TT is my Kryptonite

I drove up early Sunday morning to the Borgata for the 200k triple play. Made it up in under 2.5 hrs even through the rain so I had plenty of time to get registered and find my table. Here is a brief description of what I found seat by seat at my first table where I spent most of day 1...

Seat 1 Heavy set middle aged woman who seemed very str8forward in her play and would later show a desire to get all her chips in with one pair..not worried about her too much
Seat 2 Older donkish guy who seemed more interested in milling around talking to people than playing any stellar poker..not at all worried about this cat
Seat 3 Older guy from Baltimore. Seemed pretty str8forward but played better than I expected...keep my eyes on him
Seat 4 Completely loose bad player...girlfriend/wife popped in a few times to wish him luck and talk to him. Appeared to just be killing some time while away with his wife...not a threat at all
Seat 5 By first appearance I thought he would be a tough internet kid. Looked like they all do....young, hoody, from NYC, good playing with chips, etc....Later proved this to be false...he no good
Seat 6 Heavy set middle aged Omaha playing guy...thinks he can play but in reality just another Joe trying to hit a score...oh wait I was in seat 6....nevermind
Seat 7 Older tight guy...he will get no chips from me
Seat 8 Very good aggressive young internet player...this was proven later when he folded KK preflop to Seat 7...stay out of big pots with him unless I am super strong
Seat 9 Strange middle aged guy...seemed to be a really bad Loose Aggressive player...called down with 3rd-4th pair hands....might be a good cash game player but I see this cat donking off later...not afraid to mix it up with him

SO that is the table dynamic. Let's see how Day 1 developed.

First few levels I found a lot of playable hands and flopped some pretty ones. First big pot I played was incidentally with the good internet player in Seat 8.

I raised 9Tdd to 300 at 50/100 and found 3 callers (pot ~1300). Flop was pretty good
Q84 with 8Q of diamonds. So this gives me T high flush draw...gut shot str8 draw and gut shot str8 flush draw. I lead for 1100 and Seat 8 raises to 3000. SB calls now and I call as well (pot ~10.5k). Turn is pretty good-Jd. I have the schnizzles now. Checks around. River is another J which kind of sucks. I still have the stone cold nuts but it might scare someone off. But SB checks and I bet 4500...My read is that Seat 8 must have a pretty stong hand with KQ or AQ being my best guess. He tanks for sometime and calls. SB folds and I scoop a 19k pot early.

Little later a LOL hand comes up at 75/150. I raise 77 UTG to 425 and get called on button and by spewy internet kid on my right in BB (pot ~1300). Flop does not disappoint the big fella...7AK with AK of spades. Spewtard checks to me and I bet 900, button folds and kid raises to 2500. I think and raise to 6500 and he insta ships to 23k. No chance I am ever behind here. If he has AA or KK he re-raises me preflop 100 times out of 100. Maybe he has AK or just a bare flush draw. Ummm no he has AJ...ok sir well played. I guess he thought I had AT....lol. In his defense I had been pretty active and running the table over a bit up until this point. But I will never attempt to run the table over this early without real hands to back it up. Picking up pots at 75/150 or even 100/200 is just not that big of a deal. So anyway that boosts the stack to over 60k and we are at 75/150.

Next hand was a bit of a tough one. Seat 3 limped in MP and I raised AQ to 750 at 100/200 in late position and got heads up with him after he called (Pot ~1750). Flop comes AKQ. He checks, I bet 1300 and he calls (Pot ~4400). Turn is a 9h putting 2 hearts on the board. He checks, I bet 2800 and he insta shoves like 24k which is pretty gross. So I took a few minutes to go through his hands and I come up with a few possibilities. His limp call preflop was one thing that really confused me. Had he raised and I called preflop this would be a snap fold as he could have AA, KK, AK, etc. But since he limped I took AA and KK out of his range. That left AK (maybe), JT, KQ and maybe 99 if he didn't believe me on the flop. The most likely of all of these is JT or KQ. So I can beat KQ but nothing else. After some thought I folded face up and he couldn't believe it showing me JThh. I think that fold helped my table image as well.

Now I go completely and utterly card dead until dinner break and my stack drifts down to ~55k at dinner (400/800/75a). We come back and I remain card dead and finally get moved at around 10 p.m. into the main tournament room. Table doesn't seem that strong but I continue to drift down taking flops, etc. Finally we are on the last hand of the night at 1000/2000/200a and I have 46k. UTG shoves for 44k and I look down at 99...oh boy. Well I doubt he has JJ+ but he could, of course, have TT, maybe JJ and then AK, AQ, KQ, etc. I decide to call and then BB starts muttering...uh oh! He shows me QQ and I tell him what a great hand that is and don't know how he can possibly fold that. He says he wants to come back tomorrow with a healthy stack (he had like 55-60k). I give him more reverse psychology telling him that is the 3rd best hand in poker, etc. He finally catches on to what I am trying to get him to catch on to and folds face up. Anyway I am up against AQ and win a flip and finish the night at ~96k with plenty of room for play. Older guy with QQ was like I was sure you had AA, KK or AK at a minimum and didn't want to risk it. Well all I can say is thank you SIR!

Day 2 was weird. Starts off well but I really don't think I played particularly well for the first few levels). First few hands a short stack shoves like 22k and I wake up with 99 again on button and call. He shows 77 and I hold (stack now ~140k as I had stolen some blinds/antes as well). Then a biggie comes up. Good young player is like 3 seats to my left. He raises in EP at 1200/2400/200 to 6500 and I defend the BB with J9clubs. Flop comes pretty good for me QTJ with one club. I check and he bets 12k. Now he has commented that I play really solid (which to a lot of the young players is buzzword for too tight). I have shown him a lot of tough but good laydowns so he knows I am not going to go crazy here. The only thing I am worried about is him showing up with AK or KQ. I don't even mind AQ but the other two are just killers. I decide given my image I decide to raise to 30k and am ready to get it in if need be. He starts really tanking now so I am sure he doesn't have AK so that is good. He knows I am not folding so if he had AK he ain't wasting this much time. Finally someone calls the clock and he shoves. I have to call which is not making me happy and I see the worst possible hand for me, KQ. That is until the turn and river are both J and big fella makes quads....weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Up to ~300k. Boy I played that hand poorly.

A few mins later a dorky kid calls my button raise from the BB. I hold 77 again and flop is 792 with 2 spades. He checks, I bet, he shoves 60kish and I call to see JT spades. I fade the outs and am up to 360ish. 2 levels later UTG shoves 140k at 2000/4000/400 and I find JJ on button and reluctantly call (I don't like calling 30BB with hands that are often crushed or 50/50 with). He has 66 and I am up to 500k+ and looking pretty good. I start flexing my chip muscles and chip up to 575k when I get moved to new table.

New table has 3 monstrous stacks with 2 to my direct left who seem intent on raising and reraising each other all evening long. Finally dinner comes and I am ready for a break. We are inside the money at this point though I am really only concentrating on final tabling this biotch.

So I talk to a few friends during break and we all decide that I should play a little more passively and let the short stacks bust each other out. Blinds are still 8k/16k/2k so I have PLENTY of room to play good solid poker. Well all of that worked in theory until my FIRST PHUCKING HAND after dinner. I raise AK UTG to 42k. Button then reraises me to 110k. He only has 275-300k so his raise is irrelevant here as I am playing for his stack or folding. Finally I decide his range includes too many hands I am flipping with (TT-QQ, AK) as well as AQ. Of course, the small re-raise sort of screams AA or KK but wtf lets ship. He snaps with AA and I lose half my stack. I lose 50k or so more basically folding when I shove AJ from middle position and UTG limper calls with KJ. I hold and back up to 450ish. Then short stack shoves 150k and I call from BB with KQ suited and lose to his AT. Back to 300ish. Finally we are at 10k/20k/2k with 33 left and it happens...AGAIN.

Folds to SB who min-raises to 40k. I look down and see AA...yummyyyy. I just grab a stack of 5 k chips and throw them in with no idea how much. Turns out to be 115k. I am willing to play a big pot this deep with AA every time. HE thinks and calls. Flop comes 9high with 3 hearts. HE shoves and I obv call. HE says oh shit you have AA I just have TT. Well maybe my luck is turning around deep in these events. Doesn't realize that he has Th and, of course, the turn is a heart. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So I am out in 33rd for a bullshit 1k cash. Let's go out back dealer and I will let you kick me in the balls for 15 mins!

Oh well, like I said I really didn't play all that well and was fortunate on the J9 hand so I guess it works itself out. Everyone at my tables commented on how well they thought I played including 2 well known internet players. One even commented that he thought I was the best player at the table and the player that he least wanted to see accumulate chips. Always nice to hear comments like this from players whose games I respect. So I guess I am doing something right and playing well.

Next up for me on the live poker front is the Borgata Winter Open in late January. I hope to play 3 or 4 of their events as they have a pretty sweet series scheduled including some PLO events and one O8. In addition, the shithole that is the Taj is hosting the Trump Classic in early January and it includes an O8 that I may drive up for the day to play.

Fun hand...

These are always good to see. Especially when the other guy has AKxx....

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4975377

Off to AC in a few hours...

WSOP-C Tuesday Event

Busted ~80th out of 385 in Tuesday's $560 NLHE tournament. Played pretty solid most of the day and never had all of my chips in the middle until the last hand.

Last hand I had A9cc on the button. Active aggressive player raised to 4200 at 800/1600/200a from the cutoff. I had about 28k and should have shoved right there. He was raising a lot and, frankly, I had decided to reraise him regardless of my cards. But when I woke up with a reasonable (though not great) hand it made it that much easier. Anyway for some reason I tried to get cute and raise to 13k rather than just ship my chips. I thought that raise would look stronger than a shove especially to a solid thinking aggressive player. After a bit someone called time he made the call which I thought was kinda bad on his part (we both had similar stacks). Anyway the flop comes Q94 and he shoves. I have to call and he tables AQ. So yeah I outthought myself. If I shove I can't imagine he puts almost all of his chips in the middle with AQ. But he did say that he almost fold so I guess I put him to the test and unfortunately we both hit the flop. BTW I say his call is bad because I think he has to shove or fold once I 3 bet him. AQ is a hand he wants to see all 5 cards with an he should realize that I am not folding any flop once I put half my stack in the middle. But whatever he won. If the flop comes without a Q I wonder what he does.

I then went over to the Borgata and destroyed the 10-20 2 way Hi-Low game. Ran well, played with several total fish and just waited for good spots to win pots. Unfortunately the game was so good that I didn't want to leave the table. These guys just kept reloading for $300 at a pop and I didn't want to get up. At 7:30 a.m. the next morning I had to get some sleep and packed up a $1k winning session.

Back up on Sunday for the Borgata Triple Play.

First December Post

I am heading up tomorrow to play the $560 WSOP-Circuit event at Harrah's in AC. I may or may not also try and satellite into the WSOPC Main Event which starts 12/13. It is a $5k buy-in and I have never played that big of a buy-in before. If I don't satellite in I will go to The Borgata instead on Sunday for the Borgata Triple Play $200k guarantee. This is essentially the same event I final tabled in October only with a $340 buy-in rather than $560 and three opening days rather than 2. Hopefully a good run will come out of one of these events.

Online has been a real roller coaster. I have played no tournaments instead playing all SNG as well as some cash games mixed in (NLHE, PLO and PLO8). PLO8 has been very good to me though I got crushed in PLO ove the weekend. Every hand I got in with I was either outflopped or outdrawn. It was truly insane. Gonna stick to PLO8 on the cash games for a bit as that is historically where I have been the most successful (might mix in a bit of NLHE since it is easier to play a lot tables playing NLHE).

Finally, I am still pursuing the PokerStars Supernova status. I have ~70k VPP as of last night and need 100k to make it by YE. Seems like a lot and it is but I only had ~22k when I got serious about this chase in October. If I can get to 90k with one week left i will get there. Any more than that it will be a stretch. The Supernova designation is worth ~$4-5k which will come in handy as a bankroll for the Borgata Winter Poker Open in late January. I am planning on playing 4-5 events and making a concerted effort to satellite into their main event which is a WPT event with a $3,500 buy in.

Will update with anything interesting over the next week.

Misc poker update

Last time I wrote was last Monday and I was leaving early to go home and play the FTOPS PLO8 (Pot Limit Omaha 8 or better Hi-Lo) that day. I did, in fact play though nothing great really happened though I did sneak in the money in 84th place. 135 cashed and with 150 left I had a top 10 stack. At this point I went card dead, missing a few flops, etc. and basically never had anything good happen. Was down to about 7 BB and put it in but missed and that was that.

Wednesday I ran up to the Taj for their $560 O8 tournament. Only ~100 people showed up and top 9 were to be paid. First was $16k. Had a very tight aggressive solid woman on my left. She and I and another woman were far and away the best 3 players at our original table and felt I could easily get chips from the rest of the table. We were to be the last table broken before the final table so we would be playing quite a bit together. Anyway limit tournaments are really boring until the limits get way up. So I chipped up very easily from original 6500 stack to abt 12.5k when a really bad hand came up. Limits are 300/600. I limped the cutoff with 9TJK single suited. Flop comes 99Q. Pretty good flop giving me a big str8 wrap and bottom trips. Checks to me and I bet. 2 callers including very bad spewy player in early position. Turn is a T giving me 9s full. Checks to me and I bet. First player folds and spew player check raises. I am ready to puke but he is really bad and only hands that beat me are QQxx or TTxx. His range includes a str8 and a bare 9. So I am ahead of most of his range. I call. River was a meaningless low card. He leads and I make a crying call to see QQxx. So as bad as he was he played that hand very well and got max value. Bit later a huge hand occurs. Limits were 400/800 and I was back down around 6000. Raise up front to 800 and 3 callers. I call button with 99JJ double suited. With the raise and the callers my guess is that a lot of low cards are out and the flop is coming with high cards. Sure enough the flop is QT3 rainbow. Spewy guy earlier leads and gets 2 callers plus me. (Pot 6k at this point). Turn was a low blank that gives me a Q high flush draw to go with my up and down str8. I have him on QQQ at this point. He bets again and all fold but I call with my 8 clean outs and likely 7 additional hearts. (Pot 7600) River is pure gold K! He bets I raise and he reluctantly calls with....you guessed it...QQQ. So that was a nice pot and gets me back up to around ~14k if I recall. Finally last hand before the dinner break was huge. UTG was the tight agressive woman to my left. She raised at 600/1200 to 1200 and found 2 callers. I am in BB with 4559 double suited and call purely for pot odds. In fact, I warned the players that "I apologize for the bad beat I am about to put on you"...lol. Flop comes A2Q with 2 spades. I have 94 spades. This is a pretty good flop for a rag ass hand. I check to her and she bets and get 2 callers. I choose to just smooth call here. I am virtually certain she has AAA. Turn was 7s. I lead for turn bet of 1200 and get 2 callers. I have 9 hi flush and A2457 low. When no one raises I am pretty sure I am good both ways at this point. With all the chips in the middle anyone with a better flush likely raises me given that her hand is pretty much face up at this point. River was a brick and I bet, she tanks for a while and shows a weaker low to go with her AAA. Spewtard then tanks and he finally calls. I have no clue what he could be possibly calling with. That got me up to 25-26k at dinner break with average stacks of abt 13k.

Come back from dinner and my stack fluctuates between 20k and 40k. Finally I am down to abt 25k when the biggest bonehead play I have ever made comes up at 1500/3000. I raise in late position with A357 with A3 of diamonds. Woman on left 3 bets me and BB comes along as well. I call. (Pot 10k with SB) Flop is gin 346. BB checks I bet and she calls, BB also calls. (Pot 14.5k). Turn was a 7. Counterfeits my str8 but unlikely I am no good here. I bet and get 2 callers. (Pot 23.5k). So before the river I basically do not want to see any diamonds or clubs as they both would have made a flush or a paired board. I also am not thrilled if a 5 comes as it counterfeits my str8 and puts me in a weird spot if I get raised. Well the river was a red 5 and I thought diamond. I check to woman who bets and BB calls and I angrily muck my cards. Literally as they are reaching the muck I realize "Oh shit it is a heart!!" But once my cards hit the muck the hand is dead. She scoops with A2 for a rivered A-5 wheel. God I was so pissed. Basically gave away ~14k in chip equity with just a retarded play. I actually had to get up and walk around I was so phucking angry with myself. That puts me down to around 16k vs. roughly 30k if I make the call. Wow really hard to believe.

In any event I had to try and get back into it but now I am shortstacked. We redraw now for new seats as we are down to 18 players. I get seated next to "Miami" John Cernuto a well known limit game pro with 2 or maybe 3 WSOP bracelets including 1 or 2 in O8. First hand I play at new table I raise AA55 double suited. He calls. Flop comes 468 which is really shitty. I check call. Turn is an 8 of diamonds giving me a nut flush draw to go with my AA and weak low. I check call. RIver was a blank. I check, he bets and I can't imagine I am ever good here. I fold and he shows me A238. Yuck. last hand I am down to 3 BB and I put in a raise with 2346 single suited. Find one caller. Flop is awful JTT. I stick my last chips in and he tanks and has to call with A2Kx. Turn is an A and I am out in 18th.

Very disappointing. I can't help but think that folded hand really killed me. If I don't muck that I don't put anymore chips in with "Miami" John once the board pairs and I obviously don't stack off with the final hand. Really just killed me. But hopefully it will just be a learning lesson and move past it.

Online has been so-so. Still playing cash pretty aggressively though I took some brutal beats over the weekend so I am slightly better than break even over 20k hands since my coaching session. I did play some tournaments this weekend to mix it up a little but found no success. Bubbled the 30 rebuy on Stars on Saturday night for a massive pot. I raised SB with QQ. Aggressive monkey shoves 40BB on me and I snap call to see A7. Obviously he turns an A and I am out for a top 3 stack. Alternatively in a $75 tournament on Tilt sat night I 3 bet a late position raiser with AKdd. He shoves and I call to see TT but of course I miss.

Then last night I played the FTP 6k guarantee Omaha Hi-Lo and reach the final table. 6 left and I am the shortstack when this happens:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4894831

His turn raise is just so gross. If I am deeper stacked I might be able to find a fold or at least not keep raising but with the shortstack I just don't think I can fold the full house. One of these days I will run better in a big spot. As is I am out with another bullshit $400 cash.

November

Playing a lot of poker this month and will probably try to for the remainder of the year. I am attempting to achieve Supernova status on PokerStars by 12/31. I need to play a ton of volume for the remainder of the year to get there but I think I can do it. Unfortunately, I really did not play much at all on Stars over the summer other than miscellaneous tournaments and so I have a lot of making up to do. Getting to Supernova is worth about ~$4,500 for me between cash bonuses along the way and frequent player points so it is worth it I think.

I actually hired a guy to look at my on-line cash play and see where he could discover my weaknesses (leaks) and help me plug those up. Basically he asked me to drop down a level and play WAY more aggressively pre and post flop. So I have done that over the last week or so and the results have been mind blowing. Want to get a lot more hands in before I go back up but if early results are an indication this more loose aggressive style (LAG) is more fun to play and muchmore profitable. Here is a good example (just playing NL$50 in this case):

Me (cutoff) ~$100 stack- raise to $1.75 with T5suited
Button-also ~$100 reraises to $6.00
Folds back to me and I 4 bet to $17.50 (I will fold to a 5 bet)
Button thinks and thinks and finally folds (claims he had JJ)

Now in this case the button was a spewy player who had 3 bet me once or twice before and had commented in the chat that I was playing too many hands. Obviously against a tighter more solid player this is an easy fold. This play was not in my arsenal on-line 2 weeks ago (live maybe but not on-line).

I actually have the theory that on-line games are the same as live games if you multiply the big blind by 10. S0 for example .25/.50 on-line is roughly the same as 2/5 live and .50/1.00 on-line would equate to 5/10 live. This seems to be accurate for me as I pretty much have no trouble beating 2/5 when I play and have mixed results at 5/10. Hopefully this new approach will translate to better live results too.

Speaking of which I am heading to the Taj for the USPC Omaha Hi-Low (O8) on Wednesday. I have heard that the turnouts have been OK so hopefully there will be a decent number for this event. Don't get to play much tournament O8 so this is always fun. Live players in this game are soooooo bad. Of course I probably just jinxed myself and won't even make it to the dinner break...lol.

I am actually leaving at lunch today to play the FTOPS Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo which starts at 2. I won 15 seats to this event so feel like I should give it a go. I really have played NO tournament poker on-line in a good while so we shall see. Will update if anything interesting happens.

Borgata $250K Guarantee Recap

So I had another work related deadline a week ago Thursday (October 15) and worked pretty hard leading up to that date. So it worked out perfectly when I discovered that the Borgata was having a $250k guarantee with 2 starting dates, 1a on Sunday the 18th and 1b on Monday the 19th. I got the go ahead from the Mrs. and shot up there on Sunday in time for the 4 p.m. satellite. The tournament itself featured a $550 buy-in while the satellite was for $115 meaning 1 in 5 would get the seat to the tournament.

Satellites are notoriously soft and thus I felt like it would be pretty easy to lock up a seat. Well that proved out at the first level.

My stack ~7200 (we started with 7k)
Button ~6800

I raise 77 to 150 in middle position, 3 callers including the button who appeared to be a weak calling station.

Flop K73. I bet 500 into ~700 pot. Button raises to 1700 and I call. Turn is perfect, another K. I check, he bets 2400 and I ship. He snap calls and I expect to see AK or KQ, maybe even KJ. Well he has K4 offsuit...lol. River misses him and I am up to over 14k. Pretty funny.

Basically I chip up and easily drift into the top 20 and get the seat. Played some cash that night and crushed the 10/20 Omaha game for about $600 and this was looking like it could be a good trip.

Wake up Monday and find my seat for the tournament. As usual the structure of Borgata tournaments is very good and allows for a lot of play. This is good for a player like me who likes to play a good number of pots and see a lot of flops.

BY first glance it appears all of the tough players are on my right which is ideal. I keep it pretty low key for the first few levels and win some meaningless pots to get up around 22k. There is a pretty spewy internet type kid on my right who I am trying to play pots with and finally get a chance at 200/400/50ante. He raises to 1k and I call with AJcc. Flop comes 99J rainbow. He checks and I bet 1600 and he calls. Turn is an 8 and he checks again. I elect to check behind and control the pot. Don't really want to have to make a big decision here if the spewtard decides to make some sort of strange check raise. River is perfect, another J. HE checks for the third time and I bet 3500 into a pot of 6300 and he starts fumbling with his chips and min raises me to 7k. With abt 16k behind my play is pretty easy and I ship and he insta folds. I assume he had AK there and thought 2 pair with A kicker was good. Very strange play for sure but was a gift for me. That gets me up to over 32k and I sort of bounce around between 30-35k.

Then a bad one comes up at 400/800/75a. I raise A2cc UTG and find one caller two to my left...a weak older gentleman who is pretty unimpressive in his play. Flop come A2Thhh. This is pretty good but not ideal. Obviously I have no hearts but my hand is pretty disguised. I bet 3200 and he insta calls. At this point I am pretty sure he has KT, QT or JT type of hand with the non T heart. Turn is dreadful, 7h. I check call 3k hoping to fill on river. River is a blank and I check ready to fold but he checks behind and shows QT with Qh. What a donk. Calls with that shit hand after a raise from UTG raiser...then miracles the flop and turn and gets absolutely no value out of it. HEEEEE-PHUCKING-HAWWWWWW...

Then the spot of the tournament comes up for me. I am down to around 21k at 400/800/75a and open AKss to 2200. Find 2 callers until BB goes into tank for good while and finally ships in. He is good player for sure but don't think he does this with AA or KK so at worst I feel it is a race and there is too much in there to fold. I stick it in the others fold and he flips JJ. Turn is an A and I am up over 45k. Few hands later same player ships 15k at 500/1000/100a and I reshove button with QQ. He flips AK and I win anopther race and am up to ~65k. Work my stack up to abt 80k then slowly drift down to ~60k where I end day and bag up my chips.

Came back for day 2 and found my seat with no players I recognized. Played no hands for a few orbits and was still around 60k when my first suckuot of the tournament. I raise JJ UTG to 4k at 800/1600/200. Button shoves 20k and I call. He flips KK and I spike a J on the turn. Few hands later I rasie one of my favorite hands in SB to 4500, 79 suited. BB calls and we see a flop of AA7. This is actually a good flop for meas he is unlikely to have an A here. If he has AK, AQ he probably reriases me preflop and all other A hands other than perhaps AJ and maybe a suited A are folding pre. BB was a very good, accomplished players and good players don't play big pots with A rag. Had he been a weaker player I would have been less comfortable. Anyway I lead 3500 and he folds.

Next big hand comes after I have been moved. Blinds are up to 2500/5000/500a. Blinds had just popped and I raise JTdd UTG to 12,500. Had I realized blinds were up I would have raised a bit more but oh well. BB is a ver y accomplished well known internet player. Flop comes JT8 with 2 spades and he insta-ships all in. I think for a second and can't fold this hand to a shove. He has AQ with a spade. Meaning he needs a K or 9 for the str8 or running spades or running AQ to crack my two pair and I hold and am up to 225k. I then went totally card dead for quite a while. I did lose the minimum with TT vs KQ at 4000/8000/1000a and ultimately drifted down to abt 100k.

Finally shoved 100k(blinds 5000/10,000/1000a) holding AJ suited UTG and was called by a weak player holding KQ. Puts in half of his stack with that trash...lol. I flop an A and a J and he misses the T and am up to around 225k. Little later same player raises to 35k in mid position with 120k behind and I find AA in BB (my first of the tournament BTW). Not sure how to play as I want to get all of his chips in middle. Finally decide he might call with 88-TT type hand preflop but fold if the flop comes with an over card, so I put him all in and he tanks for a good while and folds 55 face up. We are now inside the money and I am trying to accumulate as many chips as possible. A pretty inactive player raises the button to 40k at 6000/12,000/1,500a. I put him in for another 135k from BB with AQcc. He feels committed and calls with K8cc and I actually make a full house. That puts me up to around 450k in chips when we reach the final 3 tables and the play for day 2 is paused.

I am 11th in chips. Later that night they post the seating assignaments and I am happy to discover that both the big stacks at my table are on my right. In fact, the player to my direct right is the biggest stack and I have him pegged as a pretty big spewtard who overvalues mediocre hands like TT, KQ, KJ, 99, etc. and will put a lot of chips in the pot with those hands. In fact, I told 2 of my buddies that if I keep position on this guy I will get him to put a lot of chips in the middle in bad shape at some point on day 3. Keep that in mind later. I also do some research and discover that none of the players at my table have any significant cashes with the exception of the player 2 to my right with career cashes over 300k. There is also a very solid internet player at my table but the rest of the table seems bad.

Well day 3 could not have gotten off to a better start. Third hand in we are at 8/16k/2ka and I am in BB. Button is the successful player I mentioned above and he raises to 45k. I peek at KK and start talking to him. He keeps saying he is strong so I just ship it in and, in fact, he is strong with QQ. Flop KQ4, turn K and I get quads and bust the most successful player at the table. That gets me up around 650k. Stayed pretty quiet and consciously decided to stay out of pots with the one internet player left who seemed very solid. He lost a lot of chips and decided to shove 55 for 225k at 12/24k/2k. I wake up with KK again in BB and hold and am up to around 850k.

We get down to 12 players and it seems that everyone is tightening up a good bit trying to make the final table. So, of course, I see this as an opportunity to steal pots with any two cards. One hand blinds were 15/30k/3ka and there are 2 limpers. I am in BB and peek at J4 offsuit and raise to 140k. Everyone folds. The very next hand a weak tight woman opens for 125k and I rr to 350k with AKdd and she folds again. She comments that she thinks I am running them over. A few hands later the weak older player at the table limps, SB (the spewy chip leader) completes and I check with Q6. Flop comes JT4. Check Check Check. Turn Q putting 3 diamonds on the board. Check Check Check again. River 6 and chip leader bets 100k into 125. I call with 2 pair and he shows 89 off for turned str8. Not much I can do there as I don't think I can fold.

I then played an interesting pot with the spewy chip leader at 15/30k/3ka. He raised to 90k and I called button with AQo. Flop comes A84 rainbow. This is a good flop for me but I sensed a bit of strength from him and checked behind on the flop. I don't see how I can bet here. If he has any A he may check raise me and if he has a worse hand like TT, 99, etc. he is just going to fold. So there really is no value in betting this flop. Turn is a J which is a really really bad card. Now the only A that he may have and might make sense given the line is AT. I am losing to AK, AJ and chopping to AQ. I am either crushing or crushed and no in between. He bets 125k and I call to see what happens on river. River is a rag (6 maybe??) and he bets 225k. I tank for quite some time and just can't find a hand that I am beating. Again the only A I am ahead of here most likely is AT. SO unless he just doesn't believe I have an A I beat nothing. I fold AQ face up and he can't believe it. He shows me 88 for a flopped set. So that was a good fold.

At this point we were down to 11 players and a discussion ensued for a save. A save is when all of the players are guaranteed a certain amount and the remainder is then allocated to the winners. I was ok either way as I felt I had a playing edge over the remaining players but with blinds getting high so much crazy stuff can happen. Finally an agreement was reached where the two big stacks were guaranteed 16k and 18k and the 2 short stacks were given 7k and 9k. Everyone else, including me, was offered 12k. I probably could have pushed for another 1k or so but it was hard enough getting everyone to agree. We would then play for the following additional amounts:

1st 50k
2nd 20k
3rd 5k
4th 2k

We all agreed and locked up our amounts. A player on the other table then immediately busted and we combined to one table. A short stack busted a few hands in on the final table and then the following happened.

UTG is the spewy guy I mentioned that I would get a lot of chips from. He raises to 200k UTG at 20k/40k/4ka. I look down at QQ eith 850k total. not sure what to do but again my read on him is that he will put a lot of chips in teh pot with marginal hands. So I finally decide to shove all in. Folds to him and he snap calls off half his stack with TT. Flop is just dirty T34 and I miss on turn and river. So here this guy plays for 3 full days and builds a huge stack and decides to put half of it in with TT. Boggles the mind. Obviously I want him to make that call as I am 80/20 to win that hand. Also if I do hold I have 2nd chip stack and I am pretty sure I would have gotten to the final 2 or 3 at a minimum. So that was very disappointing.

But I was glad the deal was made because had it not I would have only cashed for $5,800. As it was this is my biggest cash to date and but for that unfortunate T I had a good shot to cash for 20k-50k more. Hard to even type that....

I will be going to the Taj in November for the USPC and playing the $560 Omaha Hi-Lo and a $560 NLHE. I will also try and satellite into the $2,500 PLO event they are having which features a TV final table. After that I will likely play 2 or 3 events in the WSOP Circuit event at Harrahs in AC and then the Borgata Winter Open in mid-January.

Golf not so good...Poker good (Part II)

Well the title says it all. For the last few years my golf game has inexplicably deserted me in the fall. For whatever reason, once the calendar hits ~Sept 15 I am just not very good. Whether it is year end burnout, other stuff on my mind, new responsibilities with kids back in school or whatever but it just seems my game suffers and I can't regain any sort of form.

So with that in mind I walked into my first round match in our club championship on Friday. This was a match that if we played 10 times I would expect to win 7 or 8 of them. Unfortunately, Friday was one of the 2 or 3 times it went the other day. Neither of us played well at all but I should have won rather handily. The ending is perfectly fitting of the train wreck. I have been behind all day with a combination of a few good breaks for my opponent and poor play by ours truly. However, I made a nice par on 15 to square the match with the three to play. On 16 (455 par 4) I hit a decent drive that just trickled in the left rough. He was way right making bogey at best. I managed to get a 7 iron pin high left about 20 feet from the hole but pretty quick. As expected he made his bogey and I proceeded to knock it 8 feet past and miss the comebacker. Needless to say I am hot. On 17 I stuff it pretty close (170 par 3) and actually make the birdie to go 1 up for the first time since the 2nd hole. Now I have 18 which is a pretty str8forward par 4 of about 390 yds uphill. Just need a good drive and usually a 9 iron or so and force him to make birdie or we are done. Well I hit a big high rope-a-dope hook that damn near goes OB. Frankly I didn't even know the OB was over on the left. That is how fucking far left this piece of shit was. I punch back into the fairway then hit L wedge from 80 yards to about 10 feet. Burn the edge for abt the 20th time that day and off we go to 1 for a playoff. Nearly make a 30 footer for birdie on 1 then make a complete shit storm on 2 and essentially hand it to him. I don't mind losing if someone just ouplays me (see MD Mid-Am in August) but I hate losing when I just basically beat myself. I will play once or twice before the Mid Atlantic Am and try and get some work in but unless I find some spark to get me going it may be a 2 round MC for this guy.

The weekend in poker was much better. Not sure I had posted before but about 10 days ago I won a smallish tournament with ~200 players. It was just a $10 buy-in but paid a bit over $500 so that was good. Then this past Friday night I was still steaming from my bullshit golf play earlier in the day and just decided to veg out on the computer. I played about 10 tournaments and had three cashes. One was a min-cash. ANother was in the $5k guarantee PLO on Full Tilt. We were down to 10 so playing 5 handed on 2 tables. Chip leader (CL) was hideously bad and luckboxing his way through this event. I have about 35k at 1500-3000 and this went down (sorry couldn't find the HH).

CL (120k stack) raises to 9k
Me (button 35k) repot to ~32k with AAKx single suited

CL CALLS...ellll-ohhhhh-fucking-elllll (I have 3k behind sir!!)

Flop 42T rainbow. Dry as it gets.

He checks. I push my last 3k into a pot of ~65k or so. He calls to show 445J. Unreal. Maybe I should start playing total garbage hands some.

But the real good result came in the nightly Big Double ($75 buy-in). Got down to the final table with a top three stack and played pretty solid picking my spots. Finally we were down to 5 left when this comes up.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4713013

Pretty standard really but yet another bad beat for yours truly. Win that and I am 2nd in chips with 30 BB left and a chance to win. As is I am out in 5th for about $900 (coulda sworn I busted 4th but once reviewed the HH disovered was really 4th...late night). I also won a seat into the FTP $1M guarantee ($500 in T$) on Friday night.

On Saturday night our kids were at my partents house. My wife and I went out to eat and were going to just watch a movie since it had been a crazy week. But when we got how a bit before 10 she was exhausted and just went to bed. So I decided to fire up some of the 10 pm tournaments and see how it went. Nothing exciting was happening in any really until I had the following in the FTP $10 rebuy. Started with about 650 players and we are inside money with abt 40 left.

Me 30k stack UTG raise TT to 1600 (blinds 300-600/50a)
Button is very loose player and has me covered calls
BB then shoves 24k. This overshove is one of 2 hands almost always (JJ or AK).

I think and decide let's gamble as this will give me a good chance to go deep. I call, button folds and he flips AK and for once I win a key pot. Actually flop a T for a quick end to the drama.

Well it was a good thing I won a big pot because from then until the final 2 tables I went insanely card dead. Just nothing. I won a few hands with LP raises but I had jack shit for quality hands. Then at final 2 tables I am like 11/15 in chips and do actually win a few hands with the best of it and before long we are at FT. Unfortunately my seat positively blows with all of the 3 big stacks directly to my left. I have abt 150k and they each have over 500k and are just pummeling anyone who opens the pot for a raise. So I have to wait for a chance and be patient. Finally we are down to 6 players at 6/12k/2ka and I have drifted down to ~110k and folds to me in SB. I shove K3 suited just tring to pick up the 30k in the middle and huge stack (700k) snap calls me with K7 and holds. So out in 6th for ~900 and another bit of disappointment. But I keep going deep so that means I am playing well and sooner or later should pop with a couple of big scores.

All in all though I will take a $2500+ weekend every weekend of the year if possible.

Another Year and no USGA

A couple people have emailed me to find out how the USGA Mid Qualifier went on Tuesday. Obviously the title of the post says it all, I didn't get in. Shot 73 on a course that played really easy.

The qualifier was at Argyle CC in Silver Spring. It is a short course with some rather bad holes and just not my favorite place. I actually considered going to another section to try and qualify but ultimately decided to stay in the DC/Balt. section due to the fact that there would be 7 available spots.

Started on 10 in the second group off. Hit it to 15 feet on 10 and 10 feet on 11 and missed both. Finally got one in for birdie on 14 to get to -1. Was feeling pretty good when I got to the 17th tee still at -1. 17 is a downhill par 3 of 190 yards with water short of the green. It played shorter, however, as in the practice round I had hit 6 iron in the middle of the green. Tuesday morning the wind was swirling a good bit and when I got on the tee it was pretty much in our face. I hemmed and hawed and finally decided on a punched 5 iron. Unfortunately, I never really committed to the shot and chunked it in the pond short of the green. Double bogey.

I turned and birdied 1 to get back to even par and back in the thing. However a bad bogey on the par 5 3rd absolutely killed me. I had 95 yards uphill for my third and hit my 95 shot. The uphill made it play more like 100+ and I came up a few yards short of the green. Chipped up to 4 feet and missed it. Another bogey on 5 where I missed a 5 footer for par basically put a fork in me. I added one more bogey when I 3 putted 8 trying to jam a birdie putt in from 25 feet or so and then narrowly missed a birdie putt on 9. All added up to +3 and that ain't getting it done. Turned out that it took 68 to get in. Who knows what happens if I don't chunk that 5 iron on 17.

Pretty disappointed as I worked really hard to get ready for the qualifier and was extremely confident going into Tuesday. But with only 18 holes the qualifier is essentially a sprint and doesn't leave much room for errors. Still have the club championship at BCC this weekend and next weekend, the Middle Atlantic Am the first weekend in October and the Baltimore City Am in the middle of October. After that I will likely hang up my sticks for the year.

Poker has taken a back seat the last month or so. I did, however, play a full load of tournaments on Sunday. In the 750k on Full Tilt I flopped a set of 6's in the second hour on an A67 flop and lost much of my stack to another player who had pocket 7's. That hurt. Little later I shoved AJ into AK and he held. I did make three rather deepish runs on Stars, however. Two in Omaha Hi-Lo events and one in the $5 rebuy NLHE event. All were bust outs in the final 2 tables, however, so no cashes worth getting excited about. One funny hand with about 25 left in a $33 Omaha Hi-Lo. A very bad player is the villain in this hand and he had been playing hideous poker and getting lucky:

Me: 60k on button
Villain: 35k in early position
Blinds 600-1200

• Villain pots to 4200
• MP player calls
• I repot to 18,400 with AAK3 double suited
• BB goes all-in for abt 25k
• Villain repots all-in for ~35k
• I call obviously

BB had AAxx (think he had one low card with it)
Villain has QQ8T....LOL...Pure fucking genious. Once I repot I have to have AA there almost always. SO he is putting all those chips in with no low possible and a shit high hand. Obviously the flop comes KJx and river is a 9 giving the goof a str8 and scooping the pot. So that hurt. I did manage to chip back up but ultimately busted I think 14th.

I haven't been grinding SNGs as much of late although I will be doing so again soon. Easy money. After a month and half of grinding those it gets a bit monotonous so I have been taking a break for a couple of weeks and just playing cash games. Once I get through the September 15 deadline at work I will get back into SNG again to pick up the steady extra $$.

Runner Up in MD Mid-Am

As I wrote last week I was pretty optimistic going into Monday and Tuesday's MD Mid-Am. This year the event was at Chestnut Ridge CC. This was good since it was literally in my back yard.

I started on 10 Monday morning with a solid par on the big par 4 of ~465. Then I stuffed a 5 iron from 185 on 11 and made birdie 2. I made a sloppy bogey on 12 but followed that up with birdies on 14 and 15. A 3 putt on 17 where I tried to jam a birdie putt in and blew it 8 feet by and another bogey on 18 put me back to even par with a wild ride on my nine.

I turned and knocked it on in 2 at the par 5 1st and 2 putted for birdie. Then hit 8 iron to 18 feet on the 170ish par 3 2nd and made that. My second 3 putt on 5 pulled me back to -1 (this was a brain dead 3 putt). I then missed shortish birdie putts on 6 & 7 but finally made one on 8 from about 6 feet and then parred 9 for a total of 68 (-2). It looked like this would be at or near the lead when lo and behold a 64 came in 20 minutes behind me. He actually bogeyed the last hole or would have been 63. Really good round. After the afternoon session rolled in there were only 4 scores in the 60s and I was in 2nd, 4 shots back of Terry Burke, the leader. He would be hard to catch as he has won this event 2x before and won the MD AM before as well. Very accomplished player and was unlikely to back up.

On Tuesday I was really ready to go and felt like I needed to shoot at least 68 again to have a shot. Round started well when I made a miracle up and down for birdie at the par 5 1st. Unfortunately I hit a hideous 7 iron on 2 in the water. Wasn't sure about the wind and just never committed to the shot. Managed to get it up and down for bogey. Bogeyed the short par 4 5th for the second str8 day when I laid the sod over my second shot. Had a severe downhill slope and never got comfortable and hit the dreaded "whoa fat" shot. I missed very makeable birdies on 6, 7 and 8 and then bogeyed the difficult ninth. Terry was kind of playing conservative but my poor play and lack of birdies was putting no pressure on him at all. His lead was still 4. After I bogeyed 11 and he birdied 14, I was 6 behind with 4 to play. Not going to happen. He bogeyed 15 and I managed to birdie 16 and 17 to narrow the lead to 3 shots but that was it.

I did play well but I would have liked to have put a bit more pressure on him on the front on Tuesday. The bogeys on 2 and 5 coupled with the missed birdie chances on 4,6,7 and 8 were just too much. I really needed to be -1 or -2 on the front and unfortunately that didn't happen.

Here is the link to the leaderboard:

http://msga.bluegolf.com/bluegolf/msga9/event/msga918/contest/7/leaderboard.htm

And here is the summary report with a picture of yours truly at the bottom:

http://msga.org/newsdetail.asp?newsID=445

So runner up isn't the end of the world. I was invited to play in the Baltimore-Washington Team matches which is a fun invitational event. But it is the same weekend as the BCC club championship so I opted to play in that instead.

I am playing pretty solid now and the USGA Mid Am Qualifier is 3 weeks away. Hope I can keep it going and get to go to Kiawah.

BTW My daughter won the 8 and under 3 hole club championship though in full disclosure I must confess she was the only entrant in the girls division. But she actually did pretty well and hit some good shots.

August Update

I consciously decided to not touch my clubs for a week or so and actually didn't touch them for nearly 10 days. This is pretty unusual for me but was a nice break and am able to recharge for the remaining part of the summer and fall tournament schedule. I actually went to see my teaching pro last weekend and we noticed that some of my fundamentals had gotten sloppy (setup, footwork, etc.) Worked on it with him for an hour or so and am definitely hitting it better. Next week is the MD Mid-Am so we shall see if the work pays off. I have finished top 10 in this event the last 4 times I have played it including 2 top 5's. So this should be an event that I have a chance.

I also have finally started to get more serious about fitness, diet, etc. I turn 40 next week and look around at the competitors I play against in tournaments and they are all athletic, strong kids. If I really want to compete with them I have to get in better shape and get stronger. When I talked to my instructor about it he responded "Name the top ten players in the world". So I say, Tiger, Mickelson, Harrington, Ogilvy, Furyk, Casey, Stricker, etc. One common denominator is all those guys are pretty fit strong guys (people give Phil shit about his man boobs but even he is in much better shape than he was 5 or 6 years ago). Even on the Champions Tour the studs are Funk, Langer, Roberts, etc. and those guys are workout warriors. Other than a handful of guys like Daly and Calc there just aren't many out of shape guys anymore. So I am pushing pretty hard to eat better and work out a bit harder and smarter. Lost a few already and feel stronger as well.

My 6 year old plays in her first golf tournament this Saturday at our country club and she is pretty excited. She only started taking lessons this year but she seems to enjoy it so that will be neat to watch her play. It is a 3 hole tournament for her age group so I am sure that should be a trip.

Poker is still going well. I have cashed out over $4k in the last month just playing SNG. I cleared the mid year bonus that Full Tilt was offering and then got another $500 bonus from them as part of their "Biggest Bonus Ever" promotion. I am a little less than half way through clearing that at this point. I wil continue to grind out these SNG as they seem to be the easiest and fastest ways to earn $$ without the wild swings associated with tournaments or the constant pressure of online cash games where you can lose your whole stack in one hand. I may go to The Borgata in September for their Borgata Poker Open but I am not sure. It runs in mid-September and I have a bunch of stuff going on around then that may keep from going. They are having a PLO and Omaha Hi-Lo event as part of the series so I would love to play those.

Will update next week after Md Mid with hopefully something good.

Golf not so good...Poker very good

As I mentioned before I am now into the meat of my tournament golf season. So far it hasn't been very good. In one of my previous posts, I described the MD Stroke Play tournament in which I opened with 69 then regressed the rest of the weekend.

Well 2 weeks later I did the exact opposite at our club's stroke play championship. First round was on the West Course and I opened with 80 in very windy conditions. The greens were super quick and rough was thick. This coupled with the wind made the course play as difficult as I have played it and I just was positively awful. I bogeyed the first four holes, followed with pars on 5-12 and then limped in from there with a few more bogeys. On Sunday we played the much longer, much more difficult East Course and I played rock solid for a 72. Strange game. Hit a lot of greens, lot of fairways and was pretty good on and around the greens. Not what I had hoped for the weekend but at least I cam back pretty solid.

Then yesterday I played the US Am Qualifier. The local qualifier was played at my former club, Hayfields CC, so I was looking forward to using my local knowledge. Out of nowhere this weekend I completely lost my driver and started hitting these ugly pull hooks. Not out of control duck hooks but just hard to control balls to the left. Well it showed up yesterday. I opened with birdie on 1, then followed with 3 putt bogeys on 2 and 5 and "normal" bogeys on 3 and the difficult 6th. I made another birdie on 7 before teh pulls showed up on 10,12,13,and 15 with bogeys on each. By then I was toast and posted my pitiful 78. At that point there was no shot of getting one of the 3 spots and they were taking "volunteers" to not play the afternoon 18 (speed up play). So I bailed. I hate to do that but I had no clue off the tee and it was 90+ degrees so I just said F-it.

Gonna take a little golf break and see my teacher next week and see if we can't str8en this shit out before the next several events.

On the poker front all is good. I actually was down to abt $300 in my Full Tilt account and made a decision that I would play with that and if I lost it move all of my play over to PokerStars. FullTilt has kind of screwed me on a rakeback deal and thus I am not putting any more money on that site. The Stars rewards program is so much better than Full Tilt's so I will stick with Stars. Well that $300 is now worth a bit over $3k in about the last 10 days. I am only playing SNG and have been running and playing really well. I am actually about to unlock a ~$500 bonus from Full Tilt at which point I will take a sizable portion of this bankroll offline. SNG are really the easiest most "formulaic" way to make cash and for the most part the play at the low-middle SNGs is atrocious. Mostly I am playing $24 and $36 SNG with the occasional $75 satellite thrown in. Think I will stick to this strategy and buy-in level for some time. Playing much higher you start to bump into a lot of pros and people who play high stakes SNG for a living.

All Hail King Phil!

No I am not talking about the dorkey loud mouth Phil. I am talking about the one who can actually play and is the greatest player in the world...Phil Ivey.

He has made the final table of the WSOP ME that will be played in November. This is a hell of an accomplishment and should be interesting to see his play when they come back. Unfortunately he is second to last in chips so that may make it difficult to utilize all of his creative play but if he gets some chips early I predict he will run over the table. I am sure ESPN is positively drooling over his presence as even casual poker players know who Phil Ivey is. He has already won 2 bracelets this year and a ME win would polish off one of the sickest years in WSOP history for sure.

Anytime I think of PI, I think of truly one of the great poker hands I have ever seen deep in a big buy-in tournament:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Qap3VT_ZY

The level of thinking here is mind boggling. Ivey know his hand is best the whole way and plays it accordingly. IMHO he is not bluffing.

Pre-Flop

He raises preflop and Jackson just calls. When Jackson doesn't reraise Phil can basically eliminate any pairs, any Ace and most Kings as all of those hands are likely reraises by Jackson. Heads up those hands are almost always re-raises.

Flop

Flop comes JJ7 and Phil leads at the pot. This is the key to the whole hand IMO. This enables Phil to really define Jackson's hand as it develops. So Jackson raises. You can almost see Phil putting the pieces together. He knows that Jackson is highly unlikely to raise holding a J as there is no value is that raise. In otherwords, if he held a J and believed that Phil had a pair why blow Phil off his hand now. Makes no sense. He also isn't going to raise with a 7 in case Phil actually does have a J. Though he most assuredly would call with a 7. So at this point it is unlikely that Jackson has most pairs, a 7, a J, an A and probably a K. Meaning Q high is good here. So Phil 3 bets him for value I believe. Then Jackson 4 bets and again Phil puts the pieces together and I am sure he knows he is good at this point. Again, he is highly unlikely to have anything that beats Phil's Q high and the 4 bet really looks like a bluff attempt. So he shoves and Jackson feels owned. Brilliant play.

Oddly if Jackson had used his position on the button and just called the hand dynamic plays out much differently and Phil may have given up on the turn. With a flat call on the flop now it does look like Jackson could have a 7 or J and Phil will tread much more carefully especially out of position in the hand.

Easy for me to analyze this after the fact but to do that under the lights with all that money on the line is insane.

Let's hope PI gets some chips early in November and is able to play some big hands because when he is on he is a pleasure to watch.

Quick post

I did end up playing a ton of volume after the golf tournament this weekend. I am not running well at all and only had two min cashes. So overall a down day for sure.

My bustout in one of the tournaments is rather painful. THis is the Sunday Quarter Million on Stars. It is the biggest tournament every week with only a $11 buy-in it attract nearly 30k players every Sunday. If you final table this massive field you can make some serious cash, so for $11 it is worth a shot. Anyway we are inside the money and I have a decent stack of ~48k. I had just tripled up when I flopped a set of T and cracked AA and dragged along another player who had a flush draw. This is one of the worst beats I have had in a tournament although give the way I am running it seems rather standard...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4452079

By the turn it is obvious he has a K and given the action most likely AK so I go ahead and stick it in and of course the river is just dirty. He got a top 10 chip stack with this hand.

Only one worse than this that I recall is this hand from about a year ago (Pot-Limit Omaha) that I had previously posted...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4452649

Even though that was not a big tournament or anything I will always remember just how filthy that beat was. One outers are ugly.

Schizophrenic Weekend

As my previous post stated I played the MD Am Stroke Play Championship this past weekend. It is contested every year at Mt. Pleasant Golf Course in Baltimore on the 4th of July weekend. This is an old public golf course in mediocre condition typically, but with a pretty classic layout. On the conditioning front the greens are not USGA spec and as a result are rather bumpy, grainy and inconsistent. Some would describe them as shitty...lol.

Anyway Friday I started in the last group off of 1. And I promptly three putted that hole from 30 feet....weeeeee here we go. Then I birdied 3, 10 and 18 playing very very solid all the way. So first round 69 put me in the lead by 1 shot. Actually round 1 could have been 4 or 5 shots lower very easy. I burned lip after lip after lip and was getting a little crazy. But 69 is a good start and I played super solid all the way.

Round 2 was another story. I missed shortish birdie putts on 10 & 11 (I started on 10) then 3 jabbed 12 from 20 feet. Solid pars followed on 13-16 and then it got really weird. On 17, a long downhill par 3 of ~215, I chose 4 iron. The green is very deep and somewhat narrow. It is a really good par 3 with a drop off on the right, a deep bunker on the left and an overgrown hill further left. The hill is no good and, of course, I hit my first truly bad shot of the tournament there. Snap hook up on the hill. Lost ball. Back on tee I hit the next in the middle of the green and 2 putts later I had double. On 18 I sort of popped up my drive and then hit a less than stellar 8 iron to 35 feet and 3 whacked that hole. Turned in 4 over and really felt like I only hit one truly bad shot. On 1 I ripped driver 3 wood on the green of the 550ish par 5 only to 3 jab that hole. I clearly tried to jam that eagle putt in and paid the price with a 3 putt par. From then on I was rather uninspiring with closing bogeys on 5 and 9. Very disappointing as basically my chances to win were basically gone. Now it was a matter of trying to secure a high finish.

Sunday I started off with my third str8 three putt on 1 and boy was I hot. I followed that up with a hideous 9 iron left of the green on 4. Biggest green on the course and the one place I can not miss it is left and I do exactly that for yet another bogey. On 5 tee we had to wait a bit and I calmed down and tried to get going again. I really just didn't want this thing to get out of control. With that I birdied both 5 and 6 with virtual kick ins to get back to even for the day and +4 for the tournament. A bogey on 7 derailed that birdie train, however, and got me back going the wrong way. I was +2 for the day when I returned to the 17th and promptly snap hooked a 4 iron into the same hill again and made double. Finished at 75 and was really disappointed.

Was +8 for the tournament and +4 on one hole. I also had 7 3 putts over the tournament. That is very unusual for me although on these greens you sort of expect some 3 putts. I have been putting lights out at BCC where we have really, really good speedy and slopey greens. But I hit the ball really really well for 3 days, particularly with the driver. It was my first real tournament of the summer and I'll look forward to jumping right back into the fray again in 2 weeks at the club.

Finally some golf to look forward to...

As I mentioned a while ago, not qualifying for the MD Am and MD Open really sucks and kinda makes it seem like the summer is devoid of any good tournament golf. But I do have some stuff coming up and am playing really well right now.

This weekend we were planning to go to the beach house for the 4th but my kids caught wind of the incredible party that BCC (Baltimore Country Club) throws, with rides and games and decided they wanted to go to that. So that gave me a chance to sign up for the MD Am Stroke Play Championship at Mt. Pleasant. Good tournament and one of the few 54 hole events for us Mid Am types. I haven't played in a few years but did play for 15+ years prior to stopping once we got the place at the beach. I am playing very solid right now so I hope to have something good to write about.

After this weekend my golf schedule is as follows for the balance of the summer:

July 18-19 BCC Stroke Play Championship
July 27 USGA Am Qualifier
August 17-18 MD Mid Am Championship
Late August USGA Mid AM Qualifier
September BCC Club Championship
October 1-4 Mid Atlantic Amateur

There are a few other one day type events sprinkled in so we shall see what happens. As always I am particularly motivated for the 2 USGA Qualifiers. The AM qualifier is at my former club so that should be a benefit to me. And, of course, I am anxious to get back the Mid-Am after my couple of appearances the last few years. Will be working hard on my game through this month and next and hopefully have some results to back it up.

My wife and kids are going to go to the beach on Sat 4th (club party is actually on the 3rd) and a friend of her's is coming with her kids so I am all alone Sat and Sunday. That may mean some heavy poker volume this weekend depending on how the tournament is going. The later I tee off on Sunday obviously the fewer tournaments I will be able to play. Hopefully late tee times though!!

I did lose a key flip at the final three tables of a 24+2 on Full Tilt the other night. Same old story for me. Get deepish, lose a flip, cash for some bullshit amount like $200, look at the tournament lobby and see that top 3 all get $5k+. I have to win one of these flips eventually right??

Final WSOP Update

Couple people have asked me about the summary of the trip so here goes:

• Ended up abt $2.5k for the trip. Most of this came from cash games obviously as my tournament results were not too good. I obviously had to pay to get out there, hotel, cabs, etc. so the end results were probably half of those winnings.
  
• I actually didn't play any WSOP events. The schedule didn't really work out well and perhaps I picked the wrong week to go. This week there were two Omaha Hi-Lo events that I would have liked to have played in. The one day that a $1,500 was scheduled I woke up with no desire to grind out a big field event so I just skipped it.
• The cash game play was ungodly bad. I was talking to my wife and I really feel that I could bank some major cash just playing cash games for a week or so. But I like the lure of the big score in tournaments and feel that I play tournaments well. Unfortunately, there is just SOOOO much variance in tournaments that you need to play a lot of tournaments to even out that variance. There are plenty of stories of pros playing 15-20 events and having zero or 1 cash and losing all of those buy-ins.
• Next year I may go for 2 weeks: one at beginning of Series and one week later. I will try to schedule around certain specific events (i.e. lower buy-in Omaha Hi-Lo events) and then fill in the rest with cash games.

As I said before there is still an outside chance I go back this year but that is pretty unlikely.

Final Day

Thursday was my final day of playing in Vegas. I played the $550 PLO at the Venetian and didn't last long. Arrived at the table to find a bunch of old men and no internet kids so that is a good thing. Didn't play many hands until level two when I got involved in 2 pots. The first I flopped top 2pair and check raised a player who had raised preflop and took down that pot. Then second was the end basically for me. A young asian kid had been moved to our table when the following popped up.

Me ~14k; him ~13k blinds 50/100...I am in SB and asian kid raises to 350 from EP. He only played a few pots so no real reads other than he seemed spewy to me. 3 callers so I call with K78T (trashy hand but a lot in pot) from SB and BB calls. Flop comes pretty dry 56J with 2 hearts. So I flop up and down str8 draw and K ho flush draw. Check to Asian kid who bets 1500 after a few seconds of thought. Folds back to me. No way that flop hit him. If I had to guess he has AA here and doesn't really know what to do so he bet. I check raise pot to ~6200. He then tanks for a while and finally calls. Now I know he has AA and doesn't have Ax of hearts or he would have reraised all in. Turn is an 8 giving me more outs so I ship and he calls to show dry AA. Wow people play bad. I am 2-1 favorite on the flop and with the pair I picked up I am still nearly 3-2 favorite on turn. Unforunately I brick and am down under 1k in chips. He then says "I knew you were on a draw". To which I replied "I was but I am ahead when you put all your chips in the pot sir". "How can you be ahead when you have no pair there" he intelligently replies. I start to explain the fact that I win with any heart, 9, 4 on turn or river and any of same plus K, 8, 7 or T on river but I don't think he will get it so I shut up. Few hands later I ship over a raise with TT9Q and brick off halfway through level 2.

With that I raced back to the Rio to play the $340 nightly which has been getting a good first place prize of nearly 15k. Get a rush of cards early including AA, KK, AK and a set and am up to 12k in chips within 2 levels (started with 5k). Then I made a pretty good call for a lot of chips. Old man opens for 600 at 100/200 and finds 3 callers before me. I call button with A3ss. BB calls as well so nice pot. Flop comes 45T with 2 spades. Raiser bets 1200 and only I call. Turn is a 3 giving me bottom pair. Action goes check check. River is an offsuit 7. He insta donk bets 3200 and I go in tank. His line makes no sense here. He raises in EP representing a big hand most likely a pair or a couple of big cards like AK or AQ. He c-bets flop which doesn't really change that analysis. Then he checks turn. At this point I can eliminate big pairs over T and probably all pairs really. I can also eliminate 2 pair hands or sets as he would have bet turn to protect flush and str8 draws. So I am only left with Ak-AJ or KQ-KJ type hands. Chance he has KQ of spades. I ask him if he has 66 which I know he doesn't have and he starts getting nervous. Finally i call to see KJ of spades. Scoop a nice pot. He couldn't believe I called with a 3.

Little later I raise TT to 600 (still 100/200) in LP and BB who hasn't played a single hand ships all in for 4500. this over bet sure looks like AK so I call and he shows AJhh. Flop 678hhh leaving me one out the 9h which never materializes. After that I go cards dead but I chip up to ~16k when the biggest pot pops up. Dude I had played with before in the week and I are in the blinds. Blinds are 600/1200/100a and he open raises to 3500 from the SB. I elect to call Q5dd from BB and figure why no play a huge pot with this shit hand...lol. No really I playing here since I have position throughout the hand and can really out play him after the flop. Well I flop the world on 9TJ with two diamonds. I will wager all my remaining chips here every single time. He donk bets 4k and I think and think and think and decide to jst ship it in. I win with a Q (most likely) any diamond, any K or 8. The he is agonizing and I start telling him I flopped the world and I know I am ahead (I am even ahead of him if he has JT). Finally he calls off with 96...lol. I am over 3-2 favorite but of course I miss and am done. Oh well get in ahead and lose is how I do.

I then killed the cash 20-40 Omaha Hi/Lo again for nealy another $1k and packed it up around 3. Came home Friday on a rather bumpy flight which is not a lot of fun.

Very small chance I may return for Main Event in early July if I win a seat on line.

Better Results

On Tuesday i woke up and went to the Venetian for their Deep Stack $340 rather than play the WSOP $1500. Just felt like I needed a break from the Rio. So I got there and got in abt 12:15. My initial table was ok with a few weak spots in the bunch. There were 2 very aggressive internet players, however. Not much happened for me until the 50/100 level (2nd level). UTG was an aggressive young internet player and he raised to 300. I flat called the cut off with A2 of spades and we were heads up. I like to play hands like this in position particularly against an early position raiser. Typically their hands are stronger since they are raising in early position and makes it harder for them to get away from them. Anyway flop comes A2T. He leads at pot for 600. I think for a while and reraise to 1700. He then min-reraises to 3000. I flat call because his hand is pretty much face up as AK. Basically any non king or ten turn card and we are probably getting it in. Turn, of course, is the T counterfeiting my 2 pair. Action goes check-check. River was a blank and he bets 1250 and I fold face up and tell him was lucky and his AK is now good. He shows me AK.

Stack continues to drift down to abt 5000 when I 3 bet all in at new table with blinds at 1/200/25ante. Action in front was raise to 600, 2 callers and I wake up with AQ and ship it. Original raiser calls with 99 and I actually won a coin flip. Got me up to abt 11k. Little later I win another all in at 150/300/25with QQ vs. AK and all of the sudden I am pretty deep stacked with 22k or so. Table was pretty weak tight and I was raising and 3 betting a good bit preflop and got my stack up to about 26k before losing a few medium pots and drifting down to 20k. Then big hand of the tournament came up at 3/600/75a. I raise to 1800 under the gun holding AKsuited. Terrible female player shoves all in for 12.5k. Folds back to me and I call to see AJ offsuit. Flop comes JTx. Here we go again! urn is a K...bingo! River is a Q for a chopped pot. That was a gay river card 4 sho!! Instead of having over 30k in chips I am stuck at 20k +/- still. Her play is basically ell-oh-fucking-ell. Then she has the nerve to tell me "I thought you might have that". Ma'am if that is true "Why the fuck are you shoving over an UTG raiser with AJ?"

ANyway once that happens I go card dead and basically can't win shit and am getting blinded down. Finally at 4/800/100 I am down to about 14k in chips and am looking for a good reshove spot. this is a play where a late position player raises then I can shove over him with any hand basically but more likely a hand that flops well. Broadway cards, suited connecters, etc. Finally I get my spot. Button raises to 2400. I wake up with QTdd and shove over him with abt 14k. BB then tanks. Uh oh. He is a good internet player and I'm sure knows exactly what my play is. He finally reshoves for like 30k to isolate and button folds. BB has 88 and off we go the races for a big loss for Bri-Bri. Oh well. Gotta win races to win poker tournaments. So out at abt 175th of original 750ish.

With that bustout they were starting a nightly 2nd chance for $125 and I just jumped in for shits and giggles. Wow was the play bad. Totally full of weak tight donkeys who couldn't wait to get all fo their money in with one pair hands and AT preflop...lol. First hand I played I flopped a set of 5s and value towned this old man who kept commenting how he knew I only had AK on every street and that he was a soul reader...blah blah blah. Finally I shoved the river to look weak and he caled with pocket 7s on a 5TJ33 board. Good thing is that this donkey kept busting the other idiots out so he kept getting more chips to donk off to me. Little later I flopped a 9-K str8 and value towned him every street again so he could show a pair of kings. These guys were hysterically bad. That put me up over 25k in chips with abt 75 remaining. Blinds got silly and players were busting out left and right. With 5 tables left I got moved to find a new table of donks (though there were 2 solid players there). I slowly kept building chips up to abt 60k when the big hand came up. We were down to 30 players and 27 cashed or so with blinds at 1500/3000/500. I raised the button with AK suited to 8k (I had been raisng basically every other hand and they had all but surrendered). SB thought for a while and shoved all in for abt 80k, covering me. I thought for a few minutes and new he wouldn't do this with KK or AA so lets go. I call to see 55. Good aggressive play by him if I am raising as much as I am. Well I win the race and am now the chip leader with over 120k. I burst the bubble by shoving every hand all in to pick up the ~9500 in chips in the middle and finally getting called by AT. I had A6 and spiked a 6 on the turn. Stack up over 200k at this point. Once the bubble burst I tightened up again and played solid while the short stacks went all in with each other over and over again.

Big hand popped up again when I raised 77 UTG at 4/8000/1000a to 22,000. SHort stack shoved for 34k. Button then agonizes and calls 34k. Unfortunalely I can't reraise since the shove was not a complete raise. Button has to have 2 broadway cards here or medium pair. Flop comes T34. No way that hit him like ever if he is a decent player. With over 110k in the pot and with him only having 50k behind, I shove. He calls with AT...HE HAW HEEEE HAW. Calls off half his stack with AT. Very good sir. Turn is a blank but the river is a gorgeous black 7! Bust him out and have over 250k at this point. Finally a player busts and we are at the final table.

Here I decided to play a bit tighter and wait for my spot. Pay range was 500 for 10th all the way up to $7,700 for 1st. There were 2 or 3 players basically telling us that they were trying to move up the pay scale. So I chose to attack them when they were in the blinds. Unfortunately, I raised to 55k at 10000/20000/4000a with QTdd on one of their BB and he reraise all in for like 30k more. I have to call and tell him his AA is pretty money he laughs and shows AA. I hit a T on flop and brick off and am down to 120k or so. Go through the blinds and am suddenly one of the shortstacks. Basically looking for a good spot to ship and didn't get any. Unfortunately the table captain big stack was directly on my left so I couldn't raise him very light. Finally I had A5 and shoved. Smaller stack 2 to my left called blind and spiked a T for most of the pot. Down to 50k. Last hand was 15k/30k/5ka and I am in small blind. I shove blind for 55k or so and big stackcalls. I let the board play out and squeeze....23 off...lol. He has A2 and wins. Out in 6th for ~1k. So close again.

Today I woke up and had no interest in tournaments so I just played cash games all day for a ~$500 profit. Tomorrow I will be playing late in the Venetian PLO $550. Looking forward to that. then back home on Friday. Hopefully PLO will be the ticket to a deep run.

Not a great start to the WSOP

So I have not been running well at all. Whether cash games or tournaments I keep finding myself in these ugly sopts having to make tough decisions for a lot of chips. Having a straight with a flush on board, having overpairs to the board, etc. Just been very frustrating. Here is a quick rundown.

550 Omaha H/L @ Venetian

My first real tournament out here and got off to a good start. Ran my initial 10k stack up to about 15k in 2 levels. that is pretty hard to do in a limit tournament. Then I fluctuated between 14k and 22k forever. One interesting hand.

Me ~16k, Old Man to my right ~4k. I hold A2KJ with a suited A spades. Flop comes 67Q with 2 hearts. There is a bet, Old Man calls, and I call on button. Turn is a 9 putting out 2 spades. Gives me Nut low draw, gutshot draw to nut str8 and nut spade draw. Initial better checks, Old man bets 1200, I call and other dude folds. River is a K hearts. Old Man checks and opens his hand to me. He has QQQ. I can't win if I don't bet. I bet 1200. He is like "I thought you checked". "No sir" I say. Floor comes over and Old Man gets irate. Old Man is like "I thought he was checking so I showed my hand?" Floor says I have right to make my action. So I have nothing but missed draws. There is 6600 in the pot and I can't win without betting. He thinks for a long time and is like "Well if you bet after seeing my hand you must at least have the str8" and folds. I say no I had a baby flush...lol. Folded with 1600 chips behind.

Anyway continue on to the final 2 tables with some decent run of cards up to abt 60k at 2 a.m. Monday morning. Have to come back at 4 p.m. on Monday with 20 players. 18 get paid from the original ~180ish. I am probably 11 or 12 in chips but the blinds are high. If I don't get some cards early I am in trouble.

Come back and I am completely card dead early. there is one pro at the table who is raising virtually every hand (as he should be) on the bubble. He is to my left so I can't really do much. I blind off abt 20k in 2 orbits when we finally burst the bubble. I then get moved and first hand in I have A356 with 2 hearts. I raise it up and only BB calls. Flop comes 882 with 2 hearts. BB leads for 6k, I raise to 12k and he reraises to 18k. So I stick it all in to see. KK8T no hearts. Turn J, river T hearts. That helped! Back up around 60k. Same guy raises my BB and I call with KJ9T single suited. Obviously flop comes all low and I have to fold. Blind off a little more and go card dead again. Finally I am down to ~30k at 6/12,000. I am in late position and am dealt. A35Q with A3 of hearts. I decide that if I am going to go deep in this thing I need to build a big pot. So I limp 6k whats normally a raising hand. Button calls and both blinds call. Flop QJ5 rainbow. That's pretty good! SB leads out, BB folds and I decide SB likes his hand so lets build this baby now with 2 pair. I raise to 12k and only SB calls. Turn is just so bad, another J. He leads again for 12k this time and I am sick. There is now 56k in pot and I only have abt. 15k behind. I can't find teh fold button and put it in. Obv he has some random bullshit hand with J5 and I miss my Q. This is the risk I have when trying to build a pot. If I raise he folds in SB and I pick up 9k in chips uncontested. Not sure what the right play is there honestly. Anyway out in 15th for yet another bullshit min cash of like $900. So tired of doing that.

Came back to the Rio and played the nightly tournament. Was going along ok when i was dealt TT on button (I have abt my original stack of 5k) UTG player makes it 600 at 1/200 and I call. Flop comes 952 with 2 clubs. He fires 1500 and I call. Still might have Ak here. Turn pairs the board. And he ships all in. WTF yet another ugly spot for Bri Bri. He has me covered so I have to call all in. Think and think and cannot find a hand that I can possibly beat other than maybe AK of clubs I guess. Finally i fold TT face up and he shows me QQ. But lost almost half my stack there. I grind it back to 4k when funny one happens. A seemingly decent player is in BB. I am UTG and am dealt AA. Raise to 600. BB calls. Flop Q57 rainbow. He checks I bet 1k and he ships all in. I call expecting to see a set or some sort of 68 hand (maybe AQ, KQ I guess as well) and I see Q8...lol. Turn 6 oh boy here we go again...Must be time for Bri Bri to get donkstacked. River is a blank and I bust the goof and nearly double up. I again go card dead for 2 or 3 levels. Finally, I am back down to 5k at 3/600/75. UTG is short (maybe 3k at most) he ships it in. I am on button and folds around to me. I squeeze KT suited and am pretty sure I am ahead of UTG, So I ship to isolate on him. BB then starts bitching and moaning and I now know he has woken up with something here. Most likely TT-QQ. KK or AA he is snap calling. Probably AK as well. He finally makes the call and tables QQ. I miss and am out. I run good.

2/5 cash I built my 400 stack up to abt 800 pretty quickly. Then drifted downward. Finally I raise AQsuited to 40 (there was a straddle of 10). My immediate left calls. Flop KKJ. Check check. Turn rag. Check Check. River T. Check he bets $100. God this is so gross. I river nut str8 and he probably has a boat. I call to see TT. Drops me down to ~350 and I pack it up for the night. Can't stand it.

Because I am running so bad I think I may skip the WSOP 1500 today and just play the Venetian 550 NLHE. The field is probably 600 vs. 1600+ with better structures and more than double the chips stacks. Will decide here in the next few mins.

Safely in Vegas

Got in yesterday afternoon and proceeded to play a lot of cash games last night. Did not play the $1k Main Event satellite I was planning on playing.

Was up about 1k in 2/5 No-Limit and shouldn't have gotten up. Went to play some satellites instead. Played 2 $275 No_limit sats and 1 $275 PLO sat and bricked off in all three. Then went back to play 20/40 Omaha Hi-Lo and ran like absolute death. Down abt 600 in that so I am down ~500 to start the trip. Hopefully that is as bad as I will run.

Key hands:

2/5 NLHE-Called 15 on button with Kh4d...lol. Flop comes 3 hearts J high. BB was weak player led for 40 into pot of ~60. I flat on button planning to steal turn. Turn Ac. He donk bets 80 and I raise to 220. He quickly folds. I show Kh.

2/5 NLHE-Raise 22 in cutoff. Button calls. 2 more callers. Flop comes Gin A2x rainbow. I lead for 50 into 60+ pot. Button calls. She ALWAYS has an A here and I pretty sure she will put it all in on turn. Turn x. I check she puts it in for ~150 I call to see AJ.

2/5 NLHE-This is a funny one...Raise to 15 with QJss. Flop comes J8x. Checks to me on button. I bet 35 into 3 way pot and get 1 caller. Turn is Q. I go check check. River is blank. She checks. I bet 80. She insta calls and says I have a read on you sir. and turns over 99... lol. I say "was your read that I have top 2??" Nice pot.

$275 PLO sat. 25/50. I somehow fold middle set in previous hand. and am left with ~900 of original 1500. Next hand. Action goes. Limp, limp, raise to 175. Call call and on me. Too much in there and I ship QQJT double suited. So I ship and big stack in BB calls with AAxx and holds. Blah!!

$275 NLHE sat..50/100 blinds. Bad early spewy player raises to 300 I call with 1800 behind on button with T9hh. Flop comes HUGEEEEEEEEEEE JQ with 2 hearts. She leades for 400 I raise all in. SB calls...ewwww. He has 333 and obviously I brick off turn and river.

Oh well...off to Venetian for Omaha Hi-Lo at 4 p.m. Just run a little better please.

Close but no cigar..

My family was at the beach this weekend so I played a full menu of tournaments over the weekend including the two Sunday majors on Tilt and Stars. I won like 6 seats for the Full Tilt 750k and I think 3 or 4 for the Stars Sunday Million so I was way ahead before I even started.

Had deep runs in two events and "almosts" in 3 others. First, I bubbled both the two majors mentioned above. On Tilt I was sort of nursing a short stack for a while and inside of 100 before the cash I got TT all in pre flop and lost to A# when the monkey flopped an A. On Stars I lost a flip when I got my 55 in vs KT and lost.

I did final table the Pot Limit HA (Holdem/Omaha) event on Saturday night for ~$400. Don't really remember any exciting hands but was pretty much at or near the chip lead from 30 people left until I eventually busted in 4th.

I also had a lot of chips in the Full Tilt 40k (69+6 entry) on Saturday night. 63 cashed and with 70 or so left I got pretty aggressive. I was probably average stack and in the SB when a late position player raised to like 6k (blinds were 1/2000/200a). I reraised to 17.5k with T8suited. He jammed all in and I had to call 20k more and he showed KK. Fuck me. Get out of line once and he has the goods. Flopped a T but didn't improve and I am out. High risk play but I need to get chips and slipping in the money for a $125 cash is worthless to me when top 3 all get $5k+.

Last night I went deep in the Stars 40k guarantee (27.50 entry). I got to the final 2 tables from the original 1500+ players. There were a lot of big hands including one where I cracked AA with my 33 with abt 40 left. But at the final 2 I had abt 75k at 3/6000/500a on the button. The cutoff was a big stack and playing uber aggressive. He open shoves ~300k and I have AJ suited. Based on his play I am pretty sure I am good here so with 12.5BB left I need to take this opportunity to get chips. So I call and he tables 67suited. SO far so good. Flop 7xx, very bad. Turn J, VERY VERY Good. River 6, mind blowingly fucking bad. 5.5 hrs of grinding to cash for ~200 when first pays ~7k.

I also had deepish runs in the Tilt 40k (same as above) and the $11 cubed on Stars last night for medium type cashes.

BUt I keep getting very deep and sooner or later I should win some of those big pots. NOw maybe the winners will be in Vegas?? We can hope. 5 days and counting.

Big Comeback-Chip and a Chair!!

The other night I was goofing around watching TV with the wife when I remembered that every Monday is the $5k guarantee $75 Omaha Hi-Lo (limit) on Full Tilt at 8:45. So it was like 8:40 and I thought it would be good to play since I don't get a chance to play a lot of tournament limit Hi-Lo (mostly play pot limit on-line). So I jumped in and here we go...

Was basically pretty stagnant for the first 45 mins or so and then all of the sudden I got a good rush of cards and picked up a lot of chips right before the first break. Was up around 6k (starting stack=3k) and actually ran that up to around 9k at one point. Then I lost two huge pots in a row at 200/400. In the first I A3JT in the BB and there were 3 or 4 limpers. I checked and flop came JT4 rainbow. I led and got raised by a monkey. I reraised and he called. Turn was a 6d putting a four flush out there. I again led. Monkey raised, I reraised and he capped. River was probably the worst card in the deck, 9d. Any low and I have a good shot at low. As it is I now can not beat a flush and a straight that just got there. Really not much I can beat so I have to check call. Next hand I lost in a similar fashion and all of the sudden I was down to 126 chips. Less than the 200BB. Not good. So I was basically ready to stick it in with any A-low hand.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4317961

SO that was a start. Couple hands later I stuck it in with trash and low and behold...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4317967

Then I got lucky...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4317970

Couple hands later this guy makes a strange fold...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4317982

Next I pushed off the villain with a pretty weak holding on the turn...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4317998

Finally I had a beautiful spike on the turn...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4318005

Another good one a few mins later for 3/4 of the pot...

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4318011

So now we have over 7k in chips and can play a bit. I ran that up to 22k pretty quickly and with ~30 left I was actally top 5 in chips where I would stay for the rest of the tournament. I was able to abuse the cash bubble pretty aggressively (12 paid of the original ~110 players) and picked upa lot of chips at the expense of the medium stacks.

At the final table there was one player who was a psycho aggressive bomber and was basically just drawing out with his shit holdings. But he was busting people left and right. Before long we were 3 handed and the one dude had about 2/3 of the chips in play (preston0505). I had no experience with him but it seemed like he was just a kamakaze that was getting pretty lucky. If either I or the other guy (USVI_Jimbo) could scoop him once we would be right back in it. Unfortunately Jimbo was the one who scooped him and I was pretty even in chips with preston when the final blow came.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?4318035

So my play here looks pretty spewy but I was up against a real maniac. Sometimes against guys like that you have to go with your hand and keep betting. The turn and river are just brutal cards for me. The turn particularly kills my shot at the low and puts so many scare cards out on the river. Suddenly a flush draw, multiple str8 draws and better lows are now in play. But 3 handed this deep against a spewtard I need to play my 2 pair and stronger hands like this. Obviously the flush hits the river and I get scooped. In this case he was stronger than I had expected but even monkeys have a hand some time. That left me severely crippled obviously and I was out a few hands later in 3rd for approx. $1k. Not bad considering I was all the way down to 126 chips at one point.

Also playing a good bit of Hi-Lo cash games on line. That same night as above I won abt $1,500 playing 10/20 and 15/30 limit Hi-lo. Did give about $600 of that back over the last few nights however as the winds of variance starting blowing against me. But I am ready for Vegas and the last 4-6 weeks have been a big bankroll boost. I think I am ready for a nice score if the cards are kind.

WSOP Coming Up

So I have a busy few weeks coming up before I leave for the WSOP on June 13th. This weekend is Memorial Day weekend, of course, and the whole family always goes to the beach. The following weekend is my brother's wedding in Key West so we will be down there for a long weekend. Once I get back from Key West I will be getting ready for Vegas. I leave June 13th and will be there for a whole week. I am actually only going to play 1 or 2 WSOP events. The Venetian Deep Stack is a much better structured event with deeper stacks, a nicer room (Venetian is the nicest room on the strip), and lower buy-ins.

With that in mind, here is my tentative schedule:

Sat, June 13th $1,000 WSOP Main Event Mega Satellite (1 in 10 gets $10k seat in ME)
Sun, June 14th $550 Venetian Deep Stack Omaha Hi-Lo
Mon, June 15th If I satellite into the $2k WSOP I will play that, otherwise the $550 NLHE @ Venetian
Tues, June 16th $1,500 NLHE WSOP
Wed, June 17th $330 NLHE Venetian
Thur, June 18th $550 PLO Venetian or $2,000 NLHE WSOP (depending on how week is going)

Of course, I will be playing a lot of cash games, satellites, etc. and will keep this up to date while I am out there. Getting excited and playing really well so who knows. ONE FUCKING TIME PLEASE!!!!

FTOPS just ended but I really didn't play much at all. I thik I played 2 FTOPS events total. I had a lot going on with family, golf, brother's bachelor party, etc and just didn't feel like committing the time to the events. I did play a lot of satellites leading up to the various events and had mixed success. At the beginning of the satellite period I ran like absolute death and was down ~$3k. I must have lost AK to AQ a dozen times and/or had big pairs lose to flopped sets repeatedly. Got pretty insane for a while. The one that I vividly remember was a satellite for a $216 NLHE tournament and I got KK all in pre-flop against 78suited at 25/50 blinds and the monkey flops 2 pair. Very frustrating. But variance is a bitch in these things so the only thing to do is play through it. Towards the end of the FTOPS I got back on the right side of variance and had eaten through most of the previous losses. In the end, I think I was down less than $300. SO that was a good comeback.

On PokerStars I can't seem to get past Step 5 in their Steps program. I have bubbled the Step 6 ticket 4 times and gotten replay tickets for Step 5. Just can't seem to win a key flip, etc. in these at the end. Will probably keep trying to go all the way through Step 6 as the WSOP package they offer is really sweet and includes spending money, free room at the Palms for a week during the Main Event, immediate upgrade to Supernova status, etc.

Live poker has been going MUCH, MUCH better. Had a big night in a home game last Thursday where I was up more than $1k. People kept playing Omaha Hi-LO with me and every time I put all my chips in the middle I had the nuts. That is probably my best game and most people just don't play it well at all. People seem to think it is a gambling game but in reality it is much less of a gambling game than Omaha High. The good players in Hi-Lo tend to rise to the top much more quickly than in Omaha High. Too many guys call off all of their chips trying to win half the pot. The key to the game is to play hands that give you a chance to scoop the whole pot. As Scott Clements (one of the best Omaha Hi-Lo players in the world) would say, you need "Triple Nut Hands" to win. Triple Nut Hands are hands that can win three different ways. For example, AK23 (A suited) is a powerhouse. You can make the nut flush for nut high (nut #1), you can make nut str8 (T-A) for nut high (nut #2) and you can make a wheel (A-5) for nut low and very strong high hand (nut #3). Now that doesn't mean you can only play Triple Nut Hands but those are obviously the most powerful hands and can be played from any position. Too many players start raising and playing any A2xx hand much too fast. That is bad as say A28T unsuited is a really weak high hand and you will have a very difficult time making the nuts both ways. More often, you will end up getting quartered (winning 1/2 of the low hand) when someone else holds A2.

Not a lot going on in golf right now. Have some guest days and client golf coming up but nothing competitve for a good while. I did not qualify for the MD Am which is very frustrating. I played on a terrible golf course with terrible greens and shot 80. I have been playing really well and this course's greens were just god awful and I didn't adjust well at all. Needed to shoot 78 to get in but with 39 putts that is tough to do. This will be the first time I am not in the field since 2003 and I think only the 3rd time in the last 15 years or so. Sucks but not much I can do. I have worked with my teacher a few times already this season and am really driving the ball well. That is typically the issue for me early in the season and I seem to have found my swing already this year. I am really going to zero in on the 2 USGA qualifiers this year (Amateur and Mid-Am) and have my game super sharp for those. Really want to get to the "Next level" in my game and that means I need to tighten every part of the game (driving, irons, pitching, putting, etc.)