the calm before the storm...

And it all begins in 48 hours. What a hectic week it's been getting ready for this year's World Series. My mom's wedding is tomorrow and will be the week's culmination but perhaps the most difficult part came today. I owe whatever I have in a poker sense to a number of people but the biggest nod must go to my Grandpa Al, who played the first 7stud8/better hand with me when I was 12. I saw him today and we joked about those games and he had a bunch of questions about this year's Series, he even remembered what position I placed in last year's omaha8 event. Whatever good I have in me I owe to my Grandpa Al. He played was a huge part of my childhood so it was a great to finally see him today and a great reminder that I've got a bunch of people who would like to see me do well and who have supported this unorthodox use of my time.

I played SMALL last night as one of my closest friends from home wanted to go to the Great Blue Heron 'the tent' for a 5-10 limit hold'em session. I think we both won about $120 over 4-5 hours. That's a bit above what I'd expect in that game (~1.4 BB/hour) but it was action packed for the most boring form of poker. It's probably the worst poker pit in the world but with the old regulars there, it felt like a reunion (Soo-Ping says hi JG, cheque's in the mail). I did my best to focus though as it's been a year since I've played live. I had a chance to get a couple of hundred hands in tonight. The action on PartyPoker was fantastic and I ended up winner in 2-4 + 5-10 FR NLHE and some 2-4 PLO but I had a really LAG maniac right behind me so I was playing 2-4-18 everytime I wanted to take a flop. Here are some of the highlight hands....

The first one is a PLO hand I get stacked off in for $400. I limp with AAxx. The maniac pots behind me and the whole world calls, I try to wrap preflop to ~$160 but still get three callers. The flop is bad for me but I had a note on this guy saying he makes 'powerplays in multiway preflop-raised pots" so I went with the note, jammed to push out the preflop maniac (this flop doesn't hit a large part of his range anyways and even if it does and he calls the over jam, I'll still be getting 3-1 with an overpair, gut shot J and backdoor club draw.) The hand I think I'm most likely up against is a flush draw, which, if that's all, im still a favourite against. Anyways, long story, he's got about what I thought, flush draw +pair of JJ. Preflop, he's a 2.2-1 dog approx. and on the flop it's a dead flip (51-49). So he wins the $800 coin flip with a turn spade.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2689684

This 2-4 full-ring, no-limit hold'em hand is interesting because I take a really really odd line with the nuts. For no other reason than a gambler's desire to play a big pot with AA, I decide to flat call an early position open to $14, then after 4 or so other's do the same, the SB decides a squeeze is in order and makes it $100 to go. The only thing that's more fun than flat calling the first time is doing it a second time so I flat the 3bet and so does two others. Q high flop, I come out of the weeds and jam the flop.. the AA hold and scoop a $900+ pot. I think the flat of the 3bet might be -EV because it allowed 3 people to get to the flop with me but in this instance it worked out okay. If I were any deeper than the original 100BB I would never play my hand like this.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?2689709

My laptop is not getting along very well with my family's wireless router so I have lost the two hand histories for the big pots I won tonight. First was with AhKh vs. a guy's 2-3o that he tried to run a huge bluff on me with. It was a creative float on the flop with bottom pair, floated my turn bet when I made the nut flush, then he jammed vs. my value bet on the river. I held the nuts so his triple float bluff went south. I've never seen such an elaborate deep stack play online before so I was sort of shocked.

The last was a guy pulled my move, 2-4$ full ring, he opened utg+2 with AJo for 77$ dollars, i tanked then min-raised with AA. He called oop (out of position) and then led a 339 flop, i flatted, turn was a 2, he jammed, I called. Pretty straight forward.

Cut the session sort of 2k hands as I played a pot pretty poorly at 5-10 full ring and I can't stomach it enough to continue.

So I fly out sunday night at around 9pm. My friend Caroline who I used to play LHE with in Brantford is a vegas resident now so I guess I'll see her sunday night for dinner and a little mixed game session at the Wynn. I'll be posting much more often once I get down there.
Best wishes, talk to you soon.