 Vegas June 2008 (WSOP) |
| Day Five (aka WSOP Part II) |
| For some reason, as I proofread this entry I'm reminded of one of my favorite lyrics from one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs titled Long Road. "...And the sun is setting, the sun will rise another day..." And my thinking of it has nothing to do with the time of day, now after 4am, in case that's not apparent.
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| Woke up at the early time of 10-ish, got a good sleep tho unlike the night after my big cash at Caesar's.
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| It wasn't too hard to convince me to buy in to the HORSE tournament. I wanted to play in it, I had the cash sitting there and between Joann and all of the friends contacting me and nudging me there wasn't much chance of me staying away. So off to Rio we went, bought in and ate at the buffet again. This is fast becoming my second favorite buffet. But we had 3-4 hours to kill, so we made a run to WalMart and then to the Hilton so that my wife the Trekker could geek out. And she did. Got away reasonably cheaply but not free...
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| Then a quick run to the Gamblers General Store to get Mike D some cards. You know how women are when the go to a clothes store...or a shoe store...or, well, pretty much any store? C'mon, ladies, be honest...well that's me at the GGS. It's hard to drag me out, I'm simply incapable of just going in, getting what I need and leaving as I would just about any other store on the planet. I actually shop when I'm there. Walk around and look at stuff I have no intention of buying "just because". I could take the whole damn place home with me...
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| Then a quick run to the room to drop off our bounty and back to the Rio with 5-10 minutes to spare.
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| The tournament started out great for me. First hand out of the gate I call a preflop raise with J-10 and get a flop of Q-9-8. I check, raiser bets, I call planning to check-raise the turn. Turn is a K. Check, bet, raise...fold. Original raiser flashes a Q by accident. Damn, the K scared him off...any other card. Two hands later pocket aces with someone raising into me again. I go over the top, they call but fold to my flop bet. OK, so it's easy to play monsters. But from that point on I was playing very confident.
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| A quick note on the structure. Unlike the $50K buyin where they play each game for 30 minutes, this structure was play 8 hands and change games. Hour long rounds, stakes changed regardless of game every hour. So you might play a hand of Omaha at 50/100 blinds and the next hand play same game at 75/150 blinds because the hour was up. At first I didn't think I would like that structure but in hindsight with the long rounds it was actually a great structure.
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| But I digress...
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| So I did lose some chips and was down from my starting stack when I had a great starting Razz hand, we both paired on 4th street so I kept betting, I paired my hidden deuce but tried to play on my already tight reputation and kept betting but ended up getting called down and getting two more bad cards. But I had made a point I wanted to make, that I was willing to try and buy pots because people were starting to not give me action at times when I wanted it.
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| Now down a little further I'm getting the action I wanted and start to steadily build my stack. By the end of the first hour I was at about 8000 chips. Up and down a little through the second hour, but by the end of the third hour I was around 10K from my starting stack of 6000. But more importantly I was outplaying most of the table and I felt like I had a dead read on everyone around me.
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| First off, half the table were obviously serious pros. One guy sitting next to me had just taken 3rd in an event the day before and people knew him. Guy across the table from me all the pros also seemed to know and he was the guy trying to steal pots left and right and raising preflop or on the deal way more than was statistically warranted. But I'd gotten a feel for when he was stealing and when he had a hand. He was gradually becoming the big stack, I was generally sitting around 2nd in chips most of the time. One guy was an obvious Hold'Em player taking a stab, the old guy at far end and another guy across from me obviously played together many times before. The one at the far end didn't believe anyone and when he was in a hand he was going to call to the river most of the time so don't bother bluffing him. And everyone else was clearly more comfortable in some games than others.
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| And I was reading the table just as well in this one, if not better, as I was at Caesar's two nights ago. Here I was in a zone again.
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| Before I go on, at the bottom of this entry I'm going to put a quick primer on casino stud betting for those of you who aren't familiar. You might want to jump down and read that so some of this will make more sense to you.
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| My favorite hand came in our second round of Razz. Me and stealer both have aces showing and I have 33 underneath. Stealer completes and I either called or raise, I forget. 4th street brings him a 10 and me a 3. I bet out and he folds, I show my set. Woman across from me asks if I knew this was Razz, I said yeah. Again I want to advertise that I'm willing to bluff, want to get action when I have hands.
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| Just before dinner break I did blow some chips. Playing stud high I had A-K-Q with two diamonds and the K showing was high card on the board. I was playing tight and only showing big hands for a while and folding a lot of hands where I had the high up card instead of raising out. I decided if all I got was calls into me I was going to raise and represent. Bring in was 50, complete was 200. Call, call, I throw in 200 immediately. I want to make it clear I'm big. But there's a problem. Idiot just before me to act grabbed the wrong chip and threw in a 25 and a 100 instead of two 25s. He's obviously calling, everyone who speaks up agrees that he can take back his 100 and put out a 25...but then asshole next to me demands a floor person be called over for a ruling. Floor person says it's more than half a raise he has to complete the raise in spite of the obvious intent. Then three people after me fold immediately and I ask if I can raise because I really want to represent at this point. Floor person rules that because people have already folded after me I can't change my action. I'm pissed.
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| From that point, I keep betting out and my draws keep improving but I never even get a pair. Alas on the river the other player went over the top, clearly he was calling down what he thought was an under-pair hoping to hit two pair or a set and did.
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| That was just a little before dinner break, on the last hand we switched to hold'em and the big blind had left the table not thinking we'd get another one in. I'm small blind. Sure enough, stealer raises out. Every bone in my body says this is a steal, alas someone before me reraises and I have to throw away my 4-5 suited I was going to take a stab with myself. Flop comes 8-5-X, and those two are betting and raising into each other again. Obviously stealer is still representing and other guy thinks stealer has nothing. In the end, stealer tabled 8-2 for two pair as he hit a two on the turn. Bastard was stealing, I was right, he got very lucky as did I because I would have called without the reraise ahead of me and called to the river with my pair of 5s. On to dinner...
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| I come back to the table filled with confidence. I'm above average stack, I've got my table down to a science, I'm playing perfect poker...and you know what's coming, right?
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| Total collapse.
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| And of all games, my game of choice, the game I play better than any other game...Omaha 8/b.
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| It pretty much fell apart in two hands.
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| First one was a monster. A-K-K-3 with A-K clubs. This is one of the bigger hands in this game. Stealer raises, I reraise, another caller, can't remember if stealer called or reraised and then I called. I've got both of them on A-2-something, it's the only thing that makes sense and stealer has shown a pattern of building pots with any A-2. 2nd caller wouldn't be playing anything else with all the raising and reraising so no way am I putting either of them on a pair of bullets.
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| Flop comes 10-7-4 with a club. I've got overpair and 2nd nut low. Stealer bets, I raise to see where I'm at, call, stealer reraises, call, call. Believe it or not, this reraise convinces me of my read. He's again building the pot with A-2 expecting a low. Turn is a big club. Again, I'm sure my Kings are good and that I'm going to quarter these two, I have a flush draw as a backup. And if I'm right, I might have two outs to scoop - the last two ducks in the deck. Bet, call, call. River is the worst possible card...what I fully believe is the case ace. I have top pair top kicker, but for the first time I'm worried about two pair. If all they have is ace-two there's no low and sure enough it goes check, check, check. And they both table A-10-2-X. They each had two outs to beat me in a MONSTER pot. The case ace and the case 10 and they hit the case ace.
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| I'm sick. Just taking half of this monster pot would have put me close to the table chip leader, it would have been me and the stealer way ahead of everyone else. Instead I've been scooped and it cost a lot.
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| Next hand I get A-J-A-6 double-suited. And here we go again, stealer raises out and I reraise and he calls. This one is very simple, high cards I should be good, low cards get away. Flop comes 3-K-J rainbow. I've got him on A-2 again. I bet, he raises, I call. Turn a 5, bet, call. River a 10. Bet, call, he flips over A-2....and pocket 3s. Again I read him dead on, again he out draws me only this time on the flop instead of the river.
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| This one didn't cost as much, but between those two hands I lose about 2/3 to 3/4 of my stack. I'm in trouble. Couple hands later I'm in BB with K-K-J-3, stealer raises but there are two callers ahead of me. Since I'm so short I decide I need to try and win this already big pot so I call. Flop comes three small diamonds - but lo and behold I have J-3 diamonds. Check, check ahead of me, I bet since noone represented the flush, get nothing but callers. If anyone had a better flush there would have been a leading bet or a raise and sure enough it holds up and I get doubled up thanks to the four-handed action (stealer took the low with his A-4).
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| But still short in Razz I get A-3-5 with 5 showing and I complete. Person next to me calls also with 5 showing. I decide I'm playing until the end. I get an 8. He gets a 6. Bet, call.I get a 9 on 5th st but he gets a 7. I decide I can't give up now, all the chips go in and long story short, as it turns out he had 3-8 underneath. I actually had the best hand on 4th st but my last three cards were the aforementioned 9 followed by 10 and a Jack while he had his made-but-almost-worst-possible-8-high on 5th st and I missed all three of the final three cards and I was done.
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| As you can imagine, I was not a happy camper walking out of the Rio tonight. The hand that's going to gnaw at me for quite a while was the first 8/b hand I talked about. And here's why.
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| Because up until a week ago, I would have gotten away from that hand. And I would have gotten away for all the wrong reasons. I would have gotten away because I would have been worried about only getting half the pot instead of correctly reading that the other two were both on low draws and that it was overall a winning situation for me. I had the best high and they were both so clearly playing for a quarter each. I would have been worried about pocket aces because I wouldn't thought about the fact that the odds of one of them having the case ace (thus pocket aces) already was very, very low and that their previous betting patterns (stealer always built a pot with A-2, caller always called with A-2) were SCREAMING low draws.
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| Was it a "trouble hand"? Maybe. But there was never a wheel draw, I had the flush covered and there's almost never a 0% chance of losing a hand in this game. I believe the math was very much in my favor, the "never draw to half" mantra doesn't come into play. My hand was made, it had the potential to get better and the number of bad cards was small. And I knew it.
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| In other words, I believe I got killed because I'm playing great poker, I was dead on right, and I got very unlucky. And I could have gotten away from the hand, and before this week I would have gotten away from the hand but I didn't and I was right and I still lost. And this wasn't Pete's home game, this was a $1.4 million prize pool (give or take). And the problem is I can't even figure out how to feel about it. After all the poker I've played over the last 4 years or so for the first time I've got it figured out. For whatever reason this week I know exactly what's going on around me. I'm reading players and situations and entire tables better than I ever have. And more importantly, I'm trusting it. I'm not going to claim bizarre Negraneau-like hand reading skills, I'm not calling people's cards and suits. But my table-awareness is so good right now and in the past I've failed to trust it and I've missed opportunities. But this week I finally trust my reads every time and it's made all the difference in the world. And I made the right read and ultimately THAT was what killed me in this tournament and that is just soooo damn frustrating.
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| And sorry if I'm being a downer but dammit, it's my blog, I'll vent if I want to...
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| So now I've reread this about 100 times proofreading and tweaking and I think it's calmed me down a bit. Guess I'm not going to give up poker forever after all :) But I'll say this, I'm still trying to figure out what's the lesson I should learn from all this. The sun will rise another day, but I knew that. Oh well, I need to try and get some sleep. Gotta be well rested so I can try and get some of this back tomorrow for a little smaller buyin...maybe we'll try Caesar's again. G'nite...or good morning...
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| Stud betting primer:
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| For the uninitiated...unlike "flop games", stud betting goes like this:
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| There is always a token ante, usually about 1/4-1/8 of the low betting limit. After the deal, the worst card has a forced bet calling a "bring in" usually about 1/3 of the low betting limit. The only raise permitted at this point is what's called a "complete", which is a raise to the low limit. All subsequent raises on 3rd street are multiples of the low limit. After 4th st in stud games the bet is the low limit with one exception - in stud high only, if anyone has a pair showing anyone can decide to bet the high limit on 4th st. Then in all stud games 5th st and beyond you bet the high limit. So for example, in round three the blinds for Hold'Em were 75/150 and the limits were 150/300. In that same round, the betting limits for stud were still 100/200 but the ante was 25 and the bring in was 50. Hope that all makes sense... |
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