So, the dream is over, until the next time anyway

I started today with a tough table, guys were happy to call pre-flop raises and re-raises and then play flops and turns, and I got moved off some hands. Unfortunately this then gives you an image of someone who can be moved off hands and then you start not really knowing where you stand. Luckily for me our table broke quite early and I moved to a table I felt much more comfortable with.

At first break after 2 levels I had about 38k, where the average was 67k. There were 126 left, and 82 got paid.

After the break, with blinds at 1k/2k+200, I was down to 30k fairly rapidly. At 15bb’s I know that I can’t cruise into the money, and I’m looking for a spot to take some pre-flop chips. I find KQ in the bb. There’s an early position raise to 5600, and I shoved for the 30k. Unfortunately for me I got called and he showed AK, which puts me in terrible shape.
In hindsight the better play for me is probably the ’stop & go’ – flat-calling and then shoving the flop. However, being results-oriented about it, the flop was AQ3 so he wouldn’t have gone anywhere.

It was the first time in the whole 2 days that I’d had all my chips in the middle, and I’m very happy with that indeed. I built an average stack on day 1 without a showdown, and I more-or-less bubbled the money. I know I can score big in one of these, for me it feels like it’s just a matter of time. This is much better than when I cashed at the Rio, where I won 6 consecutive all-ins, (albeit that I dominated some of them). In this one I earned my chips, and I can’t wait for the next event, which will be the Beach Break Festival at the Rendezvous Casino in Brighton.

Until then…

In these days of crazy mixed-games including such classics as Badeucy, (Badugi + Deuce-Seven triple draw), a couple of guys at my table and I came up with something new. Every change in level in the UKIPT is signalled by a few seconds of techno, and there is some dancing that happens, which is quite funny. We thought of combining dance and poker in a new mixed-game, Badisco. A round of Badugi followed by a dance off.

The other idea was for a live version of Full Tilt’s ‘Rush’ poker, which would need to be full-contact. it would kinda mix poker with ice-hockey, particularly if you could employ blockers.

That’s the kind of conversation we have when I play poker.

SO, Day 1b of the UKIPT, (thats the UK & Ireland Poker Tour, run by Pokerstars).  It’s the biggest thing I’ve played outside of the WSOP, and it’s televised from day 2 on Channel 4.  A lot of top names were there, including Toby Lewis, Roberto Romanello and Jude Ainsworth.  Anyway, I ended up being drawn on the same table as Giorgey, who is my friend Ade’s wife – out of 350 players, that’s a weird way to start.

Anyway, we started with 15k in chips, and for the first few hours I just seemed to yo-yo between that and 18k, just couldn’t make a move on from there.  I had a few hands, and was doing what I like to do, which is to 3-bet and put pressure on.  There were some good lads at my end of the table, it was quite good fun.

That fun ended when I was moved to a table full of guys with shades, headphones etc, with some Europeans in the mix.  It all got pretty serious, there wasn’t much banter.  I had to settle in to this one a bit, but after a while I started to pick up some hands and 3-bet them as usual.  I did this with everything – mid-pairs, aces, kings, jacks – I had the lot and I 3-bet all of it.  Over the space of around 6 hours I went from 18k to 46k without showing a single hand, and only seeing 2 flops, and no turns.  Literally, no-one looked me up.  Not once, in 6 hours.  I got thru day 1b to join those who got thru from day 1a.

Tomorrow the action starts at 2pm again, with blinds at 600-1200+100.  It’s an awesome structure, and my 46k is pretty much dead-on average.  The TV cameras are in tomorrow as well, so you never know, I might end up on the feature table.  It was fun to bag up the chips at the end, but nothing has really been accomplished yet, I have a lot of work to do to make the money, and then the big money, and then the final, (the following day).

If there was ever a day in my poker life when I could do with running like God and getting smashed by the deck, it’s tomorrow…

Andy

Signed up to play in the UKIPT in Brighton next Friday.  Looking forward to it, playing a big event so soon after Vegas.  Hopefully I’ll actually play well this time There will be cameras there, feature tables etc. I’m not fussed about any of that, just focussed on making a deep run…

So, a small Vegas incident I forgot…

I was on the 7th floor of Caesars.  The lift I had to get started at floor 5, and the highest floor it went to was 17.  I got in the lift, and one person followed me in.  I pressed ‘7′.  I was in a hurry and hoped the lift wouldn’t stop before my floor.  The woman who followed me in looked at the buttons.  I immediatelty thought, “you have 2 outs, the 5 and the 6, The other 11 numbers are all mine.
The wonan punches the button for the 6th floor.  I was gutted – 2-outed in the lift.

How bad do I run?  #fml :o)

So, my will to blog my poker adventures has most definitely been very low for the past 6-8 months. I’m now at McCarran airport about to make my way home from this year’s WSOP trip and I haven’t blogged anything that’s happened this time around – truth to tell, I wasn’t massively motivated to do it in the “mornings” and certainly wasn’t going to do it before getting some sleep.

So, this is one long post, documenting the more memorable things from this year’s trip to the World Series of Poker.

Welcome to Vegas
My train to Gatwick was cancelled, I lost a credit card and my flight was delayed by several hours due to a faulty plane. Not running good so far. However, my cabbie for the ride from McCarran to Caesar’s reeled off a dozen of the most tasteless and disturbing Michael Jackson jokes you could ever hear, then supplemented his comedy routine with some full volume singing along to a Bocelli cd. He clearly has ambition. Sadly, he equally clearly has no talent. Bizarrely, I found this to be an excellent way to arrive – only in Vegas…

“I’m all-in. You call? You must have me…”
We played some cash at Imperial Palace, where the game is generally fairly soft. IP is a bit of a dive, so you get some degens and cheaper tourists there. One guy in particular, Jason, was most entertaining. He was a tall guy, with a vaguely Native American look to him, from NYC. He dusted off his stack around 5 times, and each time he’d shoved and been behind, and then gone to re-load.
He said the same thing each time:
“I’m all-in. You call? You must have me…”
5 times he re-loaded. 5 times he shoved. And 5 times someone had him.
It became something of catchphrase…

Equity vs Range
Bearded Mike texted that a player had tweeted that he had been busted by a donkey who had picked off his bluff. He said “he had no equity against my range”. This basically means that altho the villain of the piece had the best hand, that hand wasn’t big enough to beat the hand that our hero was representing. It’s a pretty disingenuous way to call a guy an idiot for making the right call. We liked that.
It became something of a catchphrase…

WSOP Donkey
That would be me by the way. In the $1500 NLHE event at the WSOP you get 4500 chips. I managed to lose 3000 of mine in one hand with the blinds at 25-25, which would be something to be proud of if it wasn’t so horrible. Cutting it short, I had QQ vs AJ on a J-high board with only the river to come, and 3 diamonds down.

So far I had called it down all the way. Sadly for me the river was another jack, and I called again anyway. I should have got away from it on the river and saved some chips coz it’s all he could have had, but really I should have raised on the turn or the flop and actually won the hand, I played it badly and I busted fairly early.

WSOP Legend
Bearded Mike had something of an epic day and very nearly rounded it off with a well-earned cash, which would have been awesome. However, he didn’t. Prize for outlasting 2000 other players? $0. On the other hand, having busted in inglorious fashion, I made a $100 from Mr. YouMustHaveMe at IP.

6-Max PLO in the Caesars Megastack
For me, this was a warzone.  it was like playing poker in Baghdad with shells exploding everywhere and people running for cover.  The bets were all “pot” and it was 3,4 and even 5-betting on most flops.  Most of the players on my table had played online and continued that style here.  We lost a player on the very first hand and the table behind me was down to 4 afte 2 minutes.  I was blasted out after an hour or so.  I think 9-handed the pace would have suited me better, but in this 6-max game you need to hit hard and hit early to build a massive stack so you can withstand all the action.

Cashing in a Rio Deepstack
It was only a min-cash, but it was the last tournament I played and I had failed to cash in any others, (a poor show), and it has some interesting elements to it.
1. Always protect your hand when you shove all-in from the 1-seat
I was doing ok in the early levels then I lost a fairly big pot and it left me down to 4.8k in chips with one hand to play before the first break. The 10-seat raised to 1200 and I shoved with 6d7d. Everyine folded really fast and the dealer scooped in their hands, and inadvertently scooped in my hand as well, right into the muck. SO all my chips are in the middle, and I have no cards. I hadn’t protected my hand, and really you should, so I thought I was actually going to be busted. The dealer hadn’t done it on purpose, and neither had I, but it would truly suck to be out of my last event in this way.
The floor was called.
The floorman ruled that 1200 of my stack should stay in the middle and I should get the rest back but be out of the hand, so I survived, but now I only had 3.6k at the break.
2. The Comeback
So, back after the break and shove with 33 vs QdTd and win. Up to around 8.k with ante’s and blinds.
The I’m in the bb with A4 and there are a few limpers so I shove, on the grounds that no-one can be that strong, and get called by KJ. The ace holds, I’m back above my starting stack. Soon I have around 22k, above average.
3. Pure Skill
The blinds go up real fast in this event. Suddenly a decent stack becomes a shoving stack, and the average stack was never really above 15 bb’s. I called a shove with AhTh and was up against QJ and held, up to 35k or so. Then I have KK and call a shove from a guy with AK. I win again. Big stack.
Amusingly, 2 of my double-ups came courtesy of the guy in the 10-seat who would probably have busted me before the break with my 6d7d hand, and I could easily have been ruled out of the tournament with the dealer incident.
Very proud of my play here, I got my chips in the middle and held up 4 out of 4, you can’t buy talent like that.
4. Card-dead
Being card-dead when the blinds are going up like a homesick angel is a good way to lose a stack in one of these events and my big-stack was blinded-and-ante’d down over a couple of hours. And suddenly I’m all-in again, this time with A9 vs A4, and once more I hold up.
5. Jamming into the Nuts
So for the first time in 2 or 3 hours I decide to actually play a hand of ‘poker’. It folds round to me in the small blind and I flat call with J9. The bb raises, and I decide to call and then jam the flop, a stop-and-go really. The flop hits, I jam. The bb has pocket aces. Well done me. Short again.
6. Trapping with an Underpair
Getting near the money but as usual I am dangerously short of chips. The 900+ filed has thinned out to just over 100, and 90 get paid. I find AQ, but it’s a mis-deal, then AK, and I just win the blinds. Then I get 88 and I get it all-in. I get called by a guy with QQ, which seams like bad news, but he doesn’t realize how skillfully I am trapping him. I hit the set on the turn, just as I planned, and once again I have a stack to play with. You can practice all you want, but trapping with a concealed soon-to-be set takes heart.
7. Penalty!
Sadly, altho I won that last hand I actually exposed my cards with two players still to act, (I hadn’t noticed they still had cards). They folded, but the floor was called and I had to sit out for a penalty of one complete round. This is pretty harsh, coz you still have to blind and ante, and it costs thousands of chips while you can’t play, or even remain in the playing area.
However, only Mike, (he of “Bearded Mike” fame), had realized the strategic advantage – not playing means I couldn’t get it all-in, and by the time I returned to the game we were in the money!
Even my penalty worked for me.
8. Sick Outdraw.
Eventually I get it in with Q8 v J9 and she makes a straight against me. How sick is that? I am the unluckiest player alive. #FML
She had no equity against my range.
9. Justice!
So I cashed. I took was escorted from the building by heavies wearing black suits and shades, carrying suitcases full of my huge bricks of cash.
Or perhaps not.

Playing Cash
I haven’t played cash for a long time, and when I did I didn’t enjoy it at all and was pretty bad at it. This time, however, I played some cash and felt more at home. I had 3 winning sessions out of 4 at IP, Venetian and Planet Hollywood. I didn’t do much in terms of reads etc, but I was very patient and exploited my big hands. This doesn’t mean I’ve suddenly become an expert cash player, but it’s a decent start and I’ll be keeping going with it.

The Madsen Check
People check in different ways – some tap the table, some make a circular “keep going” type motion, some say “check”. Playing cash at the Venetian, one guy used both hands to shoot the flop repeatedly, like a gunfighter. It looked kinda cool, but took a lot of effort, even the thumbs were working. A modified version of this is much better, one hand, one shot, like Michael Madsen in the first scene of Reservoir Dogs when he pretends to shoot Harvey Keitel. It’s now known as The Madsen Check.

Michael Madsen checks the flop

This whole paragraph shows how slow cash play can be, and the depths one has to go to stay interested when the cards are not being friendly.

Brutus
AK is “Big Slick”, 88 are the “Snowmen”, K5 is the “Hog Roast” and now 82 is “Brutus”. If you know the last words of Julius Caesar from Shakespeare’s play then this will make sense to you, otherwise don’t worry too much about it.

Conclusion
So, not the most successful trip I’ve ever had poker-wise, but a lot of fun as always, and some branching out with cash games that went pretty well – I’ll look to expand on that.  I really only got going towards the end of the trip.  Next years’ trip will be longer, with more WSOP events, so it will need a proper build-up and practice so I don’t throw away the early days getting used to playing again and donking off chips.  There’s some good south coast UK stuff coming up I want to play in, so hopefully look to do well there.

Until next time…

Just a few random things:

1: I like my game right now. I like it because I understand it – it is simple, uncomplicated and direct. I play “route 1 poker”. My thinking is clear, and I have confidence. This never lasts too long – I know that there is a run waiting for me where these moves don’t come off, and I will be wracked by indecision and doubt, but then I’ll come out of it again. Thats poker. Right now, I’m enjoying the upside of that little routine.

2. I lost about 30k off my stack during an entertaining half hour where I became far more interested in chatting to the waitress than playing the final table…

3. There was an interesting hand before the final table where I had about 50k, blinds at 400/800 and I had jacks on the button. A guy raised to 2k, and was re-raised to 6k. I reckoned that both of their ranges was pretty wide, and I elected to raise to 16.5k. In other circumstances I might have folded, but I didn’t think so this time. The raiser folded, but the re-raiser flatted me. Now I thought I was highly likely to be in heaps of trouble. I also decided I wasn’t going to give up the pot without a fight. The flop came with an ace and two rags and I just prayed for a check fro, the re-raiser, coz if he lead out I would be in a really tough spot. I really expected him to lead. I had to believe he either had AK or something, in which case I was dead, or he had something like KK or QQ, and wouldn’t like the ace too much. He did check, and I bet out for 18k, leaving 20k behind and so looking like I was committed. it no longer mattered that I had jacks, because I was postive he had better, but he didn’t insta-call so I knew he didn’t have the ace. After a long think he folded, and I was pretty grateful, as I did think I might well be about to blow my chip stack in spectacular fashion and leave the room, but in fact it gave me the stack I needed to coast to the final table… Later, he asked me what I had. I said “my 4-bet range is pretty small to be honest”, he said “you had aces yes?”, I just shrugged. He asked me what I thought he had and I instantly said “queens” to make it look like I’d really thought it through pre-flop, but his reaction suggests he had kings. I can’t believe he had anything other than that.

So, started at 3pm, with 3-time WSOP bracelet winner JP Kelly to my right. Fortunately he busted first hand(!)
We started with 16 and needed to get down to 9 for a final table and 8 for a cash. I started with 25k with the average stack being more like 45k, but with the blinds so small (300/600) I had tons of play. Mid-way thru the first level of the day I had something of a card-rush, getting kings and aces in consecutive hands. I didn’t double-up either time but won pretty decent pots – both times I made sets in fact, but on both occasions the board was pretty connected and I ended up taking it down on the turn both times. I ran my stack up to around 75k and pretty much stuck there. It took 3 hours to get down to a final table, and we began at 6pm with me on around 75k, which at that point was dead-on average.

We quickly did a deal for 9th place to get the £500 entry fee, and given that I won my entry in a satellite for £80 that meant I was over £400 up already, which was handy. The next 3.5 hours were incredibly painful, no-one would bust! There were 10 all-ins from short-stacks, in and in every single case the short-stack doubled-up. On 2 occasions they hit 2-outers, there were numerous rivers hit etc, it was bad, and I was getting pretty tilted about it, on the grounds I was still pretty much grinding it out and if there’s one thing you need to happen on the final table it for people to start busting. 3.5 hours is a ridiculous amount of time for that to happen, but finally we lost a couple.

With 7 left I went on something of a tear-up, hitting a straight and a set on the way to moving my stack from the 40k it had bled down to, to 175k, in about 15 minutes.

With 5 people left a deal was proposed, that we split the money 5 ways and then play for £500 and the trophy, with a 5-way split giving each of us £4,200 (more than 3rd place money, less than second). I was second in chips at that point but not by much, and the chip leader was a fair way ahead, and I decided to go along with whatever he wanted to do, as I didn’t mind either way. The deal was done.

Then we played for the trophy and it became pure poker carnage, with people shoving blind etc. I actually wanted the trophy so I shoved with jacks, knowing the guy to my left would call blind, which he did. He had A3, and when the board ended up QK3QK his 2-pair with an ace counterfeited me and I was crippled. I doubled-up when my blind-shove revealed an AQ which held up, but then I ended up in a 3-way all-in with KQs v 77 v 66, (me having the KQ). There was a 7 on the board, but I had the royal-flush draw. Nothing came, and I was out. Officially 4th.

So, given the strength of this field, and my not-so-good displays in previous Main Events here, I have to say I’m happy with it and it’s probably my best result. I’ve settled on a pretty tight, grinding kind of style with a fair number of 3-bets being my main weapon in building a stack. I’ve taken a chop to win nearly £6k in my last 2 full tournaments and won a satellite in between, so I think I’m doing something right, and running pretty hot at the same time. It’s a recipe for success, but it doesn’t last foerver…

Roll on Saturday.

This will be a pretty brief update, as it is now 3.40am and I’ve just got home.

Today was day 1 of the £500 Main Event I qualified for yesterday. There were 51 runners, with a prize pool of £25k or so, paying £8.5k to the winner, with 8 places getting paid. 1 hour levels means there is a huge amount of play, and 15k stacks to start with mean that there is no hurry.

Now, I’ve played in tournaments with 10x this many people, but this is pretty much the toughest field I’ve ever has to play against. There is a big tournament down the road, and a load of players who have come down for that played in this event, so loads of players knew each other from travelling around playing the circuit. There were 2 WSOP bracelet winners in the field, (JP Kelly and James Dempsey) and for most of the first half of the night I had a guy who recently was ranked #1 in the world online, (Chris Moorman). In fact, I had him on my immediate left, (the worst) and was surrounded by 3 of his mates, who are clearly no mugs.

Anyway, cutting to the chase, we started at 6pm and finished the day at 3am with me still in – 16 are left and day 2 starts at at 3pm. I have 24.5k chips, way short of the average stack of 47k but the blinds will start at 300/600 with an ante of 50, so in fact 24.5k gives me plenty of time. I do have JP Kelly on my right, but at least I have position, and he had a short stack now having lost 2 big pots at the end of the night.

Basically, I am a rank outsider in this field and I’ve adopted a strategy of avoiding putting myself in positions where big pressure can be applied to me, so I am looking for position, and I’m playing my big hands aggressively rather than getting too tricky. At one point I went 2 hours without playing a hand, and I am generally getting some respect for my 3 and 4 bets.

So, pretty chuffed to have got to the last 16, but the job is only half done. No real short stacks out there, so will have to play tomorrow, can’t just wait it out.

Stay tuned…

This week is the Harbour Lights Festival at the Rendezvous Casino at Brighton Marina, where I play most of my UK poker. Today was a £30-rebuy satellite for the £500 Main Event, which is tomorrow at 6pm. We started with 1.5k chips, 20 minute clocks. You could add-on 3k chips at the break, (after level 3), for £50. In these situations my aim is to reach the break with a reasonable stack, maybe 3k-4k, having had zero rebuys, and then take the add-on, so I’m playing after the break with an average kind of stack, and blinds at 200-400.

Early, on the first level, I got pocket kings. Someone raised to 200, I made it 600. I got 4 callers (!). That means I’m in a 5-way pot with my kings, which isn’t great, and everyone has about 900 left. The flop was ragged, 10-high. There was a check, I shoved the 900, everyone called (!!). No-one had anything (!!!). Well, one guy had 9’s, and one guy had an ace, so with one pair in a 5-way all-in I only had to dodge two 9’s and 3 aces to win (!!!!). The kings held, and I quadrupled up. Now, I’m not always the best at accumulating chips, but having got them I tend to hold on to them pretty well. I can pick and choose my spots, take advantage of other people’s shorter stacks, avoid gambling when I don’t need to, generally play a good ’satellite game’. It always amazes me how many people don’t adjust for satellites and treat them as ‘normal’ tournaments.

Anyway, after that I had kings again but mis-played them and didn’t win what I should have done. Then hit 2-pair with KJ and won a shedload, and really I coasted to the final table having reached the break with 13k. There were 3 seats up for grabs, so I needed to finish top 3 out of 9. I was pretty card-dead, but had enough of a stack to get thru that, pinching the occasional set of blinds to stay topped up. Eventually, 4-handed, I was fairly short, but slightly ahead of another short-stack, with 2 big-stacks. Basically he was always going to have to shove before me so I just waited until he had to do it and hoped he didn’t suck-out. He didn’t. Job done.

That’s 4 live satellites I’ve played, and I’ve qualified from 3 of them. Quite happy with that, and feeling quite confident about tomorrow. I haven’t done myself justice in the other two Main Events I’ve played, so looking to put that right.

Stay tuned…