Vegas Trip Report

Just returned this afternoon.

2 cash game sessions: MGM $-121, Imperial Palace $+145. Ridiculous donk at the MGM. I made a stupid call on the river because I was frustrated. I knew exactly what he had. I have AK on the button make a standard raise and he calls with A2s in the BB. Pot has $21 and the flop is K and 2 hearts. He bets $10 I raise to $45, he calls???? WTF? Turn is a heart. He checks, I check. River is a K and he bets $40. I go into the tank and from his horrific earlier play, I put him on the flush. But, I still call. I guess I suck. LOL. Oh well. I was just getting ready to leave too.

I played 13 tournaments. Imagine that.

Aria: this was the blogger tournament. Over 100 players, I finished 35th. Brian finished 16th. Brian ran into some bad luck just before the final table. He got all his chips in with AA vs 99. If he won the hand, he would have a monstrous chip stack. I think you know the result of this one. He collected a few bounties and won his entry fee back. I had a big chip stack early from several average sized pots. Then, I ran into flopped quads vs my top pair A kicker and that took more than half my stack. I played the short stack for about 2-3 hours and never could get a decent stack before getting knocked out with AQ vs AK.

Caesar's Palace: played 2 of these. typical donk suckouts....end of story.

Oshea's: 10 tournaments. They gave me a free t-shirt. I think because I played so many tournaments there. I had 3 cashes. 1st, 2nd, and a 4 way chop. 2 of these tournaments there was only 5 players. The crowds were hit and miss. Definitely not as many as the summer crowds. Typical Osheas players....awful. I had some really bad beats at the wrong time. Otherwise, I would have more cashes. One crucial hand at the final table: I have about 8BBs at the time and you know the structure at Osheas. If I win this hand, I triple up and I'm a huge chip leader with 8 players left. Yes, I'm not kidding. Huge chip leader with 25BBs. LOL. UTG shoves with JJ, MP shoves with AK, and I'm in BB with KK....duh....call. Flop...AJ4....Fuck! Turn....Q. River.....T. Phew. At least I chopped the pot with the AK player. Can I have one of those crucial hands hold up? Jeez.

The last tournament I played was the 4 way chop for $210. I tried to get the table to chop at 6 people but, the chip leader, a young German dude said, "No Way." He said, in a thick German accent, "What you need to be somewhere?" I said, "No, i'm just trying to make everyone some money." Everyone agreed to chop except him so, now everyones gunning to knock out the German. Down to 5 players and young German meister is short, UTG and shoves with A4s. The big stack snap calls him with 44 and the German goes down. Everyone was quite happy to see him eliminated. Victory is sweet when an asshole gets knocked out. Overall at Osheas I was up a whopping $40.
Overall trip $-216.

It was a good trip and looking forward to see Scott play in the WSOP in July

Vegas Trip and HU SNGs

It's been awhile since I made a post. I'm back from Vegas and we all had a great time. I played in 3 tournaments and did well in all 3 but, only cashed in one. I played 2 at Caesar's and one donkament at O'sheas. I cashed in the O'sheas tourney. These people had no idea how to play poker. We were down to the final table and half the table has between 5-10BB and no one is pushing. Well we get down to 4 players and I have about 6BB left. I've been pushing a good bit and I look down at A9 UTG. Well, no thought here, I push. The BB is the chip leader and to call it would be about 25% of his stack. He says, "I can't let you continue to do this." He calls with K2 and I'm delighted until a K hits the flop and I'm out. Wish I could play with that dude every day. I would win a ton of money.
I've started to play HU SNGs. I was looking on Sharkscope and all the guys who make money play HU SNGs. I decided to give this a try. So far so good. My bankroll is climbing in the right direction again. I plan on starting at the $5 Turbo HU SNGs and progress from there. I think it's great because of the number of tournaments you can play. If you hit some bad variance, you can always fire up another tourney and get started on a hot streak. Here's a great website I found with some great information about HU SNGS: HoldemForaLiving

BrainMc and I went over to the RIO to watch some of the WSOP Main Event. I've always had a crush on Isabelle Mercier and who do we see at the entrance? Yep, the beautiful Isabelle. I'm drooling all over myself and get the courage to ask her for a picture. She looked like she was in a hurry and was nice enough to pose with me. Also, got a picture with Scotty Nguyen. No beating off to the Isabelle pic.

Vegas Redemption

Yes, I know I'm not in the Main Event any more. But, who says I have to leave Vegas? Before the Main Event I played some 1/2 and 1/3 NL holdem and 2 tournaments. I played mostly at Caesar's and some at Orleans. I lost money on most of my cash sessions and did not cash in both tournaments. I played some Black Jack and won. I lost a little on Pai Gow(that's a fun game). So, I played a $200 buy-in tourney at Caesar's today. There were 213 players and I finished in 8th for $1054. Total Redemption!!! Now, I feel better. I was beginning to worry about my poker skills. I'm leaving Vegas tomorrow on a positive note. I had a great time and hope to be back for WSOP 2008.

More Serinda

One more pic of Serinda Swan. She is the new model for Guess Jeans. She looks great and loves to play poker too! The night before this picture she won $700 playing Chinese Poker.

Another WSOP Hand

This pic is Miami John. I went all in a total of 6 times. Two of those were against pros "Miami" John Cernuto and Max Casal. Blinds were 200-400 ante 50. I picked up A,Q in early position and raised to 1200 total. I had 5600 chips and Max Casal had 80,000. He raised me another 5000, everyone folded around to me. He basically put me all in. I thought he could be making a play so, I took my time to think it through. If I didn't make the call, I have 4000 and change left. Then, I'm in all in mode. I felt like he didn't have a huge hand. Possibly, he has AK, AQ, AJ. Maybe a middle range pocket pair or is he just making a play because he has a huge chip stack? I saw him make a play earlier on the river. He went all in on the river with A,10 against another guy and he had no pair or draw. Also, I thought of how many people have been knocked out of a tournament with AQ. A ton of people. Finally, I think back to how many chips I would have left if I don't make the call. If I double up, I'm back above 10,000 chips. I said, "Screw it, I call." He turns over A,Q and we split the pot. I think I would rather he have a middle pocket pair so I could potentially double up. Two pros tried to knock me out and both were unsuccessful.

I'm Out of the Tournament

We started play at 12pm and I lasted til about 1:00am. 13 hours is not too bad. Here are some of the highlights:
-I picked up some cards early but, everyone was playing so tight that it really didn't help my chip stack very much. We started with $20,000 in chips and I went as high as 23,000. After the first level, I really didn't have great cards the rest of the tournament. When I did pick up cards someone usually had a better hand.
-I made some good laydowns early with strong hands and was complimented by some at the table.
-Kathy Liebert was one table away
-One of the featured tables was right behind me with Scotty Nguyen. I think I heard him say "baby" about a thousand times.
-The third level of play another player was knocked out at my table. Guess who filled the empty seat?........."Miami" John Cernuto. He seemed like a very nice guy. I was short stacked for about 3 hours and I doubled up on him. I'm 2 seats to his left, I have about 5,000 chips the blinds are 300-600 ante 75. He was UTG and raised 3xbb. I pushed with pocket 5s. Everyone else folded. He stared me down for about 10 seconds. That was really cool. Man, was my heart beating fast. He thinks for awhile, calculates the odds, and calls with A,J. His hand didn't improve and I doubled up on Miami John. He said, "nice hand." If anything else from this trip, I'll always remember that hand.
-The last level of the night was 100 ante blinds 400-800 and I have 8100 chips. I only had to make it 2 more hours and I would have made it past Day 1. They split up our table. The is the second hand of my new table. Player to my right in early position raises 4xbb. I look at my cards and see pocket 9s. Here's a great chance to double up. I think it's probably a coin flip so I push in my remaining 8100. Everyone else folds and he calls with A,Q. Flop 2,3,5....good.....turn...........Q. Damn!.....river....8. I'm out!
-I learned alot from the people at my table. Just about everyone at my table were very good. There was another pro at my table but, he said he didn't play many tournaments and not much No Limit. He said he cashed at 2 WSOP events 10th and 25th. His name was Max Casal. He plays mostly cash: Limit $200/$400. Chris said he thought he recognized another player at my table. This was definitely some tough competition.
I'll post some more later. I'm disappointed I didn't get through day 1 but, I'm pleased with my short stack play. I got a compliment from Miami John which was freakin cool.
There are some pictures of me on the World Series website.
www.worldseriesofpoker.com/photostore
Event #55 July 7 Day 1B Table #225

Registration is complete

Everything is set for the WSOP. I have my table and seat assignment. If they keep the tables numbered the same way they have them now, my table is located right by the rail. That's good for the group who came to watch me play. It's funny that I mentioned Shannon Elizabeth in my last post because she walked right in front of me several times when I was at the Amazon Room at the Rio. Other poker celebrities I saw: Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Todd Brunson, Sean Sheikhan, Tony G, Scotty Ngyuen, Marco Traniello, Jeff Lisandro, Isabelle Mercier, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, and some others I can't think of now. I went to a party for the Absolute Poker satellite winners the other night at Nero's Caesar's Palace. It was excellent food and free! I have some pictures with Serinda Swan who is the spokes model for Absolute. She is gorgeous! The other two guys in the picture are two other satellite winners who won $125,000 packages for free buy-ins to the major tournaments.

Vegas or Bust!

Well, 2 days til I leave for Vegas. I called the RIO and they processed my pre-registration paperwork and wire transfer. I play on the 7th. I just recently read that day 1 is now divided into 4 days: 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th. Day 2 will be divided into 2 days: 10th and 11th. I think this is going to be bigger than last year. That's the only reason I can see of why they would make it 4 days for day 1. Alot of people were predicting the Main Event would be around 6000 but, looks like it will be much more. Of course I'm excited about the Main Event but, the cash games are supposed to be really juicy at the very beginning of the Main Event. Have I mentioned I'm playing in the Main Event? I'll update again when I get to Vegas. It sure would be nice to play at the same table as Shannon Elizabeth. Is she married?