In fact, I don't think I broke the 2 hour mark anywhere.

Good news: I made the NY Times!

NY Times article

It's not about poker, but hey, I'll take it.

Good news: I made my first '08 final table last night. (That sounded really bad until I realized I'd played 30 donkaments all year, lol. Which leads me to:)

Bad news: I took 7'th because I actually made an impatient reshove. Yeah, it was 7 BB to a minraise and probably didn't even cost me much in equity, but it's still very dumb and not something I should ever do. And, after some thought, I'm pretty sure the reason I did it was because I didn't play enough recently.

So, a short term fix = me playing most of the FTOPS events and enough other donkaments to fill my screen before I leave for LA. That ought to be enough to get me un-rusty.

Oh well, at least I made moneys/got the Bodog runbad streak out of the way.

(Bodog runbad streak: a 2000% ROI over the course of a year and a half/70 tournaments, followed by an 0 for 48 streak that brought it down to 500%)

Only $200 or so, but hey, money's nice. I only played about four tourneys, bubbled the UB 200K, but went very deep in the Stars 1M again before busting out 200-something. It's also got enough plays in it to be a CR vid or two, so I'm set for this month.

If you're in the appropriate states, don't forget to vote today :)

For whatever reason, Day 2 is easier to remember than Day 1...

My first table had several decent players, including WacoKidd with an identical stack to my right, but the main factor was the guy immediately to my left, a middle aged, very obese guy who had about 100K. On the very first hand, the action went, IIRC: old, nitty looking short stacked guy raises in EP for 1/4 of his stack, two callers including Waco in LP, the obese guy in the BB 3 bets pretty big, nitty old guy snap shoves. The first caller folds nines, Waco folds jacks, the old guy has tens and loses to the fat guy's...Q8 sooted. He then goes on to play every hand that can make a straight or flush while the rest of us are all salivating. Sample hand from the rest of the hour and a half I spent there: Waco raises on the button to 3200 at 600/1200, I flat call jacks because I want the guy in, the guy obviously overcalls. Flop Q92. I check, the guy instabets 10K, I get ready to c/c 3 streets when Waco snap raises to 35K, and I briefly debate shoving anyway but fold. The fat guy mucks pocket fours face up and Waco shows KJ. If I'd had QJo that hand, the chips were getting turboshoved.

Eventually, the table breaks with me still having about 70K and I get moved to a much tougher one. This one has a couple of bad calling stations on my left, but features an obviously good Internet player (who turned out to be Obsidian) one to my right, Joe Tehan ('07 Mandalay Bay winner) - a good, mostly TAG player who could smell weakness and 3 bet surprisingly often - directly to my right and some other people I can't remember now. There was also a guy across from me who'd been at my table for six hours the day before and probably thought that I was way more LAG than I am, which I figured I'd use somehow.

I forget how, but I bled off some chips and was down to just under 60K when I won a huge pot. With a well over 100K stack at 4/8, Obsidian raised on the button to 2200 (I didn't know who he was yet but figured his range was top 90%), Joe Tehan called from the SB with about 25K, I looked down at T9, decided squeezing Joe was too risky and called.

Flop 874. Joe checked, I checked obviously planning to CR, Obsidian bet 6K (I thought this meant some kind of a hand but still figured on him having a large range), Joe thought for a while and called - this would have been really bad but he genuinely agonized over it - and I took about ten seconds to make it 25K, just under half my stack (I thought I had 60K left at the time but evidently I had 55. Whatever.) Obsidian immediately snap shoved, Joe folded, and I made the 'hate life but whatever' call. I think we were both very surprised to see each other's hand when he turned over...96o (he'd misjudged my stack, too, and thought he had FE). The table and rail went nuts, of course, especially when we didn't improve and T high won the monster pot.

From there, I shortly won another big pot. The guy from my last table limped in MP at 600/1200 and I checked Q3o in the BB. Flop A33 ("gin"). I checked since MP wasn't calling a bet without an ace, he bet 2K, and I kinda thought about what to do on future streets. After a few seconds, I figured "hey, I'm from the Internet, he'll fall for this", double checked my cards for the flush, and called. Turn 9x; I checked again, he bet 7K since I had a flush draw, I double checked my cards one more time and called. River 2x, I immediately led out 12K, he instacalled and mucked his ace. That put me at 157K, about twice average at that point.

The downward spiral started after that, though, basically involving two hands. One was against Obsidian: I flatted his MP raise with KK on the button, got CR'd on the 772 flop, and called him down on an 88 board to see J7, lol (I think I should have folded the river, but it wasn't a huge deal). The other was basically a terrible 3 street calldown with TP against a tight FTP pro that I'd never played with before - after playing with him two more hours, I'd have never made it, but since I didn't know him, it cost me about 40K more than it should have. After that, I simply went carddead and busted several hours later shoving 33 into QQ. Meh.

Cutting this entry short in anticipation of Sunday.

Enough being lazy...time to post hands!

At this point, the details of Day 1 are sort of blurry. Most of the action early on was focused on John Hennigan to my left. What would usually happen is that he'd small ball, raise + cbet his way into pots from other people, I'd somehow wind up in the pot with him, flop a set and win half of what he got from them, ie, the minimum. I flopped at least 6 sets in the first 4 levels and didn't win more than 1 barrel from him on any of them (probably as infuriating for him as me, because none of the hands went to showdown and he must've been thinking I was crushing him somehow. Nope, just catching cards.) BTW, John plays incredibly fast (warning bells should go off whenever someone competent takes < 15 secs to make big decisions, IMO) and incredibly well in general; the fact that I couldn't get paid off is a big sign of that.

As I said, early on, I'd just do something, John to my left would do something, I'd flop a set and win money. Other than that, the table was very passive, and I started doing things like limping 88 UTG (and flopping a set when John raised me obv), overcalling a UTG raise with QQ PF on the button looking to play a medium pot (flop Q52, I don't win very much obv), etc. It was just a bizarre table, with a total lack of aggression by everybody except Rizen (not a huge factor - I have a ton of respect for his game, but he misplayed a couple of overpairs early, knew it, and seemed to shut down afterwards) and Hennigan to my left, plus me occasionally showing up with a big hand.

One of Rizen's misplayed overpair hands: 38598325 limpers to him in the SB, he makes it 850 at 50/100, BB - an aggro younger guy - flats, and everyone else folds. Flop 522, Rizen bets 1350, BB calls. Turn 9, Rizen bets out something like 2200, BB quickly matches it and raises a 5K chip. With 30K starting stacks, Rizen should, IMO, be snap folding anything below aces here, because black AA is the worst hand in BB's range at this point. Instead, Rizen fairly quickly called, the river diamond went check check, and Rizen's red queens beat out 76. At the time, I thought that if he called the turn, he should really have led out 5K or so on the river, but given the chances of a bluff shove, I might've been wrong.

So, a half hour later right before the break, I limp 88 UTG with something close to 30K, the BB from that hand [who's losing every pot he plays and is visibly frustrated] overlimps on the button, SB folds/Rhett Butler checks in the BB. Flop 642r (1 spade), blinds check, I bet 225 into 350, button quickly calls, Butler folds. Turn Q, I check knowing the button will be betting 90% of his hands here, he bets something like 650, I call. The river: an interesting Ax. I check, button bets 900 into about 2100, I briefly think about it because he floats a lot with A high on the flop but decide I'm probably good more than enough % anyway and call. MHIG. I think I overheard him say he turned an FD or something.

Now the table has some respect for me, so I basically...go right back to flopping sets on John and not really playing much else. Sample hands:

-I raise 88 on the button at 100/200, John snap 3bets me to 2100 from the SB, I call. Flop Q86 2 tone, he turbochecks, I think and bet, he turbocalls. Turn K, he turbochecks again, I think about it and bet a few K more, he folds before I put the bet out.

-I limp 77 UTG+1, he raises, folded back to me, I call. Flop has a 7 in it, I lead this time, he turbomucks.

Three or four more like that left me with a 40K stack while he amassed around 60K.

---
Hands not involving John:

-At 150/300, loose/bad 50-ish CO with ~25K raises to 800, I 3 bet AKs in the SB with 40K to something like 2600, he calls. Flop A73, bet 3K/snapcall. Turn 7 (not actually a great card for me, so...), bet 4500 planning on folding to a raise, snapcall. River 6, bet 6K, call, he mucks AQ. tbh I think I was going to c/f a river queen (and maybe a jack, too.)

-At 200/400, Rhett Butler makes it 1100 in the CO. It's a testament to how tight he played that I found JJ on the button and decided to just call (also a testament to me knowing that both Hennigan and the bad BB were gonna be in the pot if I did, except they both folded. Oops.) Flop KJx, he snap checks, I check back because I was tired of betting and winning the minimum. Turn K, he checks, I bet 1600, he suddenly makes it 3700 (whoa), I think about it and decide to flat because he's probably not folding a king anywhere if he bets big on the river and I may as well see if the board pairs it first. River blank, he thinks and checks, snap folds to my bet and then tells me he played his hand bad (later told me he had tens.) oh well.

At this point I've got about 60-65K and kinda hover there for a while watching Hennigan win every pot I'm not in, then reliably either call or 3 bet all my LP raises. After he 3 bets my CO open (1600) from the button for the third or fourth time (to 5100), an hour before the end of the day, I have 33, decide that I'm either winning the pot now or flopping another set anyway, and four bet him to 16500. He actually thinks (I'm kinda proud of making him think tbh) but eventually mucks.

I took this as a good sign of playing well and went into Day 2 on a confident note.

This is a couple of days late largely thanks to lack of laptop, but I busto'ed on Day 2 in an impressive fashion, first getting to 157K (2x average) largely off a pot I won at showdown with T high and then calling two thirds of it off on 2 hands (one okay, one lousy) before busting several hours later.

This entry's a placeholder for a full recap later on.

I've got 69K heading into Day 2 (~45K average, 360 of 500-odd left, 54 paid.) It was a tough table/seat draw, with John Hennigan (last year's winner and, I think, one of the best poker players I've ever sat with) directly to my left, but I got the best of him all day - it helps to flop lots of sets. In addition, Rhett Butler was to my right, Rizen spent all day in Seat 8 (I was Seat 4), and a shortstacked Tmay420 showed up for the last couple of levels in Seat 9, but there were a few soft spots and I chipped up off all of them. I never ended a level with fewer chips than I started with, which is always a good sign, and will have > 100 BB going into Day 2, another good sign. As I've usually been saying on here, I'm getting more and more comfortable with the way live play flows and all of my moves are working/I'm picking off small bluffs with third pair repeatedly. This type of stuff (winning small pots with next to nothing, picking the one good spot every 2 hours to bluff, only losing one pot making a "wrong" calldown postflop all day, seeing no showdowns but constantly chipping up just a little every hour) is really big for me; when my reads are on like this, I only need to win one or two big pots a day to go very deep.

I'll post as many hands as I can when I get back home to a working computer.

Other notables: Vivek @ 110K, Thayer @ (I think) 50K, Shaun Deeb busto with 2 hands to go in the day.

Got here last night and just played the $5200 event ("just" as in "busted an hour ago".) It was another non-starter where I never got over my starting stack, although I played moderately well before running KK into AA with an effective 22 BB. Doh.

More (okay, not more) importantly, after struggling for a day or so, my laptop hard drive looks to have totally died. In fact, I'm typing this from the hotel lobby's free Internet PC's. This means no updating the blog until I'm back home on Monday or Tuesday (or maybe Thursday if I run hot in the ME, heh) - I already ordered a replacement off Ebay, but not having a working PC is really going to suck till then.

The good news is I always make sure to copy all the data over to my desktop/vice versa, so I think the only thing I've permanently lost is a few photos I was too lazy to transfer the last time. The bad news is the amount of time it's gonna take to install Windows/Office/Pokertracker/all the other stuff on the new drive...not to mention that my desktop hates rendering videos in Camtasia for some reason, so I've been doing that on my laptop. There are a bunch of raw video files on there that I've made into videos already, but will not be able to reproduce if they ever ask me (this comes up from time to time.)

All the same, this pales in comparison to what would happen if I didn't have a backup copy of (nearly) everything - I don't even want to think about trying to do my taxes with no proof for anything I did last year. 500-odd tournament 'sessions', hundreds of hours of cash games, and no convenient Excel spreadsheet for any of it/records scattered across eight sites, some of which are way less cooperative than others...yeah, okay, that wouldn't be good. If my desktop in NYC gets hit by lightning in the next three days, I'll either have to shell out a billion dollars for data recovery or kill myself. So, basically, the moral of the story is "back up your damn files".

With that in mind, I'm off to, uhh...watch TV and/or spend 12 hours a day in the poker room to avoid boredom, I guess?

Quick update:

-Played one big AC tourney, a 1K sat (too busy the next day to play the other one.) Won 0 hands in 3 hours. Highlight (also the only light): calling a 10x UTG shove with 9x and TT to see the other guy turn over Q5s. I river a boat, except I was drawing to quads on the flop. lols.

Sunday went okay, not great. Made two deep runs in both Stars and FTP. I wound up bubbling @ FTP on a reshove gone bad when someone behind me had kings, but making it to the top 300 on Stars. It's not a good result or anything, but I had built up deep stacks on both tourneys, and that's how you final table them eventually.

Making the second half of my CR vid before I go back out to AC for the 10K ME (and a couple of more prelims) on Wednesday or Thursday.

Very nice IMO :)

My poker vacation's stretched to an unprecedented 2 weeks (granted some of that was involuntary and Wednesday was the first day I could really talk and walk around), but it's time for it to end. I'm heading down to the Borgata tomorrow morning and will be playing the $1500 the day after that (theoretically I could play the 1K tomorrow as well but something tells me I'm not gonna get there on time. doh.) Assuming I don't FT that, I'm heading back after I busto, then playing a full Sunday (if you have a Cardrunners subscription and see my latest video...there's a reason I play these things, OMFG was that FT awful) and resuming a full schedule after that.

For whatever reason, I've been strangely hesitant about starting to play again, but it's time to let go and enjoy it.