I am off to a slow start in the 2011 WSOP. I had a long and tiring but gorgeous drive from Seattle to Lake Tahoe - I meant to leave on Tuesday during the day, but didn’t pull away from the curb until 1:45AM. I drove through the gross rainy night, taking naps in rest stops as needed, and then the sun came out for the day of driving (and more napping) and I had fantastic weather and scenery for the full day drive South, capped by driving straight into the most intense full-moonrise I’ve ever seen. I took photos and put them on my twitter feed, using the fabulous software product PhotoRocket, which you should all download and install on your Macs, PC’s and iPhones. (I’m an “angel investor” in the company, so I want them to do well, but it actually is true that they have a pretty great product, which aims to revolutionize and simplify the process of sharing photographs [/end shameless plug])
Here are the links to my trip photos:
first day driving Seattle-Tahoe
I got to Lake Tahoe almost midnight, and had three free nights there, free courtesy of Harrah’s - finally throwing me a bone or two after all of my patronage (I don’t gamble other than poker, so I don’t get any big bones, but this year I’m getting nine nights of free hotel during the WSOP). I spent two days hiking around and above the lake (photos below) and nights playing poker. The poker scene in Lake Tahoe is pretty anemic, but I played a couple of little tournaments and some no-limit cash games - no great scores but I tried to get back into live poker mode. Saturday I made the eight hour drive to Vegas, which turned out to be even more spectacular, driving past Yosemite and along this cool roller-coaster forest road which was super-fun in the Miata.
I drove straight to the Rio where Mark was playing in a mega-satellite, and it was like I was back in my second home, with the clatter of a thousand players shuffling chips, people sitting in cash games with big stacks of hundred-dollar bills in front of them, and flat-screen tournament monitors everywhere.
OK, so, poker … it’s been grim, but not catastrophic. No tournament cash. One cash game win, but one bigger cash loss (see “Aces cracked“, below), coin flips lost: 4, coin flips won: 1, Aces cracked: 3 times, massive three-way all-in pots that were pair-over-pair-over-pair and in which I lost: 2.
Two of the Aces-cracked stories are pretty fun, or funny, by which I mean sickening, or disgusting … in a 2-5NL cash game I saw before I sat down that the players had that “internet hotshot” look and decided to buy in for the minimum ($100), partly because I didn’t want to put more money in play if I was outmatched, and partly because I thought it would annoy them. After a while of nursing my short stack I managed to double up, and decided that I had a pretty good handle on these guys (two of whom were ordering and slamming shots of tequila repeatedly), so I bought up to the max buyin of $500, confident that they would try to run me over if I could just wait for the right spot. I thought I’d found it when the hyper-agro French guy on my right raised to $25 on the button and I just called with AhAs. The flop came J-10-2 with 2 spades, and I thought “well, if I’m beat I’m beat”, I checked, he bet $45, I check-raised to $110, and he threw out eight $100 bills to put me all-in. I had a moment of hesitation, but given that this was exactly what I was looking for, I called and just hoped he hadn’t outflopped me. In cash games you don’t have to expose your cards when players are all-in before the river, so I didn’t know what he had as the river brought another ten (scary in case he had AT), and when the river was a King I got a sick feeling - now AQ, AT, KT or Q9 have all pulled ahead of me. As I flipped over my Aces he casually threw out Q9o and scooped up the $1200 pot.
Today I played the Venetian Deep Stack event, $350 buyin, 820 players. I started off strong, then went card dead and drifted down to average chip stack and then lower. I got moved to a new table, and after two weak players busted out and were replaced, we decided that we were probably at the toughest table in the whole tournament. Normally I wouldn’t engage in that kind of conversation, but it just didn’t matter - everyone knew. Everyone was open-raising 2.2 or 2.3 times the BB, there was a lot of 3-betting, a couple of 4-bet-folds, a couple of strong hero-calls … it was like playing poker at a 2+2 convention (2+2 is the poker forums where all the cool kids discuss poker strategy). One hand the button opened for 2.3x, I 3-bet to 5.8x, and he said “this is so retarded, neither of us has anything, but if I 4-bet I can’t be sure you won’t just shove light on me” as he folded. I got very short-stacked at that table, probably because I couldn’t bring myself to 3-bet light 50% of the time. I got lucky to double up but was still below average, and when they finally broke the table someone said “you’re all a great bunch of guys and I don’t ever want to see you again”.
My new table looked a lot better. I worked my way up to 30K chips, my highest total of the event. A short stack pushed all-in for 15K, I looked down at AA in the cutoff, paused, asked how much the raise was for, and then pushed all my chips in, trying to double-fake the old “strong means weak” tell - I moved my chips in fast and thwacked them down on the table, hoping someone had a good pair to call me with if they suspected I was trying to isolate the short stack. Older Asian guy in the SB seemed like the best target for this maneuver - he had overplayed a couple of hands and I thought he might be unable to restrain himself if I could convince him that I was just trying to get rid of him. He hesitated a long time and finally called my 30K and I happily flipped over my AA. The short stack had KK and the Asian guy had JJ. The flop is T-7-2 … pretty damn good. The turn is a 9 and the Jacks have some new outs but I’m still a 5:1 favorite to win a 90K pot and be easily on the road to a cash and possibly a deep run (there were 180 players left and they were paying 81). The river is a miserable eight, giving the Jacks a perfect-runner-runner gutshot straight (OK he could have just hit a Jack to beat me, but this was more repulsive), and I let out with a very rare (for me) grunt/roar of disgust and slapped my hat on the table. Not all that dramatic as poker tantrums go, but for Luckbox “cool as a cucumber” Larry it was off the rails.
So things are not great … but I think I usually have a slow start here. Ready for turning on a dime now…
Wheeeeeeeee! Larry’s reports to look forward to!
I think I played with some of your table in the Deep Stack last Thursday. They were good. One guy to my right was 4 betting every three bet I made so with JJ I just call his min raise. Before the flop comes he surreptitiously checks his cards so I know he doesn’t have a pair. I have 140k at this point and he has me covered. We are at about 120 players and 81 pay. Blinds are 1k/2k.
Flop comes all rags and he bets 7k. I pop him to 20k and he calls after about 3 seconds thought. WTF? Turn is also ratty but puts two hearts on board. He checks and I check behind in case he hit two pair or my initial read was wrong and he has a set now.
River is another rag and he bets out 25k. I tank and finally call knowing he is capable of doing that with 88,99,77,TT and nothing if he puts me on a busted AK, AQ. The only non-set, non-2 pair hand beating me is what he shows. 4-6 for a rivered straight.
Get worked down to about 15 BB and call a 7bb shove with AQ and lose to AT. Two hands shove AQ and get called by 77. Board comes 3-4-5-6. The river 7 which turns out to be the case 7 saves me and we chop.
We get to the bubble and go hand for hand. We are at 2500/5000 with a 500 ante. On my BB I have9500 left. I suggest to the table since I’m donating 100% of my winnings in the tournament to Bad Beat on Cancer (and wearing a hoody showing that) it would be good karma to give me a walk. The button with about 600,000 chips disagrees and puts me all in ( same guy who rivered the straight). I fold and after my SB I have two antes left.
Twice all ins behind 30/70 win but finally the bubble bursts. I’m set for a big come back first hand afterr the redraw when after a raise, a call and a reraise I’m heads up against a guy with 7-9 versus my J7 but he rivers the flush.
I cash for $640 for the $340 buy in nag BBOC gets a little help. But not the $51k first prize I wanted.