6max and shot taking..

So, yesterday was an off day from wsop tournaments but Andrew and I took some shots online. We've sort of crafted out a cash game plan of attack for the next month or two in an attempt to stomp out a big win. BUT, so far nothing but destructo all across the board. We had a nice afternoon at 25-50, nlhe+plo, book a big win then get crucified in 100-200 plo after dinner.
Today we all (wes,andrew and I) played the $1500 6max event. We were all out in under 4 hours. No one really got their hands on a stack. I felt I played ok, made a really mediocre call with AK high on a TTT82 board, had to bet fold 33 on a 255 board, etc. Some silly spots then lost a flip with QT vs. 66. The next thing on the docket is the $10k 8game mixed event tomorrow at 5pm. No whining about running bad but it's time to heat up. I'm sure the field will be tough but hopefully I get a decent table draw and stay out of marginal spots.
Cross your fingers and toes. ;)

Event 5: $1500 PLO

The condo snafu is somewhat rectified, Wes and I got our place across the lot but it'll probably be another few days before we know if we're staying for the duration here. Still on a few hours of sleep a night because everyone's up early and on slightly different schedules but Liam and Ryan are flying home tomorrow and we're all taking the day off so maybe we'll heal up. Today was pot-limit omaha. I don't think this poker variant lends itself well to tournament play and last year I really mangled this event but I went in with a strategy that worked really well so long as I had a semi-deep stack. I limped everything, from all positions, regardless of previous action. If I couldn't get all in on a flop than I would never open pot or re-pot preflop. I wanted to keep pots small on the flop, esp. when I was out of position. This, combined with a very soft first table, let me build a huge stack in the first level from 1500 chips to 9000. I then flipped it off with a guy and lost the 18k pot. We had 'addon' chips (3) and I used them instead of getting all 4500 up front, as like cap-game buyin's so in case I flipped it off, I could reload to flip again :). Anyways, I had QT98, he had QT68 (with diamonds) on a QT7(two diamonds board). So we both flopped top two, i flopped a 6-out straight draw, he flopped a 9 out flush draw. Anyways, you know the end of this story, his freeroll came and mind missed.... big pot, stumble backwards, whatever. I rebuilt and our table broke after I busted absolute poker pro, mark sief. My new table sat me right in front (out of position against) a true poker cash monster, alexander kostritsyn (postflopaction on ftp). He's a really nice guy, struggles with English but we had a great time, joked around a fair bit, played lots of pots together. This second table was tough and I took a few beats but ended with 12k there when that table broke. My last table of the day came after dinner. Action table with a lot of young, seemingly in-experienced players who appeared to come from a no limit hold'em background. They had lost of chips and were spewing them wildly. I ended up doubling up through one of them with bad aces, then the very next hand I got busted. Blinds 300-600, I start with 12k roughly. Under the gun makes it full-pot open to 2100, my buster calls the 2100, i call 2100 and reraise it 6800 more leaving me 3000~ behind. Original raiser folds, the last guy tanks and sets me in. Now, my hand, AcTcAh7d is a favourite over almost any hand in a vacuum. What you don't want to try and play against my hand is one with an ace in it because you have roughly 33% against it hot/cold. Of course he tables the Ad3d5h8h.... total dribbler poker and instead of stomping his spew he knocked me out around 80 from the money. I tried to stay away from high variance spots in this tournament and really just play in position and stab a lot... but this spot preflop in plo is about as good as it gets. This was just a very sick way to get knocked out of a plo tournament and speaks to the inexperience of the field. Good for the value, bad for the outcome. Should have been up to 27k and fighting for some dough.
Anyways, rant over, next tournament looks like it'll be on Wednesday at 12noon. $1500 no limit holdem 6max. It's probably 76,523 people's bread and butter game but I can't wait. It's going to be a bloody one but it'll be enjoyable. Thursday is the big one for me. the $10,000 8-game mixed event.
Not too much else going on, saw Jamie Gold playing 5-10 no limit hold'em at the rio. Sort of depressing but then again, maybe not.

event 4: nlhe

Good effort, fun tables, mediocre play, lost a flip. Pretty much sums it doesn't it? Today's $1000 event saw 6008 players over two day 1's. I had, as you would expect, a very soft table, except of course for 'mastrblastr' (scott sievers) who was directly to my left. Not only is he an online monster in some of the biggest cash games on full tilt but he's also a damn good tournament player who won his first event last year. He was a lot of fun to play with and we were the only ones playing pots (him always flatting my opens). He really leveled me in one spot. I won a few small ones, then finally doubled up through him and then busted him with TT vs. A7o. He was almost trying to get busted as he had 25% of 'luvthewnba'(isaac haxton) who was on the final table of the 40k nlhe event...so he was in the preparation phase of maybe winning 400k without even being there. Anyways, I ran a big stack up early, then I got AKdd in vs. AA (my BB vs. the Button open from this pucker kid, there was a flat in on the button in between). Pretty standard hand except of course I showdown for almost all my chips with less than 10%. Anyways, I rebounded and built the stack back up, got through until level 9 (9hrs into day 1), then finally lost another flip vs. that same kid, AK vs. his TT. This young man, in these 9 hours, showed AA roughly 4 times, KK once, a full house, a royal flush, and most of these hands were for stacks. Anyways, I think I played good enough to give myself a chance to win today, things just fell on the wrong side of the fence. One interesting point was that a man named Mickey Appleton came to the table. He's a 4 time bracelet winner from the old guard and a professional sports bettor. He's been successfully handicapping sports at the highest level for over 25 years. Very interesting dude who had a monster stack when I flipped off mine. Anyways, not too sure if I feel like playing the $1500 PLO tomorrow. Wes and I get our separate condo and I'm looking forward to getting some space to spread out and play a little online. Anyways, the 8game $10,000 mixed event is coming up on the 4th, I may sit out a little until then, we'll see. Vegas got the best of the rest of the guys in one of the wildest nights in our wsop histories. Safe to say, being in game shape today was out of the question for the team. Very entertaining so far.

sigh* :)

Sour day today. Busted shortly into the second hour today in O8. So missed cashing by 50 or so (~145/909). Then watched my beloved Cavs get trounced out of the playoffs. Oh, lost $2k in a 10-20 nlhe game due to a suck-in bluff turned wrong when i caught enough of a piece to lock in on the turn. Anyways, I'm playing the $1k massive field tournament tomorrow at noon. There is over 6000 players apparently playing in this event, might be as much as 1million for first. Should be a really fun crap shoot that we're all going to play. There are a lot of side bets cooked up for tomorrow, over/under on how many of us get to day two. Who ends day 1 with the most chips, last longer bets, etc. Hope some better news soon.

event 3: omaha 8/better

So, tumultuous first few days here. quick recap, the extended stay we rented is in turmoil and we may get evicted through no fault of our own. In the meantime, no keys for all of us, and the ones we have don't work to get through the second gate, the air conditioning's broken (we gave up and stayed at the Rio last night because it was too hot to sleep) and we don't have the second apartment for Wes and I yet and there are 5 of us packed in Andrew's (we're supposed to get it tomorrow though). One the bright side Andrew, Wes and our friend Liam all scooped massively the first night of cash games we were here. Andrew and Wes in 10-25 nlhe, Liam at 2-5 nlhe. I think Wes booked a huge 9k~ win. That night I bounced around, I had to work on getting the wire approved and moved to the floor, then getting a lock box. I finally played a little 50-100 horse with a really tight table (including jens voortman and men the master), game stunk so I moved to 5-10 nlhe, played a hand bad and then got called for the 25-25-50 plo game. Massive game, playing huge with the 3blinds, there was ~65k on the table. I sat pretty short ~50 bb, limp/wrapped a hand with AAJQds. Won a few non-shown down hands, won a bit and then called it a night just when a bunch of spots sat in the game with really deep stacks.
So the omaha event. First 6 hours was a grind. No action but a fishy table. I started with 4500, worked up to about 9100 by the dinner but since no one had busted on our table there was no chips to be had. Finally after dinner, people started falling from this very boring quiet table and we got some equally un-giving opponents yet way more interesting. Jay Hemowitz (sp?) from the old mayfair club in new york, mark gregorich (omaha writer and specialist in this discipline) and one of the most entertaining men in poker, eli elezera, oh and annie duke. Anyways, table played tough, eli played almost every hand and worked up a huge stack. I lost a very big pot with A256 on a 349 board w a nut-flush draw. I think we 5bet capped the flop and got 3 more in on the turn, I aired out though and lost that pot. Shortstacking begins. That table got broke and I ended the day with Chad Brown, Layne Flack and a host of fish. The table was great but we only played 2 rounds or so until the day's end of level 10. I'm extremely short going into day two. I have only 4800 playing 1000-2000? i can't really remember what level we come back at. I'm sure the average stack has only 20k but whatever. I wasn't looking to give up and really couldn't find a spot to blast in before the end of the day. Who knows, heater may be on it's way tomorrow.
Not much else going on. I'm registered for the massive 1k buyin nlhe tournament on sunday. Should get so many that 1million may be first place for that. Think about that ROI if you can run hot. Andrew, Liam, Ryan, Wes and I played golf at a local par 3 9 hole course by the airport. Andrew wanted to bet, gave me a shot a hole for the first 3, then 1/2 for the middle 3, then straight up on the last 3. I lucked my way into a scoop. So all in all, I'm up more in golf this trip than anything else :). That is not a good sign if you've seen this stroke.

Wednesday flight out, return flight in ?

Looks like the boys are ready and team 'clockwyze', for lack of a better handle, will be reuniting for the $1000 no limit holdem event number 4, this saturday. By team clockwyze, i mean my good friends Andrew and Wes whom I get to spend all world series' with. Not only good friends but also the only people I feel comfortable asking for advice in all poker related topics and sharing action. It takes a lot of trust and confidence in people to mix poker and friendship. I feel very lucky to have maintained a great relationship with them. Andrew's truly the sickest of the sick on the poker world, and more importantly, become a very good friend. Look for him to have a massive world series. One of the biggest winners of all time online and a very good tournament player, he's way overdue for a big run in these events.
I think the first event for me will be event 3, omaha hi low on friday... it's a limit event and will restart at 2pm on saturday so if i make day 2 i'll skip the 1k (event 4). Looking forward to getting this thing underway.

Couple of side bets between the group of us for the extent of the series.
1. workout prop bet. Between Wes, Andrew, Christina and myself, we must workout a minimum of 30 minutes a day, if exception is to be made, it's 100usd in the pot for the person who skips the fewest days by the end. Not drinking should make me a favourite but buffets swing me to a massive underdog. The mirage is somewhat of a huge enemy of mine for that reason.
2. wsop fantasy pool, we're going to pick 10 or so players each and see who comes out ahead when all the nonsense is over. Perhaps better to be organized on cashsportspools.com but we'll make it work. Not sure on the amount of this one.

I'm also really excited for all the visits planned for this summer. Apparently my sister's heading out, my mom at some point, a bunch of the whitby guys, gunter for a bit.... should be a lot of fun. I guess here's where I make a quip at not repeating a second place finish but I'll save complaining for if i go 0-for. Second place once a year, fine by me.

catching up from where we left off.....

If you look really really closely, you can just see it over the horizon. World Series 09' is coming up in less than a month and I am amped. I think it's human nature to look at the past more fondly in remembrance than your actually feelings in the moment. Nothing is more true than that statement and poker. I can remember how totally decimating poker was at the end of last year's wsop, and how much I was looking forward to cash games and now it can't come quick enough.
April saw the most volume I've ever played online 150,000 hands of nlhe and plo on partypoker exclusively. Party is a graveyard nowadays and the majority of those hands were me vs. regulars, day in and day out. I really feel like some of the toughest games online can be found there. I read over some of my older posts that explained my desire to beat the levels in order before moving up and this year I've been fortunate enough to do so. I sort of skipped the $3-6 level and play most of my time at 5-10 now. It's not a bankroll thing, it's more a function of my desire to be accomplished and not expose myself to undue variance that may result in poor play when moving up.
To give you an idea, I play way too many tables at once, sometimes 15/16 at a time and it does result in robotic play and does decrease my win rate. I do think that I multi table well though and I am a favourite to beat the games I'm playing. At the end of may this will be the end of it though, I decided that I will play higher and fewer tables at once from now on. I can play less hopefully and improve my play. Anyways, as far as keeping score goes, since last wsop ended I surpassed my expectations as far as my online earn goes and considering the lineup I sometimes forced myself to play in, I am happy with the result. Hungry to do better though.
Absolute expectation has been much lower than my results. At the time of this post, since April first alone, I am running a little better than -$30,000 over those 150k hands. I've been told the long run kicks in around the 100-200k hand mark so I'm looking for that heater to begin but so far, it's only a theory :)
Solace can be taken in the fact that over that same stretch I am break even without showdown and roughly $25,000 winner... thoughts inevitably turn to what would running hot over the same period look like? Anyways, I plan on writing about the world series experience again this summer and thought it appropriate to pop in before it all starts. Talk to you soon,