It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update, so this might get kind of long-winded.

I got back into Vegas two days ago after spending the weekend with my girlfriend in New York. It was a nice break that I’m really glad I was able to take. There’s a lot to be said for clearing your head of poker for a couple days at some point during the WSOP.

My first tournament back was yesterday, a $350 event at Venetian. I really love the Venetian events. They’re just so soft albeit a little boring at times (okay, most of the time). I built a 12k starting stack up to a peak of 45k without ever being all-in or ever even making a value bet. Ten hours into the tournament I hadn’t hit one flop or anything. Just made a few bluffs, took a few pots down preflop… stuff like that and before I know there’s 100 players left with 63 primed to finish in the money.

I had a cruel welcome back to the tournament tables by getting AQ all-in preflop against AT for a 30 big blind pot and seeing a Ten come on the river. A disappointing outcome near the bubble after playing for ten hours, but what can you do?

On to the next one.

But before the next one could come around, there was the US-Algeria soccer game. I woke up at 7:00 am to sweat the US who needed to beat Algeria in order to advance to the elimination round of 16 (technically there was a scenario where a draw would be adequate, but late in the game it was pretty clear England was going to win meant the US needed to win). The game wound up being one of the most exciting sporting events I’ve ever seen. I’m sure anyone who cares already knows what happened, so I won’t recap the details, but this goal with just three minutes to spare was sooo sweet!

I think every US fan was just in a state of absolute despair around the 89′ mark, so to find a goal like that with just three minutes left in their World Cup dream just made my day. Heck, it made like my whole summer. I was going absolutely bonkers when that ball found the back of the net, as was pretty much every other American with a passing interest in soccer I’d imagine.

With a grin stuck on my face after that goal, I embarked on the drive to the Rio for today’s $1,500 event knowing no matter the outcome, it’d still be a great day. The atmosphere at the WSOP was just electric. Everyone was talking about the soccer game and the Wimbledon match between Isner and Mahut that will be heading onto its third day of play tied 59-59 in the final set. I mean 59-59!?! How insane is that? I didn’t think it was possible that there could be anything happen in the sporting world to top the story of the miracle goal by the US, but this tennis match might just have done it. I had tournament directors checking in with me to get an update on the match since they overheard me updating my table from my phone.

For what it’s worth, I like Isner tomorrow. He’s only -114 on Pinnacle. Isner is the better all-around tennis player, has the advantage of serving first out of every tie, and will be able to regroup after some much needed rest tonight. He looked weaker than Mahut for most of today, but I think Isner should be more of a clear favorite once the two continue play after a night’s rest. You gotta love Mahut’s unending effort though; he’s held serve fifty-nine times in the fifth set keep the match going! Although I think there’s some value on Isner -114, I’ll probably just pass on betting it. This is one of those once in a lifetime sporting events where a paltry bet is wholly unnecessary in order to increase the excitement and could actually detract from being able to enjoy what will be a historic finish whenever someone wins. If someone wins.

So the $1,500…

I played one of the top 3 or 4 most interesting hands I’ve played all summer in level three today:

Shortly after being moved to a new table, I raise to 500 with Ace-Ten of clubs after an Asian guy with a ton of chips limps for 150 under-the-gun. He checks a Queen-Ten-Trey flop and I check behind. The turn brings a Five putting two spades on the board. He checks and I bet 650. He calls. The river is another Five and he bets 3,000 (I only had 3,450 total when he made that bet). I immediately felt like I was good here. I didn’t see how he could have a Queen; if he had a Queen, I feel like he would have led out on the turn. King-Jack made a lot of sense to me. I just felt like he was bluffing such a huge percentage of the time here that I really wanted to make the call for basically all of my chips with second pair. Not only did no hands that beat me make much sense with the way he played the hand, but there’s also the Asian-factor and the huge chip-stack factor both of which made a bluff more likely to me.

Still, I had just the slightest bit of doubt regarding whether or not a call was the right play, so I decided to have a random outside variable make my decision for me. I told the table, “in a second, I’m going to look at the tournament clock. If the second-number is between 00 and 50, I’m going to call. If it’s between 51 and 59, I’m going to fold.”

I looked at the clock. 55. I said, “well, I guess I have to fold,” and did so by turning my cards over. The Asian dude showed King-Seven of spades, air. Ugh… what a bad beat. I gave myself a 51/60 chance of making that call and he sucked out on me by peeling a 55. So sick…

The only other time I’ve done the clock-maneuver at the WSOP was in last year’s Main Event where I gave myself just a 33% chance of making a call, hit it, and lost a key pot. So I’ve hit a 1/3 that was wrong and a 9/60 that was wrong. Brutal.

During a break, Phil Ivey was presented with his 8th WSOP bracelet which drew a huge crowd. He is an absolute rock star. Flashbulbs were going off like crazy when he held the bracelet up for the crowd. It was pretty sweet when they played the US National Anthem in honor of Ivey’s win. US soccer has one of the sweetest victories in their program’s history, the best poker player in the world gets presented with his 8th bracelet, and bam, the National Anthem right in everyone’s face. It was pretty cool. There was just a buzz in the air at the Rio today that I’ve never felt before. What an awesome day.

Here’s a pic I snapped of Ivey holding his bracelet:

The day got slightly less awesome when I got AQ all-in preflop against 44 for a 35 big blind pot and couldn’t find any help, but that will hardly ruin what’s been an awesome day so far.

I don’t have a whole lot of events left. So far, I’m 1/11 in tournaments this summer (0/10 in no-limit events… I thought that’s supposed to be my best game, what gives?) Tomorrow is a $560 at Venetian. There’s a $1500 WSOP on Friday. Saturday is off (go USA vs. Ghana!!!). Sunday is a $1k. Monday, another $1500. Tuesday the $3k triple chance. Wednesday I’m taking off because my girlfriend will be in town and it’s my birthday. Thursday another $1k. And that’s probably it before the Main Event (if I play).

This summer has gone by so fast I can’t believe it! I guess they say time flies when you’re having fun, and I definitely have a blast being in Vegas for the WSOP. No matter the outcome in the remaining events, I’ve had an awesome time out here this year, but one more deep run in something, anything, would be some nice icing on the cake!

I’m leaving for New York later tonight to spend the weekend with my girlfriend which effectively marks the end of the first half of the WSOP for me. So far, I’ve played 9 events and have one cash (22nd in the $1500 PLO) which was enough to be only barely in the red so far. All in all, not a terrible start to the series. I got all my chips in as a slight favorite for a big pot in that PLO event and had the outcome of that hand gone differently, I’d likely be up a substantial amount right now. Hard to complain too much about being essentially break-even and having been one flip away from doing a lot better than that.

A couple days ago, I played the $2500 six-handed event at the WSOP. Early on, Ben Lamb (benba) raised to 250 and a solid French player named Cyril called on the button. Amit Makhija (amak306) re-raised to 1050 in the small-blind. I looked down at pocket Kings in the big blind and figured my best move here was to shove all-in for 7,200 total hoping it looked somewhat weak. Apparently it worked, because Amit called with pocket Jacks (which is actually a really bad call for him against me here – he basically just has to hope I only have Ace-King) and it held to give me an early double-up.

Shortly after being moved to a new table, I played a pot that I’ll likely never forget. A guy with about 12k raised the button to 250. Since he was deep, I called in the big blind with K7 of spades. The flop came K72 with one spade. I check-raised to 900 and he came along. The turn was the 5 of spades. I bet 2500 and he called. The river was the Q of spades. I shoved an effective 8.2k and he mulled for a few seconds, slowly gathered his chips into a stack, and slid them out into the pot. I flipped over my hand. He looked at it and said, “I have a flush,” and turned over Ace-Ten of spades!!

I couldn’t believe it! I don’t know what was more unbelievable on that hand: that I flopped top two which eventually became the second nuts only to lose to the absolute nuts that had no business staying in on the flop or that he took a good 7-10 seconds to get his chips into the pot with the stone nuts on the river.

I berated him a little bit which is something I never do, but I couldn’t help it in this situation: “what are you thinking there?! You call a check-raise on the flop with nothing and catch runner-runner to the nuts and have to sit there thinking about putting all of your chips in?! What were you waiting for?!” He just sat there silent with a dumb look on his face while he stacked the 26k pot. Man, I think I’m still a little on tilt about that hand! Seeing him turn over the nuts was like a bad dream. How could he ever have the nuts there, right?!

It was pretty frustrating to bustout of that event in level 2 especially after doubling up. That’s definitely one of my favorite events of the year because people just make some ridiculously bad mistakes in big pots (which is something that people don’t seem to do as much anymore in nine-handed events).

Yesterday, I played the $350 at Venetian and made a pact with myself that I was going to play super-tight, which I think is a pretty good strategy in the Venetian tournaments. People are so bad and so eager to play huge pots with fragile holdings in that event that I knew if I just sat there and peddled for sets I could still chip up easily. It was working great: I spent 1% of my time playing cards and 99% of my time reading articles on my phone and chipped up to 21k from a 12k starting stack. During 300/600, it folded to a player in the small-blind who moved all-in for 15k. I looked down at Ace-Jack and got my chips into the middle fairly quickly. He turned over Ace-Nine and I stayed completely emotionless when a Nine came on the turn. I guess I had just gotten into such a groove of sitting there bored and stone-faced that I couldn’t even bother to care that he spiked his card for a 50 bb pot on me.

I got the last of my chips in a few hands later with Ten-Eight suited and couldn’t find any help which brought a conclusion to nearly two straight weeks of every day poker for me.

I’m looking forward to a break away from the tables and expect to coming back into town fresh and ready to go for the second half.

I’ve really been enjoying the World Cup so far, but can’t say I was happy to see Spain lose earlier. I have them in a draft pool with some friends and definitely never thought they might have to struggle just to advance to the elimination stage. I’m heading out in a bit to meet up with my best friend from back home who has been in town this week to watch the South Africa-Uruguay game. I texted him to see if he wanted to go to ESPN Zone in New York-New York, but he said, “it closed last night.” He’s not kidding, either. It really did close last night. I guess we’ll have to find somewhere else to watch.

Yesterday, I played the $1k ‘Donkulus’ as Dr. Pauly calls it. This tournament is such ridiculously good value that I could probably make a comfortable albeit incredibly boring living just playing it every day. Unfortunately (and fortunately) it’s only held a couple of times a year, so I’ll stick with collecting aluminum cans during the rest of the year.

I built up to 12k from a 3k starting stack without ever being all-in or ever even playing a big pot unless I had my opponent crippled. That’s just the type of start you look for in that event: run good enough in the early going to turn the modest starting stack into a real stack that you can play some poker with.

In the early going, I made a really tough laydown against Marcel Luske who was on my immediate left. It folded to me in the small blind and I completed with Jack-Four of hearts. He raised to 300 and I called (it was suited, duh). The flop came 844 with two diamonds. I check raised his bet of 200 to 500 and he called. The turn was the 7 of diamonds, a bad card for me. I check called 600 from Marcel and check folded his bet of 1000 on the brick river. He showed Ace-King of diamonds. If I had made that river call my chances of ever chipping up to 12k would have been pretty slim.

Shortly after arriving at a new table, I called a min-raise from an aggressive-looking kid who had a ton of chips with King-Eight of spades in position. The two of us checked a Q97, two hearts flop. The turn was the T of hearts. He bet and I called with an open-ender plus position (figuring I could win this pot on a lot of rivers). The river was another 7. He bet 875 and I raised him to 2,200. In general, I think this type of bluff raise on the river can be a good play in the right circumstances. I figured this was one of those circumstances, but after mulling for quite a while, he called with a black 76.

That dropped me down to 8,500. On the very next hand, it folded to me and I raised to 575 from the cutoff with Ace-Queen offsuit. A young guy on the button re-raised me to 1,600. When it folded back to me I considered that: a.) I probably look like I’m on tilt/aggressive after showing that bluff with King-high and b.) since I just opened from the cutoff, the kid who re-raised me on the button probably isn’t giving me credit for anything nearly as good as Ace-Queen. With those things in mind, I moved in on him and he called fairly quickly with pocket Queens (dang, he couldn’t just have Jacks there?). I couldn’t find a suckout and was out of the tournament after dusting off 60 bbs in two hands – definitely the most spewy bustout I’ve had this summer.

I’m a little disappointed in the way I played near the end there because I abandoned the one attribute that has made me a ton of money playing live tournaments: patience. It’s a bit of a rough lesson to re-learn because having 12k during 100/200 of that thing puts any good player in solid position to make a deep run into the money. Not that my K-high bluff or shove with AQ were sooo bad or anything like that, but they were marginal plays in a tournament where you can usually just take a pass on making marginal plays.

Today’s event will likely feature a bit of a tougher field and it’s one of my favorites every year: the $2,500 six-handed event. Two years ago, I finished 18th in this event for my first WSOP cash, so I have a fond view of this event. Last year, I drew a starting table that featured Alex Jacob, ch0ppy, and some kid I had never heard of named “Joe Cada” whose name I only knew because I eavesdropped on his registration card as he handed it to the dealer. Hopefully this year’s table draw is a bit more fishy; table draw in a six-handed event affects your equity quite a bit more than it does in a nine- or ten-handed event.

Today was day two of the $1500 PLO event at the Rio. I showed up with an average stack as one of 95 players hoping to be among the 81 to cash. The cash came fairly easily, I was never really in any spots where it seemed possible that I might washout, which was nice from a psychological standpoint; I needed a cash just so I could breath a sigh of relief and be like, “there, a cash.”

After we were in the money, I made a raise with AdKdQ5 (I think, I saw a lot of cards today, so I can’t promise my recollection will be precise in this entry) and Oliver Gill (SwoopAE) from our forums came along in the small blind, as did Christian Harder (charder) in the big blind. The flop came T95 all diamonds. It checked to me and I bet 8k (started hand with 45k, raised to 5.5k preflop) and Swoop announced pot. charder got out of the way and I got it all-in against Swoop’s JJ77dd and faded the one out (and another six after the board paired on the turn). Not the ideal person to double through, but I didn’t feel too bad because Swoop gained back most of his loses before I could finish stacking my chips.

Things continued to go really well for me and at one point I found myself sitting with 255k with 25 players left when the average stack was ~150k. A WSOP final table seemed within reach and I had a little pep talk with myself that went something like: “you’ve ran good this tournament, you probably shouldn’t even still be here, so don’t be a worthless nit playing down to the final table and wind up sitting there nursing a pathetic short stack; go balls to the wall and if it works out, great, if not, at least you put yourself in a position to win.”

After dropping to around 160k when AAKT double-suited couldn’t get there in a 200k re-potted preflop hand against Q5xx on a KQ5 flop, I played a big hand with Christian Harder, the exact big hand I knew I’d need to play, and win, in order to reach the final table.

I opened in late position to 13,500 with KQhJ5h and charder came along. The flop was J73hh. He checked, I bet 17,500. After tanking for a while, charder announced pot, 82,500, leaving himself just about 35,000 behind. I contemplated for a while and finally reached the conclusion that this was the exact type of hand that my little self pep-talk applies to: top pair with a flush draw, certainly not a monster, but the type of hand that I could and should go balls to the wall with. With that in mind, I pushed in the rest of my chips and charder made a sigh-call, much better than a fist-pump, insta-call, and showed black Queens with the Ten and Deuce of hearts. He had two of my heart outs locked up with an overpair, but I got my money in like I wanted to: a coinflip for a big pot (actually, I was a 55-45 favorite), but unfortunately I just didn’t get there.

A couple hands later, I got my last 25k all-in preflop with QJT8 double-suited, the virtual nuts in Omaha, but was not meant to stage a comeback when I failed to improve against KQQ3.

From the penthouse to out in 22nd ($8k) in just a matter of a few hands. And quite honestly, I really wasn’t that disappointed. Of course I was a little disappointed. It’s obligatory to be a little disappointed. But my outlook was that I ran great on day one and should feel fortunate to have even made day two, let alone cashed, let alone build up a nice stack and put myself a flip or two away from making a WSOP final table.

I think this positive-perspective is important to have as a poker player and also something a lot of players could stand to work on. I know several players, one in particular comes to mind, who just have such miserable attitudes with regards to tournament poker. This particular person is an adept player who is running really, really good in 2010. He is not anywhere close to a household name, nor is he a member of the PokerTips forums, so I’m not talking about anyone that basically any of my readers have even heard of, but this particular player just makes me shake my head in disappointment with how unaware he is regarding the variance of tournament poker.

As I said, he is having a really, really sick year. He’s made multiple major live final tables and has also crushed a few things online. He’s up a ton (six figures, easily) in 2010. There probably aren’t more than a dozen or so tournament players who can lay claim to having a more dominant 2010. And yet, what did this player have to say on his Facebook account a few days ago after bubbling the final table of a major live tournament?

“I wish I could win one flip when it mattered.”

Really?

Really?

Are you really lamenting your luck? I can count on my fingers and toes the number of players in the poker world who you wouldn’t trade places with you in terms of 2010 rungood, and you’re complaining on your Facebook for everyone to read?

Unfortunately, I ran into this individual in the hallway of the Rio during one the breaks of the PLO tournament tonight. He was with a companion that I am close friends with. I told his companion, “yo, I’ve got 160k in the PLO!” because I was excited to be doing well and wanted to share that with a friend. The individual I’m speaking of interjected, “ugh… I got [some hand] in against [some hand] in level two of that event and the flop came [something] and I couldn’t peel the four-outter.”

Really?

I don’t remember asking you how you did in this event, ****head. And at any rate, even if I did care one iota about how you did in this event, which I don’t, at all, was it really appropriate to kill my euphoria of having a nice stack with three tables left with your sorry level-two bad beat story?

Thankfully, most poker players aren’t this bad. Not even close, actually. I know there are a lot of really cool, kind, and smart individuals out there who know how to handle themselves socially. It’s just a shame that there are plenty others who, even after running hotter than the sun for months on end, still can’t grasp the concepts of humility and social grace.

One person who does grasp these concepts, and who I’m grateful to have as a valuable contributor to our poker forums, is Oliver Gill, who unfortunately could not muster a rally for Team PokerTips following my bustout and had his run in his first-ever WSOP event end in 18th place.

Great showing, Oliver. It was good playing with you and meeting you. While it is improbable to think we’ll ever face each other again so deep in a WSOP event, I hope we can enjoy plenty of dinner breaks together in the future that hopefully do not involve me having to cut off a ton of traffic in order to make it into a gas station before my car died in the middle of the desert.

I’ve elected to play day one of the $1k weekend crapshoot on Sunday; I need a day off, today was my seventh straight day of poker, but more importantly, US vs. England is on tomorrow and I wouldn’t miss giving that my full attention unless I absolutely had to.

Go Yanks!

I joined what seemed like a sea of Europeans in today’s $1500 PLO event. I had been really looking forward to this event for a while due to its small field size (compared to the events I’m used to playing) and change of pace from playing no-limit every day. There’s a couple of hands I thought were interesting for discussion, but before I get to those I’ll get it out of the way that I made day two and have 39,800 chips (which is about average) with 95 left (81 pay).

I’m pretty exhausted so I’m gonna scrap literary integrity to just kind of ramble stream-of-consciousness style.

I had Devilfish on my right for the first few hours before he busted which was amusing. He’s a pretty funny guy. Couple of examples:

Me: “Do you guys look at your cards at all once or 1-2-3-4?”
Old guy: “All at once.”
Kid: “One at a time, I like the sweat.”
Devilfish: “I don’t look at them, buddy.”

Devilfish: “Would you have called 500 there?”
Kid: “I don’t know, maybe.”
Devilfish: “Where are you from?”
Kid: “Manchester”
Devilfish: “Yea, you would have called.”

On the most memorable hand of the day, I called a raise out of the big blind with T643ddhh from the kid from Manchester. The flop came A93 with two diamonds. Check, check. Turn was a 4. I check, he bets 2,750 and I made a questionable call. River was an offsuit 5. Knowing I was probably beat by a better two pair, set, or maybe even a straight, I bet out 4,000 just futilely hoping he would give me credit for getting there with 76 or something. This was a big bluff for me because I only had about 5k in chips behind. He thinks, thinks, thinks and… calls. Damn.

“Ugh… just a small two pair.”

“Small two pair is good.”

Wow! I thought I was bluffing at it turns out I was value-betting.

Okay there’s probably more hands I could talk about, but I can barely stay awake right now so I’ll close with an unbelievable play that James Akenhead made on the final hand of the night.

He opened to 2,100 in early position. A guy with heaps called. I called with KKQQ on the button (I might re-raise here in some instances, but since it was the last hand of the night I kinda just wanted to be a nit and not like blow all my chips off). Flop comes J85 rainbow. Checks to me. I bet 3,500 thinking that there’s probably a good chance I’ve got the best hand. In a bit of a surprise, both players call. Turn is a 9 putting two hearts on board. Akenhead bets the pot (~17k) leaving himself just 6k behind. Damn. He obviously has QT and maybe even a heart draw to go with it. Big stack contemplates for a while and folds. I consider that him having QT is a bit unlikely since I have two of the Queens but decide I’m obviously not going to lose my mind on the last hand of the night potentially drawing to just a gutshot and fold.

Akenhead shows a bare Ace-high heart draw and that was it. I couldn’t believe he had the stones to basically bet all-in on what should have seemed like a very scary turn card. Well played, sir.

Alright, time to sleep. It definitely felt nice to run good in a tournament for a change. Hopefully I can run as hot tomorrow as I did today and make a World Series final table.

Oh btw: Oliver ‘SwoopAE’ Gill from our forums is still in the event too so look for the double PokerTips final table sweat.

I played the $1500 event at Venetian today and had a really crazy table draw. We started with 20,000 chips and blinds at 50/100. Every pot on my table was getting 3-bet and every pot was bloating in excess of 5,000 chips during post-flop play. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Initially, I thought it was a bad table draw, but after seeing a couple of the hands going to showdown I knew I’d get paid off nicely as soon as I hit a flop well. People were playing so fast with such thin holdings. I saw one guy climb to 45k and go bust by the second level. That’s 75/150 and he got all the way up to 45k and all the way down to 0!

For three hours, I couldn’t pick up a hand or hit a flop. Finally, the worst player at the table raised to 625 and I looked down at pocket Jacks. “Weee, a hand!” I thought. I re-raised to 1700 (first time I had 3-bet all day) and we saw the Jack-Four-Two, two-diamond flop heads-up. He checked and I bet 1500 hoping to look weak and induce a check-raise (he had been really senselessly aggressive all day). Unfortunately he flat called and an offsuit Nine hit the turn. He checked and I bet 2,800 this time. He slid out a stack of 5,000 denomination chips. My remaining 9k was in the pot with my Jacks on their backs in record time.

He showed Ten-Nine of diamonds and binked the Seven of diamonds on the river.

Another 1500. Another 100+ bb pot lost after getting all chips in as a huge favorite. Ooof.

The numbers aren’t good on this trip so far.

Events Played: 5
Cashes: 0
All-in Bustout Hands Where I Was Ahead Before the River: 4

Just gotta keep grinding and hope things turn around at some point. Tomorrow, I’m either going to take a day off, play the $1500 PLO at WSOP, or play the $350 at Venetian.

Just for the sake of ending this entry on a positive note, I did have a little rungood today: my friends and I are doing a World Cup pool where you can buy teams for $50. I bought two teams and binked the first overall pick (ship Spain, obv) in the random draft. I’m really excited for the World Cup; this summer will be a lot more fun if the U.S. can stage a deep run!

The poker gods seem insistent on putting the positive attitude I brought with me to Vegas to the test.

In yesterday’s $350 at Venetian, I shoved 15 bbs with TT during the sixth level (I think) and got looked up by AT. Ace on the river. “Oh well,” I thought to myself, “not such a bad tournament to use up a little bad luck in.” Hey, you gotta stay positive, right?

In today’s WSOP $1,500 six-handed event, I built up to 10.5k (from a 4.5k starting stack) fairly effortlessly (I was pleasantly surprised how soft this event was) and got QQ all-in vs. KJ on a KQ4 rainbow board for 23k chips during 100/200. Before the turn was dealt, I was thinking, “can I just one time not even have to sweat some sick runner-runner?” The Ace on the turn was the poker gods’ way of saying, “nahhh… we’re gonna make you sweat it.”

It would only be about 5 seconds later that my opponent would be screaming “YESSSS!!!” loud enough for everyone in the Pavilion Room to hear and loud enough for everyone at the nearby tables to shoot their glances in our direction in time to see me walk away from the table while taking rapid, deep breaths.

Poker can be really sick sometimes.

He had been playing really well which had me wondering what on earth he was thinking on that particular hand. The action went: button open to 500, sb 3-bets to 1600 (he hadn’t 3-bet much). I look down at QQ and decide raising or calling looks really strong but that I like calling better (I don’t think I had flatted a single 3-bet all day and generally had a very solid image). The button came along too which was mostly fine with me. Flop comes KQ4, 3-bettor leads out for 1800. I decide shoving looks a little weaker than popping it to 4.5k or whatever and do so, button gets out of the way, 3-bettor immediately says, “wow, sick, but I don’t think I can fold here,” which was, of course, music to my ears. After about a minute of trying to extract information from me, and even saying to me that he thought I looked exactly like I did last time I turned over the nuts, he found a call for 7k more and had nothing to say but, “whoops, I’m drawing dead,” after I said, “queens,” immediately after his chips went into the pot and just before I could scramble to turn over my cards.

Oh if only he really was drawing dead.

I was really really pleased with how things went today and am going to choose to focus on that instead of the woeful all-in luck I had; the tournament was much softer than I was thinking it might be and I felt really good about how I was playing. It was definitely the most comfortable/confident I’ve felt at the tables since getting here which I think is really good and important. There’s a lot to be said for feeling in command at the table and I think good things await if my feeling of being in command can hold steady or continue to increase going forward.

So, yes, a sick beat for a big pot in a soft tournament with a huge prize pool, but also some much valued confidence for the tournaments that lie ahead, the most immediate of which are a $550 and $1590 at Venetian.

I made it past the dinner break in the $1k at the WSOP today, but unfortunately couldn’t rally enough to make day two. My bustout hand tilted me a little: after there was a raise to 1,050 and a call during 200/400/50, I shoved 5,100 with Ace-Seven. I certainly didn’t expect to have the best hand here, but I figured there was a decent enough chance everyone would fold allowing me to chip up without being at risk and that even if someone called, I had about a 25-30% chance of winning the all-in.

Anyway, unfortunately, a player behind me who was yet to act woke up with pocket Kings. I flopped an Ace and was looking like I might nearly triple up to a comfortable stack until he hit a King on the river. Ooof. I know I was supposed to lose that hand, but I could have done without the tease.

I was pleased with how soft my table was all day, but I just wasn’t ever quite able to make a nice rally past the 9k chip mark. Normally playing for ten hours and then washing out would be pretty frustrating, but since this was my first event of the summer, I didn’t mind too much; it was kind of nice to play all day and get back into the groove of being at a live poker table.

I’m gonna check out the $340 at Venetian tomorrow and hopefully mess that thing up. Even though the prize pools at Venetian are a lot smaller than the WSOP, taking down any Deep Stack Extravaganza event would certainly cement a winning summer.

Yesterday, my Dad and I woke up really early (7:00 a.m. is “really” early to any poker player) to go hike around Red Rock Canyon. My friend Dave Irish and a friend of his came along. The Canyon is about an hour away from the Strip, so by the time we got out the door, stocked up on bottled water, and made it to Red Rock, we were hiking by 9:00.

We drove around for a little while trying to figure out what trail we wanted to hike. The process got a little frustrating because we couldn’t find an “easy” trail (they’re rated easy, moderate, and difficult) that was in the ~2 mile range. After searching for a trail for a while, we decided to just try a “difficult” trail that was 2.5 miles long. We always figured if it proved to be really hard, we could just come back to the car and go search for an easier trail. Whoever makes the decisions on how to rate the trails must have a pretty skewed view of what is truly “difficult”, because none of us had much trouble on the trail at all despite no experience, equipment and mediocre physical fitness levels.

It was a really cool experience and something I hope to do a few more times this summer. Here’s a shot I took while we were hiking. The moon was positioned in between these two peaks. You can barely see it in the picture, but in real life it was quite the sight.

My Dad and I pressed on a little past the blazen path just for fun while Dave and his friend waited back and hydrated. We stumbled upon this old military gear box that was wedged in between two rocks. The chances of stumbling on this thing randomly are pretty low; we had to walk through a bunch of bushes that kind of cut up your arms and stuff. In other words, getting to where this box was located was not somewhere many, if any, hikers would be likely to do unless they were purposefully seeking it out. My Dad kind of thought that opening the box could be dangerous and that maybe we should just carry it down with us and return it to the park officials. I wanted to gamble a little and decided to open the box anyway. Here’s what I found inside:

Here’s a closer view of the note (an even closer view here).

Pretty cool, huh? I had never heard of geocaching prior to stumbling on this box, but I absolutely love the concept. The only thing either my Dad or I possessed that could really constitute as a “trinket” was a $5 casino chip from L’Auberge du Lac in Lake Charles, Louisiana that I had in my backpack, so I left that in the box and notated on the pad of paper the date that we found the box.

The whole geocaching thing seems pretty cool; when I’ve got the time, I might look into seeing if there are other boxes hidden around the Vegas valley. It gives a little more purpose to hiking than just a desire to exercise and be outdoors.

Later in the afternoon, I took my Dad to the Harley Davidson Cafe on the Vegas Strip (he’s really into motorcycles) where we ate a pretty huge meal. We walked off a lot of those calories in the following hours when I showed him around the Strip. We walked from Planet Hollywood north to Wynn on the east side of the Strip then crossed over to the west side and came back down to New York, New York where we rode the roller coaster they have.

All in all, it was a really enjoyable day where I estimate we walked probably about 8 miles. I just dropped my Dad off at the airport a little while ago. After I finish posting this entry, I’m going to head to the Rio where a summer of poker officially starts for me with the $1k event. More about that in the next entry.

My Dad and I finally completed our road trip to Vegas yesterday. The drive from Phoenix to Vegas is awesome; there’s definitely a few stretches of winding, empty highway where you can really get going fast and have a blast without having to worry too much about cops on the side of the road. Driving fast is awesome.

About 30 miles outside of Vegas was the Hoover Dam. I’ve seen the dam from the air a handful of times but had never actually been there on the ground until yesterday. It’s a pretty impressive sight to see and I’m glad I got to check it out at least once. Here are a couple photos I snapped along with a short video to give you an idea of what it’s like. You definitely wouldn’t want to fall over this ledge which would actually be really easy to do if you wanted to.

After we got into town and unloaded all of my stuff at the apartment I’m staying at, we went over to the Rio so I could show my Dad around the WSOP (he’s never been) and register for the Saturday $1k. The $10k Stud event was running in the Amazon Room which was kind of an awesome event to rail because there were only like 150 players in this certain spot of the room and like basically every single one of the famous poker pros were sitting there. I was pointing out Greg Raymer and Chris Ferguson to my Dad and kind of explaining a little about them when I realized Doyle Brunson was at their table too! At another point, I was kind of wondering out loud where Phil Ivey was and I realized he was like 3 feet in front of me!

I also met up with Sebastien Sabic (Seb86) who is one of my good friends in the poker world for a few minutes. After that, I drove my Dad down the Vegas Strip and we called it a night. I gotta wrap this blog up because we’re heading out for a little early morning hiking around Red Rock which I’m really looking forward to. Maybe I’ll take some cool pics from that to post later.