WSOP Main Event

Not sure where to start with this post because I could probably write an entire book about my experience at this year's main event but I don't feel like dwelling on this too much right now so I'll keep it short for now.

My table draw was terrible. Most people think having big name pros at your table is a bad thing, this could not be further from the truth. I was seated at a table of all online qualifiers who's goals were to make it through the day. In over 10 hours of play more than 1000 people busted out of the tournament, at my table 1 player busted out. Everyone at my table was so reluctant to put any of their chips in the middle that we almost never saw any big pots and while most tables had average chip stacks of over 20k, my table had half that. It's impossible to accumulate chips when they simply don't exist.

I started off playing alot pots and pushing my table around but was never able to pick up any big pots because there were none. My table eventually got sick of me stealing all the chips and began to call me down to the river with anything so I had to back off for awhile and for a few hours I decided to tighten up and primarily only play real hands. I am extremely patient when it comes to poker, far more than the average player but I was soooo card dead from about 2 hours in to 10 hours in that even with me stealing pots whenever I got a chance my chip stack dwindled lower and lower.

After the dinner break I stayed patient and watched my chips slowly melt away until I picked up pocket queens under the gun. I raised 3x the big blind and the action folded around to the small blind who asked how much I had left and then decided to raise enough to put me all in. Because of my small chip stack and the situation I was in this was an absolute no brainer and I instacalled all in. My opponent had pocket 7's and my pocket Q's were obviously way ahead. A scary flop of 345 comes and now my opponent can win with any 6 or one of the two remaining 7's in the deck. The turn card is a 7 and I am left all but dead, I need a miracle queen on the river to stay alive but it does not come. I am out.

Overall I wasn't really that disappointed with how things went. My table draw was awful which forced me to alter my gameplan and playing style but I felt like I adapted well and played good poker all day. It is disappointing to lose in the fashion that I did but in poker the only thing you can ask for is to get your chips into the middle when you are well ahead as I was and hope that your hand holds up. Bad luck has pretty much been the story of my entire WSOP experience this year and while it sucks that I ran into bad luck at the biggest poker event in the history of the world, I can only smile and move on, knowing that I played good, had a great time, and will be back next year to do it all over again.

In a nutshell...

this is what I've been up to since my first wsop event.

7/18 - played in the $1500 no limit holdem event and busted about 4 hours in (I wouldn't go as far as calling these lower buy in tourneys crapshoots but you have to gamble early more than you normally would)

7/20 - supposed to fly home but got food poisoning and couldn't fly

7/21 - thanks to me spending big bucks at the rio they hooked me up with a nice room at ceasars palace and got me some heavily discounted first class plane tix home

7/22 - 7/25 - family vacation in maine

7/26 - back in vegas until aug 12thish

7/27 - pocketfives party at new york new york

7/28 - first day of wsop main event, this place is an absolute madhouse, never seen anything like this. Bodog meet and greet tonight then bed at a reasonable time hopefully because the main event starts for me tomorrow!

Getting struck by lightning...

hurts even more than I thought it would. I played in the $1500 pot limit omaha event today and experienced a true roller coaster unlike anything I've ever been through before.

My first table to start off the day saw me sitting directly to the left of David "Devilfish" Ulliot and WSOP main event winner Tom McEvoy. I lost a decent sized pot early but was able to come back strong with a couple of fortuitous flops. About 5 hours into play I had an average stack and got hit by my first lightning bolt. I turned the nut straight in a 2-way pot and bet big and to my delight was called. An appearingly harmless card fell on the river and my opponent who was first to act bet the pot which frightened me because there was a pair on board so I just called and surprise surprise my opponent made a full house on the river. Going to the river of that hand my opponent had 3 cards in the deck that would've given him the best hand and unfortunately for me, one fell.

After losing that pot I was pretty shortstacked and decided I needed to get aggressive and chip up before my stack became futile. I raised and/or reraised 9 out of the next 11 hands and was able to bully my way back to a respectable chip stack. Now 8 hours into the tournament and we are down to under 100 players (545 started, top 54 get paid) and I have an above average stack. Now for the key hand of the day, I am in the small blind and 2 people limp before the button raises pot (which was just about all in for him). I look down to see AcQcQs7s and I reraise pot forcing everyone in the hand to go all in to make the call. One of the limpers who was pretty short called all in and so did the button. Limper has AKxx and button has J10s10h7. Flop comes 9 high with 2 clubs giving me the nut flush draw, turn is blank. At this point the only cards that can beat me are a K (which would allow limper to win but I would still profit from the pot b/c of the chips I would be winning from button) or the 10 of diamonds which would give the button a set, the other 10 in the deck would give me the flush. The river is the lightning bolt that I will never forget, the 10 of diamonds. This hand cripples me and I bust a few hands later in 74th place.

If I had won that hand I would've been in the top 10, basically guaranteed a payout, and poised to make a serious run at making the final table. The defeat was really crushing because of the way I went out and the timing (although not my goal, making the money in my first ever WSOP event would've felt great). Obviously there are positives to take from this experience but right now it feels like shit. One sidenote Devilfish is a really fun guy to play with and just a great guy, after our first table got busted up he kept on checking on me to see how I was doing and it was sincerely appreciated.

I'm undecided as of right now if I will play in the $15oo no-limit holdem event tommorrow. Other notable pros I sat with today include John Juanda, Mickey Appleman, Ralph Perry, Eskimo Clark, David Plastik, James Van Alstyne, and Steve Zolotow.

Change of Plans: Vegas Here I Come

Well I officially couldn't wait any longer so I've decided to leave for Vegas this sunday, 16th, rather than wait all the way till the 26th which was my original plan. I will be playing in the $1500 pot limit omaha event on the 17th and possibly the $1500 no-limit holdem event on the 18th if I don't survive the first day of the omaha event.

I've really had my sights set on this omaha event for awhile because pot limit omaha is my best game but really this change of plans came primarily out of boredom. This will be my first time in Vegas and obviously the first, hopefully of many, World Series of Poker event that I will play in.

I don't think it's possible to be more excited than I am right now.

So Close Yet Again...

Sunday is a big day for online poker players, each site offers their own version of a Sunday Major. These tournaments have relatively large buy-ins and some enormous prize pools. This sunday I decided to just play in the Bodog 100k Guarantee since I've been having some nice success on bodog recently. Out of 846 players who played in this tournament I finished 12th, netting me $1000. This is the 2nd time I have bubbled the final table of this event, I finished 11th a few weeks ago, and I could not be more dissapointed than I am. I had an above average chip stack with about 15 players left but after making a great call on an opponent's all in bet he caught running clubs to make a flush and suck out on me. After that I went completely card dead and got caught trying to steal the blinds once and ultimately wound up finishing 12th. Well that's poker, no matter how good you play there is always the element of luck involved and on this day luck was not on my side.

Hand of the Day

Ok here is a hand that raised a few eyebrows at my table and even got one player to call me an idiot. This hand takes place in the bodog 10k guarantee the night after I won the tourney. At this point we are down to about 35 players left and are already in the money.

Bodog Game #310280043: Tournament $10,000 Guaranteed, Hold'em No Limit -
Blinds (400/800) - 2006/07/07 - 01:12:50 (ET)
Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: sixsoda (10260 in chips)
Seat 2: GNet (3045 in chips)
Seat 3: bens (43000 in chips)
Seat 4: Simply_Mike (14072.50 in chips)
Seat 5: willie (12370 in chips)
Seat 7: Paulie Balls (6010 in chips)
Seat 8: NaplesDragon (18070 in chips)
Seat 9: mrswolenrod2 (8383.32 in chips)
sixsoda: posts the ante 100
GNet: posts the ante 100
bens: posts the ante 100
Simply_Mike: posts the ante 100
willie: posts the ante 100
Paulie Balls: posts the ante 100
NaplesDragon: posts the ante 100
mrswolenrod2: posts the ante 100
GNet: posts small blind 400
bens: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to GNet [Qd 4d]
Simply_Mike: folds
willie: folds
Paulie Balls: folds
NaplesDragon: folds
mrswolenrod2: folds
sixsoda: raises to 10160 and is all-in
GNet: calls 2545 and is all-in
bens: folds
*** FLOP ***
[Kc 4s 4c]
*** TURN ***
[Kc 4s 4c] [9h]
*** RIVER ***
[Kc 4s 4c 9h] [7s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
GNet: shows [Qd 4d] (three of a kind, Fours)
sixsoda: shows [Ad Js] (a pair, Fours)
GNet collected 7490 from main pot

Analysis: I have gotten myself into pretty bad shape here, I am down to 2545 in chips with blinds at 400/800 and a 100 ante. At this rate I have less than 2 orbits before I will be blinded out and I need to make a move asap. This hand is actually a case where I find myself in a pretty good scenario. The table folds around to the button who raises all in, I take a second to figure out my pot odds in this situation, then consider the range of cards my opponent has and decide that this is a very easy call. In this hand I have to call 2545 chips in order to win 7490 which is essentially 3 to 1 pot odds. In order to truly justify this call I would have to have a hand that will win greater than 33.3% of the time in the long run. In this case my opponent could have such a large variety of hands that it is difficult to put him on anything too specific but I felt the most likely hand for him is Ax which if it's the case would make me 40% to win the hand.
So the result is a hand that looks a little funny at first but when broken down is made obvious that it is the correct play and a profitable play in the long run.

Bodog boosts my confidence yet again. Victory in the 10k!

After having a very mediocre run of results in multi table tournaments for a few months I decided to take a little break and focus on cash games. Over the past month I have been able to make some good money playing primarily the 1/2 and 2/4 pot limit omaha games on bodog along with some 5/10 limit on both bodog and paradise. Last night I decided to hop in the bodog 10k guarantee to try to get back on track with mtt's before I leave for Vegas and the WSOP. Well I won the tourney for a nice lil $2500 payday but more important than the money in this case is the level of confidence a win like this gives me as I prepare to play in some of the biggest tournaments of my young poker life.
I really feel like I played great the entire tourney and once we were down to 4 players I went into hyper aggressive mode because the blinds had gotten really high and the other players seemed unwilling to take a stand without a premium hand. This should've worked even better than it did because after a few orbits with me raising nearly every hand preflop, I got a few calls out of my opponents when I actually had picked up big hands. Unfortunately I got sucked out on in two big spots which would've had play down to heads up but everything worked out in the end.
When we got to heads up I had about a 4-1 chip lead and the second hand we played I made my normal preflop raise from small blind with QT and my opponent moved all in. I thought about it for a minute and the pot odds were enough so that even if I felt I was 40% to win the hand I had to make the call so I did. Opponent has 44, flop comes AJ4, turn is blank, river is K giving me the straight and the win.