Archive for June, 2008

The 8pm tournament at Venetian has some really rough players in it, but that makes it pretty tempting to play in as the expectation is high. However, the risk of a sick beat is ever-present, and there are some truly abysmal plays on show. Here’s how i went out today…

With the blinds at 600/1200 i have a stack of 18k, (well set, 2nd or 3rd in chips at the table), and i find J-J in he small blind. A guy in mid-position raises to 3100 – i’m going to raise, but i dont want to push all-in pre-flop so i make it 5k more, putting about half my chips in the centre and making it clear that i’m committed. I’m expecting him either to shove all-in, (he has me slightly out-chipped), or fold, but to my surprise he flat calls. I then decide that unless the flop is a disaster for me i will jam it in. The flop is Q-rag-rag, and i push the remaining 9k in. He calls, which makes me think i must be smashed, only for him to show A-K, meaning he has called off all his chips when he has absolutely nothing. He hits the K on the river and i’m gone.

Whats interesting is that if it all went in pre-flop and i lost it woudnt be unusual – A-K v J’s is a pretty standard race. Plus, if he was intending to call any bet then why not shove pre-flop anyway? To flat call pre-flop and then call on a flop you missed completely is dumb. More from Dumb Plays of the Week later – quite possibly from me )

To balance the books, early in the evening i was completely card-dead and down to about 2.5k, and looking for a spot to shove. In the big-blind i had Q-9. The guy under-the-gun had called, and so did the small blind. I didnt want to shove there and then, as i felt the UTG player would probably call and i didnt want that, so I checked and decided that i would shove on the flop if the small blind checked it. The SB did indeed check a flop of J-5-3, with 2 hearts, and I jammed. The UTG player called, which wasnt in the script, but showed Kh-9h for a bare flush draw. Sadly for me that meant i was smashed, drawing dead to one of 3 remaining Q’s to stay alive. One duly arrived on the turn – thanks very much, ship it. I’m happy enough that i did the right thing here, even though i had to get lucky once the call had been made by the UTG player.

Went to the Rio today to catch some of H.O.R.S.E final table, which is pretty much the ultimate poker tournament and always star-studded.

In the picture above, the guy with his back to us and the baseball cap on backwards is Huck Seed, then to his left is Lyle Berman, then Scotty Nguyen, Barry Greenstein, some guy i don’t know, Erick Lindgren and another guy i don’t know. After a bit of this, we walked around and bumped into Amarillo Slim Preston, who I’d played with for a few minutes at the $1500 NLH event the previous day.

It’s well worth checking out his site and scrolling down to his ‘most famous bets’ section. He also has some quotable lines, such as “The population in Amarillo has stayed the same over the last fifty years. Every time some woman gets pregnant, some man leaves town”.

On another note, caught up with Jason, and he’s got passes for all of us to Ultimate Bet’s party tomorrow night. Now Ultimate Bet, who sponsor Phil Helmuth, are not up there with Pokerstars or Full Tilt in the respect stakes, but make up for it by throwing the wildest parties, and Jason plays for them and so is getting us in. Should be a cracker )

So, i managed somehow to get up in time for the midday start of this one, despite going to bed at 5am last night, and first had to cope with one stinker of a hangover. Very entertaining cab driver took me to the Rio – he was a staunch McCain supporter, and felt that the USA were going to take on Iran, that the Chinese would arm the Iranians, and that they might well put some troops in as well, and that we would then be into World War 3. The entertaining part of this conversation was that he thought this was essentially no bad thing, and he felt that the Chinese ‘cowards’ would be pretty happy to send 200,000 of their troops into the mix, because their cities are so overcrowded. ‘Entertaining’ isnt the right word really, it was actually quite surreal, as he was very friendly and smiley about it all.

I’m sure you don’t have to be a genius to know that these views are not shared by the Hog Roast. There was no point getting into an argument, particularly in my state, so it was really a case of saying ‘uh huh’ and ‘hmm, yeah i guess’ and seeing how far he’d go. He loves freedom, thats for sure.

So then i’m in the tournament, with a 3k starting stack. I didnt really see any kind of premium hand all day, so it was really about being selective with playable hands and position. I traded a few pots here and there and was down to about 2k by the first break. Jason txted me to say he sensed a double-up, and this happened shortly after i was moved to a new table. On the new table, the player to my left was David “The Dragon” Pham, and he was gambling. He was also multitabing another WSOP event so i didnt get to contest a hand with him before he left the table. Several players at the table were gamblng it up, and playing loosely. One guy in particular was raising from mid position, and then he’d get shoved on, or re-raised, and he’d make a big deal out of counting the pot before suggesting that he was getting “the right odds” before calling and showing utter garbage. I found K-J in the small blind and sure enough, he made it 800 to go from 3rd position. It folded to me, I shoved for another 1400 or so, and he went thru his “right odds” thing before calling and showing 9h-3h – lol ) He actually had a lot of outs on the flop, but missed them all and probably felt hard done-by.

Then i got moved to another table and had a great opportunity to move to 6k when i had a guy all in with pocket 4’s against my pocket 10’s, only for him to spike on the flop. By taking down a couple of pots I managed to get my stack up to 5.5k at the break.

Moving tables again after the break and none other than Amarillo Slim Preston came and sat down. He was very short stacked, and busted shortly after, but it was cool to see him.

Then i got moved yet again, and when u sat down i had 1000 less that i thought i had, and i’m prety sure i must have dropped a yellow 1k chip when we switched tables. Nevertheless, it didnt put me off and i made the 1k back again before finding pocket 10’s again. There was a raise and an all-in ahead of me, and i figured the original raiser would fold with 2 all-ins behind him, so I called all-in hopeing for a race. The original raiser thught about it for ages, looking pained, before turning over aces! The other guy had pocket J’s, so i was in all sorts of trouble and didnt improve, and that was that.

Next up, soem Venetian and Caesars action, and perhaps more WSOP – i havent decided yet.

Big night out at Tao, a very cool nightclub on the roof of Venetian, with a swimming pool, loads of sofas etc. In order to get in at all we had to spin up a vip table, resulting in a ginongous bar tab, to the extent my bank assumed my cards must have been stolen and stopped them all – i had to phone them from outside the club to get them to allow the transactions to go thru… Mind you, when you need another of bottle of vodka and they bring you Grey Goose at $750 rather than what you had before, that kind of thing will happen – they bring it in a carafe so you can’t tell. Tao 1, Hog Roast nil. We were also with Darren Baxter, who the guys know and who plays a lot in Brighton. What’s notable is that he was having a dig at me for slow drinking earlier in the evening, when the word ‘lightweight’ was used, only for him to have to be taken back to his hotel by a bloke he only met that night, sick as anything and wrecked off his face, at MIDNIGHT. Hoodster, on the other hand, left the party at 4am and still played the World Series the next day. Hog Roast 1, Baxter nil.

Good night tho, i’ll post the pics when i get them off the camera. They might not be pretty, as you can probably imagine.

Its rolling on for 4am, and i have to play in thee $1500 event at the WSOP tomorrow with what is going to be the mother of all hangovers. I have a $20 “first out” bet with Jason Lee, a good friend of Bearded Mike and one of the top online players in the world, who was with us tonight and has agreed to also play tomorrow’s event with a rocking hangover given that I am.

Good Lord.

Ade cashed for a couple of grand in the evening tournament at Venetian last night, which started at 8pm and ended around 4am with 7 players chopping the pot. That means that all 3 of us have made decent cashes on this trip. The tournament was lit up by some quite marvelously appalling play – you really do get some awful players out here – and these will doubtlessly be included in the forthcoming “5 worst plays” post coming shortly.

You may recall from earlier posts that 2-7 Triple Draw is a game that is hardly played anywhere anymore. Well, a few days ago Ads played at the same table as a guy known as Bearded Mike, and i found myself at the same table as him during the WSOP 2-7 event the next day. Mike is a top guy, and we’ve been hanging and drinking etc since then. Anyway, Mike’s into the 2-7 too, and we’d talked about the fact that only games in Vegas where it’s played are as part of very high-stakes mixed games, where you also have to play Stud Eight, Omaha Hi-Lo and Razz etc, so basically there’s nowhere for “the common man” to play.

Therefore, we hatched a plan to go to the Venetian card room (the nicest one) and have one of us request them to put a 2-7 $4/$8 game up on the board, and for the rest of us to join the list one-by-one, and hope that others would join our game. This duly happened, and we had a somewhat riotous time, making more noise, laughing and generally having more fun than anyone else in the room. Several other players joined the game over the many hours we played it, and even the dealers were entertained.

Anyway, its the first time there’s ever been a 2-7-only table at the Venetian, and almost certainly it was the only 2-7 game in town tonight, and again probably the only affordable game of 2-7 there’s been in Vegas for donkey’s years, so a bit of history was made ) For the record, i dropped about $150, with Ads the big winner, making $300 or so. I could draw breath, let alone cards )

Well, the dream lasted precisely 18 minutes. First, a bit of math, and then i’ll tell y’all how it went down. In poker is a concept called ‘M’ which is how big your stack is relative to the blinds and antes – basically it means how many rounds of blinds and antes you can afford. With an M of less than 8 or so you are basically compelled to push all-in when you get any kind of playable hand. At this stage, I had a stack of 200k, slighly below average. With blinds at 8k/16k and with an ante of 2k it cost over 40k to play each round, so i had an M of 5 or so, and was very much in this position. The biggest stacks left in the game didnt have too much more, which basically made it an all-in shove-fest from the word go today, as everyone tried to get that one double-up that would give them some breathing space.

Now, with that done, heres what happened. In the first round I didnt play a hand, so i’m down to 160k. Then i got pocket 8’s in the big blind, but the guy in first position pushed all-in. if i call, the best i can be is racing, the worst is absolutely smashed, so i thought for a while and folded, and prayed for a 2nd opportunity to come my way. A few hands later, (i’m now down to 140 and in serious need of cards to play), and i find Q-9 on the button. It folds round to me and to be honest if i didnt even know what cards i had this would be an instant shove. Sadly the small blind wakes up with Q’s and i’m busted, in 24th place and just under $1000 – thats not the end tho, this is where the party really starts…

As i get up to wish everyone luck and leave the table, i turn and smash this guys coffee, dumping it all over the guy next to him, 2 seats to my left. The guy next to me, whose coffee it was, is a huge fat guy sat wedged right up to the table – he obviously reacts, ducking up & away, but massively jerks the table with his huge bulk, sending chips and cards flying everywhere. The guy covered in coffee seems to think he did it, and shoves him had in the chest, sending him into me, and i go sprawling into a pile of chips and coffee on the floor. Next, as i saw it, the floor manager comes up and puts his hand on the shoulder of the coffee-drenched guy, to calm him down, and he pretty much explodes, lashing out and hitting the floor manager, knocking him to the ground. In the confusion that followed i managed to bag a couple of $20k chips from the floor and calmly cash them in at the payout desk on my way out. I’ve bought myself a $5k watch, and tonight is gonna be wild!

Actually that last stuff didnt happen, but it was exciting right? What actually happened was that i busted, picked up the money, and proceeded to go shopping and spend most of it. Given that it did become a crap-shoot, i’m pretty happy with 24th from 560, if a touch disappointed not to get a better opportunity to play today than to be caught stealing and more-or-less drawing dead. Nevermind, WSOP $1500 event on Saturday…

However, just to reflect back – i did have my most entertaining moment in poker during this event. It was the hand where i called an all-in with K-6s, and this is why… It was around midnight, we’re down to 60 players, and i’m short-stacked on 20k. I do, however, have 4 mates watching and having a laugh a few feet away. They know that in my position an all-in is coming pretty soon and are preparing for the fun to begin, particularly following from my highly amusing blind all-ins earlier in the day. In the big blind, and theres a raiser and an all-in in front of me. I think about it, and then call, shoving my chips in as the lads cheer and applaud. They applaud further once the kid on my right turns up his A-J and looks so disgusted at my K-6. Then they cheer again as the 6 hits, and the look of disgust gets worse, and there are high-fives and fist-pumps when it holds and i double-up, getting back in the game. It was hilarious, (except perhaps for Mr A-J). To be honest, he should have known i was going to call – the dead money in the pot from the earlier raiser, plus the blinds, plus my short-stack, made it a no-brainer, even if I hadnt looked at my cards.

And there you have it. If i could repeat that performance at the WSOP it would be worth a fair bit more than $1k, but then the WSOP event is a bit crap-shooty from the start, so we’ll see…

Right, here’s a story for you that Lazarus would be proud of… Its now 3am here, but i need to get this down while its fresh in the memory.

Caesars Mega-Stack Series, $340, 12.5k starting chips, 568 entries, 1st place paying somewhere around $48,000 and beginning at midday. At the beginning, i splashed around in a few pots without really getting anywhere, until hitting 2-pair with the hog-roast began a rise to around 25k in chips, where i stayed for a long time without really moving up or down. I was reasonably comfortable here until i lost a big pot against a woman who would make Malcolm “The Rock” Harwood seem loose-aggressive – as she hit a nut-flush with her A-3s, beating my A-K. I was then down to around 10k and needing to shove pretty soon. And this is where the fun starts…

We reach a break shortly afterwards, and Ade & I go off for some food. After about half an hour Ade realises this isnt the dinner break, its just a 10 min session break, and i get back to the poker room sharpish to find that i’ve missed several rounds with the blinds at 800-1600 and my 10k has dwindled further, to 5k or so. I’m now of a mind to push with any 2 cards and get it over with, so on my big blind i call an all-in raise without looking at my cards, and find myself with 4-2 against a weak ace. I hit the 2, and get all my lost blinds back. Next round and in the big-blind again, i decide that if i fold my blind i’ll have so few chio sthat doubling up wont really help, so i resolve to move all-in blind once again. A guy raises, a woman calls, and now i’m thinking that i must be bad shape, but theres too much money in the pot to fold and if i pull a miracle i almost treble-up and i’m back in the game again, so i move all-in without looking at my cards. The raiser thinks about it for ages before calling, and the woman folds. The guy shows A-J and i’m just hoping to have 2 live cards when i turn my cards over to reveal… A-Ks! The guy looks distraught and probably didnt believe that i didnt look. Anyway, it holds up and suddenly i’m on 37k and back on the trail…

its now 7.30pm, and the actual dinner break that Ade & I thought was earlier. After the break, i was card-dead for ages and seriously being blinded away. Eventually, down to 20k and once more in the big-blind, i decide i really have to push again. However, theres a raiser, and the small-blind pushes all-in. Now, as before, i must be in trouble, but once again i dont think i can fold and theres enough chips in the pot to put me in contention again if i suck out. I look at my cards this time – K-6s – and eventually call. The raiser folds, and the small-blind is surprised to find his A-J against my K-6. He’s even more surprised when the 6 hits the flop and i more than double-up. Actually, disgusted is more like it, but i’d do the same thing again in the same situation. Anyway, now i’ve got around 50k and in the game again. I manage to build that stack up further by re-raising all-in with 10s against a raiser and getting him to fold his A-J. Eventually, I call an all-in from a short-stack with A-J, but when he turns over the K’s i’m in trouble. Obviously the ace flops (!) and he’s gone, and i’m well in the game with around 120k, pretty much on the average.

We’re now heading towards the bubble for the money and i’m looking good. When we get thru this i still have an average stack and with 54 players left i’m looking to go deep in this event. I subsequently manage to lose 40k by being re-raised off pots i open, but more than get this back when my Q’s beat 10’s and then win several rounds of blinds. I’m now on around 200k and looking pretty solid.

Down to 32 players and i run that up 240k by pushing all-in over the top of a raiser with A-Q and pick up the blinds with A-J, but rising blinds see me back at 200k at the close of play, 2am, with 28 players left. I’ve got thru day 1 of a 2 day tournament after 14 solid hours of play, and worked my way from 5k at the break to 200k a few hours later, with some minor miracles and the occasional decent play. Right now i am in the money – my first cash of this trip, and in a proper ’series’, but currently its only worth a few hundred bucks – i need to get right down into the final 16 and then the final 9 to get really significant cash, and thats the target for tomorrow. I intend to be pretty aggressive and push with good hands in position, and get people to fold. It could mean i bust, but i think its the right strategy. The final 3 tables of a big tounament and $48,000 to fight for – should be fun… )

Poker ‘bots’ are computer AI’s that play online poker, generally against humans, playing a supposedly optimal strategy and winning a lot of money for whoever is running them. How about a university that is directly studying them, applying neuro-networking and game theory to produce bots which really do kick ass… check it out.

I realised today that i contested precisely 1 pot with Freddie Deeb during yesterdays 2-7 WSOP event, and Freddie didnt win it, which means I won our private battle and am now officially his bogey player. Better luck next time Freddie…