Also, I got no pocket pairs, AK's or AQ's in 90 minutes. Busto! Meh, there's always the limit shootout next month.

The good news is, other than a 5K event tomorrow that I'm undecided about playing, there's nothing else on the schedule until Friday. Time to catch up on sleep and win a few more satellites.

Today's featured $525 satellite hand:

On the second hand of the tournament, two people limp, an Asian guy in LP makes it 100 (I feel like the stereotype is *always* true here and he's going to be super LAGgy) and it winds up being 4 ways to a K 9x 4 board. It checks to the Asian guy, who overbets the pot and gets two quick calls. Turn 5x; both people check, the Asian guy shoves for 1.5x the pot, the first one folds (what can he possibly have had?) and the second thinks, then calls another overbet shove with 8 5. Sadly, he misses and KJo is good.

Today's featured "how live poker is different" hand:

Later in that same level, two people limp and a woman player in MP makes it 100 (uh oh.) The Asian guy, now with a mountain of chips after busting one more person, calls, as do the limpers, one of whom is a pretty decent younger guy that has to be a winner here.

Flop 9 7 5 . It's checked to the woman, who bets 2/3 into 3 people (uh oh.) The Asian guy instantly min-CR's and the decent limper insta cold calls. The woman then takes roughly half a second to shove her stack in. The Asian guy clearly has a tough decision, hems, haws, and finally checks his hole cards one more time before resignedly calling.

The limper now says "I have a straight flush draw, T 8" and tanks himself. IMO, he should have instafolded here even with the something like 4:1 odds he had, because that last hole card check was obviously diamonds. He mentions the possibility out loud, but finally resignedly calls; sure enough, the Asian guy turns over A Q.

So, yeah, time to catch up on sleep and work on a few projects. The Rio will still be full of bad beats tomorrow :)

Most of those hours, unfortunately, were not in the $2500, as I busted out of that at the 150/300/25 level. My actual bustout hand was fairly uneventful (AK < 77 for 20 BB or so), but there are a few interesting hands, most of them against the same, not very good but thinking LAG opponent. The highlight is flopping a straight flush draw with K 2 on a Q J Tx 3x Jx board, leading all three streets and getting minraised on the river/shown a jack after I folded (I'd lay odds on the other card being a K or 9.) The river was the big decision in that hand - bluffing it cost me about a quarter of my remaining stack - and while the pot was big and I actually thought some of his hands would find a fold there, in retrospect I should probably just give up.

I also had time for four $525 satellites. I ran as bad as ever in three (the highlight was a flop all in against Rainkhan with QT on a QT6, 2 diamond board vs. Qdxd on the very first hand of a sat, which I of course lost), but managed to chop the fourth for a $1500 sat profit on the day. These continue to be ridiculously soft*, and I hope to be crushing them as soon as the runbad stops, since Rainkhan told me just how badly he's dominating these and I'm a better player ;)

*Fun flukey hand: I raise A Q in EP and get called by the BB, a 50ish man who basically looks and acts like more or less of a drunken hobo (but a nice guy!) The flop comes 8 7 2, he looks at his cards - clearly checking the suit - and checks, I mentally say "awesome, lower flush draw no good" and bet; of course, he calls. The turn is the Q, he checks again, I bet about half the pot to keep him in, he takes about 15 seconds and calls again. The river is a club, giving me the nuts and him a lower flush...except that now, he tanks for 30 seconds and checks. Well, okay, he doesn't have a flush, so I'll just bet 2/3 pot or so (half our stacks). Sure enough, he tanks and eventually calls one more time...then, while I'm flipping my cards and dragging the pot, turns over K K and softly asks "What else can I do here?" Wow.

After the sats ended, I went to watch Nath play the stud/8 event for a couple of hours. It's not my best game, but I have a good grasp of the fundamentals, and as Nath was at the table with John Juanda and next to a couple of other pros, it was very interesting seeing them all play. Juanda actually open completed a bring-in (and eventually showed down 262 2 tone), something I've never seen anybody good do before - worth thinking about.

Tomorrow is the NL shootout, where I get to play anywhere from 1 to 3 tables full of people like the KK guy. Please let me run good :)

Unfortunately, I'm continuing to run very bad (0 for 3 big 70/30's in just one Sunday tournament is impressive, honestly, as is running Ax into AA 4 times this week), but in the meantime, there are definitely benefits to being out here. Playing live is certainly different, but the games are so much easier/the players so predictably bad that I can feel myself improving - thinking about new lines, getting people to fold through raw aggression, and opening up my game in a number of areas. Live players telegraph their hands so much and so thoroughly that simply taking away pots, including big ones, is incredibly easier.

A bunch of hands from this week:

1)The hand I posted about a couple of days ago (63d on the AA8 flop) is a fantastic Yeti theorem hand. Bluff recently published a segment on 2+2 poster's Yeti's theorem, which, in a nutshell, is "people who bet/3 bet a paired board never have anything". It's so true, especially on AAx boards, where an ace just never 3 bets a raise (a big mistake pretty often, BTW), especially not a small 3 bet. Pulling the trigger on a four bet with 6 high is something else altogether, though. I have no idea who the button is, but I'm sure I'll be seeing him on TV at some point.

2)In the 1K sat I played last night, I raised with AA and got called by an MP player who then folded QJ face up on a JT7 flop because "I bet so much" (2/3 pot, when we were 100 bets deep - this is a profitable call if he puts me on exactly AA.) This is just another "live players are so bad" post, but this week, I've been trying to see how profitable it is to check TPTK+ after a PFR, especially on multiway boards when I'm sure someone will bet. So far, that's been pretty mixed live (most of them are so straightforward that they just don't bluff no matter how much you want them to, and the rest are so bad that it's irrelevant whether you check or bet) but has gotten some nice results online. Nobody ever believes a PFR followed by a checkraise on a K72 board, either.

3)Another fun hand from the 1K: two limpers at 50/100, I raised to 500 with AK (I'd been raising a lot and had 8Kish behind, covering everyone), they called and the flop is AQJr. Both limpers thought [I was 100% sure that both had at least some piece of this flop], then checked. This is a very tough spot online that most people misplay - the fact is that you usually have too many outs to bet/fold to a CR profitably, and if you follow the predictable "bet the flop, check behind on the turn" line, when either villain bets the river you will often be folding the best hand (because you can't really call that bet profitably.) The correct play here in multiway pots, especially vs opponents that won't 2 barrel bluff, is to check behind and look for cards that change your turn equity (also balancing out the times you check behind with something like 99).

After I checked, the turn bricked off, the first limper bet 800, and the second thought forever and called. Normally, online, this is a close decision between a call and a fold, but live, it was very easy to tell the second guy just didn't have much - a weak ace at best. So I overcalled, the river bricked off as well, we checked through it and I won a nice pot. The interesting part is that I'm pretty sure I missed a small value bet on the end - something very hard to make online against anyone half decent, but pretty easy with live reads. I'll get better at these as the month goes on.

Tomorrow's event is a 2.5K NL freezeout and/or some sats I'm looking forward to; hopefully, it'll break me out of running bad :)

Today, unfortunately, was pretty much a wash. I busted out of the main $1500 event fairly early with AQ against AA on an ace high flop (yuck), then went to play satellites. To give you an idea of how those play, here is an actual hand from a $535 satellite:

7 handed, someone limps UTG with 7 BB at 50/100. 1-2 other people call and the BB checks. The flop comes down A 7 6, the BB checks, and the limper shoves for 3x the pot. The limpers fold and the BB thinks, then calls the overbet for 30% or so of his stack.

Limper: 9 6
BB: 5 4

Unfortunately, I'm good at running 70% into 30%'s, so despite that stellar standard of play, I went 0 for 2 in 535's and 0 for 1 in the 1K that I played afterwards. Oh well, (the day after) tomorrow is another day. In the meantime, tomorrow, about a dozen of us are playing the Sunday tournaments from this house - that ought to be fun.

Not much happened today. I went to the Venetian to play their 1K deep stack event (instead of the WSOP 5K pot limit event, which is supposedly harder than average. Other than two or three hands (and one hand I didn't actually play which I will break down later*), though, it was pretty uneventful, and I busted when AA ran into a fellow 2+2er's KK a few hours in. I also lost a couple of key flips in a very, very soft $535 SNG back at the Rio. I've got more hope for tomorrow's $1500 NL event (and, on the off chance I don't make it to day 2, Sunday's online lineup.)

*Sneak peek: TAG raises in EP and a very good, hand reading LAG calls in LP. The action on the A A 8 flop goes "bet, small raise, small 3 bet, minimum 4 bet", the latter getting the TAG's QQ to fold face up. The button then shows 6 3 . Honestly, the best Yeti theorem play I've ever seen.