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Posts Tagged ‘limit hold em’

15/30 Limit Hold’em on 7/20/2019

July 22, 2019

15/30 started full on Friday with a lineup that featured Mr. Freeze and Taz, a bunch of semi-regulars, and the kid that smashed the 15/30 and PLO for about +$5k over the last week. Ducky and FanBoy managed to lock themselves out initially. Everyone also agreed to play with Overs buttons so this was basically a 25/50 game after the flop for almost the entire night.

I got two full rounds to find a hand to start The Coast with after stealing the blinds with AA, but I ended up opening the A2 suited, bricked the flop, and was quickly out of contention.

My first real key pot came up when Mr. Freeze opened, got called by a tight player, and I defended with 22 in the big blind. The flop was 962 with two spades, Mr. Freeze bet, the tight player raised, I 3-bet it and Mr. Freeze capped. We both called. I’m not sure Mr. Freeze would play an overpair this way when I show up with a cold 3-bet, so I’m already a little bit concerned. The older tight player also has 99 and 66 in his range still.

The turn card is an offsuit 8 and I still like my hand enough that I’m leading out here, but when I get raised by Mr. Freeze again and the other player calls $100 cold, well, it’s time to put on the brakes.

The river pairs the 9. I slowed down because it seems like Freeze has a set here, so I’m not going to play my hand like it’s the best now just because I filled up. I check, he bets, the other player calls, and I hold my hand up in front of my face like, how is this hand losing right now? before shaking my head and putting in the call. Mr. Freeze says, “I missed my straight flush draw” and turns over the T7 of spades absolutely sure that he’s winning this pot. I table my full house and the other player shows that he had TT.

Pretty weird spot. I know Mr. Freeze is capable of opening with junky suited hands, so it’s not entirely shocking that he showed up with what he had here, but T7 of spades and 75 of spades are the only combo draws that turned a made hand and I wasn’t even thinking about either of those holdings being in his range. In retrospect, the nine on the river is a really good card for me… not just because it fills me up, but also because it reduces the number of combos that beat me from six to four. I’m still fine with my river line though because even when you add in the big draws (two combos), he still has me beat more often than not.

The kid on the heater opens, I 3-bet with QJ of hearts on the button, Taz calls $45 cold from the small blind and my boy caps it up. Flop is Q83 with two hearts and Speed Racer and I cap it again. The turn card pairs the 8 and it takes all my willpower, but I check it back. This guy can have a ton of hands here and I should have his range pretty well smashed, but he has capped it twice now and if I was losing, this card didn’t help me any. The only cards I hate on the river are aces and kings and two of those still make me a flush. The river is a jack, giving me top two pair and when he checks it over to me again, I know I have the best hand now, so I bet, he snap calls and then shows me pocket kings (bigger two pair) after I table my hand.

Well, I sure didn’t see that coming. Very strange line from him on the big bet streets.

Two players limp, I raise with AJo, and four of see the J72 with two diamonds flop. I bet and two players call. The turn is another jack and that card puts two flush draws on the board now. I bet and they both call again. The river is an offsuit ten and Speed Racer donks into me. Well, I’m not calling with a hand this strong against a player like this, so I raise him up and he 3-bets me. That makes me hate it a little more. He’s saying he has 98 here and he’s plenty capable of showing up with that hand on the river, even without one of the two flush draws to go with it, but when I call, all he can turn over is K7 – a hand with way too much showdown value to turn into a bluff. Wait, was it a bluff? I don’t even know. Maybe I should call him Bizarro or The Backwards Man.

I raise under the gun with QT of clubs, Taz calls next to act, Speed Racer threes on the button and we call. The flop is 422 with two clubs. Taz and I both check-call. The turn card is the 3 of diamonds. Speed Racer bets, I call, but now Taz check-raises and Speed Racer 3-bets. Ugh. This is a weird spot because I could be drawing dead, but both of these guys have plenty of history overplaying their hands on the turn.

I ended up folding, but I wasn’t sure about it. Taz capped the turn and then when the 9 of clubs hit the river, he checked it over to Speed Racer and called a bet. Speed Racer turned over 66 for… a pair of sixes (LOL)… and Taz had A2 for trips. If I stay in, my flush is good. This is actually one of the better scenarios I could be in, so it’s worth examining the math here. There’s $155 in the pot before the flop, another $75 on the flop, and since Taz rarely hits the brakes once he puts his foot on the accelerator, I think it’s reasonable to assume he will cap the turn. So including my $50 and $200 each from the other two on the turn, it’s going to cost me $150 to continue in a pot of $673. That gives me pot odds of roughly 4.5 to 1, so I need about 18% equity to continue here and against their exact two hands I only have 14.29%. Sure, I could have implied odds on the river, but when I make my hand, I’m not going to be betting out with it after the turn gets capped and I certainly won’t be check-raising. If I knew Taz wouldn’t cap it, my odds are pretty close to breakeven, but when you factor in that I could be drawing dead here a decent amount of the time, I think my fold is not only reasonable, but correct even in an almost perfect scenario. If Taz has a straight and Speed Racer has, well, what he had, then my equity jumps up to 19% and it’s slightly profitable to continue. But for that to be the case, I need one player to have a made hand that blocks none of my outs and I need the other player to be on a total punt.

Ducky opens and there are multiple callers to me, holding Q6 of clubs in the small blind. I play pretty tight from the small blind in raised pots, but when a bunch of ding dongs cold call a raise, I’m going to speculate more often, especially with reasonable suited hands. I make the call and the flop is KJ4 with two clubs. Ducky stays in the lead and three of us call. The turn card is the 8 of clubs and I go ahead and lead out since I’m in first position in a multiway pot. This works out wonderfully because Ducky calls and then Speed Racer raises. I make it three bets, Ducky tanks and calls $100 more, and Speed Racer also calls. The river is the three of clubs and I check it over to Ducky and he bets. This is basically always the naked ace of clubs, but the pot is so massive and I have the second nuts, so I put out the call, annoyed, and Ducky turns over the AT of clubs and shows everyone what a genius he is by just flatting the turn with the nuts and costing himself $100.

Ducky and I talked about this hand a bit the next day and I thought his flat of my 3-bet was pretty silly, as there is almost no scenario where he makes more money with that line. His best case scenario is an extra $50 total by waiting until the river to raise and that’s assuming that Speed Racer calls $100 cold after Ducky practically turns his hand face up and shows everyone he has the ace high flush. When you factor in action-killing clubs and board pairs, it’s pretty clear that raising the turn is always going to make more money in the long run. What we didn’t talk about, however, was how well his first flat call worked out for him. I led out on the turn, he just called with the nuts, and then two players raised after that! That’s a nice little chain of reactions. Of course, when he shows up with a 4-bet all the sudden, his hand is pretty face up there too, but the pot is too big at that point for me to fold and Speed Racer could still be drawing to something. Also, there’s some chance he could have AA with the nut flush draw and decided to gamble it up. Not likely, but it’s in the realm of possibilities.

My last key pot of the night was as the game was dwindling down and we had four straight chops. Cobra opens from middle position, I 3-bet with 97 of hearts, and Taz caps it. The three of us see a flop of Q73 with two hearts. Taz bets, Cobra folds, and I just call. I have a big draw here, but I’m out of position against someone that 4-bet preflop and if he has TT+, each bet that goes into the pot on the flop actually costs me money in the long run. The turn is the 4 of hearts and I check-raise. Taz follows that up with a 3-bet and since we’ve established his history of massively overplaying the turn, I cap it. He calls. The river is another heart. I check-call and he shows KK with a heart. Standard. This is obviously a bad result, but if the hands were reversed, we would have capped the flop and then the action would have slowed down on the turn. If I were in position with kings and he led out, I would have called. If he checked, I would have checked back. If I were out of position with kings, I would have check-called. So in both scenarios, we cap the street when I have the most equity and put in one bet when I don’t. Yes, this hand had a bad end result, but we play similar spots many times over the long run and it’s clear that I am absolutely murdering him in this situation. Keeping that in mind helps dull the sting when he spazzes out and then gets there once in a while.

I never seemed to get too much momentum going in this session. Whenever I was trending in the right direction, I would play a big pot and lose it and be close to even again. As such, I ended finished the session +$180 after 9+ hours of poker.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

All The Pot Limit Omaha Hands

July 19, 2019

I have to admit, I’ve had a hard time getting back on track. The poker has been good. Last week was a pretty amazing week of poker and immediately made up for the annoyance of busting the Main Event without cashing for the second year in a row. Everything else has been a little suspect though. I know what I want my routine to be, but it has been difficult to execute on some days.

I wrote about last Friday’s session, but what I didn’t write about was the fact that I played until 3 in the morning and then didn’t wake up until 2 PM on Saturday. That’s not a good way to start a “Miracle Morning.” Also, I don’t think I’ve ever felt fresh and ready to tackle the day after going to bed super late and waking up super late. Usually, that’s a recipe for being completely useless for an entire day.

My plan was to play some 20/40 Omaha 8 or Better at Muckleshoot, but the list never really seemed to develop and I didn’t help things by not showing up. I think that game is supposed to start at 4 PM most Saturdays and when I dropped Dina off at Palace around 5 PM, the list was only showing 5 players including me and I didn’t feel like waiting around for a game to start.

Playing 20/40 at Fortune could be another option, but that game seems to have either massively dried up or been taken over by no limit Hold’em cash games. I almost never see two 20 games going anymore and there have been times when I’ve looked during peak business hours and they didn’t have a game going at all.

Yikes.

I’m not sure if the big limit games at Muck and Fortune are struggling because it’s summer and players were gone for WSOP or if they are legitimately dying off, but I’m hoping it’s not the latter. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen a single person on the list for the 20/40 Mix at Red Dragon since I’ve been back either. Goodness! What the hell am I going to play when it’s not Wednesday or Friday?

So with no real options on a Saturday night, I decided to stay at Palace and play 8/16. Ho hum. I don’t have much interesting to say about that session except that I ended up getting my ass handed to me for most of it. I was nearly felted from my initial $600 buy in towards the end of the night, playing 3-handed, before I reluctantly reloaded for another $200 because no one has ever seen me felt in a limit game at Palace (except when I’ve sat down with the minimum buy in for fun) and I want to keep it that way.

There were two hands from playing short-handed that kind of blew my mind. I was playing with two Palace dealers, one of them being BlackJack. On the first hand, BlackJack opened on the button, the other dealer called in the small blind and I defended with 53o. Yes, pretty loose, but hey, it’s a straighter!

The flop came down J64 with two spades. We both check-call BlackJack’s continuation bet. In this type of short-handed, or button vs. blinds situation, I usually like to take the lead with my draws – especially if the flop favors my defending range – since everyone’s ranges are much wider than normal, but BlackJack has proven to be incredibly sticky – even calling me down with king high in a spot where I was like, “woah, if he’s not folding there, he’s not folding anything with any showdown value ever.” So I adjust, and after he reads this, I probably adjust again.

The turn is an offsuit 9 and we both check-call again.

The river is an offsuit 2 and I have made the nuts. I definitely like to lead when I make my hands some of the time, but random deuces on the river are not scary and of all the draws I can have on the flop, 53 is probably one of the least likely ones. I elect to check, BlackJack bets, I think the other player folded to the river bet, I check-raised, and then BlackJack 3-bet and put me into a brief moment of shock and elation. I had to double-check the board and make sure that I didn’t overlook some other bigger straight, but nope, my hand is indeed the nuts, so I put the cap on it and he calls. I announce that I have the nuts and he says, “me too” and snap rolls the 53 of spades and I must have sat there looking at his hand in disbelief for a good 20 seconds before finally turning mine over and collecting one of the most disappointing half-pots I’ve ever had the displeasure of sharing.

The other hand that blew my mind was when it folded to the other dealer in the small blind and he raised it up. I defended with the Q3o and we went off to a flop of A93 rainbow. He checked to me and recent history had told me that his check was probably weakness and not a trap, so I bet and he called.

The turn card was the queen of spades and he decided to donk lead into me. Interesting. Obviously, my hand improved and given his check-call on the flop, it’s pretty clear that I’m still good here, so I raise it up and he calls.

The river is an offsuit jack and once again, I’m quite shocked when he decides to check-raise me. This is never a bluff and if he’s not bluffing, my hand is never good. He’s not playing his hand this way and showing up with one pair on the river. Still, this is one of those spots where his line is so weird that I’m happy to pay the $16 to see what the hell he played this way. Really, only two hands make sense to me and I say out loud, “you can only have king ten of spades or queen jack here” before putting in the call. He responds with something like, “you know it’s funny… I have neither of those hands and I played this terribly, but…” and then rolls over the T8 offsuit.

Ho
Lee
Shit

I would love to hear what his mind was thinking when he was playing the flop and turn on that one.

I was stuck all session and usually short-handed play is my time to shine and I’ve rallied back from the dead many a time when the game gets short, but not this instance. BlackJack had my number. I can’t say I lost every pot we played together, but he showed down the winner waaaaaaaay more than I did.

I think I was stuck over $600 at some point and I finished at -$436 after 10.5 hours.

Dina and I played even later this time, quitting just after 3:30 AM and again, we didn’t wake up until past 2 PM the next day. So much for hiking in the morning!

Sunday ended up being a complete waste of a day. I spent it playing online poker and watching the WSOP Main Event final table. I played about 16.75 hours total (multi-tabling, so one hour of 3-tabling = 3 hours) and it was basically a wash. I did decent in cash games ($14.68/hour) playing mostly PLO on Global Poker, but I went 1 for 6 in tournaments and my cash was for +$2.60 and my average buy in was $23.50, so I ended a measly +$15.31 for the day.

Needless to say, on both days last weekend I did absolutely nothing productive, aside from play poker and watch poker, and it’s not like I won any money doing that.

Monday was a step in the right direction, as I got back in the gym and did some other productive stuff. We met our friends at a Japanese Steakhouse for lunch and it’s always fun to go into Uncle Batman mode.

I’ve been dabbling in America’s Cardroom over the past month and Monday night I won my first tournament on the site. The structures on ACR are insane. It’s the anti-Global Poker. The blinds are absurdly stair-stepped and players are allowed to late register and re-enter for an insane amount of levels – like 15! A $5 tournament on Global with 200 players could be over in 2-3 hours, but the $5 tournament I played on Monday night on ACR had almost 500 entrants and took me over eight hours to win!

The lesson learned here is that if I want to play tournaments on ACR, it has to be a dedicated session. I can’t just pop in a tournament while I’m making dinner and hope it will be over in a couple hours.

I started with $200 on ACR, so a nearly $500 score was a massive boost to my bankroll.

On Tuesday, I played some online PLO on Global after Dina went to sleep and had what might be my best cash game day ever on that site as I finished the day +$639.87. I usually only play $0.50 blind games and don’t play super long sessions on Global, so winning 13+ buy ins is not a common occurrence.

I’ve talked about playing online PLO on the blog before and how much I’ve struggled to show a profit at it. In 2017, I got absolutely murdered in the $50 PLO 6-max games, but last year I turned myself into a roughly breakeven player. This year, I’ve been running at about 11bb/hr in online PLO. The sample size is still pretty small, but it does seem like things could finally be turning around.

PLO on Wednesday featured an interesting starting lineup. Most of the decent/good regulars were MIA and there were a couple of really juicy spots in the game.

My session started off well enough when one of the spots limped, I made it $20 with AKQ8 double suited, Riddler made it $60 on the button, and we both called.

I flopped the nut flush on the K92 board and since this isn’t the kind of board I expect Riddler to c-bet on, I decided to lead out for $100. Riddler folded but the other player called.

The turn brought an offsuit 7 and my opponent check-called $150.

The river paired the king, so I’m now losing to full houses, but I have a king in my hand and I’m pretty sure he has a flush anyway. I would normally go for the max of $300 here, but with the board pairing, I size down to $200 to increase my chances of getting called. He calls pretty quickly, my flush is good, and I’m immediately up about $600 to start the night.

One player limps in, I make it $20 with KQJ9 double suited and 4 or 5 of us see the Q64 rainbow flop. I have top pair and all sorts of back door draws. I’m not sure this is a flop I necessarily want to bet. I just have a naked top pair at this point, but I have a hand that absolutely needs to see the turn. If I bet and someone bombs it on me, I’m going to have to fold and that is just disgusting. In the moment, I didn’t really think this through and c-bet to $60 and got called by the button only.

The turn card was basically gin for me: the ten of spades. In addition to top pair, I now have a 17-card straight draw (with 11 nut outs) plus a flush draw. After getting called on the flop, if my opponent is drawing, his draws will be around the 6 and the 4, so all my straight outs are usually good if they hit. My hand is big enough now that I definitely want to put money in the pot, so I bet $150 and he raises me to $350. Gross. I can’t recall how much he had behind, but I remember resisting the urge to put him all in because I didn’t think it made much sense to pile while I was still drawing when I can check-fold the river and save x amount on those times I miss. I figured he would probably call on the river most of the time when I improved, so I wasn’t too worried about missing value by just calling.

Unfortunately, the river bricked me and he decided to check back with Q44x.

I can’t remember what his fourth card was, but I checked out the turn equities for this hand, assuming his fourth card wasn’t a blocker to my draw (i.e. 3 of clubs) and I was actually a slight favorite on the turn. I wondered how much having the queen in his hand affected things, so I replaced it with a suited ace and that changed my equity from 52.5% to 50%.

Shortly after that, I limped along with the KQT5 double suited, some others limp, and the button made it $25 and we all called. The flop was AQ6 with two clubs, giving me the nut flush draw and a gut shot. I check-called $105 and we were heads up.

The turn was the 7 of diamonds, giving me a second flush draw and I check-called $300. I figure my opponent has AA here most of the time, so I found myself in another spot where I have a massive draw on the turn and decided not to pile when I know I don’t have the best hand and I don’t have any fold equity. I’m just going to fold when I miss and bet when I get there. If the board pairs, I’m going to check and if he bombs it, I’m going to fold.

The river bricks me again and for the second time in a very short period I miss a huge draw in a sizable pot. Those hands cost me a combined $860 and my good start has quickly turned into a deficit.

There are some limpers, I make it 20 from the small blind with AATT and they all call. The flop is T77 with two diamonds and I size down to 30 and only Mr. Freeze calls.

I think he’s likely to have a 7 here or maybe a draw, so when the turn is an offsuit 8, I size down again to $50, trying to induce a raise. He doesn’t oblige and just calls again.

The river is the 8 of diamonds and suddenly my flopped nut full house is somehow the FIFTH nuts – even though no overcard has come – as there are now four combos of straight flushes and quads possible. Pretty weird. In Omaha, these hands are far more likely than in Hold’em so I have to admit it is slightly concerning. I did give some consideration to check-calling here, letting Mr. Freeze take himself to value town, bluff, or limit the damage when one of the better hands is out there, but I ultimately decided his most likely holding was a 7 and this time I sized up to $200 and he snap called and my hand was good.

Hit&Run opens to $15 and for some reason I call with AQ72 with three clubs in my hand on the button. I’m not sure what I’m thinking here. I know I want to get involved with a loose, sticky player when I’m in position, but my hand is extremely disconnected and I’m blocking my own flush draw when I flop one. This is just spewy, I think.

I think four of us see the A96 rainbow flop and they all check to me. I think it’s pretty reasonable to bet here. I should have the best hand a lot, plus I have a backdoor flush draw, and there aren’t many draws to speak of on this flop. I bet $60 and only the big blind calls.

The turn pairs the 9 and I decide to check back.

The river is an offsuit 2 and he checks to me again. This player has been getting creamed and I’m pretty sure he’s steaming pretty bad right now, so I decide to get tricky because he’s a thinking player. I down bet to $40 hoping he will see opportunity and try to take the pot away by raising. He starts thinking and does line up a raise and as soon as he puts it in the pot I immediately toss a chip in to call.

And then he shows me quad nines. I owe him $150.

Excellent execution, Dark Knight. I played a hand I should have folded preflop and cost myself $225 while having the worst read of all-time.

I limp in with JT87 single suited and call a raise to $20 from the big blind. It’s 4 or 5 of us to a flop of TT3 rainbow and the big blind leads $25. This player has been passive, so I figure he probably has AA here. There’s a chance he has AATx, but I’ll cross that bridge when I need to. I make it $60, building the pot for value, but also to gauge whether another ten might be out there. One of the spots calls $60 cold from the small blind and the big blind also calls pretty quickly. If you think I’m happy about this development, you would be wrong.

The turn is the 2d and they both check to me. I think the small blind probably has a ten and if he doesn’t have a ten, he probably has threes full. If no one has a full house yet, I still don’t think my jack kicker is super likely to win a showdown, so I check back hoping to fill up on the river and re-evaluate if I don’t.

The river is the 6d and the small blind leads out for $200 and the big blind folds. In addition to my prior concerns, a running flush also got there, so I don’t see any reason to give this much thought and I fold immediately.

Our game went from full to 5-handed in about 15 minutes, with roughly $8000 being picked up off the table. The two presumably weakest players at the table cashed out for over $5500 between them. One of those guys also spanked the 15/30 game for over $2000 profit last week, so for someone I’ve never seen play in the big games before, he must be feeling some kind of adrenaline rush right now.

I played a couple key pots when the game got short and the first one happened when we were 5-handed. I open to $15 with A885 single suited and get two callers. The flop is 882 rainbow and I start by check-calling a bet of $50. I have all the cards worth having here, so raising doesn’t make sense. He either has pocket twos or he’s bluffing and he’s probably not going to stop betting in either scenario. He could be taking a stab with some sort of overpair, but he’s making a pot-sized bet on the flop, so I don’t really think that’s the case.

The turn is a 6 and I check-call 100.

The river is a king and he has about $350 behind. Sure, I could lead out here, but I think if he’s bluffing, he’s still going to fire and if he somehow made a full house along the way, I don’t think he’s going to check back with it. I check, he bombs for $300 and I put him all in. I guess he wasn’t on a total bluff because he put his last $50 or so in and I won a nice pot.

My last key hand of the night came up when we were 4-handed and I’m really conflicted with how I feel about it. I did something pretty dumb. Out of kindness.

I’m playing 4-handed with a dealer from Little Creek, a splashy security guard from Palace, and a really nice regular that normally doesn’t play a long time in PLO. She will stab at it for an hour or two and risk a couple hundred dollars, but today she has built herself up a sizable stack and is hanging around when the game has gotten super short. Last week she invited Dina and me to come by her house (she lives on an island) and use her paddle boards and kayaks around the lake sometime this summer. That extremely friendly gesture is fresh in my mind as this next pot comes up.

She limps in, I make it $20 on the button with 7655 double suited and all three opponents call.

The flop is 985 rainbow, giving me the nut straight, bottom set, and two backdoor flush draws. Uhm. Yum yum. Action checks to the nice regular and she donks out for $80. I make it $300 to go and that clears out the blinds, but she quickly calls. I’m pretty sure she also flopped the nut straight here and with almost no thought before calling after getting raised, I don’t think she has a redraw with it.

The turn card is the 3 of diamonds, so now I have the nuts with flush and full house redraws. She leads out for $300. She probably has about $500-$600 behind. I guess she could have picked up a flush draw also, but I suspect she is mostly donking again because she still has the nuts and thinks she should bet it since the board texture didn’t really change. I’m pretty sure I’m freerolling her face off. So obviously… I call?

The river pairs the 3, giving me a full house and she checks it over to me. I’m pretty sure this is already the biggest pot she’s ever played in this game and I know she just went from having half of it to having none of it, so… I check back?

I felt like I was being nice in the moment – and I was – but it didn’t take me long to regret doing so. I’m sure she would have been really upset to get raised $300 more on the turn and then call off her stack on the river, but she would have gotten over it, and she’s sitting in the game, so there’s always a risk that you are going to lose all the chips in front of you. It’s part of the game. Not only that, but this is my job. I don’t have any other way of making money. It seems pretty dumb to limit my own income being nice when the person I’m being nice to has a job they can go to to replenish whatever they lose. She will be fine. But me leaving that $500 on the table is a car payment I could have covered. It’s inexcusable. If my wife is like wtf when she reads this, I can’t blame her. I’m sorry, honey! It won’t happen again!

Edit: Reading through this post to edit, it also dawned on me that checking the river is bad because when I check back she should believe that she is never losing the whole pot – and rightfully so. So when I checked back – at least for a few brief seconds – she certainly didn’t think she was getting scooped in the biggest pot she’s ever played in this game.

In addition, she still has $500 in front of her. $500 she can still use to take my chips! How dumb am I going to feel when I could have felted her and sent her home, but instead she doubles through me? Or if she loses those chips to the other players at the table? Or how should those players feel if she ends up stacking them when they know I should have stacked her already? These guys probably wouldn’t think that way, but I’ve created a branch of reality that shouldn’t exist. I’m positive if I felted her in that hand she would have left for the night.

It’s a nice reminder that you can be nice in demeanor, but it’s important to always play ruthless poker for many reasons, some of which are purely ethical.

It ended up being a pretty rocky PLO session, but those last few pots helped boost me to +$819 for the day. Prior to the WSOP, I had lost in 6 of my last 7 live PLO sessions for a total of -$5068 and I’ve pretty much erased that entire downswing in my last two sessions and my interest level in PLO has been reinvigorated.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, pot limit omaha, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | 1 Comment »

Welcome Back, Dark Knight!

July 13, 2019

Alright… time to assimilate back to real life! On my immediate to do list was to get back in a productive routine that includes waking up early, meditation, going to the gym, and eating better. Someone recommended the Miracle Morning book series to me, so I ordered the book pictured below and it has already paid huge dividends in the short time I’ve been using it.

In addition to recommending meditation, Miracle Morning also asks that I read and write every morning, so if I’m going to write, I might as well share whatever is on my mind. I guess that means I’ll be blogging more regularly again.

Here’s the book I’m choosing to read for my morning routine:

I’m starting off with 5 minutes of meditation and 10 pages of reading, but I’ll be looking to ramp up the meditation with each week that passes. I think 10 pages is a good number – even for the long term. Over the course of a year, that’s 9+ 400-page books. That’s pretty intense. Right now I’m choosing to focus on mindfulness because that’s something I really need to improve on, but eventually I imagine that time could be devoted to poker reading – although my actual study sessions are much longer. But I actually think reading 10 pages of a poker book, taking notes, and trying to apply whatever I learn in that day’s session could be a good way to rapidly improve.

My return to the gym has been interesting. Since I took off for Vegas in early June, I went to the gym twice in about five weeks and I am kind of shocked at how much my strength and stamina have fallen off. I have been to the gym three times this week and I haven’t made it through one of my routines in entirety yet. Oh well, I’ll get there. On May 30th, I was benching 8 reps of 150 lbs and 5 reps of 160 lbs, but my first chest day back I was at 8 reps of 125 lbs and 6 reps of 135 lbs. Yikes! I think it will come back pretty fast though.

I actually arrived home on Saturday and Dina dropped the bomb on me that we were going hiking on Sunday and I reluctantly agreed. However, when I woke up early Sunday morning, I begged and pleaded with her to let me stay home and sleep, but she would not relent and assured me that I would be happy I went later on. Of course she was right. I mean… even when she’s wrong, she’s obviously still right… but in this case, she was right right.

We did the Packwood Lake Trail and while it was quite long, it was relatively easy and smooth. Here are some pics:

I can’t say hiking nine miles on my first full day back in Washington was my ideal plan, but I’m happy we did it. It was a nice way to hop right back into getting in shape.

I played my first session back home on Tuesday at Palace and stayed in the feeder game the entire night until it broke. I was having a pretty good session most of the night, sitting on about +$600 when my game got kicked up a notch when a bunch of loose players sat down and drinks started flowing. This type of thing can change a session in a hurry and I was fortunate to have things go my way as the action was ramped way up and finished the night as a +$1392 winner – good for my second best 8/16 session since the start of 2018.

Uh, welcome home?

I had been avoiding PLO before Vegas, but yesterday I spent some time studying and felt geared up to play some big bet four card poker. In fact, I was feeling pretty optimistic about my chances:

The thing about PLO is that if you’re playing right, big spots don’t come up very often. I did a good job of picking up pots when it seemed like no one had much, but these are the three pots that defined my session:

I open to $15 with KsTsT9 and get multiple callers. It’s not a great hand, but AsTx6s is a pretty amazing flop for it. I start by leading $40, Charlie Hustle calls, and before I can starting dreaming of stacking this nit when spades come or the board pairs, Big Baby check-raises me to $100. Well, that changes things. It’s tempting to call here and string Charlie Hustle along, but even though I smashed the flop, it’s not like my hand is invulnerable. I don’t want to see any face cards that aren’t a spade, for instance. Also, even though Big Baby has made a small raise here, I expect him to fold approximately 0% of the time if I raise the maximum. Might as well start building the pot while I have a massive equity edge. I make it $400, Hustle folds, and Big Baby snap-calls obv. The turn is the 3 of spades and I bet $300 (in case anyone forgot, $300 is the max bet in Washington state) and somehow Big Baby finds a fold with like $450 left behind. He said he had A6. I guess a spade was unlucky because I think he calls again on any other card.

I open to $15 under the gun with AAT9 single suited and pretty much the whole table calls before Big Baby does me the favor of making it $30 on the button. Both blinds also call and, in a game where pretty much no one ever folds preflop, this allows me to pot it to $200 and maybe get this thing heads up? The riff raff clears and Big Baby unsurprisingly calls, but Mr. Freeze gets stubborn from the big blind and puts in $200 as well. So with $600+ in the middle, the three of us see a flop of 732 with two diamonds. The diamonds give me the nut flush draw with my overpair and this board figures to whiff their ranges pretty hard. If either of these yahoos somehow have a set here, I guess they get to stack me if my draw misses. I bet $300, Big Baby folds, but Mr. Freeze calls. I know he doesn’t have a set here because he would raise the flop, so it seems like he has a flush draw. It makes me feel like I’m probably never losing this pot. The turn is an off suit 9 and he check-calls $300 again. The river is an off suit queen and we both check. I announce “aces” and he turns over JJ54 with diamonds. Imagine the river coming an ace and that somehow costing me this pot. I’m actually kind of surprised it didn’t, considering how pure Mr. Freeze has been running against me this year.

Big Baby opens to $15 and there are a couple of callers and I have the K763 double suited on the button. This is not a hand I would normally play – it is MUCH more reasonable if I had an ace instead of a king – but I’m going out of my way to play pots in position against Big Baby, so I speculate and both of the blinds come along as well. In PLO, you want to play hands that can flop huge and win big pots and one of the books I’ve read talks about imagining the best possible flop for your hand and if you can’t think of one, then you should probably just fold. Well, for the K763 double suited, is there a better possible flop than the 542 that gives me the nut straight, redraws to bigger straights, and a king high flush draw? No there is not. Somehow I have found my “Eureka!” board and even better, one of the blinds leads out for $40 and there are a couple of callers when it gets to me. I’m getting action! I make it $280 and the player that led from the blinds tells me “I’m not folding,” as he puts out a call. Big Baby does find a fold, but the second player that called $40 now back-jams to $560. I make it $860 and the player in the blinds says something about me not being able to raise because the action should be capped and I’m just sitting there like “uh, no” and he asks the dealer to call the floor over and the dealer is about to do so and I say to the dealer, “do you really need the floor to come over here and tell you that there is a bet and three raises allowed on every street in this casino you’ve been dealing in for a decade?” So he doesn’t call the floor over and the player is like “I don’t know why you’re raising. I’m not folding.” He must’ve said “I’m not folding” five different times on this flop. Does he think I’m bluffing here and that I want him to fold? I don’t get it.

The turn card is a wonderful offsuit 3. I mean… do I even want to hit a spade? Not really. I want my hand to remain the nuts. It seems like the big blind could have 63 as well, but I don’t have him marked for a flush draw. However, the other player could definitely have an ace high flush draw in addition to some other form of equity. The 3 is a gin card though and it’s incredibly unlikely either of them has the same straight as me now. I bet $300 and the other player calls.

The river is an offsuit ace. Ding ding! I bet $300 and the other player calls and… my hand is good for EVERYTHING. I never got to see the big blind’s hand, but the other player had 6655 – pretty sick considering the turn tied him with any naked 63 hand that flopped the nuts. His hand also makes it much less likely that the big blind flopped the nut straight and that makes that nearly $1500 call down postflop all the more LOL.

The three of us that saw the river put in almost $3500 total in this pot, so if you include the preflop action and the dead money on the flop, this pot was probably somewhere around $3700, making it the second biggest PLO pot I’ve ever won. Insane!

The big blind went from having a big stack to basically dust on this hand and, I’m not gonna lie, I really enjoyed doing it to him. I’ve never seen this dude before, but he was totally insufferable to play with. Every time it was his turn to act, he went into “TV Time” mode and probably took 15-20 seconds with every decision and even longer when he actually had one to make. It really made it seem like this game was all about him and we were all just there to watch his greatness. In addition to being a massive CLOCKsucker, he had a lot of opinions after each hand and really wanted everyone to know how smart he was (even though he sucked). He also bragged about being in Vegas the last six weeks playing no limit tournaments and I couldn’t help but look up his results on HendonMob and of course they are basically nonexistent – almost no cashes to his name and none this summer. Also, after he built his stack up to around $1500, he got the attention of one of the dealers about to tap into the table, smiled, and said to her, “they don’t know who I am.”

Needless to say, I couldn’t stand the dude. So yes, I enjoyed snatching up his ego and tossing it in the garbage where it belongs. But honestly, I shouldn’t even care if someone thinks they are a hot shot – it doesn’t affect my bottom line any. And while I can observe that he is full of himself, I don’t think finding joy in his misfortune is a great personality trait on my end.

Something to think about.

Those pots helped propel me to a +$3795 session – my second best win in PLO ever.

On Friday, I played 15/30 at Palace and I started off by taking a couple notes, but gave up on that pretty quickly.

I did note the first pot of the day though, as I was in the small blind and the Coast was on the line. Ducky opened from mid, there were some callers and the 87o had enough potential to defend the Coast with, so I called. It’s loose, but come on. It’s the Coast! I would fold truly garbage hands here, but marginal hands that can flop well, I’m calling.

The flop comes J65 with two hearts. The first limper donks and Ducky just calls. I call and so does the big blind.

The turn pairs the 5 and the same action occurs.

The river is the 4h, completing my straight but also making a possible flush. Still, I’m not going to draw to my hand and check when I get there and with only one bet going in on the flop, I’m not overly concerned about a flush being out there. I bet, the aggressor calls, and so does Ducky? That was unexpected, but it makes more sense when he turns over the 98 of hearts.

No Coast today. But at least this nice win didn’t propel Ducky to a Coast either.

I had another early hand where I 3-bet Taz with A4dd on the button and he donked $25 into me on 944hh which allowed me to punish him for $100 on the turn. Needless to say, I was pretty surprised when he check-raised me on the 2h river and showed up with a naked flush draw after taking this line.

So that got me off to a rough start, but I rebounded somewhat and spent the first four hours floating around even before finding some turbulence and bottoming out around -$500 six hours into my session.

Fortunately, I found some momentum after that. Unfortunately, it was all downward and I was -$1300 at 11:30 PM.

It seemed like a limit the damage kind of session, but by 1:30 AM I was +$1200! What?

Things started going my way when the button straddled, I just called from the small blind with 44 because the game has gotten loose and I want to play a multi-way pot, and after a bunch of random different people raising and back-raising six or seven of us have put in five bets each.

The flop is 532 rainbow. Not bad when you don’t hit a set. Someone on my left leads, FanBoy raises, I call, the player on my left 3-bets, and FanBoy caps. I think five of us put the cap in on the flop.

FanBoy is pretty tight and called 3-bets cold before the flop, so I have him squarely on a set here or maaaaybe A4 suited. I’m actually planning to fold on the turn when the board pairs the 2 – that’s how confident I am FanBoy flopped a set – but it inexplicably checks around. Shows how much I know.

The river is a jack and it checks around again and I sheepishly show my fours ready to turn them back over when someone shows me a better hand… but no one does. The pot is mine. FanBoy had the 43 suited which is wildly out of character for him. That’s why you call on the turn when the board pairs and you’re getting 24-1 even though you think a full house is probably out there.

The Happy Hour Hand was KhKs and not only did I get dealt that hand but I won a sizable pot with it, plus the $500 jackpot.

First time for everything!

Then I hit another small jackpot with quad 8s.

And somehow, a session in which I was -$1300 7.5 hours in ended up being a +$1536 day.

Not a bad first week back. +$6700? I’ll take it.

Also, shoutout to Austin Hortaleza for making an insanely deep run in the WSOP Little One for One Drop tournament. He ended up outlasting 6200+ runners – a near Main Event-sized field – and finished in 12th place for just north of $47k.

What an achievement!

Lastly, Austin Lewis was one of the players at my starting table in the Main. He ended up busting in 16th place for $400,000 yesterday. Wth.

I’m not positive but I think the dude that knocked me out finished even higher. Viktor Rau sure looks like the dude that busted me with those aces. Same hairstyle, same profile, identical neck-hugging grey sweater. The only reason I’m not 100% positive is because when he was on T.V. he was wearing sunglasses and I can’t really make out his face. So I’m not sure.

Still, it’s nice to think the guy that stacked me ended up making a super deep run with those chips I used to have. Rau finished 13th for $600k.

Posted in poker | Tagged gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em | Leave a Comment »

WSOP 2019: Recap

July 9, 2019

It’s official. I will not be returning to Vegas to play the $3k H.O.R.S.E. event this coming Sunday. Even with a $600 H.O.R.S.E. the day before at Venetian, I’m having a hard time justifying the trip to myself.

First off, I’m going to be adding somewhere around $500-$800 in expenses to play one (maybe two) tournaments? That’s some serious rake. Secondly, how soft is that field really going to be? By this weekend, the Main Event will be down to the last day or two and I imagine Vegas will largely be cleared out and when the dust settles, only the most serious of WSOP grinders will be left behind. It would be a fun challenge to battle with that crowd, but I’m happy to be home and I’m eager to start gearing up for next year already.

So that means my 2019 WSOP is a wrap.

How was it?

I’ll grade it as okay. I’m sure some people would be ecstatic with the results I had. I did well in cash games, almost made another WSOP final table, and I got to play in the Main Event! But the goals I have for myself are a lot higher than what I achieved this summer. I’m not mad about it… but I would say I’m slightly disappointed. It does rank as my third best WSOP ever, but that’s not really saying much. I only played 1 or 2 tournaments in 2014 and 2015, had really good summers in 2016 and 2017, and got my ass kicked last year.

This year I played 72+ hours of cash games and won a total of $9400. I won basically all of that in 25 hours of 40/80 limit Hold’em at Bellagio and broke even in ~50 hours of everything else, mostly mix games. Makes you wonder why I didn’t play more 40/80, especially when mix games move at a snail’s pace compared to limit Hold’em. All I can really say is… I’m a wimp. I played my last 40/80 session on June 28th and with my Main Event starting on July 3rd, I wanted to make sure I locked up a solid profit for my trip rather than see if I could really run it up or have variance bring me back to ground zero.

As far as tournaments, I went 3 for 10 for -$6680 over 91+ hours, but I didn’t cash the Main, so that accounted for a $10,000 loss and I only had 20% of myself in that one. Removing the Main, I cashed 3 of 9 for +$3320 with my 12th place finish in the $2500 Stud 8/Omaha 8 accounting for basically all my tournament success this year.

Since I only had 20% of myself in the Main, I personally finished with a small loss in tournaments during the Series and my personal poker profit was somewhere north of $8000.

Here’s a look at some expenses for the trip:

Airfare/Luggage: $780 (two round trips)
Lodging: $1300 (22 nights at ~$59/night)
Ubers: $530 (~$23/day)

Not including food, my Vegas stay cost me around $2600 and my net profit was somewhere around +$5500 which is a pretty decent but slightly disappointing overall result. With games in the SeaTac area as dry as they get at any point in the year, it is highly unlikely I could have done better by staying home, so there’s that at least.

I went 1 for 6 in WSOP events this year, so I now have 1 cash in my last 16, which feels super gross to even type out. However, lifetime, I now have 8 cashes in 30 tournaments with two final tables and a top 12 finish, so even with two bricks in the Main Event my career ROI is still way above average at the Series. I guess I can’t complain, but the last two years have left me feeling extremely unsatisfied, especially since I’m a way better player now than I was in 2016 or 2017.

I have found balance difficult to achieve when I’m in Vegas for long periods of time. I went to the gym once while I was there; I ate like shit and I slept like shit, going to bed past 4 AM most nights and waking up past 1 PM most days. I didn’t meditate. Basically, the only productive thing I did besides play poker was study poker. I’ll give myself credit for at least doing a decent amount of studying. Also, even with getting a late start and coming back home for a week, I still found myself homesick by the end.

Ideally, at this stage of my poker career, I feel like I should at least be playing every $1500 buy in with a limit structure. This year that would have been nine tournaments. Plus I think the $2500 Mixed Triple Draw and Stud 8/Omaha 8 tournaments should be a focus and some day the $3000 limit Hold’em 6-max and H.O.R.S.E. tourneys should be must plays as well. And I should be playing at least some no limit Hold’em events. That means I want to be playing something like 12-15 events at the WSOP every year and this year I only played six?

So the question is, how do I reach that goal while keeping myself sane and productive in Las Vegas and my wife happy at home while I’m gone for weeks at a time? That is a mystery I’m going to try to solve by this time next year. My ultimate goal is to win a bracelet and that’s pretty hard to do if I’m not playing as much as I possibly can during June and July.

I never posted goals for 2019, so I’ll be thinking about that over the next few days as I assimilate to being back home and getting myself on the path for maximum success come this time next year.

Posted in poker | Tagged 2019 WSOP, gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em, world series of poker | Leave a Comment »

WSOP 2019: $1500 Limit Hold’em

June 29, 2019

Since I busted out of the $2500 Stud 8/Omaha 8 I’ve played four cash games sessions – mostly $40/$80 Limit Hold’em at Bellagio – and I’ve won a tad over $4300 during that span.

I also played the $550 Triple Stud tournament at Binion’s on Thursday and it was a strange run for me.

Sometimes I forget to dumb it down when I play these smaller non-WSOP events. You just have to show these people the best hand and not do stuff like this:

Razz, King brings it in and I complete with 66-9 from the cutoff with a 5 up behind me. The 5 and K both call.

xx-K2

xx-55

66-9T

I bet and both call.

xx-K2A

xx-553

66-9T8

My board is still “leading,” but even if I didn’t have a pair in the hole, I think this is a good street to check.

So even if I had the best low at this point, it makes sense to check here because I am actually kind of crushed if either one of them has a smooth draw. Even if they both have a pair, I’m a favorite to lose the hand.

So since I wouldn’t bet a made ten here, I’m not going to bet as a bluff with a pair in the hole either. I check and I’m happy to see them both check as well.

xx-K2AQ

xx-5533

66-T988

Now the bring in says something about I “must not have anything to check 5th street” and leads out with what is at best a made queen but since he didn’t bet 5th is probably a made king with a queen draw, so now I raise it, with the worst hand and the worst draw, and both of them fold.

Heeyyyyyy!

I’m not bragging here. That hand is going to be a torch most of the time and I just caught the ultimate parlay – not only for their boards to run out horribly but for them both to check 5th and then this guy leading out on 6th for who knows what reason.

Through eight levels and 4+ hours I hadn’t found a good spot to chip up in. Starting stacks were 30k and I had 30.8k on the first break and 20.2k on the second break. I wouldn’t get back above the starting stack until level 11 and I didn’t have an average stack until like level 15!

I had a really sick hand where I quadruple barreled in Stud 8 against a board that was showing 83J9 when I ended up bricking my low draw and finishing with just a pair of 5s. He called my bluff and… I scooped… a huge, super meaningful pot.

I think I had about 1.5x average stack after that pot but the rush was short lived.

I started with AK-K in Stud Hi and the bring in defended with 34-3 and immediately caught a 4 when I caught a jack and we put the rest of his chips in and he dodged all my outs for a double up.

And another sick hand (sorry, poker short hand copy and pasted from chat):

Stud 8, raise AA-T, 3h calls; I catch a Q, he catches 6c; I bet, he raises, I call; he catches J, I catch a 8; I bet, he calls; I catch a 3, he catches open jacks, and leads… I’m like… “you just said you had one hand and now you’re saying you have another?”… super tempted to jack him up here, but I decide on call; he bets 7th, I river a 3 and call with aces up. He shows 74… JACK

I guess his 6th street lead makes some sense because he probably thinks I have split tens, but… losing to three jacks is the last thing I expected there and it’s pretty nasty because I think this player would lead jacks up on 7th also.

This tourney paid seven spots and after this downswing, I had about half the average stack with 13 left. I was looking like a favorite to be the next person out but I won one small pot and managed to squeak my way to the final table, 8th in chips with 9 left.

There was one mega short stack and three other players with stacks similar to mine.

The mega shorty immediately tripled up, a similar stack doubled and another similar stack chipped up. Meanwhile I put money in the pot once and lost, so things were looking really bad for me.

I got all in once and survived for half (when I was a favorite to scoop) and that’s the only pot I got a piece of at the final table.

I still can’t believe it, but I somehow managed to finish in 6th place despite winning half of one pot since there were 13 left.

I guess I’ll take it. I finished 6th for $1280 in a tournament where I ran good for about 15 minutes total and spent the other 10.5 hours losing most of the pots I played.

Poker is weird.

Binion’s has a really, really good HORSE tournament that had Day 1A yesterday and Day 1B today and I was really torn about skipping it. I figure first place in that will be maaaaaybe $30k tops. But it’s hard to justify skipping a bracelet event for Limit Hold’em – my best game – when first place will probably be around $200k.

Cards are in the air at 3 PM and stack updates will be here and on the PokerNews app.

Ouch. Just spent a solid hour in the registration line so I’m sitting down at the end of level one right now. Can’t say I was expecting that. Bad planning? I guess the Crazy 8s tourney is the culprit? I late regged the $600 Deep Stack last weekend and the line wasn’t half this bad.

Oh well, time to spin it up!

Starting with 10k in chips and blinds at 100/200.

Don’t know anyone at my starting table, which seems strange. Very early impression is that I’m in a good spot here.

Edit: 12k starting stack

First Break

Pretty good start. I really like my table. It seems quite soft, even with Shirley Rosario and Tony Ma at it now.

I’ve kind of been running over everyone so far and I rivered a two outer against Shirley with 99 in a 4-bet pot when I would have folded the turn on K837 if she bet again. But she checked back with jacks and let me hit a 9 and then paid me off.

Yes, I fold turn. Even if her cold 4-bet range is wider than I think it is, I’m only beating AQ, AJ and hands like 66 and 55. I’m not sure she has any of those hands in her range here. Maybe AQ suited?

17,000

Second Break

Welp. I was cruising to a big stack.

Key pot:

Tony Ma limps under the gun, I raise with KK from middle position and big blind defends.

Flop is T86 with two clubs and Tony donks right into me. I raise, the big calls and Tony 3-bets. Eh. I’m either behind or against a big draw. I just call, planning to reevaluate on the turn.

It is the king of diamonds. Tony bets, I raise, other guy clears out, Tony raises again, I 4-bet and he 5-bets! I mean… he either has 97 or must think I’m some kind of chump.

He bets dark on river! It’s an offsuit queen. When I get 5-bet on turn, it’s hard to imagine what I’m beating against someone that has a clue, so I just call and he tables…

KT of clubs.

Well, okay then!

I think I had about 25k after that hand, but it was a tumultuous last 40 minutes or so, as I was involved a lot and lost a lot. I lost KJ vs 99 on K739x when I opened and big blind defended and then I called down with 77 in a 3-bet pot on 8332K against someone that has been raising and 3-betting a lot of garbage ace hands, but he had AA this time.

18,600

Third Break

Chipped up a little.

Key pot:

Open AThh and get called in four spots.

Flop is Q73 all hearts. I bet, aggro old guy raises next to act (boo), folds to big blind and he 3-bets (yay!), I just call, so does old guy.

Turn is 2x. BB leads, I raise, old man calls two cold, BB goes deep in tank and folds.

Still have nuts on river. I bet and he calls with QJ offsuit with a heart.

Dumb hand:

Open JTss, aggro old guy 3-bets and I call.

Flop is K95 with two spades. I check-raise and he calls.

Turn is an ace. No sense betting this card. He’s proven that he’s playing any ace and I’ve seen him overplay lots of weak Ax hands. I check-call.

River brick. He checks back with A8o.

Come on bro.

BRO!

23,200

Fourth Break

Things not going well for me. Lost with 99 to 88 on the river. Guy on my left has been playing way too many hands and running super hot. I’ve had a hard time beating him, but he’s been bleeding back to everyone else at the table.

Nothing else too exciting. Free Throw and Sandman both still in.

Two more levels tonight. Let’s find a peak stack, yeah?

15,500

END OF DAY ONE

Pot of the tournament:

Fishy old guy limps under the gun, Shirley Rosario raises, and I defend with QTo.

Flop is T97 with two diamonds and old guy donks right out, Shirley calls, and so do I.

Turn pairs the ten and I check-raise and both of them call.

River is an 8. I check and I want it to check around but Shirley bets. I can’t even contain my displeasure and blurt out, “are you serious?!”

And then I have to talk myself out of snap-tilt-calling and mutter, “never bluffing here” before tossing my hand in the muck.

Old guy calls and she shows QJ.

18.8k pot. After that hand I had 9.5k instead of 28.3k.

Pretty. Fucking. Brutal.

I dwindled down from there until I was mega short and flopped a pair with T3hh, blind vs blind, and doubled through QJ.

Then cutoff opens and I 3-bet red jacks and he calls.

Flop is A54 with all hearts. I check back and I’m planning on showing down.

Turn pairs the 4 and I call a bet.

Ten on river and I call a bet and lose to A2dd.

Sigh.

Two and 3-outers look pretty easy to hit… but 11-outers? Fuck. No.

So I was crippled again after that.

But then I cold 4-bet KK all in and got a reasonable K63Kx runout to triple up.

And then I lost another blind vs blind hand vs the old man where I had Q7cc vs 62o on 88676 runout. Another two-outer.

Then button opens, I 3-bet with KJdd and old guy calls. I bet in the dark, leaving myself with 1/4 of a big bet behind, and when I get called by both players on A75 I figure I’m probably close to dead.

Turn pairs the 7 and I bet my last 500, old guy calls, and button makes it 2500 and old guy calls. I stop the action and mention he can only make it 2000 and then the side pot gets messed up and I literally had to wait five fucking minutes knowing I’m drawing stone dead for them to figure it out.

I actually pulled out my phone to film the lunacy but I guess I didn’t press record.

They can’t even figure it out and the floor finally just says, “finish the hand” and button turns over 87o and I’m able to make my exit.

With ten minutes left in the day.

So dumb.

I guess I could have tried to bag one small blind?

Tomorrow there is a $360 HORSE tournament at Golden Nugget. That sounds fun and if I can wake up at a decent time that’s probably what I will do tomorrow.

That will be my last tournament until Day 1A of the Main Event on Wednesday.

Posted in poker | Tagged 2019 WSOP, gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em, world series of poker | 1 Comment »

WSOP 2019: The Adrenaline Rush and Heartbreak of a Deep Run

June 25, 2019

When it comes to playing poker there is no greater feeling than making a deep run in a WSOP event. I’ve done it a couple of times before.

My third place finish in the Industry Event was a lot of fun, but the fact that it’s not an open bracelet event combined with the fact that it’s the luckiest I’ve ever been in a live tournament makes me feel like it will always come with an asterisk in my head. On the other hand, my big suck outs in critical spots felt like a lot of justice for all the brutal beats I’d taken super deep in all the tournaments before that one that had prevented me from making a real run at a major title.

In contrast, my fifth place finish in the $1500 H.O.R.S.E. in 2017 was just a surreal and amazing experience. By the time we got down to three tables, almost everyone left in the tournament was a known poker star.

This $2500 Omaha 8/Stud 8 felt pretty similar. Like, I know I’m capable of making runs like this and I think I can play most of the games at a high level, but another part of me is like wtf am I doing here with 15 left in a World Series of Poker tournament playing with the Shaun Deebs of the world?

It’s crazy.

I broke down a hand history with Phillip Hui on break and he was very happy to talk with me about it. I absolutely loved his table presence and I knew he would be approachable.

I spent all Day 2 locking horns with Andrey Zaichenko to the point where he finally lamented: “I can’t beat you.” He was on my direct right with an unfathomable amount of chips, looking destined for a final table appearance (he would take 4th), while I was on the bubble of this thing feeling the maximum amount of pressure about it.

Seriously.

After cashing 7 of 10 WSOP events with two top 5 finishes in 2016-2017, I was on an 0-11 WSOP stretch heading into this one and that’s overlooking the fact that I’ve been tossing up bricks all year everywhere else too. I really, really wanted to cash this tournament.

It was looking like I was going to sweat it out the entire bubble, but then I caught a little rush and suddenly found myself way above average, a lock to cash, and thoughts of having a real deep run.

Ironically enough, I ended up finishing Day 2 with more chips than Zaichenko. He was a total pain in the ass all day though. Every pot went through him. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say he played around 60% of his hands. Is that really possible? He was a beast. A borderline maniac. I was impressed though.

Here’s a sick hand with two tables left:

Thompson completed on 3rd with a ten up and got called in four spots!

I led out on 4th when I made open aces and Shaun Deeb, Danny Ratigan and Denis Stebkov all called.

On 5th, I honestly didn’t know what to do. This is where lack of experience can be costly. I’m not sure what my best line is here. My hand is 65-AA7. Deeb and Ratigan both had good looking low boards, so I ended up checking and it checked to Ratigan and he bet. I gave some thought to raising here to try and get heads up with Ratigan, but I didn’t think it was likely Deeb would fold to a raise, so I just called. Denis folded and Deeb called.

I checked again on 6th and it checked to Ratigan. He bet, I called, Deeb raised, and Ratigan 3-bet. I had a strong feeling I was getting squeezed here. Deeb looks like he can have a flush but if you look at the upcards reported above, it’s actually not likely at all, as the ace, 4 and 5 of diamonds are all accounted for on other boards. So he basically needs to have exactly some combo of the 2, 7, and 8 of diamonds in the hole to have a flush here. Also, how likely is he to check a made low with a four flush on 5th street? Not fucking likely.

Still, it seems like I’m drawing dead to the low half of the pot here, so calling off three more big bets to maybe win half seems precarious. I folded.

Ratigan ended up having 75 in the hole and caught an 8 on 7th to make a straight, so I would have got scooped on 7th anyway (I was in last position so the cards would be the same on 7th).

Deeb was making a play. He had a pair and a six low draw and got me to fold the high half of the pot. He would have looked like a genius if it worked and Ratigan bricked the river.

I hated letting him get away with it and I’m not going to lie… I was happy to see Danny scoop that pot and Deeb bust in 13th a short while later. I didn’t want to deal with Shaun at a final table, plus Danny Ratigan is from the Seattle area!

I’ll say this though. I don’t post much on Twitter but I’m pretty in tune with the poker Twitterverse and, well, Shaun is a controversial figure and can be extremely opinionated and pretty mean. I would not have been surprised to not like him. It was the opposite. I was impressed with everything about the guy. He was nice to everyone and the floors practically treated him like he was the Tournament Director. And his focus was unreal. He didn’t miss a thing at the table. I wish I had 20% of that focus level. I was blown away. That kind of thing is scary to play against.

One more hand from Day 2:

I think it would be pretty hard to report poker hands, especially when you start watching in the middle of a pot, and I think the PokerNews team generally does a really good job, but man, this one couldn’t be further from the truth.

Here’s what really happened:

Matt Vengrin is the bring in with the 2d and everyone folds to Phillip Long, in the effective cutoff position, and he completes with a ten up. I have the Qc up and two jacks in the hole and raise it. Vengrin defends the bring in and Long also calls.

On 4th street, Vengrin pairs his door card, Long catches an offsuit 6 and I catch an offsuit jack: a total gin card for me. It checks to me, I bet, and Vengrin raises to put himself all in. It’s enough of a raise that it allows me to re-raise if I choose to, so Phillip Long reluctantly folds and I call. Vengrin thinks he has me crushed because he has a deuce in the hole, but I show him the ultra bad news by turning up two jacks. Things had been going bad for me so I had a feeling he was going to fill up and I was going to lose this critical pot, but we both bricked through 6th street and I snap rolled my last card to give me jacks full and he only had the case deuce for a win. He squeezed the 9 of clubs and then crumpled it up, tossed it in the air, and hit the dealer in the head with it.

Compare the real hand to the hand reported above and it’s quite a different story.

Even Vengrin had his own version of events:

I mean… he was super unlucky to catch a 2 on 4th and be behind, but he definitely wasn’t rolled up here.

I finished Day 2 8th in chips with 12 players left and that was reason enough for my wife to wake up at 6am and book a flight to Vegas so she could be here if I somehow found my way to a bracelet. Blackjack even booked a flight to come sweat my Day 3 run.

When you get this far in a bracelet event it’s easy to start dreaming about what might happen. Based on chip distribution alone, my fair share of the bracelet heading into Day 3 was greater than 6%! A few pots going my way early while others bust out and that number starts to swing heavily in my favor.

What’s harder to imagine is the worst possible outcome happening.

I’ll let Blackjack tell his story:

It literally could not have gone worse for me. We started with about four hands of Stud 8 and I folded all of them, but I was super active in the Omaha round.

First, I flopped the nut low draw and a small pair on an all diamond flop. I checked back the flop but called down when the low came in and my A43x got quartered by A44x.

Then this happened:

I opened with AJ72 and no suits and Gerard 3-bet me on the button. With top top on the flop and the backdoor nut low draw, check-calling seemed best. While I’m blocking AA hands, it’s still something to be weary of when you get 3-bet in O8.

I loved the turn, as it gave me the nut low draw in addition to top pair. While I was happy to check-call the turn, I was going to lead the river if I made the nut low. If I get quartered with top pair and the nut low, then so be it. In fact, the only cards I don’t want to see on the river are a king, queen, ace or deuce. Ironically, I was still scooping if an ace came.

In fact, this is what my odds looked like heading to the river:

So I’m scooping this crucial pot 70% of the time and getting scooped 30%.

Obviously, I don’t know what he has exactly, so when the river comes a queen and he bets, all I know is this: I fucking hate it.

As noted earlier, a queen is one of the few cards where my hand feels like it gets destroyed. I have an easy showdown on pretty much every other card and now I have a super marginal one way hand. In fact, it’s so easy for me to get scooped here that I should probably just be folding when each big bet is so critical to my stack.

On the other hand, there are 7.75 big bets in the pot and if he’s bluffing as much as 11% of the time folding the best hand here would be an absolute catastrophe. Is he bluffing enough? It’s hard to say – not like I have a ton of history with the guy. What hands could he triple barrel with? A23x? Raggedy A2xx hands? A245? What if the river was a 9 or ten? Is he betting with AK53? The fact he double barreled the hand he did have leads me to believe if he missed the river, he would have to fire another bullet and that makes me feel better about my call.

Regardless, an absolutely sickening runout and, essentially, my knockout blow.

A hand or two later, I’m in the small blind and Phillip Long opens the button, I 3-bet all in with the AK53. He showed the QJ52 and the A87 rainbow flop meant we were going to chop 80% of the time and each of us had about 10% scoop equity. Somehow, he managed to realize his scoop equity when the board ran out 9-T to give him the nut high along with a better low and just like that… I was out.

I’m not going to lie… I was pretty shellshocked to be out in 20 minutes and sad that my wife flew out to sweat me and this is what happened. On the other hand, I got to spend a whole day with her on the weekend before her birthday so that was really nice. She gave me the go ahead to play the $1500 Razz – even urged me to play it – but I was feeling a bit demoralized and I wanted to spend time with her since she was here.

So we went and saw Ka at the MGM Grand.

Here is how Dina felt before the show:

And here is how she felt after the show:

In fact, she gave the show a 3 out of 10, which I thought was super harsh. I can’t say I really enjoyed the experience either though.

First, they wouldn’t let me bring my backpack in, even though I carry all my diabetic supplies and emergency items in it. I’ve never had anyone forcefully turn me away after I pull out the debilitating disease excuse, but they wouldn’t let me in. So we went to the bellhop to check our bags and that took 20 minutes to happen and in the process, I lost my Contigo water bottle because I’m not used to carrying it around as it is normally slotted on the side of my backpack. So that was cool.

Then, with 5 minutes before show time, our bags checked, all my items in my wife’s purse, we get our tickets scanned and they tell us her purse is too big to bring in. The same purse they saw earlier and didn’t say anything about. Well, I wasn’t having that and I didn’t get to throw much of a fit before they just waved us in.

I’ll give Ka a 6 out of 10. It is my least favorite show I’ve seen in Vegas. If it was the first one I saw, I would probably think more highly of it. I thought the music was really good and the stage was very impressive, but the show was the least interesting I’ve seen and while the stunts were pretty cool, they were also the least spectacular I’ve seen. Even Absinthe has better physical performances.

Updates Vegas Show Rankings

1. Absinthe

2. Michael Jackson: One

3. The Beatles: Love

4. O

5. Penn & Teller

6. Ka

I played the $600 No Limit Hold’em WSOP Deep Stack today and I had about 35k when this hand came up during the 300/600 level. An older white gentleman opened from MP to 1600 and I decided to flat with AQo. I think this is a fine hand to mix flats and 3-bets with against this player type. I think it’s an easy fold if he 4-bets and I don’t mind playing AQ in position in a single-raised pot either.

The small blind, a younger, capable-looking Asian guy 3-bet to 6200 and the opener folded. I’m not about to fold AQ in a squeeze spot against a player that seems capable of pulling the trigger, and I think there is serious merit to just stuffing it preflop at this point, but I elected to call.

The flop was QJ5 rainbow and he checked to me. I down bet 5500 into over 15k and he stuffed it on me. This sent me into the tank for a good three minutes. Obviously, I don’t love this spot, even with top top. On the other hand, I’m blocking queens and aces and I have ~20% equity if he has KK. I’m fucked if he has JJ, but I also think he can have some KQ, QT, KT, and maybe some spazzy Qx or Jx hands. I probably can’t have AA or KK here, so AQ is one of the best hands I would even think about folding here and that means I probably have to call with it.

I call. He tables KT, the turn bricks, but the river is an ace and I was busted.

Also, saw this guy in the Rio hallway yesterday and I have to wonder if I even have the right to be The Dark Knight when this guy is playing poker in this outfit:

That’s a level of commitment I will never reach.

Now I’m at the Bellagio playing some $40/$80 Limit Hold’em.

Spotted FanBoy doing work in the $80/$160 game:

Maybe I’ll post some hands here. Maybe I won’t.

Either way, I will post my end result after my session.

Result: +$3157

Posted in poker | Tagged 2019 World Series of poker, gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, no limit hold em, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em, wsop | Leave a Comment »

WSOP 2019: Update

June 18, 2019

I always start off thinking this, but this is really going to be an abbreviated post. I feel like I should probably post a little update since I haven’t made a new post since June 9th.

Here’s what has happened since then.

On June 10th, I played Day 2 of the $1500 WSOP 8-Game Mix and busted out before the money bubble burst. I had another tough table draw and I never had more chips than I started the day with and felt like I was constantly put in brutal spots.

Here are a couple:

I was the bring in for Razz with a 9 up and Jameson Painter opened utg with an 8 up. Obviously, there were four other low cards out, but they all folded and I defended with A2-9. On 4th street Jameson caught a King and I caught a Jack. I bet and he called. On 5th street, He caught an ace and I paired my 2, but my board was still leading so I bet out and I was immediately punished with a raise. This is just a mistake on my part. Let’s say I didn’t pair the 2 and I had something like A3-9J2 and Jameson has a hand like 34-8KA, he’s still a 60% favorite even when the 2 helps me, so his raise here makes a lot of sense and my bet actually sucks… and it really sucks since the 2 actually hurt my hand. Clearly, my best play is just to check-fold here even though my board is “leading.”

Another hand that helped cripple me was in Stud Hi. The least established player at the table limped in with the ace of spades up, I completed with JJ-8 and Jameson Painter called with a 9 up. On 4th street, we all seemingly bricked, so I bet again and they both called. 5th street felt similarly bricky, so I bet again, Jameson called, and the ace up check-raised. By now, his board looked like xx-As5c2c. I was perplexed, but I also hadn’t improved. However, both Jameson and I had a three on our boards, so a straight didn’t seem likely. My board hadn’t improved at all, so this is probably just a fold here, but I convinced myself to take another card off and Jameson called as well. I bricked again and the As5c2c caught the 4s and I folded when he bet again and so did Jameson.

Neither of those hands are too catastrophic, but I should have saved at least two big bets between the two of them.

I ended up taking the rest of the day off on the 10th as I was tired and annoyed.

On the 11th, I played 10 hours of $20/$40 Mix and got off to another absolutely brutal start, almost immediately gifting them two racks and playing catch up the entire session, but I managed to settle for a modest -$345, which is ironic because…

…that’s exactly how much I won the next day in 5.5 hours of $40/$80 LHE at Bellagio.

On the 13th, the last full day in Vegas of my first trip this summer, I started by busting the $400 NL tournament at Aria in a timely fashion, laughed off thoughts of a re-entry, took a nap and watched the Raptors win the NBA title, then headed to Bellagio for a late night $40/$80 LHE session. I played from 9:30 PM to 5:30 AM and booked a rather sick +$5515 winner – my second biggest win in a cash game session (in terms of actual money won) ever and a total trip saver!

Sexy:

So overall my first trip looked like this:

+$4955 in 30 hours of cash games
One mincash in five tournaments for -$3410

Makes you wonder about priorities. Yes, tournaments can lead to life-changing scores, but cash games are how I make my living. I feel like I should make them more of a focus during WSOP time and I’ve adjusted the back half of my schedule a bit to give myself more time for cash game. Basically, I’ve just eliminated all the smaller NLHE tournaments from my schedule. I like them as a warmup for the Main Event, but I had four on my schedule and I’ll probably wind up just playing one of them now.

I’ve played one session since I’ve been back in Washington, but it was only 4.5 hours of $8/$16 for -$292 while my dogs were at the groomers. I may play another session tomorrow and maaaaaaaaaaybe PLO at Palace on Wednesday night and I land back in Vegas Thursday after midnight and my next event is the $1500 No Limit Hold’em Monster Stack at 10 AM on Friday.

Other WSOP Notes: Through 36 completed events, Washington state hasn’t shown up very much.

Rep Porter took 5th in the $1500 Stud Hi for almost $20k and his good friend Rick Fuller took 10th in the $1500 Omaha 8 or Better for $12.3k.

FanBoy got a mincash in the $1k Double Stack.

Sandman has been our MVP so far, following up his 5th place finish in the $2500 Mixed Triple Draw with a 5th place finish in the $1500 2-7 Triple Draw for a $26.8k score despite showing up over an hour late on Day 3 while sitting 6th in chips of 17 left.

Also, Noah Bronstein just busted 15th in the $1k Double Stack for $29.6k. He also took 13th in the 8-Game Mix for $7.5k and has six cashes total now.

WSOP 2019: $1500 8-Game Sweat Post

June 9, 2019

Quick update:

Friday I had to switch from the Rio to some condos across the street and I really wanted to go grocery shopping to stock up and put a stop to spending $60/day on food.

I happened to wake up at 6am though, so I put in a 7+ hour session in the 20/40 Mix game before checking out at 2 PM. I got off to a rough start, bottoming out at -$1300, before rebounding for a -$560 finish in my first cash game session of the summer.

My buddy didn’t get in til after 7pm and we weren’t done with groceries until like 10pm, so my thoughts of putting in another cash session were extinguished due to a 11 AM start on Saturday.

Yesterday, I played the $400 8-Game Championship at the Orleans and finished 21st or 22nd for $860 – which is somehow my biggest cash of the entire year, online included. Jeebus. The 8-Game at Orleans was one of the two cashes I had all last summer, so a nice little 8-Game repeat heading into the 8-Game tournament that really matters.

Cards will be in the air at 3 PM. I’ll post stack updates here on breaks but no hand histories (probably). I’m 0-2 in this one lifetime and on an 0-10 stretch in WSOP events. Let’s break the snide and build a stack today!

First Break: 13,750

10k starting stacks with 60 minute levels. Got off to a fast start at an easy table until it started filling up with accomplished mixed games players.

I won a crazy limit Hold’em pot. I’ll let my tablemate Sean Snyder tell it (note: I’m under the gun):

😂😂

I show that tweet to Joker and he says:

I got moved of that table shortly after and I know no one at my new table. I think I recognize one of them but I’m not sure.

Next update in two hours!

Second Break: 16,500

That’s all. See you in two hours!

Third Break: 18,800

I went ice cold for about 90 minutes and then I got scooped in a brutal Stud 8 hand where I had three aces on 5th street and I fell below 10k for the first time after that hand.

But then I played a 3-bet 3-way 2-7 Triple Draw hand and made #1 after one draw and ended up busting someone and went on a little rush after that to get back near my peak stack size.

I have a pretty brutal table. Everyone is playing well and the guy I busted was replaced by end boss Benny Glaser.

Four more levels to a bag!

Fourth Break: 26,500

Benny Glaser busted in an hour, which was nice, but he was replaced by another world beater in Naoya Kihara. Things have been going pretty well so far, even with a somewhat unfavorable table draw.

Two more hours!

Day 1: 17,000

Ugh. I was peaking around 32k after level 9 and then my table broke and I got moved where I proceeded to get wrecked.

Restart tomorrow at 2 PM.

Day 2 Restart

Cards in the air at 2 PM. I have Matt Glantz on my right with heaps. I’ve seen the names Ian O’Hare and Jameson Painter but I’m not familiar with them.

225 left, 92 cash and average stack is 27k or so. Time to spin it up!

BUSTED

Brutal spot after brutal spot. Lots of fun.

$1100 Mega Satty to the $10k HORSE next @ 8 PM.

Posted in poker | Tagged 2019 WSOP, 8-game Mix, gambling, gambling for a living, limit hold em, mix games, poker, poker strategy, Poker Tournaments, professional gambling, professional poker, texas hold em, world series of poker | Leave a Comment »

WSOP 2019: $1500 H.O.R.S.E. Sweat Thread

June 5, 2019

First off, some shoutouts to some locals that have had success so far:

-Bulletproof cashed the Employee Event for a little profit.

-Sandman final tabled the $2500 Triple Draw tournament for the second year in a row, this time finish in 5th (3rd last year) for just over $30k. What a boss.

-Joker finished 120th out of 6100+ runners in the WSOP $600 No Limit Deep Stack for ~$2600 and JJ Neville from Kitsap finished 84th in the same event for ~$3500.

-Billy Dubz’ significant other participated in a 3-way chop for $14k each in the $300ish Omaha 8 or Better tournament at the Orleans.

And I’m looking to do damage today! Amazingly, I have a Palace regular (no nickname) at my starting table. Unreal. Joker and Ducky are playing this event also, but probably late regging.

10k starting stacks. Hour long levels.

H.O.R.S.E.

Let’s go.

Stack updates on breaks here.

Note: I’ll update my chip count occasionally via the MyStack app, so my stack s will automatically show up in the PokerNews coverage. But don’t get excited if you see my name near the top. All that means is I’m updating my stack myself and no one else!

Just know this: trending above 10k = good and trending below 10k = bad.

Break #1: 9550

Nothing notable to report. My table is full with no one I recognize outside of the local player, so no world beaters are going to be starting there. That’s nice.

I won a decent-sized Razz hand and lost a decent-sized Stud Hi hand.

Best hand so far, it folds to small blind, he raises and I 3-bet AJhh and double barrel on KT8cc4 before he donks on the queen of club river. For some reason, I’m not convinced he has a flush here and I will fold to a 3-bet so I end up raising my straight and he just calls and my hand is good.

Just lost five blinds with AQ right before the break and that’s about it so far.

Just sat back down and my fellow Palace player has been moved off my table. Good luck to him.

Break #2: 2100

I’m on fumes. The first 20 minutes or so of this tournament were fun but nothing good has happened since then. I’ve lost every significant pot I’ve played with some particularly gross runouts in Omaha and Razz.

I’m coming back to 8.5 bigs so I’m in bad shape here.

Joker is sitting on 14k.

Break #3:

Wait. There’s no break yet. I’m out. Got up to 3000 and busted in Stud with KT-TAJx-x. I got all in on 4th street vs split jacks that never improved. Pretty frustrating day and start to my summer.

Joker just reached dinner break with 23k. Ducky still doesn’t have a seat. Dude is going to sit down with 25 bigs. What a baller. I’ll update this post with their stacks throughout the rest of the night.

Not sure if I’m going to play cash tonight. I have an 11 AM start at Aria for their $470 O.E. tournament tomorrow, so I’m not gonna travel or play super late. I would like to play the 20/40 Mix here at the Rio but they have one game with 18 on the wait list right now? Same with 20/40 o8. Not sure what’s going on there and currently I don’t feel much like investigating. There’s a basketball game on T.V. right now so I think I’m gonna watch that for a bit.

9:21 PM:

Joker 35k

Ducky 30k

Sandman 40k

End of Day 1:

Joker 25.5k

Ducky 23.1k

May 2019 Results

June 4, 2019

I’m going to try to make this quick because I’m flying out to Vegas tomorrow morning (now today) and, well, I’m ready to go to bed.

Monday @ Palace

Played some 8/16 and isolated a limper on my first hand dealt in with 98 of spades and got a friendly 88648 runout and a chance to Coast again.

Sure enough, I got off to a very fast start and was up $600 in 40 minutes and the only real threat to not completing The Challenge for the second time in five days was the strength of the game. I wasn’t sure it was going to make it the requisite six hours. It was weak and fragile, but somehow it never collapsed and I finished at +$840 in 6.5 hours for my second Coast-to-Coast of the week – and also of the last 6+ months.

Wednesday @ Palace

I may have been lured into Palace on Wednesday. I’d made my decision to avoid big bet cash games until after I got back from the WSOP but there I was walking in at 6 PM on the promise of a juicy game and I see four people waiting for a game to start. Sigh. I sat down and of course it went miserably.

First, I 3-bet QJT9 double suited from the small blind after Mr. Freeze opened and he called. The flop was T74 with two spades and one diamond. With no spades in my hand, a weak gut shot, and lots of good backdoor equity – not to mention top pair – I decided to start with a check-call of $50. The turn was an offsuit 2 and I check-called $100. With Mr. Freeze firing barely more than half pot bets on the flop and turn, I gave serious consideration to check-potting the turn, but I decided for the lower variance route. The river was the queen of spades, giving me top two, but bringing in the spade flush. I checked and Mr. Freeze bet the max of $300. I really wanted to call. I really, really wanted to. And I even thought he looked weak and uncomfortable. But I folded and then he showed me the K954 with three diamonds in his hand. A total suicide mission. Man, I hate when I don’t trust my instincts.

Then I flopped a wrap against top set and got stacked.

After reloading, it was my turn to flop top set in a 3-bet 3-way pot. I had AAKK double suited on a board of KT6 with two hearts and a club, so I had top set and the backdoor nut flush draw and one of my opponents led out for $200 after calling $65 preflop. Charlie Hustle also called and then they both called when I raised the maximum to $500, leaving myself with less than $300 behind. It was going in no matter what the turn was. Unfortunately, it was the 5 of hearts and the flop donker led out again, Hustle folded, and I stacked off and the river bricked and he ended up winning the pot with a rather shocking holding of AATT with two hearts in his hand. I wasn’t shocked he had the flush, I was shocked we both had AA with another big pair.

I didn’t reload after that and left, pissed at myself for even showing up, a -$1500 loser.

Thursday @ Red Dragon

I started the 20/40 Mix game and after folding some free hands I got a freeplay with Q7xx in Omaha 8 and three streets of value on a Q9727 runout and I was Coasting again.

The next game was 2-7 Triple Draw and I snowed a hand successfully, got paid off with a 7, and made a couple other winners and I had a $700 cushion to Coast with after two variants.

I never got below +$400 after that and I ended up finishing a +$1055 winner for my third Coast-to-Coast in eight days. So weird that I went months and months without doing it and now I’m the first person to do it three times. It seems so easy now!

I’m sure Jesus wants me to post more hands, but he showed up around 6 PM and never shuts up when he’s playing, so I literally didn’t take a single note after he got there.

Friday @ Palace

No Coasting this time. I was down $800 in the first two hours of 15/30 but finally found some momentum when I won a huge pot with AA that was capped pre with multiple bets going in on the flop and turn against at least three opponents.

Then I opened with A2 of spades, FBI Guy called, someone else 3-bet and we saw a flop of KT8 with two clubs and one spade. I was done with it, but it checked around. The turn was the 7 of spades and I decided to start with a check, but I had a plan. If FBI Guy bet, I was just going to check-call, but if the preflop 3-bettor bet the turn, I was going to raise. I just didn’t think he would let the flop check through with any sort of made hand. He did end up being the turn bettor and I raised him and we went heads up to a board-pairing river and he folded AQ of clubs face up to my bet. Not sure wtf he’s doing on the flop. High Hands are worth $200 now, so… who knows.

At 10:15 PM, after 6+ hours of play, I broke the surfaced and had sugar for the first time in the session. This is notable because the game broke around 12:20 AM and by that time I was +$2915! It was sick. I just went on a scorcher. I even messaged Ducky at one point and asked, “when did I win every chip on the table?” because it really happened so fast.

A couple of notable hands:

Dude just took a bad beat and is on level 9 reactionary tilt and could be on level 10 suicide alert. He raises after a limp or two and I 3-bet with QQ from the small blind and he winds up capping it. We are heads up after capping again on the 885 flop and I’m not ready to cry chicken until he raises me one more time on the big bet street when a 6 hits the board. He’s now raised me four times since I 3-bet him before the flop, so I guess maybe queens aren’t good here? But like I said, he’s on suicide alert. There’s still hope! The river is an ugly looking 7 and now I’m losing to all the real hands that can beat me plus random 9s and random 4s. I check-call and he just instantly pitches his cards into the muck. Yeah buddy. That whole hand I was giving off the vibe of someone that couldn’t wait to fold.

I’m up against the same opponent a while later and we are getting short-handed now so I open the K9 of clubs, FBI Guy calls and my dude 3-bets from the big blind. We just call. The flop is J95 and I raise it up with middle pair to try to get heads up with what might be the best hand, but the big blind 3-bets again and I call. 9 on the turn. Bink! He leads and I raise. He starts thinking for a little bit, not acting, but I can genuinely see him trying to work it out here and decide if I have a 9 or not and he lands on, “nope, nothing beats my big pair here” and 3-bets it again. My read is pinpoint here so I put the cap on it. The river is a ten and he gives me another big bet and shows his AA in dismay as I win another big pot.

Really bizarre session. I went from solidly stuck immediately and stuck for 75% of an 8 hour session and somehow won almost $3000. Crazy.

Saturday @ Palace

This was supposed to be day off, but The Leak is feeling it lately and wanted to go play poker, so I played some more 8/16. I ended up winning +$181 in 8.5 hours and I wish I didn’t have any hands to mention, but they are pretty good, so I have to:

First one, I have AQ in a pot I raised and get two callers on the QQ8 two tone flop. The turn is a 5 and now the player in position raises me and the player in the blind calls two bets cold. I think the raiser probably has a worse queen and it seems like the other guy has a flush draw, so I 3-bet it and I’m sure I have the best hand after they both call. The river is a 7, I bet for value, the first guy calls, and now the blind says, “I’ll raise it one time.” Woah. Did not see that coming. My hand is never good here. I’ve shown a shit ton of strength and this dude is raising me on the end? I can actually fold here and still sleep soundly at night. I’m that sure. But I put the call out because I think I’m still supposed to and he shows me the 55 and I can’t help but privately thank the other guy for slow-playing his queen on the flop. Way to go, dude.

Two raises in front of me, I cap with 99 on the button and six of us end up seeing the Q82 rainbow flop. Everyone checks to me and I commit what many would probably consider a faux pas here and check back. Here’s my defense: I’m not going to get many folds on the flop, my hand is not a big favorite against multiple continues, I might be beat already, I don’t want to get check-raised, and I have decent backdoor equity when I’m behind. If I do have the best hand, my equity will drastically increase if the turn bricks off. So I checked back and the turn does brick off. It checks to the guy on my right and he says, “oh send it” and then whispers to me “save your money” after I call his turn bet. This guy has been fanboying me all day. At some point, someone asked me about my World Series plans and I answered cordially and now this dude thinks I’m somebody, plus he happened to be sitting next to me when I had that +$3.4k 8/16 session last weekend. So he’s been peppering me with all sorts of questions, telling me about all his own tournament successes, and trying to make eye contact with me after every single pot he wins because…. why? It’s all I can do not to ask for a seat change to get away from him. So when he tells me to save my money, I think he really is trying to do me a favor. But that didn’t stop me from paying off in this huge pot when the river also bricked and then this dude produces AJ high. I mean… nothing wrong with speech play, but wow. I was going to offer to coach him until this bullshit.

A Palace Classic! Two players limp in front of me and I limp along with the K9 of hearts, there’s another limp, and then the button raises and we all call and maybe a blind or two does too. The flop is K96 with two diamonds and a heart. My plan is check-raise and that’s what I do after the button bets and the first two limpers call. The player in between me and the button cold calls and then the button 3-bets. We all call. My standard play is to cap here, but I’m so confident that the button is clueless and reckless and I fully expect him to fire a turn bet and I can check-raise the field again. Of course, there are some turn cards I won’t check-raise (i.e. ten of diamonds), so maybe I should just collect the extra bets while I’m sure I have the best hand. Well, the turn is an offsuit ten and the button proves just how smart I am and checks back. Jesus. The river is the 5 of diamonds. The first two guys check and I think I can safely bet-fold this card, but in the moment, I thought it was too thin and checked along and it wound up getting checked through and my hand was good.

But wait! The button tables after checking and shows KQ, a hand I’m surprised he checked the turn with given my read of his style. And then the first limper shows… AA. I actually end up slow rolling a little here because my mind is so blown by that holding that I’m honestly in shock for a second. Seriously, go back and read that hand history knowing that the first limper has AA. Amazing stuff.

Sunday @ Palace

Palace had the first of their $110 deep stack Sunday tourney they will be doing every other week. It had a decently slow structure and I cruised to the final table with people punting to me left and right, plus I was running way above average.

We were in level 2 and I was very active at my table when this hand came up. I opened to 250 at 50/100 with QQ and got three callers. The flop came down 663 and I bet 250 because it seemed like I’m way ahead here and I get one caller. The turn is another 6 and I bet 400. He makes it 1000. Woah. Well, I’m only losing to quads here and it seems like he has a medium pair, so I make it 2500 and he stuffs it on me. I immediately tell the dealer, “this should probably be a snap-call, but realistically, my hand shouldn’t be good here, so I’m going to need some time.” I do some tanking, I start talking about quads and aces and kings, then I even start quizzing the player and trying to pick up info that way. Finally, the floorman happens to be walking by and I get to ask a question I don’t know the answer to: “Is there re-entry in this tournament?” “Yes.” “Call.”

And my opponent tables 44 and is drawing dead. Maybe a nit roll, but come on… I don’t want to bust out of this event in the second level when I can fold here and still have 140 bigs in a field I expect to have a massive edge in. I can’t even imagine what is going through someone’s head for them to 4-bet jam with 44 on the turn there. Really the only way my hand is good here is if I’m playing against someone that is losing their fucking mind. And, believe me, I thought that was a strong possibility.

I got all sorts of gifts like that all throughout the tournament, but it wasn’t meant to be.

I made the final table with a hefty stack, but as soon as they started talking chop and I started talking “how about we actually play a final table” the Poker Gods decided to punish me for my “greed.” I mean, 6th place was $306 and a 6-way chop was a little over $700. I can’t really say that got my blood flowing. Locking up that extra $400 doesn’t make any difference to me. I just wanted to play, plus I thought I was going to have to get unlucky not to win the tournament outright.

First, I lost a flip.

Then I lost my mind.

I opened to 10k at 2k/4k with AKhh and the big blind defended. He was the only player that had me covered, even though my stack had shrunk to about 25 bigs. The flop was T72 with two clubs and NO heart and I… checked? Why? Why would I do that? Because I lost my fucking mind. That’s why. These people don’t have the balls to play back as a bluff. They will check-call good draws and pairs, raise their big hands, and fold everything else. Just fire a half pot c-bet and win the pot right there 70% of the time. But no, I checked back. And then I called 12k when he bet the 4c turn. And I don’t know why I did that either. I told myself to fold… and then I called. Then he bet 15k when the river paired the 2 and I called that bet too. He showed me K4o and I had to muck my hand. Holy shit. I was considering bluffing if a club hit the river, but I really have zero defense for any of my postflop actions this hand. It was just a total choke job. I punted the tournament in this hand. Not only did I bleed 27k on the turn and river, but I should have picked up the 22k pot on the flop. Just an embarrassment.

That left me with like 7 bigs and I ended up getting them in with AQ and got called by KJ of hearts and they flopped a flush and just like that I was out. 6th place for $306 and they happily chopped the rest of it up 5-ways. Good for them. I don’t care about busting in 6th and not being part of the chop, but I do care about how I played that AK hand. I played so well this whole tournament and, as my friend put it, “blacked out” for one hand and it cost me all my momentum. Can’t afford lapses like that this month.

Oh well. Live and learn.

On the bright side, I woke up on May 20th stuck over $4000 for the month and ended up having a really good last 11 days and not only had a winning month, but an above average one. Didn’t see that coming.

I’m ready for the World Series of Poker! Let’s get it!

First event is $1500 H.O.R.S.E. on Wednesday. My best finish in that event is 5th in 2017 for ~$45k, my best score ever. I wasn’t even supposed to be in Vegas yet for this event, so it would be really cool if I can make another really deep run it. Destiny?

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