Bad Blogger

For the past couple of weeks I have been thinking to myself that I am a really bad blogger. Not just due to the fact that I've been like a once every 3-4 weeks type of guy, but mainly because I make claims that I don't follow through with. Like, it's completely unacceptable to say in a post something like "ok I need to rest up for some huge world series of poker event where millions of $ will be on the line, and if I bust out early I'll go play some big cash games," and then not post a word for the next three weeks. If I were someone who tries to read my blog, I would at least one of the following: 1) unbookmark my blog (if it ever was) and never check back ever. 2) text or e-mail me telling me how bad I am at blogging/life because I never update during the WSOP which is basically the only poker event that anyone cares about. 3) Cut the internet at my house because I obviously don't know how to use it. 4) Stop being friends/family members/acquaintances/strangers with me.

I had been planning on making this my retirement post, but then I decided that I don't really need to retire the blog. However, from this point on, I am not going to claim to be a guy who is going to post everyday or even every week or every month. When I was in vegas from the end of may to June 18, I had the internet in my room for about 5-7 of the days, and the last thing I wanted to do at 3am after playing 14 hours of poker was to log on and write about the bad play I made to bust out of the tournament and the following 10 hours of cash games I played. I really thought that I'd be able to make posts from my iphone, but I don't think I can which made it tougher. Had I been able to do that, I could have posted every day after a tournament something like "all in preflop with JJ against someone who overplayed 99. 9 on flop, good game me." or "tried to bluff someone cuz I thought he was bluffing me. Turns out he wasn't. Back to the cash games."

With this in mind, I will now try to recap the last 3ish weeks. I already posted about my first 3 WSOP events. After that, I played in three more of those, 3 $550 tournaments at Venetian and a $1060 at Bellagio. I didn't cash in any of them, leaving me 0-10 in tournaments on the trip. I did have decent stacks in the last 2 WSOP events, the Bellagio, and a massive stack pretty late in one of the Venetians. I started to really feel like I was playing well in tournaments toward the last five after feeling like I played below my A game in 2-3 of the earlier ones. 0-10 might sound bad, but it's actually very easy to do. Since about 10% of players get paid any given tournament, an average player would cash in 1-10 that he/she played in. Given my history, I would generally cash in about 2-2.4 out of ten. I could bust out some statistics and figure out the chances that I could go 0-10 with a sample size of 10 to show the large variance, but I don't feel like it and would probably screw it up anyway.

WARNING: This post is about to take a 180 from negative to positive :)

If you had told me that in my 20 days in Vegas in June I would play in 6 WSOP events ond go 0-10 in tournies altogether, I would have thought it would surely be a losing month, and probably by a lot. In actuality, at the end of each night I was there, I was up for the trip. I absolutely killed the cash games like I never have before for this long of a time. I wasn't playing very high stakes, 5-10 and 10-20 only, while 10-20 has been my game of choice for the past several months. I ended up coming home with the amount I brought+my main event buy-in (10K)+another good chunk of cash. Considering the fact that tournament results were so poor, I was elated to have such a good trip.
I had a lot of fun there too. I went golfing once, went to the pool several times (I love the Wynn pool, even if it is 105 degrees outside), ate good food, watched a lot of sports, and played a lot of poker.

I got home on Friday the 20th I think and decided that I was just going to relax and not play any poker until I returned in early July for the main event. Sunday morning rolled around and I had nothing to do and the house was vacant. I decided that I may as well try to win a seat to the main event as I did last year so I don't have to pony up the 10k myself. I signed up for 2 WSOP satellites and I also decided to play in the big sunday tournaments on each site as I do most sundays. I got very close to a WSOP seat when I took 5th in a tournament that gave seats to the top 2. I had a nice stack, but was forced to get it all in preflop with AQ vs. a maniac with KJ. Of course I didn't win as a 62ish% favorite in that hand. I would have had a massive stack and been all but a lock for one of the two seats. Literally about 5 minutes before that hand I had busted out of the stars sunday million when I ran QQ into a guy's AA that he played very well and I busted out of that after having a very promising stack. Although that was worth $1400 (1st place was like 160k), my blood was boiling after the two consecutive bustouts from tournaments that looked so promising about 10 minutes before. I went from being on the brink of a big score to below even on the day in about ten minutes. To my credit, I took a lap around my room, kept my composure and focusing in on the one lonely table remaining on my screen: The Full Tilt 750k guaranteed (their big sunday tourney). This tourney was still quite early, not even to the money yet. I went from a decent stack as we entered the money, to a very short stack, to top 10 in chips with 200 people remaining. We widdled ourselves down to the final table where I stood 2nd or 3rd in chips. Quickly I became the chip leader and stayed that way until we were 7-handed and I got a guy all-in with 66 vs. my KK. Nothing is easy, so the 6 on the flop left me just below the middle of the pack. As blinds and antes escalated and 3 more players got eliminated, I became the short stack. At this point I was guaranteed 30k with 50k going to third, then 80k, and 132k. I got all in twice (and way behind) within about 20 minutes, but they say luck evens out and my A3 sucked out on A10, and my A10 sucked out on JJ. Now all of a sudden I was back to above average. I now started picking on one played who was obviously scarred to bust out and my stack continued to grow until I was heads-up and about even in chips. I immediately started playing very aggressively, and took a 7 million to 3 million chip advantage. My opponent was a very good player from Sweden, so I knew that he was going to try to make a move soon. After his preflop raise (which was not uncommon, he was probably raising about 30% of the hands) the flop came J 6 3 and I had J8. After he bet around 700k, leaving himself with about 1.5 mil, I really thought he would be calling my all-in raise and I would be two cards away from the win. He ended up having AA and now he had a 6-4 advantage. I got down to 7-3, battled back to even, lost 1.2 million bluffing, and then this hand came up as he was ahead 6-4. He raised, I called with 96s. flop was 9 7 3. I had raised him about 3 times on the flop after he had raised preflop so I figured that at some point he would think I'm full of it. With that in mind, flopping top pair heads up made me believe that I had the best hand here about 90% of the time. So he bet the flop, I made a small raise hoping that he thought I was full of it, and he shoved all in for what little I had remaining. He had 10 10 this time, and he held up to win the tournament.
I was very happy with how I played heads-up. I really controlled the match and I feel that it would have been over much sooner had I not been the won picking up the majority of the pots. It was fairly unlucky of me to flop top pair when he had overpairs twice, but in heads-up against a good player with blinds so high, there's no way I'm ever folding either of those hands. I would have liked to win, but I have no regrets and 80k.

I'm leaving for vegas again tomorrow to play in a free tournament that the Wynn is having for all of their players that played for 50 hours in their room in June. The top 10 players each get 10k. I don't know how many players qualified, but I hope it's not very many. After that, the main event of WSOP starts July 3. There are four day 1's, so I will play one day between July3-6 and then again on the 7th or 8th if I'm still in. For the players still remaining, everyone continues on the 9th.

PS- I know I'm supposed to spell out numbers instead of using the actual numbers, but I didn't. If it bothers you, you can cut and paste it onto word and change tham all before reading it.

Quick Update

I have not been able to update as much as planned because I can't figure out how to add new posts from my phone which I thought should have been very easy. I am leaving right now to play in a WSOP event right now after not playing since wednesday because my brother's bachelor party was in town last weekend. I played in two more events last week that I haven't posted about. I busted very early in both. The first one I was all in with AA vs. QJ on a J55 flop (I was 90% to win), but a jack hit the river to send me out. The other one I got all in with 66 vs. AA on a 8 6 3 flop. Again I was about a 90% favorite in the hand, but the turn and river were both diamonds to give him a flush, and I was left with almost no chips.
Cash games on the other hand have been going very well, and I have to leave right now.

WSOP event #2

I played in the second event of the 2008 World Series of Poker yesterday. It was the largest non-main event in WSOP history, and the 4th largest live poker tournament in history. It was a $1500 no-limit hold 'em event, which is the smallest buy-in at the WSOP. I busted out about 3 hours which was fairly standard because you only start with 3000 chips and the blinds start at 25/50 (you don't start with many chips). I wasn't unhappy at all because I thought I played well and just didn't make any hands and ran into some hands when I tried to make moves.
However, I jumped right into the cash games at the Rio and played for about 8 hours with a break in the middle to eat dinner with a friend of mine that lives in Vegas. I ended the night up 5600, which is an excellent start to the trip. I am currently in the hotel room playing in the big sunday online tournaments, and then I might go play some cash games later tonight.