Adios
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-11 4:30am

Tomorrow, TwoGun and I catch a plane home, so this will be the last Live from the WSOP entry for this year. Thanks to everyone who followed along, I hope it was enjoyable.

I'll close with a funny story from a $1/$3 ($500 max buy-in) game I played at Treasure Island tonight: A European player bought in for the full $500. Most people only bought in for around $200, so I figured he was probably pretty good. After playing extremely loose and aggressive for the first half-hour, he made a live straddle from under-the-gun.

Now, the coolest part about straddling at Treasure Island is that you can straddle as much as you want, including all-in, which is exactly what he did without looking at his cards! His total straddle bet was $290. It folded to me on the button. I told him my range to call was enormous. I looked down at one card, an ace, and said, "call, I only looked at one card."

A drunk kid in the small blind thought for a little bit and called off his remaining $250 as well. I turned over my Ace and left the second card mysteriously face-down. The European left both of his cards down too. The kid showed King-Queen.

The flop came Ace-Ace-Jack! The turn was a Five, and the river a Three. We decided I'd show my second card first. It was a seven, so the European still had a little bit of hope. He turned his first card over, a Three. To win this $750 pot, I needed to dodge three outs on his second card (two Threes and one Ace). With much suspense, the European peered as his second card, giggled (which scared me a bit) and turned over a Five. Ship it! I left the table after that. It seemed fitting to end the trip on that hand, one of the most entertaining I've ever played.

My Bustout Story
Posted by TwoGun on 2007-07-11 1:41am

Like Ozone, I busted out of the Main Event on my day one. It was a fairly unglamorous day. At its peak, my stack was about 25k during the 200-400 with a 50 ante round.

A few notable things happened at my table. First, I was fortunate (or should I say unfortunate) to have Chau Giang at my table. Despite his three WSOP bracelets, Giang is most famous for being a regular at the $4,000-$8,000 mixed game at the Bellagio, so the Main Event is almost low-stakes for this guy.

I played one big hand against Giang. During 200-400, I raised the pot to 1500 with queens in early position. Giang went all-in for about 4k more. I promptly called and he flipped over jacks.

The flop came 8-9-T rainbow. A jack came on the turn, giving Giang a set though me a straight. A horrible, horrible nine came on the river, filling up Giang and greatly reducing my stack.

During 300-600 + 75 ante round, my stack had dwindled down to about 9k. In the small blind, I got dealt 7-8 of clubs. The UTG player (a mediocre player) limped, the UTG+1 limped, and the button limped. I decided to go all-in, attempting to steal the blinds. If they folded, my stack would increase by about 35%. Even if someone called, I was most likely a 2-1 at worst. The big blind and UTG player folded, so things looked good for me. The UTG+1 player then called, and the button folded.

The UTG+1 player flipped over jacks (why he limped with jacks, I will never know, but this guy was also raising with A6 offsuit in early position, so who knows). The board came a horrible AQT on the flop, and I wasn't able to hit runner-runner to keep myself in the tournament.

Mostly, I found the competition to be fairly soft given it was a $10k buy-in, though more difficult than year's past. In this week's Weekly Shuffle, Ozone and I will provide more observations about the Main Event.

WSOP Main Event Day 1-D
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-10 12:22am

I'll spare you the dramatics and start off by saying: I just busted out of the Main Event shortly after dinner break.

With 20,000 starting chips, I had built as high as 42,000 in the second level (most of which I got by flopping top set against a bad, maniacal player who gave me all of his chips with an overpair that was clearly no good). By the time dinner rolled around, I had dropped all the way down to 23,000. Most of that I lost to a loose (like, extremely loose) Asian guy who was playing pretty crazy, but admittedly not that terrible. Long story short, I had Ace-King and put a lot of chips in on the turn (the board was Ace-Nine-Four-Six, two spades). Unfortunately he called my big re-raise on the turn (by not shoving, I immediately put him on something like Ace-Jack of spades - I think he knew he was beat but knew that he had a flush draw and top pair in case I was on a stone bluff). The river was a spade. I didn't put him on a spade draw just to pay him off when a spade hit, so I check folded to his bet (which, by the size of it, screamed "I just hit my flush and want you to pay me off").

A few hands after dinner, I raised under-the-gun to 1,500 (this was during 200/400/50 - I started the hand with 22,000). James "Krazykanuck" Worth called my raise, leaving himself with just about 7,000 behind. The crazy Asian guy from before, who, at this point, had built up to over 90,000 and was raising about 50% of the pots, re-raised to 5,000. I figured his range to do this was pretty huge, possibly even any two cards (that's how loose he had been playing), so I shoved all-in for 17,000 more.

James Worth folded. The Crazian thought for over a minute. At this point, I figured if he called, I was racing, but chances are, he was going to fold. After enough thinking, he said "call", I flipped over my Ace-King fairly quickly knowing there was a strong chance I had him dominated or was racing him. He turned over King-King! It must have really looked like I had Aces, because he took forever to make that call.

Needless to say, the board brought me no help and I was gone. I'm going to go get hammered now so I don't feel so bummed. Yay drinking to cope!!

Eve of the Main Event
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-09 4:47am

Tomorrow I play Day 1-D of the Main Event (table 18, seat 4 for anyone who cares to stop by). Days ago I was nervous at the thought of it, but now I'm mostly sick of waiting for my turn to play.

It's a surreal (yet all too common) feeling that since my infancy in the poker world, I have dreamed of playing this tournament, and now that such an opportunity has arrived, I am strangely apathetic.

Shane Schleger just summarized it to me perfectly online, "it's just one stupid event." Although it seems counterintuitive, keeping that thought at the front of my mind might be a big key to success.

Random Merchants And Random Shootings
Posted by TwoGun on 2007-07-06 9:44pm

Today is the first day one of the WSOP. I don't begin playing until Sunday, so I have some time off. Ozone and I went to the Rio to watch some of the WSOP action as well as check out the WSOP Expo.

For those of you unfamiliar with the WSOP Expo, it's basically a small convention where poker merchants show off their products. Typical stands include poker magazines, online poker sites, poker paraphernalia, and misc. poker products (chips, tables, video games, etc.)

This year's expo was notably different from the past. First, there was an absence of online poker rooms (most likely the result of the UIGEA). Last year, quite a few poker rooms had stands for their ".net" sites. Merchants that sold products of interest to poker players generally replaced these stands. There were golf stands, energy drink stands, and a lot of strip clubs had stands too.

My personal favorite was the "World Series of Craps" stand, where some guy was trying to explain how a craps tournament involved skill. Apparently, if you have a better "feel" for the game and just know that snake eyes are coming, you can beat out the other players in a race for the most chips. This town is full of stupid people.

At the expo, Activision was showing off their WSOP 2008 video game. The graphics of the game look phenomenal. If you are into play money poker (I'm not, but there has to be some people in the world that are), this will probably be a great game to check out.

Another difference about this year's WSOP is the lack of hospitality booths. In the past, online poker sites that sent players the Main Event generally had a hospitality booth right outside the Amazon room (even if it was technically for their ".net" site). At these places, their players could get drinks and just have a quiet place to sit. This year, only a few poker sites had booths; I noticed ones for Party Poker and Ladbrokes Poker. Notably missing were any booths for US-facing poker sites, since Harrah's doesn't want to have any connection with them.

In other Vegas news, there was a random shooting at the New York New York casino. From what I understand, a Vegas local just went up to the balcony and started firing his handgun at random people. Luckily, no one was seriously injured, though at least three people were shot. Several off-duty cops that happened to be in the area were able to wrestle the man to the floor quickly.

I'm sure the gun rights movement will be all over this story, since this obviously proves that everyone in America needs a handgun. After all, if everyone had a gun, then someone could have shot the shooter to prevent this disaster form happening. That would be a lot more effective than increased gun control since if we didn't have handguns, the King of England would enslave us all.

Chop At The Venetian
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-06 6:47am

I played the Venetian's $1,000 tournament today. Their tournaments have absolutely impeccable structure. At one point, with about a dozen players left, my stack was 150 big blinds. A stack that huge is almost unheard of in live tournament poker.

Anyway, just 68 players showed up for the event. When we got down to 6, someone suggested we make a chop. First was scheduled at $21k, sixth at $4k. At this point, I was the shortstack in the tournament (but still had 15 big blinds, so I wasn't entirely desperate).

Two of the other five players said they were registered to play the Main Event tomorrow. At this point, it was almost 2:00 am, so they clearly didn't want to be awake for much longer. Some of the others were kinda nitty and just wanted to chop to get a guaranteed $10,000 or whatever. Realizing that I had a huge position of leverage against these guys, I basically negotiated a chop-deal that got me $9,000, which was the same as two other guys both of whom had twice as many chips as me!

After the tournament director ran the numbers for the chip-count payouts, everyone was like "agree, agree, agree, agree, agree," then it got to me. I had been sitting there in complete silence the whole time the director was calculating the numbers. When it was my turn to speak, I said "I need $10,000 to stop playing." By the chip counts, I was only entitled to $7,500. The other players were clearly miffed at me since, in their minds, the deal was all but done.

After some bantering, I interrupted and said, "okay, listen, basement offer, I'm not going any lower, I'll chop if I can get $9,000, otherwise we play." They talked amongst themselves and worked out an arrangement to meet my request. The six of us got $12,000 (chipleader who had over three times as many chips as I did!!), $9,300, $9,300, $9,300, $9,000, and $9,000.

At one point during the discussion, one of the players said to me "what makes you think you should get as much of a prize as us? You don't even have that many chips." The chipleader intervened on my behalf and said, "uhh, because he's better than you at poker." That made me giggle.

Finally, although clearly unhappy with the situation, everyone agreed on the chop and I walked out with basically the same payout as three players that all had me dominated in the chip count. It was a really sweet feeling.

An even sweeter feeling is that not once in the entire tournament did I have to survive an all-in. I was basically able to build up a stack by winning a lot of small pots and calling all-ins from shortstacks with premium starting hands that held up. It was one of the best tournaments I've played in my life. Having the desire to end on a high note, I'm going to take the next three days off and go into the Main Event on Monday with the confidence today's tournament instilled.

The Heat, My God The Heat!
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-04 11:16pm

Apparently some record temperatures are being set in the Southwestern part of the US. Vegas got up to like 117 degrees today or something ridiculous. I know it seems counterintuitive, but I'll take 117 in the desert over 85 and disgustingly humid.

Anyway, yesterday TwoGun, myself, and my friend Dave played the $500 tournament Binion's. We made an interesting prop bet where the first one of us to bust out will have the word "Owned" stamped on their forehead by whichever one of the remaining two has the most chips. We're able to do this thanks to a custom "Owned" rubber stamp I bought online a couple weeks ago.

Anyway, although the structure was great and the field was reasonably soft, I was having a horrible time at the table. Every time I raised, someone would re-raise me. Normally that's not a bad thing, but in this instance, I was card-dead and had to keep folding.

Finally, during 600/1,200, I picked up Jack-Jack and moved all-in for about 11,000. A lady in the big blind called all-in with Ten-Ten and hit a ten on the flop. That left me with a paltry 1,400 chips. On the next hand, I looked down at Jack-Nine. Just as I was about to splash the rest of my chips into the pot, I became aware of the fact that Dave called himself all-in at a table two away from mine. Giddy at the possibility that I wouldn't be the first one eliminated, I told the table "I'm going to wait to see what happens to my friend before making a decision, anyone is welcome to call the clock, I'd call the clock on me too." At this point, everyone at the table knew what was going on and was cool with me waiting. I was using the "Owned" stamp as my card protector, so it (as well as the prop-bet) had been a topic of interest to everyone.

Anyway, as fate would have it, Dave took a bad beat and busted out. TwoGun promptly stamped him on the face. I pushed all-in, had four callers, lost, and stamped myself on the face too. Fifteen minutes later, TwoGun busted out of the tournament. Feeling dejected and looking at his two friends with the word "Owned" written on their face, TwoGun decided to join the club. The three of us merrily headed off for a nice dinner with the word "Owned" stamped on our faces.

Today, I took a break from poker. I went to the Rio for a few minutes to register for the Main Event. There will be four "Day 1s". I'm playing the last of them, Day 1-D, on Monday. TwoGun is playing on Sunday. In the meantime, I'm going to take it easy with the gambling to stay in a good frame of mind for the Main Event. That will be easy to do since a few random (non-poker) friends are in town this weekend to hang out. However, it's possible I'll play the Venetian's $1,000 tournament tomorrow if I'm not hungover. This was supposed to be a short entry. Sorry about that, and thanks for reading.

No Wonder T.J. Loves It
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-03 3:58pm

Last night TwoGun and I went to the Casino Royale to play the variance game craps-style. It was a memorable night thanks to a run-in with a "craps professional".

I had been drinking and was kinda all over the place, but TwoGun kinda nudged me and motioned to the guy who walked up next to us. He kinda giggled and said, "I can have some fun with this," referring to the pen and pad of paper the guy was holding. You see, TwoGun knew exactly what was going on: we had a professional craps player next to us.

TwoGun: What's the pen and pad of paper for?

Professional: I'm a professional craps player, I come here to make money.

TwoGun: Orly? That's great! Can you show me some craps moves?

Professional: I charge $1,000 for two hours, I take your money and increase it 30% nightly.

After glancing at his stack of 30 one-dollar white chips, TwoGun asked for some credencials. And boy, were we delivered credentials. The man pulled out a business card that said "Pedro Perez: Change Your Fun Into Huge Cash Following The Only Master Of The Craps Table" (this was also translated into Spanish - Pedro's a man of the people like that).

Mr. Perez explained to us that his method of playing craps is just like professional horse betting. He said that the other players at the table are his horses (even his "employees") and that we're his method of making money. While TwoGun was foolishly fooling around with his black chips, the professional was destined to increase his stack by 30% thanks to his mastery of the craps table.

He kinda disappeared without us realizing it, probably because some beautiful girls were mystified by his secret system of how to beat the craps.

Anyway, Mr. Perez wasn't the sole reason for the load of fun at the table last night. Two other things: alcohol and an eight-grand upswing had me feeling pretty elated at bedtime. I'm going to play the Main Event now. Yay variance!

For now, we're headed off to magical downtown Las Vegas for a $500 tournament at Binion's Horseshoe. More on that later.

$1k NL Re-Buy Event
Posted by TwoGun on 2007-07-03 3:12am

Today, I played in the $1k NL re-buy event, which in reality is one of the heftiest buy-ins of all the no-limit hold'em WSOP events.

To play re-buy tournaments effectively, you need to budget a bare minimum of 3 buy-ins for the event (one for the buy-in, at least one re-buy, and the add-on). Since most places will let you re-buy immediately to increase your stack, it's rare that you will be in for just three buy-ins. This WSOP event also had a double add-on, so the budget for this event is really at least $4k. Many good players in the tourney ended up in for $8-$20k.

Most of the EV for good players in this event comes from casual players that just buy-in for $1k, with the attitude of just re-buying once or maybe doing the add-on. These types of players have virtually no chance of finishing near the top, which is where all the money is in these top-heavy payout tournaments.

The players at this tournament were mixed. I'd say about 10-15% were the dead money I mentioned, as well as a mix of solid players and a lot of well-known pros. At every table I sat in, there was well-recognized pro. The most entertaining of which was definitely Phil Hellmuth, but unfortunately I busted out about 10 minutes after I got to his table.

About 1000 players entered today's event and I busted out in about 200th place. This means I didn't bubble out, but I almost came close to bubbling out, so I can't really complain about not winning any money, but I still have that unsatisfied feeling that comes from a bubble out.

Bellagio Busto and Rant
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-02 8:32pm

I played in the $1,500 Bellagio Cup tournament today. For some reason, I was under the impression that we were getting 10,000 starting chips. When I got there, I saw we only got 3,000 starting chips. Ouch.

In the first two levels, I cruised up to 7,500 without ever risking all my chips. I just played tight and won a fair number of small and medium sized pots when I held a good hand.

In the third level, an old guy (I'd set an over/under of 73.5 for his age) came to our table. He had about 6,000 chips and I started licking my chops (figuratively) since usually old guys aren't very good. I realize stereotyping is bad, yada-yada-yada, but I'd say there's a better than 90% chance that any random 70+ year old playing poker in Las Vegas right now could be classified as "bad" by a panel of poker afficionados.

Anyway, I raised to 550 preflop with Ace-Queen. The old guy called. The flop was Ace-Six-Two. I bet out 700. He grabbed a stack of chips and raised me to 3,000. I almost beat him to the pot with my all-in raise. He made the call, showed Ace-Ten, and hit a ten on the turn. That pot would have given me 14,000 chips when the average stack was just 5,500, so needless to say, that was a frustrating three-outter (not to suggest that a non-frustrating three-outter exists).

If you're not up for reading a rant, feel free to stop reading at this point.

This tournament drew 243 players. A reasonable payout table would call for 27 players to be paid. As of when I left, the payout sheet was advertising that only the top 18 places got paid. That's pretty brutal, and it gets worse from here.

In a prize pool that was just $360,000, first place was scheduled to receive $130,000 and second place $77,000. That means the top two finishers (out of over 200, mind you) receive about 58% of the prize pool. I'm not one who is averse to gambling, but creating a payout table with such an immensely top-heavy structure results in a ton of variance imposed on the players.

Now, such a top-heavy structure wouldn't bother me if a typical final-table average stack was, say, 40 big blinds. The reality is that the average stack at the final table is probably going to be about 10 big blinds, maybe less. At such a point, skill is a diminished factor in determining the outcome.

This situation isn't unique to Bellagio either. Most live tournaments have a similarly brutal payout structure. I'm beginning to become fed up with tournament directors who structure their events to resemble a game of high-stakes pick-a-card at the end.

While still slightly unreasonable, the Venetian has always done a fair enough job of keeping their tournaments respectable. I should have played their event today.

Alright, that's enough about that. Last I heard, TwoGun has 13,000 chips during 200/400 at the $1,000 rebuy WSOP event. Hopefully he can land a nice score. I'm going to go downstairs to the sportsbook and track a little wager I made before dinner. Thanks for reading.

Back For A Marathon Stay
Posted by Ozone on 2007-07-02 2:59am

TwoGun and I returned to Las Vegas tonight where we will be for 10-nights (possibly longer if one of us goes deep in the Main Event).

For the first few nights of this trip, we're staying at New York, New York, which is actually one of my favorite casinos in Las Vegas. I really can't tolerate the gaudy materialism of places like Wynn, Bellagio, and the Venetian. But the other end of the spectrum, dumps like Barbary Coast, Flamingo, or Imperial Palace aren't desirable either. New York, New York is one of the few casinos that seems to strike the perfect balance of nice, without too much pretentiousness.

We're heading out now to head to the Rio, then the Bellagio. At the Rio, TwoGun will register for tomorrow's $1,000 rebuy WSOP event as well as the Main Event. Then at the Bellagio I'm going to register for tomorrow's $1,500 Bellagio Cup event.

My past dealings with the poker staff at Bellagio have them on thin ice in my book. They've always managed to be pretty snobbish to their customers. If I encounter that while registering tonight, I might say "screw it" and head over to the Venetian (which might be the best poker room in Las Vegas) to register for their $1,000 tournament tomorrow.

Anyway, TwoGun and I will both be blogging from Las Vegas for the next several days. I hope it's a worthwhile read.

What A Table Draw!
Posted by Ozone on 2007-06-17 10:02pm

Eating lunch around 11:30 am today, I asked TwoGun what table he drew for the $1k Venetian tournament. He pulled out his registration card and said he was at table 31. I looked at mine, lo and behold, I too was at table 31. Not a minute later, I got a text from skeptix saying "hey, I'm at table 31." This tournament had 25 starting tables, do the math, the odds of us all being at the same table were astronomical!

After finishing my sandwich, I left for the Venetian and met skeptix for the first time, who was seated at our table. I had sent him a text message saying that both TwoGun and I were also at his table, but apparently he hadn't read the message before I got there to tell him in person. His response summed up how I felt too: "haha... I'm not sure if I like that."

The competition at our table was pretty horrible, but got a lot tougher after the bad players donked off their chips. In the sixth level, TwoGun busted a short-stacked skeptix in a blind-vs-blind coinflip situation.

Shortly after that, our table broke. At my new table, during 400/800/75, I pushed all-in for 9k in early position with Ace-Jack of diamonds. Things went great until it got to the big blind, who called immediately and turned over Aces.

The entire tournament my stack never got lower than 8k and never higher than 15k. I made a very difficult laydown during 300/600/50. A fairly agressive, young player made it 1,800 in early position. The player in the cutoff re-raised to 5,100. From the button, with a stack of 14k, I looked down at Queen-Queen. My read on the player who re-raised was that he probably wouldn't re-raise an early position raisor, especially for about half his stack, without something super-premium. I figured, at worst, the guy had Ace-King. I also was worried that the original raisor was sitting on a monster. After thinking through all of this, I folded the Queens and was elated when the players got all-in: the original raisor had Tens, the other guy had Aces. Phew!

Overall I have no qualms with how I played, I just ran scarce on good hands and situations to pick-up chips.

TwoGun is still in the tournament and had about 25,000 as of twenty minutes ago. They're down to 100 players (250 started), 27 places pay, and first is $75,000. Hopefully TwoGun can go deep enough to give us a good sweat.

I'm going to head back to the Venetian now. The tournament is about to go on dinner break, and I think skeptix is going to join TwoGun and I for some food.

Prop Bets Are Fun, So Are Passed-Out Drunks
Posted by TwoGun on 2007-06-16 11:20pm

Tomorrow, I plan on playing the $1000 tournament at the Venetian with Ozone. I had originally planned on playing the $3k WSOP tournament, but decided to play the Venetian tourney instead. The Venetian tourney has better structure (especially when you take into account the buy-in), so I'm going to give it a shot.

Ozone and I have a pretty interesting prop bet going into the tournament based around our friend Warren, who plans on playing the tournament too. He's a good poker player, but he also seems to be on track for pulling an all-nighter, meaning he'd be awake for about 40 hours when the event starts. Ozone thinks this will greatly affect his EV in the tournament, so much so, that he'll match 10% of whatever Warren wins for $25. So, if Warren washes out, I pay Ozone $25. If Warren takes down $100k, Ozone owes me $9,975.

I'm feeling pretty good about this bet. While pretty much any other mortal is going to play awful after 40 hours of no sleep, Warren is no average man. I know this guy, and he's a beast. I'm pretty sure he went without sleep in all of 2003, so I really like my EV in this bet.

Another interesting occurrence happened at our hotel this afternoon. As I was heading back to my room at around 4:30 p.m., I couldn't help but notice that some mid-twenties douchebag was passed out three feet away from my door. I visit Vegas frequently, so seeing passed-out douchebags isn't exactly new to me. However, seeing a passed-out douchebag in the afternoon right by my door is quite novel.

After several failed attempts to wake him up, I called the front desk and notified them about the situation. They told me they already knew about it (apparently other people had called five to ten minutes ago) and said security was on their way up. I told him they should probably send up a doctor or some sort of medical staff too, which they seem to balk at. Mental note: never pass out in the middle of a Vegas hotel. Apparently, my life isn't worth the cost of a two-minute doctor visit to these places.

While we were waiting on security, a woman suggested putting a cold towel on his head, which we did. Security eventually came about five minutes later and was able to wake him up. Well, sort-of wake him up. He kept on saying "I'm all-in" as they brought him to consciousness. A pretty good representation for the average player you might see here in a low-stakes no-limit game.

That Was Ugly
Posted by Ozone on 2007-06-16 8:44pm

For the first six levels of the Venetian $550, I played awesome and built my 10,000 stack up to 30,000 while only showing one hand the entire time (no joke!)

Going into 400/800/75, I was feeling pretty confident with how things were going. The average stack was only about 18,000. I got knocked down to 20,000 in kind of an unavoidable QQ versus KK situation. From there, I just decided I'd play like an idiot.

A guy who had been raising a lot made it 2,400 in late position. I looked down at King-Nine puppyfeet (spades) and asked him how much he had left. He told me he had 11,000 more. Looking back, pushing all-in might not been that bad of a play since I knew his opening range was pretty big. Optimally, folding was the best play. I did neither of these, I called.

The flop came King-Seven-Three, all diamonds. I thought about how I wanted to play the hand. If I bet, and he raised all-in, I'd have to call him. I mean, the reason I called with this hand in the first place was to flop a king, so it's not like I can just fold. I decided I'd let him put more chips in the pot, and then raise him all-in. He bet 5,000, I pushed, he insta-called and turned over Jack-Eight of diamonds. That was about the worst I've played a hand in a live tournament that I can ever remember. I was pretty mad at myself afterwards for not just folding preflop, which I knew is what I needed to do as soon as I looked at my cards.

So anyway, that dropped me down to 10,000. I pushed all-in with Ace-Ten puppyfeet after a player limped in. It folded back to the limper, he called with Kings, and my 30,000 was reduced to 0 in less than 40 minutes.

Bad decisions are so incredibly costly in tournament poker. A bad decision is 100x as bad than a good decision is good (I hope that makes sense).

I registered for tomorrow's $1000+$70 tournament at the Venetian. TwoGun and a friend of ours, Warren, is also going to play. I'm taking the rest of the day off of poker to clear my mind for tomorrow's tournament. Aside from today's blow-up, I feel like I've been playing really well on this trip. Hopefully tomorrow can pay off.

A closing note: over 500 players participated in the Venetian tournament today, the same day that the WSOP was running a $1,500 no-limit event. I think the huge turnout at the Venetian is indicative of what I was thinking before even getting into town, that being there are better options than the WSOP for players with modest bankrolls.

A Little Vindication
Posted by Ozone on 2007-06-16 2:46pm

I got a little vindication via the Caesars Palace $540 last night. Just 53 players participated. I wound up taking 5th for a couple thousand. When we got down to six (only six places paid), I was the chipleader, but the average stack was just six big blinds! With structure that bad, the game essentially turns into bingo. The scheduled first place payout was $10,000. Sixth place was $1,300. Since all of our stacks were between 4-8 big blinds, it clearly made sense to me that we chop up the money and each take $4k-$5k home. After proposing this idea, some British guy actually turned it down! I was kinda mad that we had to play such a high-variance form of poker to split up $26,000 rather than just amicably agree on a chop. Normally I'm against chops and would just prefer to gamble, but when you're the chip leader and only have eight big blinds, chopping sounds optimal.

So anyway, very first hand after the chop discussion is busted, some guy pushes four big blinds. I look at Nine-Nine from the big blind, of course I have to call, yada-yada-yada, he has pocket jacks, a few minutes later I was out in fifth. That's why I wanted to chop!

Oh a little sidenote, any of you coming to Vegas during the WSOP, avoid the tournaments at Caesars Palace. The structure was absolutely awful. I wouldn't have played if I had looked at the structure sheet beforehand.

It's about 11:40 am. I just woke up and am now going to head to the Venetian for their $500+$50 tournament. I absolutely love the Venetian's tournaments. Incredible structure, horrible competition; you can't beat it.

I'll end this entry with a funny story from last night's tournament to emphasize what I mean when I say "horrible competition." During 200/400, an older gentleman raised to 1,200. A younger blinged-out guy called that raise. I looked down at King-King from the small blind. Even though I had 12,000 in chips, I knew I'd get called by one of them if I shoved, so I did. The older guy debated for a while and folded. Mr. Bling kinda shrugged, said "I guess I have to call", and put about 80% of his stack in the pot and turned over pocket twos. Pocket Twos!! The moral of the story is: that's not exactly a rare play to see, even for a $500 tournament. If you can get away for a couple days, come out to Vegas. There's so much dead money out here it's ridiculous.

Yay Coinflips!
Posted by Ozone on 2007-06-15 6:22pm

I woke up this morning at 10:45 after only five hours of sleep, but I felt surprisingly refreshed. After taking a shower, I went downstairs, had a chicken salad sandwich, and played a little blackjack at $5 a hand. TwoGun finished getting ready and made his way downstairs around 11:50. We caught a cab and headed off to the Rio for the $2,000 no-limit WSOP event.

In order to accommodate more players per tournament, Harrah's added a temporary air-conditioned tent which houses about 60 tables. Both TwoGun and I drew a seat in the tent. The atmosphere was a little better than I was anticipating, but it was still pretty hot and mildly uncomfortable.

I didn't recognize anyone at my starting table, which was a good sign that the competition would be pretty bad. That prediction ended up being true. It only took about 10 minutes of observing the opposition to realize that many of them had no idea what they were doing. We started with 4,000 chips. I was down to 3,500 when the following hand came up. Two loose, bad players limped for 50 chips. From the small blind, I made it 200 with Ace-King. In an online tournament, I would have probably raised to 300 or 350 in this spot, but my reasoning was different in this tournament. I knew if I made it 300 or 350, both of the limpers would call. Since I had no chance of taking down the pot preflop, it made sense to give myself a little bit of a discount and focus on getting the chips in the pot once I actually have a pair rather than preflop, out of position, against two bad players.

After I raised, the big blind re-raised me to 800. Both of the limpers folded, and I had a fairly easy decision. I moved all-in for 3,500 total. The big blind called almost instantly, turned over QQ, and I was out of the tournament before the clock hit 12:30 pm.

You might think I'd be mad to be out of the tournament so early, but I was actually fairly relieved. I'd much rather lose a coinflip at that point than eight hours into the tournament. I got on my phone and called the Venetian Poker Room. I knew they had a $500+$50 tournament that started at noon. I was pumped when the lady told me that registration didn't close until 2:00 pm, so I hopped in a cab and headed to the Venetian.

For the first two levels I played, everything was fairly standard. During 100/200/25, a young Irish player called an all-in with Jack-Jack versus someone's Ace-Queen. When a Queen came on the river, the Irish kid seemed pretty disgusted, but he still had plenty of chips. On the very next hand, the Irish kid raised to 700 and stole the blinds. On the hand after that, he raised to 700, and again, stole the blinds. For the third time in a row, the Irish kid raised, this time to 900 after someone limped, and again, he stole the pot. By now, it was pretty clear that the player was tilting from losing the race. The very next hand, for the fifth time in a row, something I've maybe never seen in a tournament, he raises again to 700 from under-the-gun. It folded to me on the button. I looked down at Eight-Eight, which felt like Ace-Ace in this situation, and re-raised him to 2,200. When it folded back to him, he immediately grabbed all of his chips and threw them into the middle of the pot. Without hesitating, I called off my remaining 5,500 and was a little bummed out when he turned over King-Queen. It wouldn't have surprised me if he turned over Six-Two in that spot. As the dealer dealt the flop, the door card was a Queen. Obviously that was disappointing, but I was anxious to see the other two flop cards in hopes there was an Eight. She revealed the other two cards: another Queen, and a King! Wow, talk about being owned by the coinflip gods!. I smiled, grabbed my things, and headed back to the hotel.

Of course, this wasn't the most optimal way I was hoping to start the trip, but I'm at peace with how I played both tournaments. As I type this, it's only 3:10 pm, so there is definitely more poker left in the day for me.

Caesars Palace is having a $500+$40 buy-in tournament at 7:00 pm tonight. The structure looks pretty good for a $540 tournament, so I might play that. It's also possible I'll take a break from tournaments and hit up the cash game tables for a while. Tomorrow I'm heading back to the Venetian for another $500+$50. Here's hoping that the worst of this trip is behind me!

We're BAAAACK!
Posted by Ozone on 2007-06-15 7:30am

TwoGun and I arrived in Vegas very late Thursday night (as I write this it's 4:30 am Vegas time Friday morning). I'm going to keep this short since I should probably get some rest before tomorrow's $2,000 buy-in WSOP event. Both TwoGun and I are playing.

When we got into town, we checked in at Treasure Island. Neither of us have stayed here before, which is a large reason why we decided on this place. Novelty rules. After checking in, my friend Dave picked us up and drove us to the Rio to register for the $2,000 event. Evidently 2:00 am is a great time to register for WSOP events. I've read many stories of long registration lines, but we had no wait at all.

Alright, that's all for now. Expect a more thorough entry tomorrow.

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