WSOP Part 1 Review

I was in Vegas beginning June 1 for a week of events.  I was scheduled to play a combination of WSOP and Venetian events ranging from $600-$1500 buy-ins.  Within about 48 hours (actually more like 36 hours), however, I had busted my first $1500 WSOP event, bricked 2 $275 satellites and ran horrendously bad in PLO cash games. All in all I found myself stuck nearly $5k and quickly changed my course of action by deciding to focus on the smaller buy-in events to limit my exposure while playing against much softer competition.  This proved to be a good decision as I dug out of the hole for a virtually break even trip.  Anyway, here is a quick synopsis of the events I played.

• WSOP Event 9-$1,500 Limit Omaha Hi-Low-Not much to say here.  Lost a massive pot right before dinner.  I had A22K with A2 hearts and K2 spades.  Flop was Q67 with 2 hearts and 1 spade.  Turn was T spades.  Needless to say a lot of chips went in on both flop and turn with my nut flush draw, nut low draw and K high flush draw.  River paired the board and I had to fold to 1 bet.  I also went from a pretty massive scoop to half of a pot with AQQ2 with Q787 board.  Put ton of bets in on this turn.  River was A and he gets half with A2Q4...FML.  Pretty frustrating though I had a pretty bad table as these things go with 2 former bracelet winners, a high stakes Borgata player, 2 online tournament wizards and another pretty solid older player.  Bottom line-can't go deep in these tournaments with repeated river bricks and I busted an hour or so before the end of Day 1 with about 300 remaining.
• Venetian Deep Stack-$600 NLHE Only made it to level 4 here and this is where I started to enter the Twilight Zone.  It was shortly after the first break a fairly splashy but seemingly ok-ish older dude opens the pot to 1300 at 150/300 and gets 1 call.  I 3 bet to 4500 with AhAs on the button (with 18k stack).  Only he calls.  Flop comes 9TJ all hearts.  Not the greatest flop ever but I have Ah so I am going with it.  He checks I bet 6k and he calls.  Turn is another 9.  He jams and I call my remaining 7,500.  He shows QQ (I don't recall if he had the Qh).  Obviously the river is an offsuit K and I am out losing to his straight.  
• Played the $235 Rio Daily Deepstack on Saturday and Sunday June 2 and 3.  Literally watched people light their cash on fire in this event as the play was just god awful.  Nothing interesting in these events as I never got decent sized stacks and ultimately lost in dumb spots.  Flopped first set of trip, got it in and was drawing stone dead.  Me 22 flop 872 with 87 of clubs.  Get it in vs. 77 and 23cc and out.  Next day grind my balls of for 6 or 7 hours only to shove 12 BB JJ into AA and out.  Such is tournament poker.
• On Monday 4th I skipped the $1,500 PLO (the whole point of going that week was to play that event and the $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low) due to a bad frame of mind.  Decided to go downtown to play.  Ended up in the Binion's $210 6 max NLHE.  I managed to grab a ton of chips early and then basically ran the table over.  For once, I ran well too and actually just kept pouring on the agression opening a lot of pots and 3 betting 2 players in particular mercilessly.  Played a really good hand against an aggro spew with 10 left.  He had been moved to the table and had been gifted a lot of chips.  Now he was playing like a maniac on the bubble.  We also had a bit of history in a spot where I called his river raise and he wanted to muck.  I had 2 pair and waited to see his cards since I called him.  He mucked then demanded to see my hand, blah, blah, blah...he was a douche.  Anyway in this hand...he opened UTG to 6k at 1,000/2,000/400a.  I 3 bet him to 15k with KK from the BB (I start with 150k and he covers me).  Flop was Q92 and I bet 16k.  He calls pretty quickly.  Turn is a 6.  My goal now is to get stacks in so I want to bet weakly to hopefully induce him to shove.  I finally decide on a 21k bet into the ~65k pot.  This looks weak and also makes it look to him like I might fold my remaining 100k if he shoves.  He tanked for like 6 mins and I just sat trying to look as uncomfortable as possible.  Finally he announced all-in, I snapped and he was drawing dead with total air.  That put me up over 300k and I cruised to the final table.  Once there I felt very confident that I was the best player left and had the best short stack game.  4 or 5 hours later I called a short stack's 12BB shove with QJs and beat his A4o to get all of the chips.  Wasn't a big tournament but a win is a win and got my head screwed on tighter for sure.

I'll follow with the last few tournaments in a second post.

I am currently in heavy negotiations with the wife about a return trip on July 5th for 5 or 6 days....lol.  Actually my wife is the best so just need to work out a few things and pretty sure I will be returning then for a few more events and possibly satellite into the WSOP ME.

Vegas Bound

Off tomorrow for Vegas/WSOP/Venetian and pretty excited to get going.  My schedule of events includes:

Friday $1,500 WSOP Limit Omaha 8
Sat $600 Venetian NLHE
Sun $1500 WSOP NLHE
Monday $1,500 WSOP PLO
Tues $600 Venetian Limit Omaha 8
Wed $1500 WSOP NLHE
Thursday $600 Venetian PLO

I may change a few things up and fully expect to make some day 2's etc which will change the schedule.  In any event, I 100% plan to play the 2 WSOP Omaha events (obviously given the above caveat). 

I actually had a coaching session the other evening with an online wizard.  He found some small leaks that had worked there way into my NLHE MTT game.  Always good to do a checkup every now and then.  He really didn't think I had developed any big or fundamental leaks just some items that require a bit of attention.  Good to hear that and it gives me a lot of confidence heading into the next week or so.

I will be posting some counts, interesting hands, etc. on Twitter so check it out. 

I haven't run very well since the WSOP-C.  I went to Borgata for PLO weekend and that was a disaster.  In the PLO8, I got to around 45-50 left (started with 110ish) when I opened AK36 double suited from the button.  SB who has played like zero non-nut hands then pots and I just don't feel like folding so I shovel and see AA2x.  That chopped me down to literally like 150 chips.  Ground that to abt 14k.  Then lost with flopped 2 pair and J hi flush draw to KKxx with K hi flush draw.

In the PLO I thought I was going deep.  18 cashed and with 30ish left I had a pretty good stack.  Unfortunately, I busted ~20th in a pretty dumb spot where I flopped top and bottom pair and open ended against top 2 pair and I bricked.

Cash games were insanely lol though I managed to grind out a smallish win in the NLHE games in spite of being on the wrong side of variance/coolers in some absurd spots.  The PLO games were a debacle, however as I ran really bad in 3 bet pots, etc.

Anyway, I think all that crap is out of my system and I am off for big things in Vegas!!

WSOP-C Philadelphia

Finished 2nd in the PLO/PLHE WSOP-C that ended yesterday at Harrah's Chester (Philadelphia).  All of this in spite of running rather poorly for most of Day 1.  Here are 2 hands that illustrate:

Playing PLO Blinds 300-600

I start hand with ~25k.  UTG raises to 1600 and gets 2 callers.  I wake up with AAJ9ss on button.  I can re-pot to ~9k but that may turn my hand face up.  I don't really care about that since I am getting nearly 40% of my stack in and can shove 100% of flops comfortably.  I also felt like there was a spew in SB who might squeeze a reasonably high % of the time.  He only had 10k and this would look like a great spot to do it.  But sadly he calls.  BB then raises to 7500.  UTG then calls (he was terrible but covered me).  Folds to me and I obv ship.  BB calls for his last 13k or so and UTG somehow folds...lol.  BB has 4789.  Flop 49x, turn T, river 4.  GG me.  down to less than 5k.

But I buck up and somehow get it back over 20k or so when this beauty comes up:

Playing PLHE Blinds 600-1200

SB is standard live reg-fish and he has about 15k left.  Folds to him, he completes and I check Q5dd.  I can raise here a lot but w/e.  Flop 355.  He bets pot, I re-pot and we get it in.  He has 46, turn 6, river 6 and I am under 7k again at 600-1200.

I get it all the way down to 3800 when I get a full double with AAxx in PLO and another with 99 vs. AK in PLHE.  Once we get on the bubble I go from ~30k to over 100k playing super aggro.  I 3b quite a bit and was opening probably 40% of pots.  As we got more shorthanded on the bubble I just kept the pressure on and really picked up a TON of chips without any showdowns. 

Finally at 3a.m. they made us bag up to come back yesterday at 2 with 5 players left.  So I had to scramble to find a room, toothbrush, etc.  Anyway we get back to play and the first hand I play:

Old shortstack opens for full pot (3-6k blinds so 21k open).  i put him in for ~50k with 77.  He has 66.  Flop 789, turn T river K.  So now I am down to ~110k.  I drift down to like 80k when I 3b the SB with AQ at 4-8k and get a fold.  Then I won a bunch and got to a peak of 250k.  Ari Engel (bodogari) had a TON of chips and was basically felting everyone.  The problem was that he had like 750k I had ~200k and the other 2 dudes had 50-75k.  So this is a bad spot for me from an ICM perspective.  Although I am playing to win I have to account for the $$$.  Finally he busted the other 2 and we got HU.  By now, though, my stack was down to abt 120k.  Second hand into HU play he opened and I shipped AJ97 with suited A.  He called with some random garbage Kxxx and rivered a K.  GG me.

So no ring for me but a nice cash pre-WSOP which helps the confidence and the bankroll.  Here are the results:

http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/results.asp?rr=5&grid=872&tid=11832&dayof=

Anyway speaking of WSOP, here is my intended schedule:

I sold 25% of my action already and intend to sell ~35% or so total.  So if you have any interest let me know. 

Also going to play PLO weekend at Borgata in a few weeks.  They are running a PLO8 tournaments on Saturday 18th and straight PLO on Sunday 19th so that will be fun and the cash games should be crazy too.

February was a good month....March rough start

So February was my biggest month since last June and my biggest month on-line since pre-Black Friday. I am especially pleased with on-line results since I am playing smaller games due to the uncertainty surrounding iPoker and my unwillingness to put much dough on the sites. Obviously both the cash games and the tournaments are over super small samples but I'll take it.

Cash...almost all PLO and PLO8...again small sample but only 3 down days is ok..amirite?

In addition to these results, I received $255 in rakeback and was up nearly $1,600 in live games. The live games were primarily the result of 1 massive night in a 1/2 PL mixed game where I believe I had one of my biggest winnings ever in terms of number of buy-ins won. All adds up to a nice $3,500+ month.

Then the calendar turned to March. Supposedly it comes in like a lion and I can confirm...

Sexy first 5k hands, eh? Anyway March better sure as fuck go out like a lamb.

I will be playing a limited schedule this month due to work getting chaotic. I am going to play a few of the Poker Maximus Series events on Merge. So far their fields have gotten pretty good numbers through the first handful of events. The reality is though that these events are still smaller than the nightly events I used to play pre-BF.

On the live front, I am going to play at least 1 PLO event at Delaware Park and maybe the Heads-Up event. The latter has a pretty shitty structure so I may skip. This series could be really, really good with a little better planning. I believe they need to up the buy-ins a bit and have a group of "Championship" events. There are 5 or 6 events that should be in any series with a bit higher buy-in (maybe $450 or $550). These would be:Main Event

• 6 max NLHE
• Heads Up
• PLO
• Omaha Hi-Lo
• HORSE

As it is the series includes a bunch of $120 and $150 buy-ins which I couldn't be less interested in driving an hour to attend.

Anyway...Good luck in march.

2011 Quick Review and 2012 Expectations

Happy 2012 to all. Hopefully the Mayans were smoking some silly stuff and a year from now we can look back and go through this exercise again. I am glad 2011 is behind us in a lot of ways. I don't think I, or a lot of poker players, really understood the effect Black Friday had on our game and our lives initially. I miss playing on Stars and Tilt tremendously and while I do think legislation of some sort is inevitable, I have no clue on the timing of it and have very little confidence in legislators to do it in a sensible way. Time will tell.

The following were my goals for 2011 as I wrote up a year ago. I have provided my actual results related to each in bold:

• $40k of total net profits playing part-time. This includes online and live as well as bonus money from Stars. Obviously the regulatory landscape may change and have some affect on this goal. This amount is approx. $3.5k/month and also equates to one of my biggest personal annual expenses (hint: kids are VERY expensive). Pretty prescient post as the shutdown of the "Big 2" sites clearly affected my ability to achieve this goal. I ended up a shade under $25k for the year with only ~$10k of that coming on-line. I am still owed a decent amount by Full Tilt and while the latest news on that front has been positive, the whole situation has been an absolute CF since Black Friday. Until the cash is in my hand I won't count on those dollars.
  

• Ship at least one live tournament. While this is impossible to control getting deep in a bunch of events is key to being able to close something out. So making final tables and making good decisions deep in tournaments is all I can do to put myself in a position to ship. I made a few final tables (3 I think) in 100+ player live events. This included a chop at a PLO8 event at Caesar's in June. I will count this as a success.
  

• Improve my WSOP record and play at least one mixed game event (HORSE or 8 game depending on the schedule). Obviously going deep in a WSOP is a total crapshoot since other than the Main Event the structures are pretty LOL but I would like to see myself with a good chance for a deep run. I played the $1,500 HORSE and left very confident I could play in this game profitably. I had no cashes in WSOP events. Not pleased about this.
  

• At least one online score in excess of 10k. Again hard to control but playing well deep in tournaments giving myself chances are the key. Black Friday killed any chance for this. I did have multiple cashes in the $1500-2k range which isn't too bad considering I mostly played small and mid buy-in events on line.
  

• Get some coaching for NLHE cash games if I am going to play them on-line. Didn't do this again in part due to Black Friday.
  

• Play more for profits and less for rakeback/bonuses. Having said that Supernova 200k should be relatively easy if I don't slack off all summer as usual. Supernova 200k is worth approximately $15k in bonuses while 300k is worth a bit north of $22k. So I can't ignore its value entirely. I was easily on pace to make Supernova 200k and had made FTP Black Card status pre-BF. I did a better job of table selecting though I start to log a lot more time on Rush Poker which obv didn't allow for table/seat selection.

• Play 40k hands/month of PLO8. If I do this a lot of the other goals take care of themselves. Black Friday

• I also wouldn't mind finding my passion again for golf this summer and compete at the highest level in my state/area. Perhaps qualify for another USGA event. Played meh...my glory days might be behind me here. But doesn't seem to bother me too much. I tried to get my shit together midway through the summer but at the level I used to play that is just not enough time.

Overall I would rate the year a C+ but maybe more realistically an INCOMPLETE since the whole landscape changed so drastically on that sad day in April.

2012 Goals/Expectations

My goals really aren't a lot different this year than last year though they have been tweaked a bit for the obvious changes.

• $30k in profits from playing. This may be a stretch without online poker/rewards programs/etc. But it is certainly an attainable goal if I put the hours in.
• Win at least 1 live tournament of 100+ players. I have sort of resigned myself to the fact that my edges now come in non-holdem games. I still feel I can compete in Holdem tournaments but my edges are smaller and there are fewer and fewer weak spots particularly as you move deep into tournaments. This is not necessarily the case in mixed games and/or non-holdem events. So I think PLO, PLO8, HORSE events, etc. offer me more opportunity to ship.
• I am going to take a different approach to the WSOP this year I think. I am still going to spend a good bit of time in Vegas but am really going to focus on some of the smaller/medium buy-in events at Caesar's and Venetian. I will likely still play 1 or 2 WSOP events but unless I have a large score pre-WSOP I will be focusing more on the $300-1k buy in events at these venues.
• Having said the above, I will make one exception for the WSOP ME which I really would like to satellite into this year and play. My WSOP league has not started well but there are still plenty of games left to get up to the top and win a seat. Or winning a seat on-site is still an option.
  

There are a few specific smaller goals I have that will help me in these areas but I will not list them all here.

My next live play will be the week of January 22 when I am going up to Borgata for the Winter Open. My guess is I will play 3 or 4 events (including PLO, maybe Omaha HL) depending on making day 2s, etc.

I'm back

Obviously I haven't posted in a couple of months. Frankly until 2 or 3 weeks ago I was playing virtually no on-line poker. The post Black Friday on-line environment is pretty crappy and feels like a house of cards (pardon pun) ready to fall at any time. But about 3 weeks ago I deposited $100 on Lock Poker and began playing mostly micro-stakes PLO while I build an online bankroll. The PLO8 games are virtually dead and there just aren't enough to keep me 6-8 tabling. So I have moved to exclusively PLO Hi-only and the play is about what you would expect at micro levels. I ran the initial $100 to $500 then ran like death back down to $100 but have rebounded and see my bankroll at a whopping $450 at the moment. I hate having to play these micro stakes but I just don't trust the political/regulatory environment enough to put more $$ on and play at higher stakes.

I did make a final table in the Borgata Poker Open-Event finishing 8th in Event 15 the PLO8 http://www.theborgata.com/Main.cfm?Category_1=3000&Category_2=3500&Category_3=3510&SchedulePageID=726D71B6-D5B3-5F0A-95404FD0C8A1FD50

Also won ~1k playing a mix of 2/5 NLHE and 10/20 Limit Omaha Hi/Lo so that was a good trip. Will be back up to the Borgata for the newly formed Fall Poker Open and I intend to play some combination of these events:

8	Deep Stack No Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry) $100,000 GUARANTEED Day 1 Day 2	Mn 11/14 Tue 11/15	11am 12pm	$350	$50	DETAILS
9	Omaha H/L 8B	Mn 11/14	12pm	$400	$50	DETAILS
10	Six Max Deep Stack No Limit Hold’em (Re-Entry) Day 1 Day 2	Tue 11/15 Wd 11/16	11am 12pm	$400	$50	DETAILS
12	Big Stack No Limit Hold'em (Re-Entry) $100,000 GUARANTEED	Wd 11/16	11am	$200	$30	DETAILS
13	H.O.R.S.E. Day 1 Day 2	Wd 11/16 Thu 11/17	3pm 12pm	$400	$50	DETAILS
14	Black Chip Bounty No Limit Hold'Em (Re-Entry)	Thu 11/17	11am	$350	$50+$100	DETAILS

Anyway, I probably will only be updating here when interesting things arise. Prior to Black Friday I was trying to build this blog up partially because I was being considered for an affilliation with one of the sites. Obviously that possibility is ZERO-POINT-ZERO at this time so my updates will be fewer and further between. I will continue to update twitter when I am in various tournament series, etc.

Golf Update

Welp it has been a month since my last update and I really have nothing to say. My second trip to the WSOP was an utter fucking debacle. Cash games were painfully bad and I probably ran $5k+ under EV in about 40 hours of play most of it at $1/$2/$5 Big O and $5/$5 PLO and PLO8. Was really crazy and I think this hand illustrates it about as well as any:

I limp UTG with AK4T5

Probably 5 to flop of K72. I lead $25 and get 2 callers.

Turn is bingo 5. I bet pot and get 2 callers. At this point I have to put them on low with perhaps some piece for high. (Pot $400).

River K. So now we have K full of 5 with 2nd low. I value bet $400 trying to get full value out of lows assuming my A4 is no good. MP folds and Villain now shoves for $670ish more. I end up calling after 2 or 3 minutes to see A3K7x and am relieved of ~$1200. Oh well the good thing is that play was so bad that I actually squeaked out a small loss for the trip in cash games. Tournaments were equally frustrating with my only cash winnings coming in a chopped $325 single table SNG.

On to The Golf

For those who only know this blog as a poker blog I actually played pretty high level competitive golf as recently as 2009. In the 2000's I played 2 USGA Mid-Am's:

One British Mid-AM:

Made the quarters of the MD AM and won a bunch of club championships.

For whatever reason I became burned out by the grind of golf about 2 years ago and basically shelved playing competitively and just played casually for the most part. But with on-line poker basically gone for me I have started to get the itch to get my game back on the course. Not sure why but I woke about 2 weeks ago while on vacation and just decided I wanted to find my game and play some competitively for the balance of the year. I was a bit inspired reading Dusty Schmidt's blog (aka Leatherass9 in the poker world) about his attempts to get back into competitive golf (Dusty was an accomplished junior golfer on the west coast who became a successful cash game player on-line) http://dustyschmidt.net/2011/06/i-guess-i-didnt-forget-how-to-play/ and by watching a local club pro, David Hutsell, win the PGA Club Pro National Championship in late June. I don't know David all that well but have played with him a few times and remember a short 12-15 years ago when he was struggling to break 80 consistently. He worked his ass off and will be going to the PGA Championship next week. Nice win David!

So I have been practicing a good bit and saw an instructor so I could get my swing on tape and analyze it. Remarkably after 2 years of being virtually a recreational golfer my swing has held up and with a little tweaking is pretty much back. We'll see how it goes when i peg it for real on the 15th and 16th in the MSGA Mid-Am. I finished 2nd in this event 2 years ago and had a bunch of top 5 finishes dating back to 2005 when I first became eligible for the event (it used to be you had to be 35 to play but they have since rolled the age back to 25 to be consistent with the USGA).

Not sure where this will lead me but will write up any interesting results/progress/etc.