Busy Day

Today has probably been the most productive day, in general terms, that I have had in a long time. I had a to-do list with about 6 or 7 things and I managed to finish them all with some free time to spare. As for poker, I played 860 hands today, which is below my goal of 1,000, but considering how many hands I played yesterday and the number of non-poker related tasks that I needed to do, I am extremely pleased. The session on a results basis doesn't look very impressive as I only finished +$100 for the day, but it was pretty monumental in terms of my emotional composure. In about the first 150 hands, I ran super poor and was down about $400 (2 buy-ins). During times like this in the past, I would either tilt and self-implode or I would start to play scared. Today, for some reason, I really didn't even notice it and I just kept playing my game, and as the hands went on, I was able to slowly win it all back and then some. I am pretty happy with the way I played today. I only had one donkey payoff when I had two pair and was pretty sure the other guy had a flush, but other than that, I made some good lay downs, as well as some really nice thin value bets. Here are some hands:

Good Read, Bad Result
This may seem bad on my part by getting it all in pre-flop with TT, but this guy had already 4 bet me once, 3 bet me a few times, and then floated one of my 3 bets and then proceeded to shove on my continuation bet (I couldn't call at the time). So his range is wide enough in my opinion to shove with this hand, plus it also brings in some metagame aspects and is good for my image (meaning I won't let him continue to abuse me). My read was good, but he basically flops the nuts with his A6hh, and there went a buy-in.

Bad River
Like I've said in previous posts, I'm trying loosen up my game, so I'm starting to call, raise, and 3 bet suited connectors a lot more as they are so deceptive. Also, if your opponent knows you play hands like that, you can steal a bunch of pots on those nice suited/connected flops. Here I managed to flop bottom two pair on a very drawy board against a wide cutoff range, so it definitely wasn't smart to play it slow, so I didn't. When he flat called, I was able to narrow down his range to basically a draw or combo draw, as most people wouldn't flat call an over pair with that stack and two pair/set/straight has to get it on that scary of a flop. The turn was beautiful and we managed to get it in, with me as a 3:1 favorite. The river brought the worst card in the deck and I knew I was beat before his cards even flipped up.

Revenge from earlier
This was so sweet getting this guy back, especially since it was basically the same situation as last time. This opponent really used his image really poorly. The point of building an image in poker is so that people will perceive your play as a certain style, and then you play exactly the opposite of the style and get payed off. This guy established an image as a light 4 better, and then rather than waiting for a stronger hand to 4 bet me with, he did it again with another weak Ace and this time I held.

These were the major hands and there wasn't too much to analyze about them. I could post some of my nice value bets, but I don't like writing 4 page blog posts.

There is one last thing I want to bring to everyone's attention: Fantasy Football is almost here! Last year was my first year in a fantasy league, but it was definitely the highlight of my Sunday every week. Last year, I just missed the playoffs after starting 0-5, and this year I plan to dominate. Also, the buy-in for our league is $100 this year, so first place is mildly worth playing for. I need some ideas for a team name. At the moment, I am the "Average Joe's", which is a good name (despite the dodge ball references I keep getting) but it doesn't quite have that essence that I'm looking for...

Poker Sunday

I played a pretty good amount of poker yesterday, but unfortunately the results weren't very impressive. I played two Sunday tournaments and almost 1,000 hands of cash games. The two Sunday tournaments went very standard, with nothing much happening in the beginning, then getting it in ahead and losing. In the million, I got it in with AK vs. AJ and lost that, which left me crippled. Then in the UB, I got KK in against a flush draw and lost. The million was $530 this week, so that sucked. I'm not going to play the Sundays anymore unless I satellite into them. As for the cash game session, I played about 940 hands and lost $10. I never fluctuated above or below a buy-in, but I did have a lot of interesting spots. Here are some of the hands:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1315047
This was by far the worst hand I played. As soon as I got check raised 4x my bet, I was basically able to narrow his hand down to two possible holdings: a set or a small/medium flush. His large raise shows fear and that he wanted to take the pot down right there. For some unknown reason, I got the instinct to gamble and I think it was more scorn for people making these types of calls against me and winning. I still had 30% equity in the hand, but I definitely was getting the odds to justify a call. Either way, this was very uncharacteristic and something I hope to never do again. Plus, it basically taunted me for playing like a donkey by giving me the diamond on the river, but it was of course the only diamond in the deck that could pair the board.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1315065
I hate the way I played this hand. For some reason, I decided to just flat call the raise, rather than squeeze like I normally would. By doing this, I left myself in a very confusing spot. The original raiser has a range of something like 22+,A9+,QJ+. The button caller has a slightly smaller range of around 33+, AJ+, KQ. My instinct told me that the original raiser was most likely on two paint cards and that the caller was on a medium pair. I'm still not exactly sure what to do in this spot. If I lead, there is a decent chance I take it down there, but if I get raised, I almost always have to fold. This doesn't sound bad, but my lead out often gets raised by the original raiser on boards like these, and alot of the time it is a bluff with over cards. I decided to go for the check raise, and then if I got 3 bet I could easily fold. The flop checked around, so I figured my hand was best, and I bet out. When the one player just called, I was still lost in the hand as I felt he might call with a combo draw hand, a slow played set that is now afraid of the heart, or two pair. The river isn't a great card, because I now lose any lower pair except 88 or 77, and those two hands would never bet that river in my opinion. So I once again turned into a calling station and paid him off with his rivered straight with 44 (a very marginal call on the turn in my opinion, but what can you do).

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1315086
This hand was really frustrating. I had been 3 betting quite a bit in the few hands prior to this one, so I decided to mix it up and just call with my AK. I got a really nice flop and decided to check raise about 3.5x his bet, and then he flat called. This allowed me to assign a range of a set or a weaker ace, with the weaker Ace being the case about 70% of the time. Unfortunately, this guy decided to get stubborn with his mid pair and called the raise, and then got the perfect turn card for his hand. I made a committing bet on the turn and he shoved on me with his 20 outs (literally) and hit another 8 on the river. I was only a 55% favorite going into that river, but it would've been really nice to fade half the deck for once.

There were some other interesting hands where I actually won the pot, but I feel this post has enough in it already. Please leave me some feedback on how I played these hands as this wasn't my best poker session...

Getting back on track

Ok, so I mentioned in my last post that I was going to play 1,000 hands no matter what...well that didn't happen. My internet was out for most of the day, so I started watching the show Heroes. Needless to say, I watched all 23 of the 45 minute episodes in the span of about 36 hours. This means I didn't play Thursday or Friday, and on Saturday I went with my girlfriend and her family to a soccer game in Columbus. I stayed the night at her place (separate rooms) and didn't get back until about 15 minutes ago.

With that being said, I have designated some new goals for the next couple of days. Today, I am going to put in some hands before the Sunday Majors start, then I'm hopefully going to go deep in one or two of those for a profitable Sunday. I am moving Thursday's 1,000 hand goal to Monday since I don't have anything planned other than working out. I really want to try to finish off this month strong since things didn't go as planned in the beginning...wish me luck

Goal for Today

Yesterday, I hung out all day with my girlfriend Lauren and it was a blast. We sort of had an activity day where just did a bunch of different things. We started off playing some tennis and then I took her to the driving range to teach her some golf stuff. I thought it would be really frustrating and difficult for both of us, but after about three swings she was making solid contact and getting the ball air born. She had quite a few shots that looked like actual golf shots, which is much more than I can say about my first time out. Then we went and played three games of bowling where she wiped the floor with me and swept me in every game. I usually beat her most of the time we bowl, but today she was just on fire. Then after the bowling we went to see "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" movie. The movie wasn't bad but it was sort of a let down from the previews. It was once again one of those Adam Sandler movies where he uses the same guys in every movie, so I really don't recommend it, but it was mildly entertaining (especially for people like Josh Bakuhn who like Jessica Biel).


As for poker today, I am setting a goal of playing 1,000 hands by 2am or until I drop 2.5 buy-ins, whichever comes first. I really need to break this psychological barrier of quitting early because I am up a decent amount of money. It would be nice to have one of those 4 or 5 buy-in days that people talk about because I've never had one of those. I am also going to start watching the show Heroes today, so I will let you know how all of this...

The Streak Continues

I played a short session this afternoon, only about 200 hands but the results were very good. I ended up +$273 and it was a pretty routine session with nothing too special. I had the time and energy to play more hands, but I am once again quitting because I'm up a buy-in or so. I have been playing really well lately and actually running quite well also, but I'm still almost in shell shock from my downswing in Vegas (online wise). I maybe had two or three winning sessions online in Vegas the whole six weeks, and I was playing about three to four times a week. That is a horrible win/loss ratio and it really sort of killed the confidence and had somewhat of a snowball effect. Every time I stepped up a level, I would run so poorly and drop a couple buy-ins each session, and at 2/4 and 3/6, that is a decent amount of money. Like I've said before though, I know those limits aren't above my comfort zone money wise or even close to it, but rather it's more the fear of losing. I hate losing, especially in things that I put a lot of effort into. It feels so much better to be upswinging (obviously) and I really think it is making me play better. I just need to learn to sit down, forget about losing, and put in a good 500 to 1k hand session without constantly pulling up Poker Tracker to see how I'm doing. But enough of this rant. Here are some hands from the session:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1296707
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1296718
Both of the above hands involve pocket Aces for me, but the comfort level in each hand is very different. In the first hand, probably the worst possible flop comes down for my hand. It hits a typical opponent's range in this spot so hard that I am very rarely a big favorite. If we assume a typical weaker player's range is something like 77+,A8s+,K9s+,QTs+,JTs,ATo+,KJo+,QJo, you can really tell how many hands hit that flop. Doing a quick pokerstove equity calculation of this hand, I am only a 55% favorite to win against that range. So when I got check raised all in, I wasn't too happy, but I had to call getting over 2.5:1 and luckily he missed his 13 outer. This is one example of where I am running better as it felt like I was constantly losing in the summer when I was about a 60% favorite. The second Aces hand is very easy to play when you flop the second nuts and a guy goes berserk with his 5 high flush draw on a paired board.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1296806
This to me is one of the worst spots in 6 handed cash games. A hand like AQ in the BB is too strong to fold to a mid/late position raise. Just flat calling and then check/folding a missed flop is also a weak play, but I have certainly done it my fair share of times. This time I decided to 3 bet as I have been trying to play just a little bit looser in my cash games. When he calls, I can assign him a range of like 66+ and AQ+. So against that range, my hand is definitely behind, but I very rarely 3 bet out of position and then check on the flop, as it feels just like throwing money away and is super weak. When he calls my continuation bet, I have two options: I can shut down or I can fire a second barrel in an attempt to represent an overpair. I hand zero history on the guy and was pretty confident that his range was something like 88-JJ, but I wasn't sure of how disciplined he was on a board like that. Plus, once again, I was already up a decent amount and didn't want to throw it all away on a bluff. After seeing him check through to the river, I would make the multi-street bluff about 60-70% of the time in the future.

I'm probably not going to play anymore tonight because I hate losing back money I've already won (trust me, I've done it many times) and it puts me on some major monkey tilt. I'm going to Cleveland tomorrow to visit my wonderful girlfriend for the day so I won't be playing tomorrow. Taking days off from poker to do things like hang out with people important to you are instrumental to keeping something like poker in perspective. Plus, I typically come back fresh and ready to play my A game after a short break so look for another post on Thursday...

Another Online Session Pt. 2

Like I said in my earlier post, I planned on playing another session later in the night because I feel this is one of the softest times to play. I only played another 250 hands and it went very well. I did have my first real suck out in a long time in the hand I describe below. I ended up about +$300, so it was a great way to end the night. I started off the session pretty quickly stacking a guy who checkraised me on the river on a KK3xx with A3 when I had AK, so that was nice. I ended up bluffing off half of that money in a bad couple of bluffs and then got back in my groove. I played for about half an hour longer without much action when this hand came up:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1293844
I had played with this quite a bit in my earlier session and knew he was a solid, aggressive player. When he 3 bet my button raise of $8 to $28, I knew his range was pretty wide, so I 4 bet to $86, and he insta-called. This to me showed some real weakness, as I don't think any hand of strength can instantly call with very little thought. Hands like TT, JJ, and QQ would for sure tank a little bit and hands like AA and KK would most surely just shove with that much money in the pot. His hand felt more like an AK, AQ or a really frustrated mid pair in my mind. When the flop came 7 high, he instantly shoved, which to me is another sign of weakness. I felt there was a good chance he was on an Ace high sort of stop and go steal, complete air, or a mid pair. I'm going to make a distribution and then walk through my equity and EV calculations on this hand. I haven't done this on this hand yet, so I'm still not sure if my play was correct. Let's assume that on this hand the distribution is: 25% AK,AQ,AJ; 25% one pair less than KK; 25% air; and 25% AA,KK assuming my read was wrong. Ok, now we are going to calculate my equity, and this might get a little confusing but I will try to explain it the best I can. Now we need to calculate how much of each 25% that will go toward our total equity. First off, we divide up the 25% into thirds, which we will round down to 8%. So now, for AJ, we will on this flop about 85% of the time with our AKdd. So we multiply 8% by 85%, which gives us 6.8%. This will be the same for AQ, so we add another 6.8%. Against the AK, we will split every time on this board (assuming no draws now for simplicity) so we can just divided the 8% in half. So adding this up, we earn a total of 17.6% of the total 25% available. Now we do the same for the other 25%'s. Against all one pair hands less than KK, I am a 3:1 dog. or 25% to win. So now we multiply 25% by 25%, which gives us 6.25% toward our equity. To save some typing I'm just going to put down the results for the rest of the 25%'s. Against complete air, I used conservative figures and rounded down a few percent to get 15% toward my equity. Against the last 25%, I only got 2% toward my equity. Adding up all the percentages to my equity, we get right around 40% in total equity. Now we need to compare that equity to the pot odds to see if my call is positive EV over time. For this call to be break even, we need about 3:2 odds on our money. The pot at the time was $174 + $114, or $288. We had to call $114, so our odds were 288/114, which is about 5:2 on our money. So based on the assumed range, my call is clearly a money-maker in the long run.

This is a very read specific range, especially since I felt he was weak. If I were to take a more general range based on the betting patterns displayed, I am pretty sure that this would be a -EV play. That's why reads are so important in this game, because a person just examining this hand on paper would most likely tell me to fold this flop shove because of how narrow a 4 bet calling range is. As a side note, there is software that I use to do this long, drawn out calculation for me, but I find it really helpful to work through it on my own from time to time. Please leave me some feedback on the clarity of my explanation...

Another Online Session

I just put in a solid 400 hand session 4 tabling 1/2 and I thought I played extremely well. A problem I have noticed over the past couple of weeks is that I have been a huge payoff donk. I will be in spots where I can't really beat much more than a bluff, yet I would still payoff people. Today, I really concentrated on not calling down light and I actually had quite a few tough spots where I think I made some good decisions.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1292144
This hand was definitely my toughest spot and I think I made the right decision, but I wouldn't mind some feedback (meaning you Bob). What made this so tough of a decision is how odd this guy played the hand. He limps then cold calls my 5x raise. My perspective on people's range when they limp (especially at this level) is that they are trying to sneak in cheap with hands they aren't very confident about playing. These types of hands are typically like suited connectors, small pairs, and weak suited Aces. So I was in position and had already taken the lead in the hand, but this guy leads out for a weak bet into me. This type of bet is either very strong or very weak. I almost always raise this type of bet, regardless of my cards because a lot of times people will fold pretty quickly, or they will take the other common line which is to 3 bet me back. This guy on the other hand just calls my raise, so I can sort of eliminate some hands from his range but very few. All small pairs (2's through 8's) are congruent with his action as well as any flush or straight draw, as well as combo draws. Then the King of spades hits on the turn, which is pretty awful, and he leads out again. I tank and start to believe he either has a flush or a higher set, with higher weight going to a flush. I really don't think he would bluff in this situation as I've shown too much strength in the hand already. I call, basically hoping the board pairs, but an Ace hits and I'm facing a shove on the river, which is effectively a $100 bet into over a $200 pot. This card makes me even more confident that I was beat because he had no fear from a hand like AA or KK, so I had to fold.

That was the only hand worth mentioning and analyzing. I did try to slow play some bigger pairs today with mixed results. I slow played KK versus a solid player who three bet me out of the blinds, and the Ace naturally flopped, and there were too many hands in his range containing an Ace for me to make a move at the pot. I did slow play Aces preflop and got a beautiful King high flop. I played them very hard post flop though by raising the continuation bet, making another bet on the turn, and then a nice sized value bet on the river that didn't get called. I'm still debating as to whether or not I maximized value, because I'm pretty sure the player had a pair lower than Kings and higher than the next largest card.

I ended down -$34 for the sessions, which I feel is really good for how things went and how many tough spots I faced. I will probably be playing another session tonight sometime between 10pm and 12pm because this is when I believe the games are the softest, so hopefully I have some good hands to blog about and analyze tomorrow...

Harry Potter and Running Well

I haven't really played any poker over the past couple of days because of one reason: Harry Potter. I am avid reader of these books for those of you who don't know. Every year the newest one is released, I go on a binge and basically lock myself away for a day or two and I don't come out until 700 to 800 page book is finished. Over the course of yesterday and most of today, I did precisely that. The book continued to live up to its reputation as always, and this one contained a darker theme then the others, so I found it even more enrapturing. I did manage to finish the book off around 10:30 tonight. It is the last of the series, at least for now, so I most likely won't be doing something like that again.

As for poker, I decided I wanted to play a session before going to bed after I was all finished with the book. I can honestly say, for the first time in a long time, I ran extremely well. I only played around 70 hands because I got a headache from all of the reading, but they were most enjoyable 70 hands I think I have ever played. Here are my three biggest hands, with only one of them actually being considerably "large":

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1290376
This hand is a good example of implied odds. When I reraised the min-raiser with my TT and then got 4 bet for only 2.5x, I knew my opponent was on a big pair. Even more astonishing, the player to his immediate left cold calls a 4 bet! If I am in this player's position fold everything but KK or AA, but I figured he was a nit and most likely had a hand like AK or JJ. So when it got back to me, there was $87 in the pot and only $20 more for me to call, which is 4.4:1 on my money. This may seem like poor odds to be given when it's 7.5:1 to flop a set, but I know that if I flop my set, I will be able to stack off my opponent virtually every time with his overpair because he will make a continuation bet into a pot of this size large enough to commit himself to my all in raise. Therefore, taking this into consideration, our $20 call is no longer an attempt to win $87 but rather $87 + the remainder of my stack (200-34), or $166, which equals $256. So now our odds of flopping a set is still 7.5:1 but our pot odds are $256/20, or 12.8:1. These odds are clearly compelling enough to make this type of call profitable over the long run. I was fortunate enough to hit my set this time my opponent predictably stacked off with his Aces.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1290382
This hand is pretty easy and straight forward. I managed to sneak into a cheap pot with a nice connecting hand like 89. I flopped the bottom end of a Queen high straight, but didn't slow play it for several reasons. The first is that it is an action flop and there is a good chance it hit someone, so there was no need to slow play and let people catch up or bluff. The second reason is that there are so many bad cards that can fall off the deck if I let it check around. Any Ace,King, 9, or 8, and my hand is a lot less strong than it was previously. So I decided to bet out and got one caller, which doesn't tell me much more than that he has either a decent pair or a decent draw, or maybe both. The turn pairing the Jack is a pretty awful card, but my opponent only started with 1/4 stack, so I was willing to go all the way with the hand knowing I couldn't lose much. He called my turn bet and I felt he really was limited to a Queen or a draw, even though he wasn't getting the right odds. The river blanked and I bet most of his remaining stack and he raised the rest, which I obviously called. He had J9 for trips and and open ended straight draw on the turn, and this was pretty surprising because he should know that his push on the turn has to be called by me.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1290388
I'm not even going to go over this hand as it is so simple. Just flop the nuts and let people bet for you, simple as that.

Overall, I ended up +$245, making this my second profitable session in a row. Hopefully the streak will continue...

Finally a Winning Cash Game Session

I had my first winning cash game session online in like the past two or three weeks. I only made like 3/4 of a buy in, but it was still good to finish positive. I have tried playing 2/4 quite a bit lately as I am adequately rolled for the game but every time I tried it, I would get smacked for about 2 buy ins and would run really poorly. I only played 200 hands of 1/2 today and floated around even for the majority of the time with no big hands or big decisions. Then towards the end of my session this hand came up: http://www.pokerhand.org/?1283351. This hand is pretty standard but I want to go through my thought process and then maybe analyze it deeper to see if I played it optimally. Preflop is a very easy call with only a 3x raise and another caller because I am getting way too good of implied odds to fold, especially since both players are about full stacked. The flop was perfect for my hand in a raised pot, and I decided to check raise because I felt pretty confident that a continuation bet would occur a good majority of the time. The original raiser made a very weak bet of $4 into a $19 pot, meaning he was either very weak or very strong and was trying to induce a raise. The other caller flat called, which made me believe he was on some sort of draw like diamonds or 109, etc. I made my checkraise about 4.5x the original bet and the original raiser folded immediately and the other guy just flat called. Here I broke his hand distribution down into about 70% draw and 30% Ace. The turn brought another black Ace, which is actually a very good defining card. My check raise represents a weak/medium strength Ace, a set, or a big draw. When I fired 2/3 pot, I was pricing out any flush or straight draw from calling correctly, yet I was still keeping the bet small enough to extract value from an Ace. His call of my 2/3 pot bet changed my distribution of his hand range to somewhere around 20% draw and 80% Ace. The river blanked off and I value shoved for about the size of the pot. I was pretty confident that he held an Ace, and by making a value shove rather than a value bet like $75, I was taking a line that looked like a busted draw firing one last barrel to win the pot. He tanked for about 15 seconds and then called and I scooped while he showed A10dd (huge flop for him) and immediately left the table.

So far New Castle has been nice and relaxing. The weather has been almost perfect at around 75 degrees, but it did rain yesterday. I have just been hanging out with friends for the past couple of days and I am seeing Lauren tomorrow, so all is going very well. I am going to start working with my dad around the beginning of August, so hopefully I can get some golf in between now and then...

In the Airport

I have been sitting in the airport for about two hours now because Lauren's flight departed at 11:05 and mine isn't until 12:45, but the internet is free here in McCarran Airport so it isn't so bad. I just finished watching one of Brian Townsend's videos, and I must say, all of his videos are really good. He was playing two tables at the 5/10 level and it was just very interesting to see him critiquing the play of some of these (what I consider to be) higher stakes players. He is on such another level that he makes the 5/10 players look like 100 max players with all of the leaks and flaws he was able to pinpoint. This has really got me thinking about hiring a coach to analyze my game. I know FieryJustice mentioned that a coach helped his game alot, and he's now winning WPT's so I think it's worth a shot. I really believe a lot of my downswing online is due to running bad but I am positive I have plenty of leaks that need to be plugged. It's one of those things where having an outside perspective really brings to light what is wrong with something, so I think I'm going to research more into it. I also really want to get on Full Tilt because I hear their mid-stakes games are pretty soft.

Sitting in the airport has also caused me to reflect on my 6 weeks here in Vegas. I am really happy about how I ended up monetarily for the WSOP, finishing up around 40k. I only cashed in 3 out of 21 tournaments, which is actually a decent in the money rate, but with how soft the fields were, I felt I could've been closer to 25% instead of around 14%. I did have about three or four major bubbles which statistically should've gone my way but it's also the result of my style of play. Playing this tight, aggressive style just very rarely gets you a big stack, so I'm often left with an average to below average stack as the blinds are increasing rapidly and the bubble is approaching. This is something I definitely need to work on and I plan on trying to implement a more loose, aggressive style to set myself up for some deeper cashes. I just watched Martine23 rush to his gate as it was on last call and this made me realize that I really didn't make any poker friends out here. I talked with quite a few good players but never extensively or in a way that would be beneficial to my poker game. Having talented poker friends who play a lot is one of the most beneficial things for a poker player in my opinion because you are constantly getting different points of view on situations. Now that Bob has some money from the WSOP, he should be able to play more, and I plan on making him discuss poker with me and analyzie my play, whether he likes it or not.

As for the rest of the summer, I plan to get good at golf again, to work on some business things with my dad, and hang out with Lauren and my friends a lot. I will definitely be playing online as well, but not a crazy amount. I am really excited to get some golf lessons and get back into my A game, because when you can play golf well, it is probably the most enjoyable sport in the world. Also, it will be so nice to be away from the 115 degree heat out here.

Oh, I also plan on posting some good and bad hands from my cash game sessions from now on rather than just describing my bad beats. I want post how I played a hand and the follow it up with analysis like my equity in the hand and how I could've maybe played it another way to maximize equity. I want my next post to include a schedule of possible events that I might play for the rest of the year if my school schedule permits it....

Final Night in Vegas

Today was very relaxing. Lauren and I woke up and worked out, and then followed that with ice cream and video games at the arcade. It was really fun and I was on in the basketball shooting game. After that, we horsed around in the pool for almost two hours and then came back to pack. I packed in record time and was done in time to watch the two new WSOP episodes. As I write this, we are getting ready to head off to dinner at the Top of the World Restaurant in the Stratosphere. This restaurant is at the top of the Stratosphere and has a 360 degree view of the Vegas skyline. To top it off, it slowly rotates the entire 360 degrees so you see every angle of Vegas while you eat. I will most likely post about it tomorrow in the airport...

Vegas is almost over...

I am only in Vegas til Wednesday morning and I will not be playing any poker during the remainder of my stay. I think it's good to rest after something as intensive as this 6 week endeavor that I am finishing up. I am saving total results and stuff like that for Vegas summary post, but I do have other news to report.

My parents flew out here to watch Bobby and I play in our respective tournaments, and we decided that since we were all out here, we should look at some condos or houses now because it had been something we had been discussing. My family and Lauren rented a car and we decided to look in the Lake Las Vegas area, which is about 20 minutes outside of Vegas. We wanted to look at places just outside of Vegas so we wouldn't have to deal with the mayhem of the strip at all times, but still accessible at our own leisure. Lake Las Vegas is a man made lake just outside of Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam area, and it's a very nice area. There are currently 3 golf courses in the vicinity, with one more under construction. They just started a project to create an island in the middle of the lake that will house another casino, as well as shops and nice restaurants. Well, long story short, we ended up buying a 3 bedroom condo right on the lake side with some nice views and such. It is still in the finishing stages of construction and will be ready in the October/November time period, so just in time for the 5 Diamond Classic at Bellagio in December! Also, Celine Dion lives in the area, so I plan on becoming friends with her and taking advantage of all those benefits. Here are some pictures:


As for other news, I bought the watch pictured below since I managed to make another cash. My most recent cash at the WPT Bellagio basically payed for it so it was a nice little reward. While I was buying it, I saw a bunch of other very nice watches and I had the urge to spend again, so I need to get out of here soon...

WPT Bellagio Cash

It's been awhile since I have updated the blog, but a lot has gone on since then. Bob ended up placing somewhere in the 300's in the main event, so he cashed for around 40k and made himself and my dad some money. I, on the other hand, played the WPT Bellagio under the stake deal with my dad. There were 535 people that started the tournament and we reached the money in the evening of day 2. I started the day with 46k and moved tables a couple of times until I finally settled at a table with Shane "Shaniac" Schleger, J. C. Alvarado, and eventually Alan Sass. These WPT events are always stacked but I managed to avoid some of the better players and tried to play pots against the weaker ones. The first level was very uneventful and extremely tough card wise, but I managed to hang around 40k. During the third level, the I managed to somehow pick up Aces four times and flopped a set of 9's against an EP raiser and built my stack up to about 75k. Over the next level or two, I picked up JJ twice and played pots against Shaniac both times. He happened to have KK both times and I somehow managed to lose only the minimum each time. I floated between 55k and 75k for awhile during the money bubble (which took kind of long) and then that finally burst when the 101st player was eliminated. A few hands into the money, Alan Sass opened in late position and a Russian guy to my right in the small blind, so I called as well with 10J in the big blind. The flop came Q94 with 2 hearts and it checked around. The turn was a blank 6, and it checked to me and I led out for 2/3 pot, Alan folded, and the Russian guy called. I basically was able to narrow his hand to a flush draw as any other hand would have to at the very least bet the turn (should bet flop) for protection. I was trying to represent a missed check raise with KQ on the turn and I bet 2/3 in order to fold out draws like the flush draw, which need 4:1 and would only be getting 2.5:1 with my bet. The heart naturally hit on the river and he led out and I folded quickly and moaned to make it seem like he sucked out on my king. He showed me the AJhh, which I knew anyways, but it was good to validate my read. This dropped me to just below 40k and I folded for another orbit until my bust hand. I was in the small blind with 89o and there were four limpers and I completed and we saw a flop. The flop came K89 and I checkraised a late position better all in and he called with 99 for middle set and I only hit one the running 8's that I needed. I busted in 92nd place, which was the first level of money and cashed for $15,500. So I returned my dad's 10k and split the $5500 for a nice profit of $2750 for two days work. I think I'm going to buy that Tag Huer Watch now so I will post a picture later...

Bubble Boy, WSOP ME, and Bob Preston

I have not posted in awhile, mainly because I have been so busy playing poker. Bob came out to Vegas on Friday and has been tearing it up from the minute he arrived. He has already final tabled the Venetian 1k event and unfortunately only got 9th, but he still got a nice $2800 pay day and a lot of momentum going into the Main Event on Sunday. He moved on to day 2 and in a very healthy manner. He currently has 83k in chips, with the average being only about 55k so he is in great shape. Hopefully he can make a deep run and really get Team New Castle on the radar.

As for me, I have been bubbling everything under the sun lately. I played the $2500 Bellagio event on Thursday and just absolutely crushed it for the first 6 or 7 hours. I was only all in once and that was with quads, and I kept taking out these moronic short stacks that were trying to push over my raises with junk when they had no fold equity. I made it down to the final 4 tables without much trouble and then I went absolutely card dead. This is the worst time to go card dead as you can't raise light because of all the short stacks pushing. I played zero pots until we were down to three tables and I was forced into push/fold mode with less than ten big blinds. I ended up shoving over a button raiser with my A7cc and he called with A3, so I was in great shape. That ended when the flop cam 33x and I was sent packing in 26th place, with top 18 paying. Next day I played the same Venetian event as Bob (the one he FT'ed) and once again built my stack up very nicely in the early stages of the tournament. I managed to cruise down to the final four tables again and was just waiting for a spot to bust one of the morons with chips at our table. I ended button raising with 55 and one of those morons shoved for like 3x more and I ended up calling. He turned over KJ and we were off to the races. The guy to his left said he folded KJ as well so I loved hearing that. The flop came 569 and I tapped the table for flopping my set and basically acknowledging that he was less than 5% to win the hand. The turn was the awful 10 giving him a few outs and the river was the Q and he hit runner-runner to knock me down to about 10k with blinds 400/800 and about bout to be 500/1k. I ended up shoving quite a few times to maintain but ended up shoving my K4 and got called by A10 and lost. I busted in 24th place, and once again only top 18 paid, so I stayed and watched Bob for a little.
The main event was pretty bad for me and its almost painful to talk about. I built my 20k starting stack to 27k by the first break, but that was my high point. I had to lay down Aces to this Swedish kid who I'm pretty sure had a set, and I had a flopped boat get counterfeited and lose. I went so card dead after the first break that I almost killed myself. My table was so full of bad calling stations who would limp/call any raise, so that took all speculative plays out of the picture. I needed to have value because I knew they would pay me off, but I ended up folding for like 5 hours straight with no cards to work with. In the end, I got it in with AQ vs. 77 with a lot of dead money but couldn't win the race. Oh, well there is always next year...

I am playing the 10k Bellagio WPT event tomorrow, so that my last chance to cash in something before I head home...

Venetian Report

I played the 1k Venetian event yesterday and it went pretty awful. On like the third hand, I had AJ and made a 3x raise and got called only by the big blind. The flop came Ace high and I bet out 225, only to realize when I looked down I had actually bet 625 because the 500 and 100 chips look very similar in my color blind eyes. My opponent called, which worried me even more on such a dry flop, that I ended up checking it down the rest of the way. He missed his open ended straight draw and I took it down but looked like a total donk. A couple of orbits later, I was in the small blind with Q6 in a limp around pot and the flop came Q106. I checked, a MP player bet out 150, another guy called, and I check raised to 550. Only the second caller called and the turn came an 8. I bet again, he again called. This started to worry me as his range was very limited now. He could have any hand like KQ, QJ, Q10, Q9, Q8, KJ, J9, or a flush draw. The river came an offsuit Ace, which wasn't a terrible card, but I knew it would prevent getting any value from a one pair queen if I checked. I checked the river because not many worse hands are going to call me here, and I wanted to give him a chance to bluff a missed draw. He ended up betting about 2/3 of the pot and I tanked for awhile. I was now able to narrow his range to J9, KJ, Q10, or a bluff. The key part of this hand is bluffing frequency, meaning how often your opponent will bluff in this spot. You then need to merge this with the rest of his range, assign percentages to each hand/bluff to calculate your equity in the pot, and then you need to compare your equity to the pot odds. Obviously, I didn't have anywhere near enough time to calculate all of this, so you sort of have to estimate it all very generally. I really felt I only had to worry about KJ and J9 as Q10 should've put in a raise on the turn for protection, but a weak player will often super slow play hands like that. I ended up calling and he showed 79s for the filled gut shot on the turn and I mucked and made a mental note about the player. Reflecting on this situation, it's probably a bad call mainly because I have no idea how often he will bluff, and live players don't bluff as often as online players, but that's the way it worked out. That cut me down to about 5k from the starting 10k stack and then I literally folded almost every hand for the next three hours. After awhile, I was push/fold mode, and got it in with AK against 88 and 75hh. The 75hh ended up making a boat and I was gone. I am playing the $2500 Bellagio event with my dad today and it would be great to have a big cash going into the WSOP for some nice momentum...

Venetian Today

The WSOP is basically over until the main event, and I haven't played any of the events since the SHOE event. My poker schedule is basically full from now until the main event starts on Sunday for me. I am playing a 1k deepstack event today at the Venetian, a $2500 Bellagio tournament tomorrow, and then another Venetian one on Saturday with Bob and maybe my dad. I like to play a lot before big tournaments because it helps me stay in the right mindset and really hones your play. I am really looking forward to the Main Event. The Main Event is basically the total opposite of most of these prelim tournaments. For the prelims, the larger buy-ins get more chips but better players and the smaller buy ins get a lot less chips but the players are really bad. The main event, on the other hand, a player starts with 20k in chips and the players are still awful because everybody thinks they are a poker player these days thanks to Chris Moneymaker and Jamie Gold.

As for the sightseeing, we didn't make it to the Grand Canyon because it was like a 4 hour drive, but we did see the Hoover Dam, which was really cool. When you look over the edge, it's like 700 foot drop down to the water. It's also really amazing to see how much concrete they used to build it. I will be posting pictures here in the next few days for some perspective. We are also going to take a helicopter to the Grand Canyon on one of my off days so that should be very interesting....

SHOE Event

I played the SHOE event at 5 p.m. with my dad yesterday. It was a lot of fun and it showed me I need to work on some of my other games, especially limit hold em. My dad and I both struggled up to the dinner break. I came back from dinner with 2k in chips and Lauren came by to rail me for a little. As soon as she sat down, I won to huge pot in Stud high and was over 5k!! She must be my good luck charm. I then got moved to a new table and proceeded to bluff off 2k of my stack with A8 in the BB to a button raiser who flopped top pair. Two hands later, I called a raise with A10s on the button, and the flop came 10 high. My opponent ended up having pocket tens for the nuts and I lost another 1500 chips. From here I hung around for awhile, and then got it all in on stud 8/b and I rivered a Queen high flush and an 8 low, but I got clipped by an Ace high flush and a 7 low. I sort of blew the tournament by bluffing off all of those chips, but it was still a good time.

I woke up this morning around 9 a.m. to finish my quizzes and research paper for my class by the 2 pm deadline. I got it all done around 1:30 and was treated to an excellent barbecue chicken lunch from Lauren. The 1k rebuy was today but I don't think those are good tournaments for me because I'm not willing to rebuy 10x like some of the people. So just some online poker for me later today. Hopefully I can keep up the good play. I have had two profitable sessions in a row and want to keep building on that.

Tonight Lauren and I are going to David Copperfield here in the MGM. From what I have heard, he is an excellent magician and I always enjoy magic shows, so it should be a lot of fun. We are also going to the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam tomorrow, so I will have a lot to write in the next post....