$5K NL Report
Hey gang, I guess I'm due to write something here again and I played a couple hands that were kind of interesting today so I might as well write about them. I was up to a bit over 16K when this goofy hand happened:
50/100 Passive guy who has already doubled up with top set limps in EP, Roland de Wolfe who had just sat down makes it 700 in position and I flat call KK in the BB. I played with Roland for most of day 1 in the $10K mixed games so I'm pretty sure he thought I was very tight/solid. What I didn't realize is he was still in another tournament and just looking to gamble here. The limper calls and the flop is 532 with two diamonds. I lead 1400, limpers calls, Roland makes it 4900. I decide to call to see what the limper does first before committing to the pot. Limper instashoves, Roland quickly calls and I fold. Limper 55, Roland AKo, turn A so I don't feel like a complete donk for not 3-betting pre.
Next I get it in pre KK vs AA and win to get over 20K then I decide to do this. First some history: The players on my right is a donk. Important history:
Theo Tran opens to 250 he defends his BB. Flop 995r, he checks raises Theo, bet the blank turn, and chk/chk A river. He shows T5s Theo mucks. So instead of keeping the pot small with marginal hands he likes to checkraise and hope they go away and put himself in terrible spots in big pots if they don't.
75/150 UTG is a donk and limps with 2K behind. UTG+1 is the other guy I just talked about and he limps. I make it 750 with KQhh and both call. Flop T66r one heart. chk/chk I bet 1500, UTG folds. UTG+1 thinks for a bit. I'm not basically just staring at the felt like I always am and not paying attention to his body language that much, and I rarely assign much weight to my live reads anyways, but I'm fairly certain he basically looked like he was going to just fold, and then changed his mind and decided "nah fuck this kid he aint got it" and raised to 5k with 7k behind. I was pretty sure from a combination of the fact he wasn't loose enough pre that I would expect him to have a 6 here very often, his body language, and his line/bet-sizing that he did not have a big hand. On the one hand donks don't like folding pairs, but on the other hand donks also don't like risking their tournament lives so early without the goods. I moved him in and he called after about a minute with 77 and I bricked out. This is a play I basically never make but I really thought this was the perfect spot for it and I'm actually pretty happy with my decision to pull the trigger despite the results.
I still had 6k but gobbo owned me in back to back hands. First he bluffed me off an overpair when I thought he was trapping a big hand but he said he just had AQ. Then the very next hand I had AK and he trapped with AA. Allen Cunningham squeezed and I got tarped. Monday is 2500 NL 6-max. I think I will skip Sundays tomorrow. I may play the Party million though. It starts super early but is such a good tourney it's hard to pass up. I'm definitely not grinding all day though. 0 for 7 so far, and down a bunch at online cash too. But the summer is just getting started.
Mike
Quick Vegas Update
I don't have much super exciting to write about but I've got nothing else to do while I'm sweating Isaac Haxton to victory in the $40K tourney and I feel like I ought to post some kind of update. OK, so first my run in the $40K tourney. Here are a few interestingish hands:
Hand 1: 200/400 a50. Gavin Smith limps, someone else limps, Raszi completes the SB and I check 23dd in the BB. Flop Q54dd, Raszi leads 1600, I call, Gavin calls, other guy folds. Turn Kh, check, I check, Gavin bets 4K, Raszi makes it 14K, I cold call, and Gavin folds. River 4d Raszi checks and I check and win.
I've rarely felt like as big of a pussy after playing a hand of poker as I did here but I'm not sure I made any really clear mistakes. Probably I should have raised the flop in retrospect actually to try to drive out any bigger flush draws and possibly just win the pot right there, but calling is hardly a big mistake and I was actually kind of hoping for a raise behind so I could then bomb in a big reraise myself. Nothing like gambling for 300xBB in level one of a $40K buy-in with a draw. The turn check seems fine once I play the flop more conservatively and I think I have to coldcall the bet and raise since Gavin is super unlikely to ever reraise in that spot and I'm getting direct odds to call, plus excellent implied odds if I make my straight. The only really bad thing that can happen is if Raszi is semi-bluffing himself or Gavin calls behind with a better draw but I think the price is still good enough even taking those cases into consideration. I actually think the river is a pretty clear check as it would be extremely difficult to get called by worse and he can definitely check worse to me (either looking to checkraise with a full house hoping I'll bet my flush or checking a better flush that he's afraid could be beat some of the time).
So that and a few other pots got me off to a great start but I went pretty card dead later in the day and bled off chips. I should have picked a few more spots to try pick up some chips with resteals and such but really it just wasn't my day. On day 2 I played 3 hands in quick succession and busted:
Hand 2: 2500/5000 a500 After having paid the blinds I'm down to around 80K and find 55 in the CO. I move in and pick up the blinds and antes.
Hand 3: Very next hand I open KTdd in the HJ to 12500. Bobby Suer calls on my left. He final tabled the WPT event in Tunica and I had happened to have watched that episode so I had a decent idea how he played. I felt pretty confident that he had a better hand than me and he probably should have reraised me, but he wasn't trapping with a monster or anything. Moorman then moves in from the BB for 42.5K more. If I move in and get Bobby to fold I'll be getting 2:1 against the BB's hand which is a good price, and I'm pretty sure Bobby will fold so I do that and all goes as planned except Moorman has ATo and I don't get there.
Hand 4: I have like 40K or something left and shove AQs very next hand. Shawn Buchanan reships and James Mackey (mig.com) thinks for a while and shoves over the top too. Shawn has QQ and mig has 66. I flop the nut flush draw but miss everything.
After that I went and got the keys to our summer house which is pretty sweet. I like it better than the place we had last year. I'm living with the Aussies this year. So far only StevoL, Jay (Seabeast), and Joel Dodds are here, but Tony (Bond) is arriving tomorrow and the others are scheduled to show up in a week or two I think. I'll try to post pictures at some point. Probably I should take some before we make too big a mess.
Friday night I went out and got some degeneracy out of my system. I met up with Tom and Kyle (who I lived with last summer) to grab dinner and drinks and watch the Lakers game, then we went and put a beating on the nearest Texas Holdem Bonus table, and after that I ended up at the Rhino and got that out of my system too. Today I played online tourneys and some cash and got owned. Benyamine 6-outed me on the river for a 60K pot about 2 minutes after I woke up and I had no luck the rest of the day making any of that back. I had a couple deep runs in tournaments but I blew them. Here's one key hand I think I got wrong:
FTP 750K Gtd. 110/4000 players remain I have a slightly above average stack of ~120K or so iirc. Folds to the CO who opens to 8500ish and I flat call with AA in the BB. Obviously 3-betting here is fine but it's a good spot to flat call and trap and I think in this situation the call was the better play. Flop KJxdd, chk/chk. Turn 9, I bet ~13K and he makes it ~37K. I eventually shove but in retrospect I think I definitely should have folded. I really don't play my A-game on Sundays though and I shoved and lost to QT.
Anyways I'm already registered for the 1500 PLO on Monday and we're going golfing at 640am before that. I'm going to be exhausted all day but I think it will be worth it to get out there and play. I haven't played yet all summer so I"m going to really suck, but there's only one way to get back into it, and one of my bigger regrets the past couple summers is that I've hardly got out to play golf at all. If I last long in the PLO I'm going to be a mess but I guess that's what caffeine is for, even though I'm trying to minimize how much of that I drink this year.
That's all I've got for now, I should really try to get to sleep but I am lucky enough to have a small piece of Isaac's action so I'm going stay up and sweat him to the bracelet. Let's get the summer started off right for a change.
Mike