The Toughest Day of the Year

Ask any serious poker player, they will all tell you that the day you bust out of the Main Event is the toughest day of the year. You just can't imagine the excitement of 6,500 players all trying to chase down their dream of being World Champion. To watch it disappear with the turn of a card can kind of get you down. Luckily for me, MJ was in Vegas with me. Unluckily for MJ, MJ was in Vegas with me. She did a great job of cheering me up (can anyone say the Bellagio Buffet?). Now, the day after, I am in a very good mood and ready to get back to real life.

I'll cover my bustout hand. I had Qh9h and was 3rd to act with a stack of 30k. I raised to 1,300 mainly because I hadn't played but 2 hands in my first hour (it stinks not having chips) and Qh9h is a really sneaky hand if you hit it right. I thought I had a "tight", conservative image until I got 4 callers. I was very pleased to see a 2hJhQd flop. Check, I bet 3,500, fold, fold, SHOVE FOR 27,000!!!!. Everyone else turbo folded, I am sick to my stomach. This spot was just like an earlier WSOP preliminary event when the guy was supposed to make a reasonable raise and then let ME push all-in. I've not got a 23,500 call to get up to a 62,000 chip stack - above average, finally! I was sooooo confused becauge I've got one of the only reasonable hands that would shove on that board. I thought 22, KK maybe, but more likely something like Ah7h or even KhTh. After some debate, I decided that I just couldn't fold here. You always have to have a hand like this work out in order to get a nice stack, and I was a decent 60/40 favorite against a lot of hands and 50/50 up against most hands. I called. The whole table gasped when they saw my opponent turn over QsTs. We were all floored as to why a guy would put in 60BB's with this hand. I could easily have AA, KK, or even AQ. This guy was trying to commit poker suicide. One problem, his 10 kicker beat my 9 kicker. Sharing the Q actually brought my hand down to a 51% favorite. Mathematically, I had the best chance of winning the hand, but I was still behind. The turn was a K and the river was a blank. Good game, good luck, maybe next year. Unorthodox players can be difficult to play against.

The whole series has kind of been this way. I just haven't been able to gain any traction (except the one tourney that I made the "hero call" to bust out). It's been fun and I can't wait till next year.

Look out summer - here I come!!!

Travolta would be proud!

Although, I've never been a fan of polyester suits, I think John Travolta would have been proud of my 1st day of the 2009 WSOP Main Event. C'mon sing along, point at the ceiling, then the ground: ah... ah... ah... ah... staying alive, staying alive!!

I worked my butt off to make it to Day 2. The chips actually came easy, but they kept leaving when my opponent would hit a miracle card (oh... and one littly bitty 9k bluff that went wrong). I quickly went up to 40k, then lost to a guy's dream card on the river to go down to 20k. Built back up to 40k only to lose another hand that I could have sniffed out a little better that took me back down to 20k. Rebuilt to 38k and then abruptly went down to 15k. About 30 minutes into the last level, my stack was all the way down to 7k. I was very proud to suck it up and get it back up to 32k by the end of the day (we started with 30k). I played every chip as hard as I could.

I've got Day 2 on Wednesday with a below average stack. My table draw looks very interesting because I've got several big stacks to deal with. Luckily, 2 of them are to my right. I'm excited because only one of the players has accomplished much at all. I think it's going to be a really big day if I make it through. I don't think I'll have a below average stack for long - I'll either be big or be out.

Today, MJ and I went to the spa (c'mon, I'm a grown man... do I really need a robe and sandals?) and then just goofed around. We walked the strip and actually gambled a little bit. MJ did pretty well and I hit a royal flush for $1,000 in video poker - I'm hoping that's a good omen. In the evening, we went to see Tony and Tina's Wedding. It forced me to change a theory. I've always said "it's a Vegas show, it has to be good." Not at all what I expected. It was such a beating that we actually left early.

Anyway, root for me tomorrow! I'm pumped up and ready to roll!!!

Oh, that familiar feeling!

I had a little trouble sleeping last night. Woke up this morning with that child-like Christmas morning feeling. I know poker in no way compares to birth of Jesus. But, I get sooo excited on the morning of the World Series of Poker main event.

It looks like the economy is going to drag the attendance down a little bit, but I guess it's still worth playing for. I think we'll be right around 6,500 players. Everyone of us has the dream and has "that" feeling - the one where you just know this is your year to be the World Champion.

I can't imagine what that would do to my life. I'm not even sure that I would want to find out. I am sure that I want to play well and go deep. I want to feel the rush of adrenaline when I am allin and trying to have my best hand hold up in a high success situation.

Can I win the main event and then just retire??? That would be the perfect option. I could be the World Champ just kicking around the pool in the back yard in Lewisville, Texas. Went out on top - walked away from the fame and further fortune.

Well, let's go find out..... I hope I don't get a lump of coal!!!


PS: I can't believe I forgot to mention what a great time I had with my wife in Vegas yesterday. If you ever get the chance and can put up with a little bad language, you should definitely go see Wayne Brady. That man is so talented I think I developed a man-crush.

The Walk of Shame...

Well, I got to do the walk of shame this morning. You know the one where you are leaving Las Vegas and, not only are you not coming home a winner, but you didn't even win a single dime. I need Kaci around to paint an L on my forehead. I guess I should have played a hand of blackjack or a cash game just to win a few bucks to ease the pain.

Thursday went about like the first 3 days of the trip. I decided to skip Thursday's World Series of Poker event because of family and work commitments on Friday and Saturday. The Bellagio 1k looked perfect for my schedule. For the 4th time this trip, my tournament lasted less than 1 hour and 20 minutes. I will spare you the details, but, basically, it was more of the same. I lost with AA in a 3 way pot - lost to BOTH of the other players. One player turned 3 of a kind. The other guy rivered 3 of a kind. I did well to only lose half my stack. The final blow was my 2nd best flush versus the best possible flush.

I went down to the Venetian to catch up with Andrew and play some cash games. When I got there I noticed a pretty long registration line. It turned out that they had a Pot Limit Omaha tournament starting at 4. I've never played PLO, but dang it, I'm a card player. Sign me up!!!! The worst part of the tournament is that it is mostly a European game. They are a grumpy sort, sometimes a little smelly, and are generally mean to the dealers. But, hey, there's very few crowds where I'm the guy with the nice teeth, so I was fine with it.

I was having a blast, playing ok, and actually built up a nice stack. Because the game was new to me, I really had to concentrate on the hands. In Omaha, you get 4 cards to start with and you must play exactly 2 of them. I had trouble picking up some of the nuances of the game. Like when I had AJ44 and the board read A6636, I announced that I had an Ace. The dealer graciously corrects me and tells me that if I want to win the pot, I better play my 44 for 66644. If I played the Ace, I have to use two cards which knocks out one of the 6's and makes my hand AA66J. Ahh... details... Europeans don't like giving their chips to guys that don't even know how to play. I tried to reassure them that I was a pretty decent hold'em player, but I don't think they were buying the story.

Everything was going really well until I learned that this tournament was scheduled to come back the next day to finish the final table. I didn't play the WSOP because I wanted to go home Friday, and now I'm playing some silly Omaha tourney that I may have to finish on Friday. I'm not too bright, sometimes.

I decide that there is no way that I am going to come back for this tourney unless I have a monster stack. I started looking for spots to gamble it up. We were scheduled to play until 2:00am. About 12:30am, I started getting itchy because I had worn down to a below average chip stack. A little later, I found a spot to put it all-in with AsKsTh9h and somehow managed to lose to AcKh9s4s. It's an amazing feat, but I pulled it off. I got it in good and finished 34th out of 284 PLO players. I had fun and it kind of lifted my spirits to play a different game without expectations of doing something great.

I can't wait to get home to see my family and get back to work. I'm signed up for day 4 of the main event, so keep an eye out for the blog starting July 6th. MJ will be there with me for that trip which will make it a lot more fun to do something besides play poker all the time. I am still excited for the main event because I know I can play better, and I don't think I can be more unlucky than I was this trip. Thanks for rooting me on.

Mr. Las Vegas!

Yeah, I know... I am MISTER Las Vegas. I play in the biggest poker tournaments in the world and spend many days per year in Sin City. I know almost every nook and cranny of this crazy town. Yeah, right! I spent 20 hours yesterday in MY ROOM!!! And loved every minute of it!!!! I played 2 hours of live poker, spent 45 minutes running around, and 1:15 at the pool.

The WSOP had an Omaha tournament - a game I'm not very skilled at - so, I went over to play the Bellagio 2pm tourney. About 1 hour into the tourney, I get pocket Aces - woo hoo!!! In front of me it went "call $100", "call", "raise to $450", ding ding ding ding I have pocket ACES!!!!! I raise to $1200 because the $450 raiser was a Euro nut job. It folds around to Euro nut job guy and he reraises me to $3,000. I decide to just call hoping he would think I had AK. The flop comes 972. He shoves all-in. I insta call. He shows me JJ. Weeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! Next card out: J Booooooooo!!!!! I pack up and slide out the door.

The good news is that it is only 3:10 (another 1:10 tourney for me). I hustle back to Rio to "late register" for the super satellite to the main event. I played quite a few hands in the first 30 minutes when the following action happens: Folds around to the guy next to me who raises to 400 - pretty tight average player. I only have 2,100 in chips. I see QQ and shove all-in (3rd time in 30 minutes trying to look weak). I really thought the guy would call very quickly because he's probably not goofing around with a weak hand. He's got about 4,500 in chips and finally decides to call. I am shocked to see him turn over QTo. QQ vs QTo is about as good as you can get it all in before the flop. I am an 89% favorite. My opponent tells the dealer "give me a straight, dealer!". I say "man, you don't ask for much, do you?". The 137 to 1 flop of AJK hit the board, and I hit the door. I am kind of getting tired of walking away laughing at my dumb luck. What can you do?

I went back to the room and did some work on my laptop. Watched a great college world series baseball game between Arkansas and Virginia. About 5:00 it dawned on me that I could play some online poker. With the time difference, all of my favorite events were starting. I signed up for 5 tourneys. Got bad beat out of 2 of them which caused me to play poorly to bust out of a 3rd.

That left me with 2 tournaments on Ultimate Bet which I was doing very well in. One of them was a $1000 buyin tourney with big payouts. I am killing it floating around the top 20 for most of both tournaments. Then, of course, the site goes down. They cancel the tournaments and give everyone their buyins back plus a proportionate piece of the buyins that had already busted out before the outage. I had gotten myself into great position for a $50,000 payday and now I was looking at getting $2,000 back.

Wow, I've done something to really anger Lady Luck. She is a fickle woman. I'll just keep bouncing along kind of like I do at home when I'm not smart enough to know that Mary Jane is mad at me.

Is it the 4th of July?

After a good night's sleep, I was fired up and ready to play Tuesday's WSOP preliminary event - $1,500 buyin with over 2000 players. As I walked away from the tournament after busting out, all I could do was laugh and shake my head. I have a real sickness.

I played as well as I can play. I built up a nice stack of 23,000 in chips when the average stack was 10,000. There was a crazy player from Finland sitting two to my right that had about 25,000 in chips. No one else at my table had more than 12,000. I had actually told myself to stay away from the 25k player because he was pretty good and there 8 other easier players to pick on. I played a lot of hands in position and felt like I didn't let many chips get by me.

My last hand was one that will be on my mind for awhile. I understand that what makes me capable of playing a hand like my last one is the exact thing that makes me an above average tournament poker player. But, man these firework filled bust-out hands can sure make your head spin.

Anyway, I had sat for hours and let the crazy Fin steal the chips from the players around me. He and I hadn't really mixed it up much because I think we had a mutual respect. I had called several of his raises and reraised him once before, but we hadn't played a big pot together. For my last hand, I was sitting in the small blind when he raised to 600 from the cutoff. I looked down at my cards to see A2. Not a great hand, but one that cuts down his chances of having a strong Ace based hand. I reraised him to 1700. He studied a bit and called my raise.

The flop brings T92. I continue to represent a big hand by leading out for 2,500. He studies a bit more and just calls. I'm thinking he is just calling to see if I will slow down on the next card and allow him to steal the pot (called floating). The turn card is another T. At this point, I feel like I can still represent a big hand. I don't think he has a T in his hand because he would have probably raised me on the flop. If I lead out with a bet, he has a prime time bluffing opportunity by shoving all-in. My plan is to check the turn, let him make a standard 5-6k bet and then I will shove all-in for my remaining 19k. He's gotta have a T or he just can't call me. Great plan, right?

My great plan goes awry when the crazy Fin bets 15k. For those of you who aren't poker buffs, you have to understand that it is very unusual for someone to bet more than the total chips (9.5k) already in the pot. Interpreting the size of a bet is a huge part of poker. Because of his bet, I am certain that he doesn't have a T. Anyone with a T would want to get a bet paid off, not scare a customer off. I also notice that he is VERY nervous - shaking hands, pounding heart, jugular vein making his shirt move. It's really difficult to figure out whether this nervousness is because he is bluffing or because he has a big hand. I had picked up on the same scenario earlier when he bluffed another opponent, so I believed that was just further evidence that he was bluffing.

So, I had all of the evidence that he was bluffing, but I still couldn't beat much. I had 19k in chips left, so a fold wouldn't have really been that big of a deal. However, if I was right, I would have a 50k stack when the average was 10k. 50k would have been the average stack size during the middle of Day 2 - and this was just 5 hours into Day 1. I was pretty certain that he was bluffing, but this was a tough spot for sure.

I decide to trust my gut and bet all-in for my last 19k. The Finnish player freaks out and says "I knew you had a big pair. Why did I bluff at this pot?". After counting the stacks down, he learns that he only has to call 4k more. He says "I guess I have to call" which makes me think he has 2 big cards or some kind of a draw. A big crowd had gathered around to watch this monster pot and I'm starting to feel pretty smug about the prospect of turning over A2 in such a huge spot. I'm such a poker stud - man, I'm good at this... OMG he just showed 89. He WAS bluffing, but only in HIS mind. He really had the best hand. Geeeeeeeeezzzzzzz, I'm a moron!!!!!!!! You should have heard the chatter - apparently everyone else agreed that I'm a moron. What a spectacular fireworks display complete with a huge flame-out at the end.

The strangest part of the whole deal was that I was smiling when the river card didn't save my stupid butt. I can sure swing for the fences and play without fear of busting out. I trusted myself and, actually, feel like I was correct. I was content with my decision while at the same time being disappointed about letting another WSOP event get by without making a real run at it. Oh well, what do you do? I guess I'll just light another fuse tomorrow....

I feel like a rabbit's foot

I guess if I can't be lucky for myself, I'm OK being a lucky charm for others. At least I'm doing a little bit of good in the world.

I am back in Vegas and pumped up and ready to play. Monday was definitely a buzz kill as I last 1 hour and 10 minutes in the $2,000 buyin tournament. I was trying to remember the last time I blew 2k that quickly. I could insert a lot of jokes here, but Mary Jane doesn't find them as funny as I do.

Back to the rabbit's foot opener, if you are running bad or in need of a shot of luck, come find me at the tables. On Monday, there were 3 flopped straights and 2 flopped flushes in hands that I open-raised. The odds of each of those events occuring was somewhere between 1 in 77 to 1 in 136 depending on which one we are talking about. I found it kind of difficult to really compete with those kinds of occurences.

After my 1:10 fun at the WSOP, I hustled over to catch the Bellagio 1k event at 2:00. I was in that kind of poker mood that is not good for my opponent (I really need to learn how to bottle that). Apparently, the table decided that I raise and reraise a lot. I wasn't the most popular guy at the table - a fact that later became a running joke. I had a huge stack for most of the day, but busted out when consecutive good hands just wouldn't stay ahead.

One of the most interesting hands was when I looked down at KK after just raising 3 of the previous 5 hands. As I had hoped, I got a BIG reraise behind me for most of a guy's chips. Knowing my image, I just called because the other guy would be first to act and he really had no choice but to ship them in. As expected, he announced all-in on a T63 flop. I called really quickly. The guy says "dang it (or something like that), you raise way too much and NOW you got a hand.". He showed Q6. I'll give you two guesses what the river card was.

Ahhhh, no problem, I'm still alive although back down to slightly below average. It wasn't but just a few hands later that I picked up 78o next to the button and raised it to 2,200 (I had about 14k more). A very aggressive guy in the BB just calls my raise which struck me as being odd. The flop comes 832 rainbow. He checks, I bet 3,100 and the guy quickly shoves "all in". I am basically left with a 10k chip call to have a 30k chip stack. I thought that if the guy had a big hand and wanted a call that we he would "hollywood" it up a little. I decided my pair of 8's was ahead, so I called. My opponent turned over KJ and my stack was soon to be back up to super size - didn't even really sweat the last two cards still to come. Then BOOM!, K on the river. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.. Good luck - good game. Yada, yada, yada....

Anyway, I'm going to go for a jog and blow off some steam. I'll be the guy running around the Las Vegas strip dragging the big rabbit's foot behind me....