I had a couple of people mention to me that they are reading my blog but don't understand many of the poker terms I use. If this applies to you, here are two great resources to help you figure out what I'm talking about: Wikipedia on Hold'em and Lingo & Abbreviations Defined.
And just to clarify, I am playing no-limit hold'em (NLHE) cash games almost exclusively while the World Series of Poker (a series of over 50 tournaments covering all poker variants) is running at the Rio in Vegas. Hopefully this post will provide those of you unfamiliar with the game with a basic idea of how it works. Without this basic understanding, it will be difficult to comprehend most of this blog. :)
Friday, June 8, 2007
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Bad night
I had a really bad night at the tables tonight. Strassa was chipleader with 3 tables left in the $1k+rebuys event at the Rio (and I *hate* the Rio), so we headed over there to sweat + grind instead of the Bellagio. What a huge mistake this was.
I don't really feel like going into the details right now because I'm absolutely furious, but basically I ran a $1300 bluff at 2/5 which did not succeed. Maybe if people at 2/5 understood things like table image and relative hand strength it would have worked, but alas...
I was totally card dead all night -- almost none of my hands paired, very few draws ever came up for me, and I missed every single draw that I did pick up (seriously). In my ~8hr session at this one 2/5 table, I had at least two streaks of 90min or longer during which I didn't win a single pot. Nothing was going my way until I coolered another guy to double up, but after that it was back to putting money into pots and never getting any back. Also, the Rio and Harrah's need to die a painful death.
And to top it off, I wasn't playing well. I felt like I was a tremendously better player than everyone at the table, and this led to my becoming complacent with my play; I felt like I could play my C- game and still come out on top, which is probably what makes me the most angry right now.
So, I've decided that I will not be playing 2/5 again on this trip. The play is just too bad, and that in turn causes me to play poorly. I will only be playing 5/10 or 10/20 from here on out, assuming I can actually get someone to fucking trade me cash for online money. If I had a cash bankroll on hand, I'm confident that I could play my A game every day and thusly be tremendously successful. But without the confidence that having a bankroll gives me, I feel like I'm doomed to repeat this cycle of mediocrity for a long time.
Have I mentioned that I hate Harrah's and the Rio?
I don't really feel like going into the details right now because I'm absolutely furious, but basically I ran a $1300 bluff at 2/5 which did not succeed. Maybe if people at 2/5 understood things like table image and relative hand strength it would have worked, but alas...
I was totally card dead all night -- almost none of my hands paired, very few draws ever came up for me, and I missed every single draw that I did pick up (seriously). In my ~8hr session at this one 2/5 table, I had at least two streaks of 90min or longer during which I didn't win a single pot. Nothing was going my way until I coolered another guy to double up, but after that it was back to putting money into pots and never getting any back. Also, the Rio and Harrah's need to die a painful death.
And to top it off, I wasn't playing well. I felt like I was a tremendously better player than everyone at the table, and this led to my becoming complacent with my play; I felt like I could play my C- game and still come out on top, which is probably what makes me the most angry right now.
So, I've decided that I will not be playing 2/5 again on this trip. The play is just too bad, and that in turn causes me to play poorly. I will only be playing 5/10 or 10/20 from here on out, assuming I can actually get someone to fucking trade me cash for online money. If I had a cash bankroll on hand, I'm confident that I could play my A game every day and thusly be tremendously successful. But without the confidence that having a bankroll gives me, I feel like I'm doomed to repeat this cycle of mediocrity for a long time.
Have I mentioned that I hate Harrah's and the Rio?
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Bellagio session
Just got back from a session at the Bellagio. Nath got into town earlier in the evening, so he, Matt and I went to the Bellagio to meet yellowsub and a few of his friends to talk about stakes for WSOP events. We had dinner at Noodles, which is one of my favorite places to eat, and split up from there.
2/5 at the Bellagio was soft as usual, but I was very card-dead and ran into a few unfortunate situations. This caused me to start playing poorly, and I instantly recognized that the main reason for this was because everyone else was so bad. I was essentially letting my guard down, so I remedied this by moving to 5/10.
5/10 was also soft (as usual), but I could actually get a few basic plays to work, and this kept me alert and focused. Interesting hands: UTG straddles for $20, I call UTG+1 with JTs, another caller, tight player makes it $100 to go, angry dude next to him calls, folds around to me and I call, guy between us calls too. 4 to the flop for $100 each (I started the hand with ~$2100).
Flop: Qs3s2x
Checks to the tight player who puts in $450 (leaving himself with ~$385), angry guy INSTAcalls (he has me covered), I decided to fold (since I might not be drawing to the winning flush, I'm out of position and will have to call the guy's $385 on the turn hit or miss, and calling basically turns my hand face-up), guy between us folds too. As soon as that guy folds, the tight player announces he is allin blind; the dealer counts out his $385 in chips before dealing the turn card, and the angry guy gives his usual scowling face for awhile before FOLDING HIS HAND WITHOUT EVEN SEEING THE TURN CARD. WTF??!@! Needless to say, I couldn't believe what I just saw; what the hell was this guy thinking?!
An orbit or two later, the angry guy won a few big pots in a row without going to a single showdown and had me covered again. I started this hand with ~$2k. Angry guy limps UTG, MP limps, I make it $60 on the button with KK, only the angry guy calls.
Flop: Qd2d2x
He checks to me, I put in $90, and he quickly calls.
Turn: Jo
He quickly checks to me again, I think for a sec before putting in $200, he instacalls.
River: 6d
He practically checked to me before even seeing the river, then showed his cards to the player sitting next to him. At this point, I'm positive he doesn't have a flush and am trying to figure out how much he's willing to call on the river. In retrospect, I should have bet about $500-$600 for value, but instead I only put in $250. He called quickly and flipped over two red aces to win the pot.
Honestly, I think I lose that pot maybe once in a hundred times, and I'm pretty upset that I didn't bet more on every street -- especially the river. Fortunately, this guy had no idea how to play poker because he could have taken at least another $1k from me, if not my whole stack. It always sucks ending your session on hands like these, but at least I netted a few hundo on the session.
Forgot to mention that I played some 5/10 online before we headed to town. That didn't go so well -- every play I tried to make failed, every bluff was called, every legitimate hand was outdrawn or ran into a bigger one. Sucks to drop ~3k in under 500 hands, including this gem. Totally fucking ridiculous...I hate sessions like these. Hope to run better tomorrow.
2/5 at the Bellagio was soft as usual, but I was very card-dead and ran into a few unfortunate situations. This caused me to start playing poorly, and I instantly recognized that the main reason for this was because everyone else was so bad. I was essentially letting my guard down, so I remedied this by moving to 5/10.
5/10 was also soft (as usual), but I could actually get a few basic plays to work, and this kept me alert and focused. Interesting hands: UTG straddles for $20, I call UTG+1 with JTs, another caller, tight player makes it $100 to go, angry dude next to him calls, folds around to me and I call, guy between us calls too. 4 to the flop for $100 each (I started the hand with ~$2100).
Flop: Qs3s2x
Checks to the tight player who puts in $450 (leaving himself with ~$385), angry guy INSTAcalls (he has me covered), I decided to fold (since I might not be drawing to the winning flush, I'm out of position and will have to call the guy's $385 on the turn hit or miss, and calling basically turns my hand face-up), guy between us folds too. As soon as that guy folds, the tight player announces he is allin blind; the dealer counts out his $385 in chips before dealing the turn card, and the angry guy gives his usual scowling face for awhile before FOLDING HIS HAND WITHOUT EVEN SEEING THE TURN CARD. WTF??!@! Needless to say, I couldn't believe what I just saw; what the hell was this guy thinking?!
An orbit or two later, the angry guy won a few big pots in a row without going to a single showdown and had me covered again. I started this hand with ~$2k. Angry guy limps UTG, MP limps, I make it $60 on the button with KK, only the angry guy calls.
Flop: Qd2d2x
He checks to me, I put in $90, and he quickly calls.
Turn: Jo
He quickly checks to me again, I think for a sec before putting in $200, he instacalls.
River: 6d
He practically checked to me before even seeing the river, then showed his cards to the player sitting next to him. At this point, I'm positive he doesn't have a flush and am trying to figure out how much he's willing to call on the river. In retrospect, I should have bet about $500-$600 for value, but instead I only put in $250. He called quickly and flipped over two red aces to win the pot.
Honestly, I think I lose that pot maybe once in a hundred times, and I'm pretty upset that I didn't bet more on every street -- especially the river. Fortunately, this guy had no idea how to play poker because he could have taken at least another $1k from me, if not my whole stack. It always sucks ending your session on hands like these, but at least I netted a few hundo on the session.
Forgot to mention that I played some 5/10 online before we headed to town. That didn't go so well -- every play I tried to make failed, every bluff was called, every legitimate hand was outdrawn or ran into a bigger one. Sucks to drop ~3k in under 500 hands, including this gem. Totally fucking ridiculous...I hate sessions like these. Hope to run better tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Still haven't made it to the strip today...
It's 6:30pm and I still haven't made it to the strip yet today. I'm really in the mood to play some cards and build my tiny cash bankroll up from minutia to baller status.
I woke up a little before 7am to call Kevin about the skydiving class today, and he said he wasn't gonna be able to do it today so we rescheduled for Thurs. This was awesome because I had under 2hrs of sleep in me at the time and wasn't looking forward to sitting through a 6hr class over a topic as important as skydiving safety. Things probably worked out for the better in this department.
Woke up again around 1:30 to see that my HTPC, Xbox 360 (w/Guitar Hero!), and 24" monitor had arrived from FedEx. Matt and I went to Whole Foods to get some food for the house + lunch first, then I started setting everything up. I became distracted when I did a brief test to make sure Guitar Hero was working -- have I mentioned that GH is the greatest game of all time? Matt, Ben, and I jammed for awhile, then we split up to do other miscellaneous errands.
I just read about Brian Townsend's HU "grudge match" with Sammy Farha in Bobby's Room at the Bellagio, and I can't wait to either watch for myself or at least ask Brian about it. They're playing $500/1k mix of PLO and NLHE, which must be absolutely sick to watch. I know that Sammy doesn't care for Brian much, and I know Brian is a significantly better player at both games, so hopefully he comes out on top a good amount.
Matt is calling for a challenger at pool, so I'm gonna go put him in his place (read: lose) right now.
I woke up a little before 7am to call Kevin about the skydiving class today, and he said he wasn't gonna be able to do it today so we rescheduled for Thurs. This was awesome because I had under 2hrs of sleep in me at the time and wasn't looking forward to sitting through a 6hr class over a topic as important as skydiving safety. Things probably worked out for the better in this department.
Woke up again around 1:30 to see that my HTPC, Xbox 360 (w/Guitar Hero!), and 24" monitor had arrived from FedEx. Matt and I went to Whole Foods to get some food for the house + lunch first, then I started setting everything up. I became distracted when I did a brief test to make sure Guitar Hero was working -- have I mentioned that GH is the greatest game of all time? Matt, Ben, and I jammed for awhile, then we split up to do other miscellaneous errands.
I just read about Brian Townsend's HU "grudge match" with Sammy Farha in Bobby's Room at the Bellagio, and I can't wait to either watch for myself or at least ask Brian about it. They're playing $500/1k mix of PLO and NLHE, which must be absolutely sick to watch. I know that Sammy doesn't care for Brian much, and I know Brian is a significantly better player at both games, so hopefully he comes out on top a good amount.
Matt is calling for a challenger at pool, so I'm gonna go put him in his place (read: lose) right now.
My first FT sweat
What a surprise, Alex made another final table. The guy is just sick at tournament poker. He came into the FT of Event #3 with a sizeable chiplead and held it until they got down to about 5-handed play. He ran into some unfortunate situations, then lost a few hands, and found himself with about 2.6m chips when 3-handed play started. The hand he busted on was pretty sick; check CardPlayer for the details here ("Alex Jacob Eliminated in 3rd Place") if you don't already know them. Still, $282k is a nice payday for 3rd in a $1500 buyin event.
After that, Nate, Ben, Strasser, his friend Mike and I went to Fix at the Bellagio for dinner. Alex and his girlfriend met us there; he and Jason insisted on whoring the appetizers, which resulted in 7 total appetizer orders. Between those and the main course, everyone stuffed themselves. Al thanked us for sweating his FT by picking up the tab -- what a great guy.
Jason headed to the Bellagio poker room to play some 50/100NL, but since the list for 2/5 was over an hour's wait long, Nate, Ben and I headed to Caesar's. As previously mentioned, I'm pretty cash-broke right now, so I sat at 2/5 (uncapped buyin at CP) with my last ~$1100. There was another typical loud, super friendly drunk guy playing every hand with a nice stack, and I couldn't win against this guy. For example, 3 limps to me on the button, I overlimp QJo, BB makes it $30, maniac and one other guy call, and I call. Flop 9sTsKh (awesome). Checks to me, which I felt was very odd, so I put in $85; only the drunk guy calls. Turn 6d, checks to me, I'm positive he's on a spade draw and bet $225, he quickly calls. River is the 4s (sigh), he checks, and I check behind to lose to his AJs. Whatever.
So, after running bad some more, I found myself sitting with under $400. Very frustrating. However, I hit a few hands and made some nice plays against the two plain-vanilla LAG asians sitting to my right to build my stack over $1400 by the end of the session. I felt I was by far the best player at the table, and it really really sucks playing 2/5 because it's such a boring game. Even 5/10 live is just "meh" since you can't make any cool/interesting plays (because your opponents wouldn't understand them and react accordingly). Oh well...suffice it to say that I badly need an online --> cash transfer soon. I'm losing so much money in opportunity costs by not playing at least 5/10 live, and hopefully this problem will be resolved very soon.
Ground training for skydiving is tomorrow, but I forgot to call Kevin to find out what time to be there. Looks like I'm gonna have to wake up at 6:30am (aka 2 hours from now) to call and see if it's a morning or afternoon class. Ugh, time for sleep.
After that, Nate, Ben, Strasser, his friend Mike and I went to Fix at the Bellagio for dinner. Alex and his girlfriend met us there; he and Jason insisted on whoring the appetizers, which resulted in 7 total appetizer orders. Between those and the main course, everyone stuffed themselves. Al thanked us for sweating his FT by picking up the tab -- what a great guy.
Jason headed to the Bellagio poker room to play some 50/100NL, but since the list for 2/5 was over an hour's wait long, Nate, Ben and I headed to Caesar's. As previously mentioned, I'm pretty cash-broke right now, so I sat at 2/5 (uncapped buyin at CP) with my last ~$1100. There was another typical loud, super friendly drunk guy playing every hand with a nice stack, and I couldn't win against this guy. For example, 3 limps to me on the button, I overlimp QJo, BB makes it $30, maniac and one other guy call, and I call. Flop 9sTsKh (awesome). Checks to me, which I felt was very odd, so I put in $85; only the drunk guy calls. Turn 6d, checks to me, I'm positive he's on a spade draw and bet $225, he quickly calls. River is the 4s (sigh), he checks, and I check behind to lose to his AJs. Whatever.
So, after running bad some more, I found myself sitting with under $400. Very frustrating. However, I hit a few hands and made some nice plays against the two plain-vanilla LAG asians sitting to my right to build my stack over $1400 by the end of the session. I felt I was by far the best player at the table, and it really really sucks playing 2/5 because it's such a boring game. Even 5/10 live is just "meh" since you can't make any cool/interesting plays (because your opponents wouldn't understand them and react accordingly). Oh well...suffice it to say that I badly need an online --> cash transfer soon. I'm losing so much money in opportunity costs by not playing at least 5/10 live, and hopefully this problem will be resolved very soon.
Ground training for skydiving is tomorrow, but I forgot to call Kevin to find out what time to be there. Looks like I'm gonna have to wake up at 6:30am (aka 2 hours from now) to call and see if it's a morning or afternoon class. Ugh, time for sleep.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Sunday Slouch
Yesterday was a pretty disappointing day. Nate played the $1500 PLHE WSOP event, and I wanted to play the two big Main Event satellites on Stars + the Sunday Million before heading to the strip.
I drove Meyvis to the Rio around 10am, then ran some errands to get back just in time for the 500fpp sat (which awarded 5 ME seats) at 11:30. I pulled up the window for the 10kfpp sat, which awarded 9 ME seats and started an hour later, but somehow distracted myself and forgot to register for it. I was PISSED.
Matt was up too, so we both played the Million and a $50+5 freezeout together. He's a much more serious tournament player than I am, and I got some great advice from him throughout my run in both tourneys in exchange for letting him watch me play 5/10. I pulled up two tables of 3/6 and 3 or 4 tables of 5/10 to play concurrently with the Mil.
Strangely enough, PokerStars' server crapped out or something about 10min into the Mil, which caused mass disconnections from almost everyone at all of my tables -- ring games included. This lasted at least 20 minutes, and when the tournament resumed we had already essentially skipped the entire 50/100 level. I was very disappointed that PS didn't either restart the tourney or at least pause the tournament clock during this time. It is a rare occasion for Stars' support or their software to piss me off; server crashes happen, but the way in which events unfolded yesterday (and their lack of an appropriate response to the issue at hand) was utterly unacceptable.
I ended up busting about 2hrs into the 500fpp sat, but I picked up some cards and made a few nice plays in both the $50 MTT and the Mil. Unfortunately, I made an amateur-ish shove from MP with an ~8.5BB stack in the $50 and busted to AQ on the bubble, but I cleared the Million bubble with a slightly below-avg stack. My table position and relative stack size (players to my right had push/fold stacks so I couldn't resteal) in this tourney were pretty bad for the table I was at, so I couldn't really do anything besides wait for a good hand for quite awhile. I eventually lost a coinflip with AK to JJ to finish about 650th for ~$450. UTG used almost his entire clock before calling with JJ -- Matt thinks it should have been an easy call for him and couldn't believe how long the guy took before making the call. 4.5hrs down the drain, bleh.
Some of the 5/10 games were unbelievably soft during this time -- one of my tables featured two passive donkeys playing about 50/11 for a couple of hours, and another had a 44/6 fish and another awesome donator who played an incredible 78/2 game for >200 hands before busting! I played ok for the session, could have (and should have) been focusing more to play better, and my results reflected this by finishing up less than a buyin at each game. Granted, I did lose a ~$2.3k pot as a 60/40 favorite allin on the flop, but that's some pretty standard variance which comes with the territory.
After that, I went upstairs to take a much-needed nap (I was still up from the day before) until 10 or 11pm before going to meet Nate and Ben at the Wynn. I woke up after about 5 hours but was still very tired, so I decided to just sleep through the night instead of driving to the strip to play tired poker (which is often losing poker).
All in all, I was up on the day (which is nice), but I felt like I missed an opportunity to have a really big winning day by not going to sleep the night before. This would have allowed me to make it to the strip to enjoy a few juicy games at the Wynn. Hopefully today will work out better for me.
I drove Meyvis to the Rio around 10am, then ran some errands to get back just in time for the 500fpp sat (which awarded 5 ME seats) at 11:30. I pulled up the window for the 10kfpp sat, which awarded 9 ME seats and started an hour later, but somehow distracted myself and forgot to register for it. I was PISSED.
Matt was up too, so we both played the Million and a $50+5 freezeout together. He's a much more serious tournament player than I am, and I got some great advice from him throughout my run in both tourneys in exchange for letting him watch me play 5/10. I pulled up two tables of 3/6 and 3 or 4 tables of 5/10 to play concurrently with the Mil.
Strangely enough, PokerStars' server crapped out or something about 10min into the Mil, which caused mass disconnections from almost everyone at all of my tables -- ring games included. This lasted at least 20 minutes, and when the tournament resumed we had already essentially skipped the entire 50/100 level. I was very disappointed that PS didn't either restart the tourney or at least pause the tournament clock during this time. It is a rare occasion for Stars' support or their software to piss me off; server crashes happen, but the way in which events unfolded yesterday (and their lack of an appropriate response to the issue at hand) was utterly unacceptable.
I ended up busting about 2hrs into the 500fpp sat, but I picked up some cards and made a few nice plays in both the $50 MTT and the Mil. Unfortunately, I made an amateur-ish shove from MP with an ~8.5BB stack in the $50 and busted to AQ on the bubble, but I cleared the Million bubble with a slightly below-avg stack. My table position and relative stack size (players to my right had push/fold stacks so I couldn't resteal) in this tourney were pretty bad for the table I was at, so I couldn't really do anything besides wait for a good hand for quite awhile. I eventually lost a coinflip with AK to JJ to finish about 650th for ~$450. UTG used almost his entire clock before calling with JJ -- Matt thinks it should have been an easy call for him and couldn't believe how long the guy took before making the call. 4.5hrs down the drain, bleh.
Some of the 5/10 games were unbelievably soft during this time -- one of my tables featured two passive donkeys playing about 50/11 for a couple of hours, and another had a 44/6 fish and another awesome donator who played an incredible 78/2 game for >200 hands before busting! I played ok for the session, could have (and should have) been focusing more to play better, and my results reflected this by finishing up less than a buyin at each game. Granted, I did lose a ~$2.3k pot as a 60/40 favorite allin on the flop, but that's some pretty standard variance which comes with the territory.
After that, I went upstairs to take a much-needed nap (I was still up from the day before) until 10 or 11pm before going to meet Nate and Ben at the Wynn. I woke up after about 5 hours but was still very tired, so I decided to just sleep through the night instead of driving to the strip to play tired poker (which is often losing poker).
All in all, I was up on the day (which is nice), but I felt like I missed an opportunity to have a really big winning day by not going to sleep the night before. This would have allowed me to make it to the strip to enjoy a few juicy games at the Wynn. Hopefully today will work out better for me.
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Welcome to Bustoville
...population me! After 2 more jumps with Kevin in the morning (AFP-3 & -4), we went to lunch before I met Nate at the Bellagio so I could borrow his car to drive myself home for a badly needed nap. We have to skydive in the morning since the air thins out when it gets hotter in the afternoons (which makes landing more difficult), so I had to wake up at 6:30am again for the second day in a row.
I woke up from my nap just in time to see the Cavs eliminate the Pistons. I'm happy LeBron won so he can get this whole 'winning' thing out of his system; the Cavs won't be doing much of that in the Finals (GO SPURS!)
Ben was just moving in as I finished watching the game, so we hung out for a bit before I drove back to the Rio to check on Meyvis and Strassa. The Rio poker room was packed, just like yesterday. Nate was playing 2/5NL, but I didn't see Jason at any of the tables; oh well, on to 5/10.
The table I sat down at was pretty loose-passive at first, but I quickly realized it was due to a loud, friendly French guy sitting with >3k who was clearly at least a few beers into his night. He was your stereotypical whale: friendly, personable, funny, disliked players and dealers who wouldn't converse with him, very loose-passive, and he was sitting with a big stack. Even though the Rio 5/10 game is uncapped, I chose to buyin for only $1k because I'm short on cash. Aside from him, the table was still very juicy. First interesting hand: (I have ~1100, villain (SB) covers)
1 limp to me in MP, i raise to $50 w/red aces, SB calls, BB French guy calls, limper folds.
Flop: QdJx9d
Blinds both check to me. I've been playing pretty TAG; SB (villain) seems like a somewhat solid player who is capable of c/r perceived position bets on "scary" boards, so I decided to check behind.
Turn: 5c
Great card. Both players check to me again, so I put in $110. SB calls, BB folds.
River: 5s
Another great card for my hand. SB leads for $200, and I take awhile to think about calling or raising. Since I have him pegged as a somewhat solid player, I ruled out a flopped straight or set since he wouldn't have checked these hands TWICE with such a loose-passive player behind him in the BB. I think he would have probably bet to protect his 2pr hands as well, but I can see him checking them at times too. He certainly does not slowplay a straight or flopped set, though. So, given all of that, I decided to put in a small value raise to $500. Villain called pretty quickly and flipped up Kh5h to scoop the pot. I like my play in this hand overall, including the raise on the river. I think I get some nice value from smaller 2pr hands here much of the time when called.
The only other hand of interest was 2-3 hands later, just after I had reloaded my stack to $1k:
I raise QhQd UTG to $40, folds to our French buddy who 3-bets me to $145, folds back around to me. He starts talking it up again about how I should call with my 55/66/77 but the dealer better not flop me a set. I haven't seen this guy 3-bet once preflop before, so some serious warning bells went off. I elected to call and CRAI on any flop that wasn't Ace-high.
Flop: 5h6h7h
The whole table erupts with laughter as I check. French guy bets $300, I shove, he calls and flips up AhKd.
Turn: 8h :(
River: 3c
That left me with about $120 in cash, so I borrowed 1k from Nate to get back in the game. I was pretty much stuck in idle the entire rest of the night, even though the French guy was practically begging me to double through him. When the tournaments broke for the night, so did most of the ring games (including ours), so I repaid Nate and we drove home.
I was still dying to play when we got home, so I decided to play a little online while setting up this blog. Pulled up FTP and found only two active 5/10NL tables (both full ring), which seemed very odd to me, so I decided to grind the 2/4 & 3/6 games there and on PS. In the meantime, Meyvis was kind enough to swap me 1k in cash for 1k online, so I'll get to try my hand at 2/5 tomorrow until I can find someone to trade me more cash for online$.
Interesting hands from tonight:
Hero call vs a big donkey, too bad I'm wrong. If you happened to have read that 2+2 post about player types, this chick was totally an L-P SOOT (54/9/0.65-ish).
Q3c owns me tonight
Finally stacked the donk
Stacked her again!
Protecting my squeeze vs. an obvious re-steal attempt
Another nice pot
Made just over $1850 at 3/6 and $856 at 2/4 in under 900 total hands, so it was a pretty good session. Despite the results, I don't think I ran any hotter or colder than normal; I just felt I was playing really well and that the tables were very soft (which they absolutely were). Always nice to do well in at least one session per day.
That pretty much does it for today (er, technically yesterday). So tired....
I woke up from my nap just in time to see the Cavs eliminate the Pistons. I'm happy LeBron won so he can get this whole 'winning' thing out of his system; the Cavs won't be doing much of that in the Finals (GO SPURS!)
Ben was just moving in as I finished watching the game, so we hung out for a bit before I drove back to the Rio to check on Meyvis and Strassa. The Rio poker room was packed, just like yesterday. Nate was playing 2/5NL, but I didn't see Jason at any of the tables; oh well, on to 5/10.
The table I sat down at was pretty loose-passive at first, but I quickly realized it was due to a loud, friendly French guy sitting with >3k who was clearly at least a few beers into his night. He was your stereotypical whale: friendly, personable, funny, disliked players and dealers who wouldn't converse with him, very loose-passive, and he was sitting with a big stack. Even though the Rio 5/10 game is uncapped, I chose to buyin for only $1k because I'm short on cash. Aside from him, the table was still very juicy. First interesting hand: (I have ~1100, villain (SB) covers)
1 limp to me in MP, i raise to $50 w/red aces, SB calls, BB French guy calls, limper folds.
Flop: QdJx9d
Blinds both check to me. I've been playing pretty TAG; SB (villain) seems like a somewhat solid player who is capable of c/r perceived position bets on "scary" boards, so I decided to check behind.
Turn: 5c
Great card. Both players check to me again, so I put in $110. SB calls, BB folds.
River: 5s
Another great card for my hand. SB leads for $200, and I take awhile to think about calling or raising. Since I have him pegged as a somewhat solid player, I ruled out a flopped straight or set since he wouldn't have checked these hands TWICE with such a loose-passive player behind him in the BB. I think he would have probably bet to protect his 2pr hands as well, but I can see him checking them at times too. He certainly does not slowplay a straight or flopped set, though. So, given all of that, I decided to put in a small value raise to $500. Villain called pretty quickly and flipped up Kh5h to scoop the pot. I like my play in this hand overall, including the raise on the river. I think I get some nice value from smaller 2pr hands here much of the time when called.
The only other hand of interest was 2-3 hands later, just after I had reloaded my stack to $1k:
I raise QhQd UTG to $40, folds to our French buddy who 3-bets me to $145, folds back around to me. He starts talking it up again about how I should call with my 55/66/77 but the dealer better not flop me a set. I haven't seen this guy 3-bet once preflop before, so some serious warning bells went off. I elected to call and CRAI on any flop that wasn't Ace-high.
Flop: 5h6h7h
The whole table erupts with laughter as I check. French guy bets $300, I shove, he calls and flips up AhKd.
Turn: 8h :(
River: 3c
That left me with about $120 in cash, so I borrowed 1k from Nate to get back in the game. I was pretty much stuck in idle the entire rest of the night, even though the French guy was practically begging me to double through him. When the tournaments broke for the night, so did most of the ring games (including ours), so I repaid Nate and we drove home.
I was still dying to play when we got home, so I decided to play a little online while setting up this blog. Pulled up FTP and found only two active 5/10NL tables (both full ring), which seemed very odd to me, so I decided to grind the 2/4 & 3/6 games there and on PS. In the meantime, Meyvis was kind enough to swap me 1k in cash for 1k online, so I'll get to try my hand at 2/5 tomorrow until I can find someone to trade me more cash for online$.
Interesting hands from tonight:
Hero call vs a big donkey, too bad I'm wrong. If you happened to have read that 2+2 post about player types, this chick was totally an L-P SOOT (54/9/0.65-ish).
Q3c owns me tonight
Finally stacked the donk
Stacked her again!
Protecting my squeeze vs. an obvious re-steal attempt
Another nice pot
Made just over $1850 at 3/6 and $856 at 2/4 in under 900 total hands, so it was a pretty good session. Despite the results, I don't think I ran any hotter or colder than normal; I just felt I was playing really well and that the tables were very soft (which they absolutely were). Always nice to do well in at least one session per day.
That pretty much does it for today (er, technically yesterday). So tired....
First real day in Vegas
So I'm starting a blog. I've never kept a journal or anything similar before, so who knows if I'll be responsible enough to keep it up to date. Let's do yesterday's entry before we get to today's stuff:
I'm living in Vegas for the summer, sharing a house with ~4 other guys. Right now we have 3 people living here other than myself: Nate (Meyvis), Ben (2+2 guy), and Matt (another 2+2 guy sub-letting for 1wk from future roommate Nath). Meyvis, Ben, and I moved in yesterday I realized recently that I know too many people named Nate/Nathan/Nathaniel, all of whom share the same hobby of poker with me.
Before we get to poker, I started along the path to becoming a certified skydiver on June 1st. I successfully completed two tandem jumps (AFP-1 & -2) with my instructor Kevin that day, and I completed my AFP-3 & -4 jumps this morning. For AFP-4, I did two controlled 360s in the sky -- one right and one left -- then guided/controlled the canopy to the landing zone with almost zero assistance from Kevin. Next step is completing a ground school course on Tuesday, after which I have 4 solo jumps (supervised, but solo!) to pass before I get my certification. I'm really excited for my first solo jump next week, especially because I felt surprisingly zero adrenaline during all 4 of my tandem jumps.
As for poker, I came to Vegas pretty short on cash unfortunately. I have a very comfortable bankroll online, but my bank account balances certainly do not reflect this. My game of choice in Vegas is 5/10NL, especially at the Bellagio, so Nate and I headed over for an early afternoon session yesterday. Nate didn't find much success at 2/5NL, and I dropped a buyin at 5/10 within 5 orbits after stacking off with AK to 66 on KhJh6x flop. This crippled my live roll (I *badly* need to trade PS$/FTP$ for cash) to ~$700, but I had good reads on everyone at the table + position on a very loose-passive fish. The fish finally stacked off to me (I barely had him covered) with 78o to my QQ on a 67Jr flop -- turn 8 (asdfgrstfgsrdfcdcsf), river 6 (ship it!). Finished the session -400 or so.
Nate and I went home to drop our bags off, then headed to the Rio to meet up with Strasser, who was getting deep in Event #1 ($5k Limit/NLHE mix). I railed him for a bit and noticed quite a few big names still in the tourney trying their best to concentrate while the barrage of fans madly snapped photos of their favorite celeb from as close as the ropes would allow. Jason had direct position on Juanda, and the table got a lot more interesting when Max Pescatori was moved to his left.
After a 2-3 rounds on the rail, I left Meyvis to find a 5/10 game. The game I joined was comprised of a mix between some stereotypical live loose-passive players and a couple of young, aggressive, oh-so-obviously-from-the-internet players. These aggro donkeys were far too LAG for their own good though, as many small- to mid-stakes internet players are, and I exploited this in the following hand:
[i had ~$1100 to start the hand, and button (villain) covers]
UTG straddles ($20), 2 calls, i call w/J8c in the CO, button (a LAG internet player) makes it $70 to go, 1 calls and i call.
Flop: Tc8s4c
checks to me, i plan to check/raise, and the button puts in $140. limper folds, i raise to $400, villain looks kinda shocked that i would c/r him but announces a re-raise to $400 nonetheless. i shove my last ~$200 in the pot, which makes the guy immediately start cursing as he counts out the chips to make the call.
Turn: 7o
River: Qc , which completes my flush, and villain resumes cursing as i show my cards to beat his... A8o??!! Are you serious?! "I *knew* you were on a draw, at least I made the right call." Explosive laughter ensues in my head because these people are SO BAD!
That's about it for my first day in Vegas; I think I'll start a new entry for today's events.
I'm living in Vegas for the summer, sharing a house with ~4 other guys. Right now we have 3 people living here other than myself: Nate (Meyvis), Ben (2+2 guy), and Matt (another 2+2 guy sub-letting for 1wk from future roommate Nath). Meyvis, Ben, and I moved in yesterday I realized recently that I know too many people named Nate/Nathan/Nathaniel, all of whom share the same hobby of poker with me.
Before we get to poker, I started along the path to becoming a certified skydiver on June 1st. I successfully completed two tandem jumps (AFP-1 & -2) with my instructor Kevin that day, and I completed my AFP-3 & -4 jumps this morning. For AFP-4, I did two controlled 360s in the sky -- one right and one left -- then guided/controlled the canopy to the landing zone with almost zero assistance from Kevin. Next step is completing a ground school course on Tuesday, after which I have 4 solo jumps (supervised, but solo!) to pass before I get my certification. I'm really excited for my first solo jump next week, especially because I felt surprisingly zero adrenaline during all 4 of my tandem jumps.
As for poker, I came to Vegas pretty short on cash unfortunately. I have a very comfortable bankroll online, but my bank account balances certainly do not reflect this. My game of choice in Vegas is 5/10NL, especially at the Bellagio, so Nate and I headed over for an early afternoon session yesterday. Nate didn't find much success at 2/5NL, and I dropped a buyin at 5/10 within 5 orbits after stacking off with AK to 66 on KhJh6x flop. This crippled my live roll (I *badly* need to trade PS$/FTP$ for cash) to ~$700, but I had good reads on everyone at the table + position on a very loose-passive fish. The fish finally stacked off to me (I barely had him covered) with 78o to my QQ on a 67Jr flop -- turn 8 (asdfgrstfgsrdfcdcsf), river 6 (ship it!). Finished the session -400 or so.
Nate and I went home to drop our bags off, then headed to the Rio to meet up with Strasser, who was getting deep in Event #1 ($5k Limit/NLHE mix). I railed him for a bit and noticed quite a few big names still in the tourney trying their best to concentrate while the barrage of fans madly snapped photos of their favorite celeb from as close as the ropes would allow. Jason had direct position on Juanda, and the table got a lot more interesting when Max Pescatori was moved to his left.
After a 2-3 rounds on the rail, I left Meyvis to find a 5/10 game. The game I joined was comprised of a mix between some stereotypical live loose-passive players and a couple of young, aggressive, oh-so-obviously-from-the-internet players. These aggro donkeys were far too LAG for their own good though, as many small- to mid-stakes internet players are, and I exploited this in the following hand:
[i had ~$1100 to start the hand, and button (villain) covers]
UTG straddles ($20), 2 calls, i call w/J8c in the CO, button (a LAG internet player) makes it $70 to go, 1 calls and i call.
Flop: Tc8s4c
checks to me, i plan to check/raise, and the button puts in $140. limper folds, i raise to $400, villain looks kinda shocked that i would c/r him but announces a re-raise to $400 nonetheless. i shove my last ~$200 in the pot, which makes the guy immediately start cursing as he counts out the chips to make the call.
Turn: 7o
River: Qc , which completes my flush, and villain resumes cursing as i show my cards to beat his... A8o??!! Are you serious?! "I *knew* you were on a draw, at least I made the right call." Explosive laughter ensues in my head because these people are SO BAD!
That's about it for my first day in Vegas; I think I'll start a new entry for today's events.
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