Saturday, January 30, 2010

Event 1...Day 2

Day 2 was a bit of blur since we ended up playing for 18 hours+/- straight. But here is the rundown as best I could recall.

Found my seat and we were to be one of the first tables broken so really wouldn't be there very long. Really didn't play an pots and drifted down to ~80k when I got it all in for the first time in the tournament. I opened QQ in EP at 3/6k/500a to 16k. Button shoves and I call to see AK. Flop comes all rag clubs and he has A clubs. OH boy here we go again...But I somehow fade an AK or club and double up to ~170k. Went pretty much sideways for the next hour or so until our table was broken. At the new table I was able to chip up rather easily until I was over 200k when we were broken again. THis time I drew Table 1 which meant I would be there basically all day as Table 1 was to be the final table. SO basically as long as I was in the tournament I would be there.

Two hands in at Table 1 I have ~260k and raise AQ in EP (I believe blinds were 5/10k/1ka) to 22k. Button flat calls and BB shoves about 130k. I reshove to fold out the button and get heads up and low and behold I win a flip when a Q flops. That gets me up to over 300k and in really good shape. I stuck at ~300k for a long long time finally beginning to chip up to nearly 450k between the 12k/24k/3ka level and the 15/30k/3ka level. Then a fun one came up at this level.

Me-Button ~450k
Cutoff-Young aggressive Internet player (YIP) ~750k Opens to 80k
I wake up with AA and reraise to 210k. What makes this interesting is that abt 5 or 6 hands earlier he had opened and I raised the same amount with a trashy hand like J9suited or something (he was opening a lot of pots). In that hand we had a pretty good dialogue that went something like this:

YIP: "How big are you here?"
Me: "I'm a 40 year old guy what do you think?" (Most kids think we all play like overly tight nits and can't play as well or as aggressively as they do)
Table laughs
YIP (laughing): "But you don't play like a 40 year old"
Me: "Well I did JUST turn 40 so maybe I play more like a 39 year old..."

Finally he folds. So back to the AA hand. THis is perfect as he probably thinks I am picking on him and BAM I wake up with the motherload. HE tanks for a while...cuts out his chips and looks like he is going to ship but folds. Says he folded TT but not sure I believe it given the table dynamics. (Stack up over 550k). I chipped up to around 900k without any real showdowns or anything when we redraw tables with 27 left. I am below average in chips but not yet on life support shape with 13BB left. But then a good one happens at 30/60k/5ka. Player just moved to our table opens for 210k. I shove AKs from the button having roughly the same stack as him. He asks if I would jam AK here and I say "yes my range here is QQ-AA and AK" kinda figuring at this point based on the chatter that he has JJ or TT. He tanks for quite some time then asks if I would jam AQ and I say "probably not since I don't know how you play sir". ANyway I am totally comfortable here at this point I know he has TT-QQ. Finally he folds JJ face up and gets up to clear his head. Tough fold for sure. But that gets me up over $1.2M which was just about average.

I stayed at this approx. chip count until we were 12 handed when the big fella finally had a littel suckout deep in tournament. I was at 1.2M with blinds of 60k/120k/10ka when I shoved the button with K8cc. This is fairly standard with 10BB on the button. SB tanks and finally calls with K9hh...yuck. Well flop comes 864, turn 8 and my man is drawing dead though he did spike a 9 on the turn. Now all of the sudden I am up over 2.5M and can play some poker. 6 hands later short stack shoves for +/- 1M and I wake up with KK and hold against his JJ getting me up around 4.0M. I raise a few hands and am up to 4.8M when a bust out occurs and we are at the final table. Now this is getting FUN!

Here are the seat assignments and my reads of the players at the final table:

Seat 1-Brian Lemke 5M Well known internet player who won a WSOP bracelet this summer. Overly aggresive at this table in my opinion but obv a good player.
Seat 2-YIP described earlier with 1.5M Good player but short obviously
Seat 3-Short stack older dude. I busted him in one of the first few hands when he shoved like 900k into my BB and I called with A9. Him KQ. He flops a Q but I turn an A.
Seat 4-Older guy who called my K8 shove Stack=3.4M. Likes marginal hands like KJ, etc. Suspect he will spew if the cards are not in his favor.
Seat 5-Another old dude 2.5M No reads yet though he had 2 massive suckouts with 2 tables left just to make it.
Seat 6-Young kid 4.7M Doesn't play like most of the young internet kids but more like live players. Flat calls out of position with shitty hands like KT or AT and overvalues top pair.
Seat 7-Older Asian dude with 1.7M. Had played with him a bunch on day 1 and not impressed. Told me how he folds AK a lot and would rather play 44 all in preflop. Makes a lot of weird raise folds. Unless he gets smacked with cards he is no factor.
Seat 8-Probably the most accomplished player at the FT. Over 600k in career cashes and many, many deep runs and final tables. Very well known internet player as well. HAs 7.5M or so.
Seat 9-Good middle aged player. Had been at his table for quite some time. Probably about same stack as me ~4.5-5M.
Seat 10-Yours truly hoping to avoid another deep run flameout.

So as I mentioned I busted Seat 3 to get us 9 handed. Very next hand, seat 2 shoves and I reshove the SB with AA. Seat 2 shows J4cc and gayness ensues. Board runs out 782T9 and he rivers the str8. Oh this is pretty standard now. Drops me back around 4.5M.

At this point the only active players are ME and Seat 1 as we are both opening some pots and taking down the blinds an antes. Then at 150/300k/25ka seat 1 open shoves 6M or so and BB wakes up with AA. Oops. SO seat 1 is crippled. Few hands later he shoves his remaining 1.2M and I call in BB with A7cc and actually make a flush to beat his 33. Stack up over 6M again.

Then play gets excruciatingly slow and tight as there is a super short stack that is close to busting. As each pay jump is worth $5k no one wants to make a retarded play and bust out before this shorty. Finally he literally blinds down and is felted. This must have been the signal to start firing because it got ridiculous right away. 2nd hand after the bustout Seat 7 open shoves 7M at 300/600k/75k. Seat 8 snap calls. I fold. Seat 2 then tanks with what I assume is TT or JJ. He shows me JJ and folds. BB wakes up with AA and calls obv. Hands:

Seat 4 AA
Seat 7 A3suited
Seat 8 KK

AA holds and Seats 7 and 8 are eliminated. Seat 4 all of the sudden has like 21M in chips. I have abt 7.5M and the other 3 guys all have between 3 and 4M. But blinds are 300/600k/75ka so not much room for play. We start talking deal. Basically they are offering me between 2nd and 3rd place money to take the deal. The swing between 1st and 5th is like 70k so it is a very real difference. I end up negotiating abt 10k more then the other 3 shorties if I sign for first place. I run the numbers on my phone app and realize that I am getting about 7.5k more than my chip equity and big stack is getting about 7k less than his chip equity. So I agree to sign for first since I know how to handle the taxes and minimize the effect of this "phantom" income. We "play" one more hand and I actually make a flush with 29offsuit...lol. They all muck and I am declared the "winner".

I would have loved to have played it out because I really felt I had an edge over the whole table. But with the stacks being so shallow it just didn't make any sense. Couple that with the extra equity I was getting and I was cool with how it all played out.

So that is the story. Was a fun ride but exhausting. We played nearly 33 hours of poker over a 42 hour period and didn't finish until nearly 6 a.m. Friday morning after starting at Noon on Thursday.

Now I am back in Baltimore living the dream as a tax guy waiting for the inevitable onslaught of paper, forms, etc. Oh well...as luck would have it Borgata Spring Series starts on April 15th this year. What timing!

Monday, January 25, 2010

Finally...Finally....Finally...Day 1

Well if you are reading this most likely you are in the loop already and know that I chopped Event 1 at the Borgata Winter Open (BWO) for my biggest score to date by a lot... a whole lot. As always it is a blast getting deep in any event and this event particular was a grind as it had ~1,560 players to start with deep stack format. So here is a review of this event.

Drove up Wed. morning to find a line just to get up into the conference room area where the tournament series is staged. Fortunately, I had pre-registered on-line so once I got up stairs I only had to wait in a line of 5 rather than the general line with 250-300 people in it. THis was going to be a huge field. When it finally SOLD OUT over 1,500 runners had showed up for the second largest poker tournament ever in AC. The other larger being the same event 2 years prior at Borgata.

Anyway I was actually sent down to the poker room for the overflow play and was on one of the outer tables. Sat down and quickly figured that this table was like every other early table in a big field tournament...full of a mix of weak passive players and uber aggressive spewtards.

Seat 1 Older guy...loved to splash around and make quasi retarded bluffs. I suspect he will hand me some chips later

Seat 2 Guy sort of looked like me which is to say husky but very handsome...lol. Turned out to be pretty bad though I donked off some chips to him later.

Seat 3 Middle aged Philly looking guy. Tough to figure him out. Chomping on a stogie and limp calling raises. Not very good but seemed to have a better awareness for opponents hands than seat 1.

Seat 4 Nonfactor

Seat 5 Overly aggressive NYC asian kid. Had no ability to back off accelerator.

Seat 6 Middle aged dude just down from northern NJ with a few buddies. Overly excited just to be playing. Prattling in my ear but nice guy. I'm just a prick.

Seat 7 Yours truly sporting big mutha phucking earphones, Great 8 sweatshirt and 2 day beard. We all know I play mediocre :)

Seat 8 Guy from Baltimore that apparently I had played with before at Steve Danemman's house. Played uber tight. I'll fold to this cat if he gets too frisky.

Seat 9 AC regular who is not very good. Splashes a lot of pots then makes odd calls and odd folds. Kind of a douche who likes to tell people how well he plays, blah, blah, blah...

Seat 10 Older guy that for whatever reason ended up in my crosshairs a lot. Seemed really weak and for whatever reason I seemed to be bullying him around quite a bit. Nothing personal sir!

Table was full of limpers in first couple of levels and I sort of drifted down to 22k from original 25k. I then lost a pretty decent pot with JJ on a T high flop at 50/100 and was now down to 19k after I finally found a fold on the river.

Bit later I played a big pot with Seat 2. I have now officially pegged this cat as a retard but, of course, I play this hand much worse than him. I raise AK UTG at 100/200 to 550 and find 2 callers in Seat 2 and BB. Flop comes AT9. I lead for 1100 into ~1600 pot and Seat 2 raises to 2600. I think for a bit and decide for some idiotic reason to re-raise to 5600. This is clearly god awful but hey what can I say. He then ships and finally realize I am beat and fold. Well played Bri-Bri. Well played indeed. He is clearly not folding and I can't beat much of his range. Maybe AQ (which he would raise BTW). I should have called the re-raise then check folded a non K turn. Stack down around 12k.

Couple hands later, I call a raise to 600 with 78cc on the button. BB is the older dude in seat 10 and he comes along. I have 3 bet and reraised him probably 6 times at this point so time to let up a bit on the guy. FLop comes 843 2 spades. SB bets 1200 and I call (original raiser folds). Turn is the 8 of spades. SB bets 2000 and I call. River is pretty bad 6h. He bets 4k and I tank fold. Can't imagine a single hand I can beat. Can't beat any 8 really (just 85 or 82 which are almost never in his range). Can't beat 33, 44, 66, any 2 spades or 57. That leaves over pairs as the only hands I can beat and I don't know I don't think that is where he was. So I fold face-up to let him know that I am not running him over. He shows me 57. Could have raised turn but guess I suck. Stack down around 8k.

I chip up a bit and get back to around 12k still at 100/200 when a good one comes up. 3 limps around to me and I limp along in late position with 89hh fully prepared to ship pre-flop against seat 9 or seat 1 if they try and steal. My hand plays pretty well even against an overpair. As I suspected Seat 1 raises to 1200. Folds to me and I ship. He tanks and folds saying he had AQ. Don't believe you can fold AQ sir I think to myself. Suspect he had total air. I show just to set the table up a bit. Stack back up over 14k.

Big fella then starts chipping up with no mercy. Raise preflop...continuation bet the flop...take it down. 3 bet retard in seat 1 with complete air he folds...take it down. All of the sudden I have 22k and haven't shown down a hand. Then a biggie pops up.

Aggressive asian kid (AAK) limps at 150/300/25a UTG+1. I limp 2 seats behind sporting 55 and we see a flop with the BB (pot ~1100). Flop Q95. AAK leads for 700 and I call. Turn is a 2. He bets 1400...big fella makes it 3500 and AAK calls. River is kinda bad...2. Makes it easier to see a boat but what you going to do. HE checks...I bet 6500 and he calls presumably with some sort of Q...maybe QJ or KQ probably not AQ though since he didn't raise pre flop. Stack ~33k.

Orbit or 2 later I get involved with old man in seat 1. I raise Daniel N's favorite hand in the cutoff-T7hh to 1100 at 200/400/50a. He essentially min-raises me to 2600 in the SB. I call because anytime I can play a chip spazz in position with deep stacks I am happy to do so. Flop comes KQ7 with 2 hearts. He checks and I check back since I don't want to be C/R off of this hand with bottom pair and flush draw. That flop appears to be in his range, though I suspect pocket 8s or 9s are just as likely. Turn is an offsuit 2. He fires 5k and I call knowing if I hit I am going to get a lot more chips. At this point I am not sure I want a T to appear as KQ is very much in his range with a retardation check on the flop. River is a 2h. He bets 5k and looks terrified. We are raising this river for sure. I finally settle on a smallish raise to 12k and he taks for quite some time and calls. Says he has KQ and if so he played every street dreadfully. Raising that hand pre-flop out of position with deep stacks against an aggressive donktard like me is terribad. Checking top 2 on a drawy board is probably worse and calling a river raise might be the worst of the 3. Anyway....Ship!!!! Stack ~55k now.

Get moved to a new table in the high limit room and am seated 2 to the left of a good aggressive asian dude that I had played a lot with when I final tabled that 250k event in October. First hand I play I am in sb with Q9off. Blinds are 300/600/75. 1 limper to asian dude who looks like he is about to fold and all of the sudden raises to 2k. Was weird I just sort of saw him make this move and knew he was weak. So I re-raise to 6200. He starts talking to me that he knows who I am, etc....I say I know who you are..and we are laughing because I think he knows that I am weak but knows that I know that he is weak. Anyway he folds. Stack ~59k.

Last hand at this table same Asian dude opens pot at 400/800/75a to 2200 and I call button with AJdd. Flop comes QT4 with 1 diamond. He bets 3k into 6k and I call. Turn is pretty much gin Kd. Gives me made str8 and nut flush draw. Sure hope I don't bust here...lol. He checks, I bet 5k and he calls. Please don't pair the board dealer!! River is a 9 and he check calls 8k and we are up to nearly 75k....and time for a new table again.

Right before dinner break I play a hand very poorly. I raise the button with KJs to 3600 and sb calls. Flop comes 89Q giving me a gutshot. He checks and I probably should bet this but he is pretty aggressive and I don't want to get C/R off a pretty good hand with potential. This is interesting. If I have AK, I c-bet here 100/100 times since I have no hand and no real draws. In this case I have a gutshot str8 draw in addition to my overcards. SO this is a good flop to check back. Turn is another 9 and he checks. So now he has taken no initiative...betting and checking back here are pretty close. I elect to bet 4.5k and he shoves like 16k. I have to fold obv. Not sure if checking or betting is correct on that turn. HE does show A9. Stack 65k.

Right after dinner I raise AA to 4200 at 8/1600/200a. BB calls. He is sort of a nerdy talkative kid from NYC. Doesn't seem very tricky. Flop is pretty good 773. He donks for 6k with ~35k behind. I just ship since he night call with an overpair here. He starts telling me he has 99 and doesn't know how he can fold. Finally the clock gets called and he folds 99, saying he "knows" I had AJ..."um sure sir I have AJ there like never...". Stack back up over 75k.

Steamrolled for a bit raising, 3 betting and c-betting every flop and got myself up to about 90k when the biggest hand of the night came up. A big russian dude 2 to my right limps at 800/1600/200a and I raise the cutoff with A4dd to 5500. I am raising here to gain position, punish the limpers and see if I can outplay this cat after the flop. He has shown a propensity to put a lot of chips in postflop with marginal hands and I want to be the recipient of said chips. He calls (pot ~12.5k). Flop AJ8..he checks I bet 7500 and he calls. At this point he likely has an A (most likely AT or A9) and I am behind or a flush draw. Turn was a brick 3. He checks again and I bet 12.5k. At this point I am bluffing as I don't think he calls me with worse. But he calls. River was a total brick...think 9d and he checks a third time. Now normally I have to beat here against like AT. A9 bets that river, AJ gets more chips in on the flop or the turn. This cat raises AQ or AK preflop. I am now chopping with A7 or A6 or A5. So I might be good here but I have no clue where this guy is and check back to see KJ. SHIP!!! Up over 100k now. Very odd hand.

I win a few and lose a few and finally we are done a bit before 2 with my stack at 110,500 which is the bottom half of the ~250 field remaining. But I still have a lot of play left as we are only at 2000/4000/500a going into day 2. Back tomorrow at noon.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Borgata WInter Open (BWO)

I leave next Wed for the BWO for about 4 days. I will be playing the following events:

Event 1 $400 NLHE
Event 2 $560 NLHE
Event 7 $400 Omaha 8 or B

I will also be playing a $400 Survivor tournament and trying to satellite into the $3500 Main Event. Pretty excited to get up there and give it a go based on my recent deep runs at the Borgata.

Online is still going reasonably well. I am still playing virtually exclusively PLO8 and Hi-Low tournaments. Have made 3 final tables in the last 2 weeks in the limited tournaments I do play but busted 6th, 3rd and 8th. The 8th came last night in the Full Tilt $75 $5k guarantee. As usual I just haven't run well at final tables.

I 3 bet an early position raiser with AA24 single suited (this is limit) and he capped (Limits 2k/4k so 19k in preflop with blinds). Flop comes 35J with 2 hearts. We cap again (35k in pot). Turn is a 9 hearts and I just call his bet (43k). River is a 5 and I reluctantly call to see A46K with 2 hearts. I knew I was beat on river but convinced myself that he had a hand similar to mine and missed as well in which case my Aces up would have been good. Plus can't fold with those crazy pot odds. He only has to be bluffing 1 time in 12 for the call by me to be correct. That took me from 30kish to abt 6k and I was out a few orbits later in 8th.

Frustrating but perhaps it will all come together in AC.