nerve to lead out. There were some calls and I was going to put the pedal to the metal and after the 4 of spades hit the river I had this many chips in front of me:
Amazingly, someone had J9 of spades, so this would have been my last hand for sure. Instead I chipped up and in all likelihood I will have another $300 in chips headed my way in three minutes for the high hand.
And I just rivered another flush in a big pot.
My stack now looks like this (pre-High Hand pay out):
12:07 AM: Well, I made it. Close call on the early quit, but that spectacular 4 of spades spared me from cashing out a $560 loser. Instead, I won that pot, the High Hand, and some other hands to finish at -$55.
Pretty lame.
We have another doctor appointment tomorrow and I may be seeing Avengers: Infinity War at 11 AM, depending how things go. I am planning to play poker, but my session won’t start until mid-afternoon and hopefully the 15/30 will get off the ground before 9 PM this time. 😐
Yesterday I made a very unceremonious return to Fortune and a had a day to forget. I got absolutely throttled. When I cashed out I thought I was booking a record loss, but I thought I was in for $4500 when I was only in for $4000 so I actually came up just shy of my loss single-session loss of all-time. However, I did punt a full buy-in in the 1/3 game before moving to 20/40 and finished -$245 there and combined with my -$2135 at 20/40, my overall -$2380 day may very well be the worst day I’ve had since my poker career (re)started in 2011. I believe my worst session in that span is -$2300, but I’m not sure what my worst overall day is – I think it was yesterday.
As I mentioned, I absolutely punted my first $300 in the 1/3 game. I’d share details of the hand, but it was so bad, I’m just going to save some face here. Needless to say, it started my session off with a bad taste and I was immediately wondering if I should be even be playing poker. I feel like I play a very good, solidly profitable B-Game and my C-Game almost never shows up, but this 1/3 pot was 100% C-Game and I was just getting started.
My 20/40 session was absolutely miserable. The game wasn’t good and I was running insanely bad. I lost a monster pot where I had A5hh on a KQ9hhh flop where it was two bets five ways preflop, on the flop, and on the turn, before the board paired on the river and I lost to Q9. A solid $800 pot in the wrong direction and that pretty much summed up my session. I won one nice pot when I made kings full of aces with AK and hit one meaningful draw in a decent pot and the rest of my made hands were beat or outdrawn all night and I was whiffing like Mike Zunino in his return to the Mariners lineup last night on all my other draws and unmade starting hands. The frustration levels build quickly when every pot you play is heads up or 3-handed and you are outflopped or outdrawn or picked off every single time.
I wasn’t feeling it. I was running bad and felt physically beat down by the variance, the game wasn’t particularly great, and I had to admit I was playing my C-game. I don’t know if anyone else experiences this, but when I’m running super bad, I feel very transparent. Like I never have anything and they all know it – because it’s true. I’m just missing every single flop. I decided to jet after less than six hours of play and, after dropping The Leak off at Palace, I was home before 10 PM on a Friday night. That doesn’t happen very often.
I’m off to a very lazy, unproductive start to my Saturday. I’ve basically done nothing but drink coffee, play MLB The Show on my PS4, and take a shower.
Checking in on Bravo now and I see Palace has nine games going, but no 15/30 and, holy shit, there is only one person on the list for that game. They do have a 2/5 NL game going though. Jesus. Please don’t let this be the expectation on Saturdays going forward. If 15/30 only goes Thursdays through Mondays, I can live with that. But no 15/30 on Saturdays is insanely bad for my bottom line.
I just had the briefest of thoughts to publish this and not even go play, but there are two 8/16 games going and I suppose it’s better to go play in one of those than to sit at home being lazy. So off I go… and hopefully the 15/30 will start before 5 PM.
2:43 PM: Ouch. The Leak sent me to pick up a medication for her and I’ve been told it’s going to be 30 minutes and she will have my ass if I don’t get it, so session EpTA pushed back to 3:30ish.
3:51 PM: Fresh off a C-game performance, I was dangerously close to being triggered out of even playing today. I left my house to pick up a prescription for my wife around 2:10 on my way to Palace and one hour and forty minutes later I am just now walking in to Palace and I didn’t even get the damn prescription.
Safeway’s pharmacy ended up wasting 30 minutes of my time before telling me they didn’t even have the fucking thing in the building and since we need it today, I went searching for other options… and came away empty-handed.
Fortunately, my wife mercifully accepted the baton and took the reigns on this task and let me go play poker. One more run around and I think I was done for the day. I was very close to being irrecoverably tilted.
To recap, it took me 100+ minutes to get to a destination seven minutes from my house and I didn’t even accomplish the task I was set out to do.
Seats open in the 2/5 game and it’s tempting to sit down in that lineup, but I can’t bring myself to participate in that game’s existence when the 15/30 game isn’t running. I’m currently 4th up for 8/16 and there are only four names on the list for 15/30.
Slow Saturday.
4:25 PM: Welp. I caved. I just kept looking at the 2/5 NL lineup and wanting to sit down and then one of the floors came over and pushed me over the edge by saying whether I play or not isn’t going to make much of a difference and my objective should be to make money, not be a little bitch. 😂
He made a lot of sense.
Lineup: Part-Time, a nitty reg, a bad reg, that douchey guy that was ganging up on me with The Flea, and three players I’ve never seen.
I’m far from a NL expert, so no clue how this is going to go but I suspect I should be a favorite simply by playing tight and solid. I play exploitive poker though, so that’s where there’s potential for things to go poorly.
4:39 PM: Yeah. This is pretty much how no limit goes for me. I open to $15 with 87dd and c-bet $25 in a 3-way pot on K93. One player calls and the 9 pairs on the turn. He seems weak and I think he has a lot of gut shots and pairs less than the 9 in his range. I fire $50 and he calls again. I still think his range is the same on the river when an ace comes and this is a good card for me to fire a third bullet. I don’t need to size big here since I think he’s weak, so I push out $80 and he SNAP calls me with 43o.
I’ve been in this game for four hands and I’ve never seen this guy in my life.
I sat down with $500 in play and $500 on the side but after seeing that, I have it all in play now.
Uneventful hand here but notable because a different player just limped under the gun with Q7o.
4:49 PM: And the player that just picked off my $170 quadruple bluff with bottom pair, on a favorable board texture for me, just left… because that’s how much the Poker Gods are shitting on me this weekend.
That genius is replaced my John Kim, whom definitely knows how to play this game better than I do. 😴😴
4:57 PM: A hand I wasn’t involved in:
Button straddle to $10, three calls, someone makes it $100, the third caller calls. Board is al raggedy and I think it checks on flop and turn before there’s an $80 bet and call. 72ss (bottom pair) beats K6 high.
A hand I was involved in:
I 3-bet KK from SB to $35, bet $30 on 882 flop and lose to A9o.
Standard for me in live no limit hold’em.
Mister Magoo takes our open seat!
5:22 PM: open $15 with Q9dd and nit min-raises to $30, one other calls, and I call also. Flop is JJx with Jd and we all check. Turn is the Td, giving me an open-ended straight flush draw, and the big blind leads out $20. I’m super tempted to raise here and I suppose I can still have jacks in my range, but I decide to just call and the PFR makes it $80. The other player folds and maybe I have some fold equity here if I suddenly make a big raise, but I don’t know what the best play is so I just call and…. whiff.
He tables KK behind.
5:26 PM: 15/30 is on the verge of starting and the game looks worse than the one I’m playing so it’s quite a dilemma. I want to support the 15/30 and not the 2/5, but it’s obvious which game is better.
5:39 PM: Yikes. I made decision to move and then this happened:
Two limps, John Kim makes it $20, I call with AJo from the cutoff, and five of us see the flop.
AQx
They all check to me and I bet $60. Everyone folds and JK calls. We are not concerned.
AQxJ
He checks and I bet $125. He makes it $300, leaving around $250ish behind. Don’t really see how I can fold here but I’m also wondering if I’m really about to lose a $1300+ pot right before I move. I didn’t love the spot but I also knew I wasn’t ever folding, so I stopped thinking about what he could have and put my whole stack in. He calls and doesn’t seem to love it.
I say, “two pair.”
“Me too.”
“Ace Jack.”
“That’s good.”
I hold vs QJ and then I move to 15/30 and apologize to him for the brutal hit and run.
5:49 PM: No real notables in the 15/30 game: The Queen, one huge fish, and a couple Palace regs.
It’s not a great game change, but it’s my duty to make this game thrive and I am much, much, MUCH better at LHE than NL.
6:38 PM: A couple notes:
First, No limit pots are more interesting than limit pots and probably provide better content. I’ve been playing 15/30 for about 40 minutes with zero hands of note.
Second, my attention is currently divided between poker, the Mariners game, and the Chris Sale-Sean Manaea matchup in Oakland – but I will try to provide some hands here.
Lastly, the 2/5 game just broke. It was full with five on the list like 20 minutes ago. That’s an amazing collapse.
7:32 PM: QT < Q9 on Q65; JJ < 33; Paxton just gave up three runs.
Goddammit!
7:36 PM: Oh man. J.Cole’s song “Bracket” about taxes is really speaking to me right now.
8:27 PM: Okay. Well, I watched almost all of Sean Manaea’s no hitter on my phone which makes it really hard to blog at the same time.
Regular updates incoming again.
While I was watching, I called the worst player at the table down on 98349 with KJ and won and then I bluffed him with 76 on A282A.
We have added The Flea to the lineup and his douchey partner from the other day.
Time to focus up and will the Mariners to victory from my peripheral.
8:52 PM: I won a notable pot before this but I can’t remember what it was.
Anyways, I raise under the gun with KQhh and only the Flea defends. Flop is Q42 rainbow and he check-raises me, I call and then raise on the 9 turn and he 3-bets me. Sigh.
River pairs the 2 and he pauses for like 30 seconds and I finally say, “I’m calling if that will help you make your decision.” He checks, so I bet and he calls with Q9 and that’s good. I guess he did have something to think about, but it’s a 5-10 second think, not half a minute. Looks like I let the constant camera time distract me from taking a free showdown and instead made an ill-advised bet.
10:14 PM: Game is jammed up now and I’m running super pure. Like whole table is jealous pure. I’m hitting everything and it’s all happening way too fast to keep track of.
Some hands I remember:
3-bet AJhh and flop flush and get action from three different players. Open AA and flop top set and get paid off. T8ss on 97×6. 65dd on 977dAdTd. Open KT and get the QJ54A runout.
Needless to say, I am up heaps now.
10:38 PM: Fast and furious. As I was typing that last update these two hands happened:
Flea limps, I raise AT, new crazy (possibly drunk) player 3-bets, Bingo Man calls, and so do we. Flop is QTT with one diamonds. Everybody checks, which is something I was not expecting to happen. Turn is an ace and Bingo leads out, I raise, the new player calls $60 cold, Bingo 3-bets, and I cap. River is king of diamonds and now the new player raises me, Bingo calls, I 3-bet and only one of them calls. This monster pot goes my way.
One hand after The Flea calls my wife “bad luck” because I finally lost a pot just after she came to visit, Flea raises some limpers from the small blind and I defend with K6o.
Flop: KK6 two hearts
Flea bets and I flat to keep the limpers in. They all call. Turn is jack of hearts and now Flea checks, I bet, button calls, and Flea raises. Pretty easy 3-bet here and Flea caps it, with the button still in as well.
River is a queen and Flea still leads. Is it too passive to call here? We are now losing to KQ and KJ and he never plays AK this way. I ended up raising and getting raised again and losing to KJ so now I’m on a break counting combos.
There are three combos of JJ, one combo of 66, and three combos of KJ. He can possibly have flushes and AK up until he caps the turn. If he happened to be losing his mind with KQ on the turn then that’s another three combos I’m losing to on the river. 66 is pretty unlikely, so it’s 50/50 on my river decision and I think the presence of the third player calling one bet but possibly not two, means I should lean towards calling. Plus, the KQ factor.
Obviously insanely unlucky, probably because The Leak was sitting behind me (seriously, who comes by and just completely extinguishes a heater?) but also likely a bad river decision on my part as well.
12:05 AM: Flea opens cutoff, I 3-bet QQ on button and both blinds come along and Flea calls.
J75 with two hearts and there are fireworks. I put in the first raise but the big blind 3-bets and Flea caps, plus the small blind is still in.
Turn is a blank and Flea still bets. This is a spot where I used to raise 100% of the time but now I’ve learned to be more cautious. Sure, there are going to be times when I’m ahead and wind up losing to one of the blinds because I just called on the turn, but more often I’m behind here and having to put in four bets to get to showdown is brutal. So I just call and so do the two others.
River is a 7 and everybody checks to me. I should be good here now and I probably have a value bet, but I take the safe route and check back. They table KJ, 65hh, and AJ and my queens are good.
Another interesting spot, or maybe not interesting at all: straddle pot and I have QJss and five of us put in five bets pre.
Flop is A74 no spades. There’s a bet and three calls back to me and I’m getting 29 to 1 here, closing the action. I know I call if there’s a spade on board, but what about an 8 or a 9? Does that make it an auto-call or should I see the turn in this exact spot?
I don’t know the answer to that so I should probably investigate. Either way, I don’t know what’s grosser, calling or folding here.
2:01 AM: That’s a wrap. Today was basically polar opposite of yesterday. Almost all my pocket pairs held up, I was drawing well, and flopping good.
Final result: +2820 (in 15/30) and +$520 (in 2/5 NL) for +$3340 total.
And that’s how you tell a record bad session to go F itself.
We are meeting friends for lunch tomorrow in Renton and doesn’t seem like playing poker is really on the docket. We have another doctor appointment in Kirkland late afternoon on Monday so that’s going to delay my Monday session considerably but Radio Mike said he’s playing so I’ll try to get in his game by 6 PM if I can.
2:30 PM: Perfect timing. Walked into Palace as they are putting chips on the table to start a 7-handed $15/$30 game and immediately get a seat.
One limper and I’m setting the tone on the first hand with a button raise with 76hh and the big blind 3-bets me. 3-ways to 943hh flop and I cap with the big blind. My free card/value raising play doesn’t slow him down and I call on ten turn and fortunately my massive draw comes in with one of my disguised straight outs and I get a double bet from my opponent on the river.
Peaking!
2:36 PM: Today’s starting lineup: The Flea, bad semi-reg, new player that is obnoxious in a small sample, nitty reg, John Stockton (the assist leader!), Part-Time, and another Palace reg.
Early, favorable clash with The Flea as I open with ATss and he 3-bets from the big blind. Flop is KTTdd and he bet-calls and then donk-calls Jd turn. River is a blank and he says, “dang it, I missed,” and checks. He’s all about playing games so it’s up to me to determine if he’s trying to induce a bet with AQ or not; I’m positive he doesn’t have a flush but I could see him playing AQ this way. I go for the bet because checking back is pretty criminal, he calls and my hand is good.
But he evens the score pretty quickly. We cap pre when I open QQ from the cutoff and he’s in the big blind. Flop is QTx and he check-calls before leading out when an ace turns. I pop him and he calls and catches a magic jack river, leads out and I lose to his AK. He then starts blabbing about how he had the best hand the whole way and should have 3-bet me on the turn… standard Flea speak. I, of course, due my extensive mum poker training, say nothing.
The new player in the three seat that I said seems obnoxious is saying something about me “raising his big blind three fucking times in a row” and that means I will be raising his next big blind like 80% of the time because if I’m getting under someone’s skin, I’m going to stay there as long as I can.
3:53 PM: Here’s a standard Flea move that drives me nuts: I check and some absurd amount of time goes by and he finally asks the dealer if I did anything. Yes bud. I did something. I don’t need the camera to stop on me for 20 seconds every time the action is on me. Let’s fucking go. I would absolutely hate playing with this guy if i didn’t enjoy seeing him lose so much. It’s a delicate balance.
We are 7-handed now and it’s a weak seven. This game is on the ropes but this is a group I would love to play some 6-handed, no chopping poker with.
🙏🏻 Poker Gods
3:59 PM: Some fun pictures from this past week.
Here’s The Joker:
Can you even imagine what is going through his head when he picks that hat out and leaves his house? Or how he walked into a store somewhere and decided that’s the hat he wanted to buy?
Here’s The Riddler:
If someone said The Riddler rode a motorcycle I think I would have bet my entire bankroll on the NO. It’s not Halloween and April Fool’s Day was three weeks ago, so… this is an actual thing?
4:25 PM: Pretty amazing when two people I have never said a word to in my life are openly rooting against me in every pot I play. Can’t say I mind, I just don’t get it. Quiet, confident and aggressive must just be an annoying combination to some people. 🤷🏻♂️
4:51 PM: We have a cry baby! The two guys rooting against me limp in and I limp along on button with A9o. Flop is K9x with two clubs and the first guy limps, Flea pump fakes a raise and calls and I call behind. Same action on blank turn. Like exact same, pump fake and all. I don’t see a good reason to fold here so I call and spike the 9 on the river. Dude still leads, Flea calls, and I raise. First guy goes into a 60 second fit before calling and Flea folds KJ face up. Other guy hasn’t stopped crying about that hand since and immediately racked up his chips like losing one hand on the river was just too much to handle.
Thanks for not raising, Flea!
5:01 PM: Might have just broke the game with that A9 hand. Seat three racked up and is now MIA and Flea just cashed out.
That leaves us in special no chopping territory.
I open J2dd (👀) from the cut and John Stockton defends his big. He donks on the 832 one diamond flop and I have a debatable raise here but I just call. Turn is a pretty nice ace of diamonds and he still bets which is sort of comical. This is obviously a great card for both my range and my actual hand, so I raise it and he snap calls. River 8 of diamonds! He check-calls and I win the pot with my flush.
Sigh.
This game broke.
What to do…
These players are talking about starting a 2/5 spread game and the last thing I’m going to do is support the birth of that game from the ashes of my 15/30 game.
I’ve said many times I don’t want that game at Palace because it seems like it would hurt the 15/30 game and, well, the first time they spread it I was in a full 15/30 and half my table left for 2/5 and we didn’t even play another hand the rest of the night. Needless to say I was fuming and I resisted the urge to blast the staff on my blog but not so much on Facebook.
I’m sure the game is plenty profitable and it might be worthwhile to jump in it, but I’d rather just see it die and go away.
Seems like my current options are play 8/16 and hope 15/30 starts back up later, fight through traffic to play 20/40 at Fortune, or go home.
5:38 PM: Looks like +$610 for 15/30 and I’m third up for 8/16. I’m gonna leave my chips on the table in the hopes this game starts again later.
6:11 PM: Just sat down in 8/16. Lineup: John Stockton, The Man’s wife, decent 15/30 reg, three players I don’t know, and two Palace regs I know as 4/8 players.
6:49 PM: 15/30 is about to restart. I have to admit… the list looks pretty unappetizing.
On the bright side, some good news: apparently J.Cole has a new album coming out at midnight (9 PM Pacific) tonight. This is pretty notable because J.Cole is a top five rapper currently. Can’t wait to see what he has in store!
7:02 PM: Ugh. Rough game start here. Bingo Man flaked now six players, including The Queen 🤦🏻♂️, are sitting here twiddling their thumbs. If this doesn’t get off the ground, I’m going home.
7:07 PM: Restarting 5-handed. And it’s weak. Someone might need to find a real job.
7:19 PM: So here I am playing 6-handed 15/30 and Taz, His Airness, Bingo Man and four other players that have played in this game are all still in 8/16. Such a bad omen.
7:42 PM: Full game now and The Atom is on his way here to ruin my J.Cole listening party.
Missing flush draws like a boss today.
8:52 PM: Nothing exciting to report. Game is pretty subpar. The Atom is in the game now, sitting as far away from me as possible and J.Cole’s album should be available in about five minutes, so he should be seat-changing over my way any minute.
A hand: bad player limps, I try to iso from the button and both blinds raise me. Who knows what they have because everyone checks to me on KTx flop and the preflop capper check-folds. The small blind ends up calling me down after I fill up and I’m still up for a high hand with 5.5 minutes to go.
9:10 PM: Folds to me on the button with The Atom in the big blind. I look at him and he’s shaking his head no. I look down at JJ and shake my head yes. Raise it! He defends. Flop is 655 and he check-calls. Turn is a blank and I think I get check-raised a decent amount here so I’m not surprised when it happens. The dynamic here might call for a 3-bet but it has been a long time since I’ve played with The Atom and bluffing in this spot is something I haven’t seen much, so I give him some credit and call down. River is a 9 and he says “9” and I table my hand and it’s good.
John Kim just walked in and saw me typing and said he knows exactly what I’m doing every hand because he’s been reading my blog.
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Also, Apple Music is picking a great time to malfunction. J.Cole listening party on hold.
9:38 PM: What. The. Hell. Tight-solid player opens and I 3-bet AJss on button, bad player calls from the blinds, and the nit caps it. Flop J95, nit bets, I flat, and so does the other player. Turn is a ten and they both check to me. I bet, call, tight player check-raises, I snap fold (?!), and the other player calls him down on blank river. He rolls AQ high and the loose player wins with 54.
HUH?
This is what I like to call a protected pot. Meaning, because of the presence of the loose player, bluffing in the tight player’s spot makes zero sense. You see what he got called down by. That’s why you don’t make moves like this in spots like this. You show the calling stations the best hand, not try to power your way through pots with fancy plays.
I know it’s my own fault for folding here but it’s a total boneheaded play that cost him two extra big bets and cost me the entire pot.
10:38 PM: Raise under the gun with AQss, next player calls, maybe a blind. Flop is AQx; I bet and he calls. Turn Queen; I bet and he calls. 8 on river and we have life! We wind up putting in four bets each on the river and he shows me… AQ. 😴😴😴
This one’s more exciting: bad player limps, I raise KQss on button, small blind 3-bets and the bad player caps. Flop is queen high with two spades and we cap it again. Turn jack of spades and the bad player is check-calling now and does so again when the queen pairs on the river. My flush beats his KK.
Scrappy Doo in the game.
12:14 AM: I’m running pretty hot. Flush draws coming in, getting free cards in raised multiway pots with 44 on K65 and going running 3-7. Running pure! Which is fortunate because I’ve been completely checked out of the game.
One thing I have noticed is that the tight-solid player seems to be on a different gear tonight. Not sure what’s going on. I’ve seen him drunk before and he’s not drunk, but he’s definitely playing like he is.
I saw him cap flop and cap turn on QT56 board with the table fish and couldn’t beat QT at showdown and then on the hand I had 44 on K6537 he bet river with A7 after five people put money in on the turn.
I feel pretty comfortable pegging him as a nit but he’s playing way outside the box the last few hours.
2:01 AM: Done updating for the night. Obviously using my remaining energy to focus on the hands I’m playing and not writing about them. I will post a final update when I cash out, which will be soon.
2:12 AM: Well this hand I have to talk about. Scrappy Doo raises, someone calls, drunk guy 3-bets, Part-Time calls and I defend 98hh in the big. Flop is T66 and I check-call a bet and three of us see the magic 7 on the turn. I check-raise and only Part-Time calls. 30/60 Overs now, 5 on river and he donks. WHAT?! I am perplexed. It’s an absolutely horrible lead if he has me beat. It makes no sense. So I have to raise, right? I pull the trigger and he snap-calls with 55.
What? How? Why?
Solid unbelievable runout at the tail end of my night. I mean wtfffffffff.
3:09 AM: Finished +$1258 for the day which seems good since I had a solid stretch where I seemingly lost every hand on the river, including that absurd 98 vs 55 (a $660 swing!).
We have a medical consultation in Kirkland at 1 PM tomorrow so it looks like I will finally put in my first session of 2018 at Fortune.
The Bat Cave 