I get into town this evening after a 6 hour drive. Fairly uneventful, but I did get a later start then I wanted and hit quite a bit of traffic while heading out of Los Angeles. After checking into my hotel I head over the. It’s now 9:30ish. It was pretty empty at this time and I quickly got my player card and looked around the Amazon room. It was a little different from previous years. The final table is still in the back but now off to the right. The sat area is now in the font near the registration booths. They were seating for the $325 so I took a seat. Unlike last year, you pay at the registration desk before taking a seat. It went very smoothly – at least it did at this time of night.

The $325 gets you 1500 chips with 15 min levels. I’m in mid position on the first hand and it’s folded to me. I look down at two red Aces. Welcome to the WSOP! I raise to 100 (25/25 level) and only the SB calls. The flop comes 458r and he checks so I make it 200. SB calls. The turn is a 9 – yuck. It’s checked to me again so I bet 400 this time and take it down. That could have been unpleasant.

I take down two more hands in this level and get my stack up to 2500 or so when the following hand comes up at the 25/50 level. Two limpers to me, I make it 150 from LP with AKo. The button calls as do the limpers. The flop comes AJ6r. Checked to me and I make it 400. The button calls. I don’t like this much and something about his quick call tells me he has AJ or a set. The turn was a blank. I have talked to him a bit and he’s a young online pro from Canada and has already won a bunch of seats to the main event online. However he’s having a bad series so far being 0-7 in events with no cashes. He hasn’t been playing many hands yet, and I have pegged him as very solid. Now I have two options, but both suck based on my read. If I bet I pretty much have to call any raise. He only has 1000 or so left – I have about 2000. I figure all of his money will go in either way, so if I check perhaps I can induce him to bet if he doesn’t have what I think he has. Sure I can check/fold but that doesn’t seem to be an option given that this is a single table sat and I will still have 1k in chips. I decide to check, he pushes, I call and he turns over AJ. I don’t improve.

I see a flop with 66 and fold and now an orbit or two later I get AQ in mid position. One limper to me. I decide to limp hoping for a check raise. Sure enough the SB bets 300, I push my 800, he calls with A8 and I’m back in it when my hand holds up.

Fast forward to the 300-600 level. At this point there were 5 people left and we all had about the same # of chips. I proposed that we chop evenly and each walk away with $300. I’m usually not a big fan of chopping, especially at this point, but the blinds were so high and we didn’t have many hands left until it went to 400/800. Everyone wanted to do it but one guy so we kept on playing.

There are now 4 left with the blinds at 400/800. In a blind vs. blind matchup I make a steal that goes bad so I’m now down to 2100 when I leave the blinds. I’m looking to take a stand before the blinds hit me again, because once I’m in the BB again I’ll pretty much be forced to call with any two cards, especially if it’s against only one player. The UTG player goes all in and I look down at KJs on the button. The guy was pretty straightforward, but had gone all-in with 77 and A8 several hands before. I put his range on any pair, any A and big cards. I felt it was likely that I was 50/50 and with the 1200 in the pot for blinds I’m getting about 3/2 on my money. I didn’t feel I could wait given that I’ll need to put all my money in over the next few hands and this could likely be as good as it gets. I call and the guy behind me calls too. I’m crushed when the first guy turns over QQ and the 2nd guy shows AK. Oh, well. I don’t really regret the call, but perhaps I could have waited and pushed any two cards on the next hand to survive and buy some time. That probably would have been a better play given that I would have been the one putting the other 3 guys to the test. Any thoughts on this?

I’ll be playing the deep stack tournament tomorrow at the Venetian. Stay tuned.

So I'm finally ready to stop writing about poker and actually start playing poker. The schedule is cleared, the reservations have been made and the bags are almost packed. I am scheduled to take the wife and kids to the airport tomorrow am (they are going to North Carolina to visit some old friends), drop the big car back off at the house and take my car to Vegas. I just downloaded a month's worth of podcasts for pokerwire and rounders to get me in the mood while I spend 5 hours or so in the car from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

The first WSOP tournament I plan on playing is Thursday's NL tournament which leaves me one night and one full day to play some warm-up events. Haven't played any poker in a few months so I probably need to work off the rust. I'll head over to the Rio once I get into town and check out the differences between this year and last year. I'll probably play a few sats and try to hook up with Adanthar, Nate, Shaniac, Rizen and some other guys.

On Wednesday I'm planning on playing the deep stack tournament at the Venetian. I think it's a $330 buy-in which should be a nice, no-pressure environment to test a few new changes to my game that I intend on implementing. More on that later.

Okay, off to bed, but I promise to keep detailed accounts over the next week or so of my journey!

- S

There was an interesting post over at 2plus2 discussing a laydown by Chris Moneymaker in Event #3. The action goes like this:

"Chris Moneymaker makes it 1,500 under the gun. Mike Banducci in late position re-raises to 6,200. The small blind goes all in for 24,000 and the big blind also goes all in for his last 8,100. Moneymaker and Banducci both fold. The small blind has 5d5s and the big blind has AdKd and the board is Js 7s 8h 2h 3s. Moneymaker said after the hand that he folded kings. "

The thread can be found here.

Some people could not believe that there is ever a reason to lay down KK PF. Others were not as sure and felt it was a reasonable laydown. I can see folding this hand. I think it all comes down to your read on the BB. Banducci's range is fairly large here -- let's say AQ/AK, most pairs and perhaps even other big cards. Now the SB can also have many hands that KK would like to see like AK, 88-QQ. This is especially true if he's an aggressive player and is putting on a squeeze.

So it all comes down to the read on the BB. Given the action in front of him, what hand does he need to have to make this move. Definitely AA, likely KK. Does he do it with anything less? If he wants to gamble perhaps he does it with AK. I doubt it if he does it will QQ/JJ but maybe some guys do. He likely doesn't have KK given that CM had it. So the question is does he have AK or QQ or does he have AA? It's a tough call. he almost definitely has one of those 3 hands... right? So you are counting on him not having AA and instead having AK or QQ. Hmmm....

So the match is Kristy Gazes vs. Chad Brown. Gazes has a small lead and the BB, Brown has the button. Blinds 1500/3000, not sure of stack sizes but they are fairly deep I believe.

Brown raises to 8000 with A2, Gazes reraises to 24k with 99 and Brown calls.

The flop comes 666.

For some reason Gazes finds this scary and funny. She checks as does Brown. Now the turn brings the 4th 6 and Gazes finds this even funnier; given that her hand is counterfeited, it wouldn’t be funny to me. She bets $40k and Brown calls with the absolute nuts.

The river is a 2.

Now things get strange. Gazes checks the river and Brown, in position, checks too. WTF? What just happened? Why would Brown check the stone-cold nuts? Now things get REALLY strange. They both turn over their hands and the dealers starts sorting the chips and pushing them to Brown, when Gazes says ‘hello… we both have quads.’ Brown tries to explain to her that he has the A and the camera focuses on Gazes who is very confused for a few seconds. She finally realizes what happened and now feels that she really screwed up and was stupid.

Well, she was stupid or sleeping, but the one who really screwed up was Brown. There was no downside to either betting for value or just pushing and now that we know that Gazes doesn’t understand how to read the situation, he most likely doubles through and has her crippled. He tries to explain that he felt that she had the A or was not calling any bet if she didn’t have the A, but what’s the downside of betting?

The fun now really begins because for the remainder of the match Gazes is completely befuddled and off her game. She keeps making mistakes and complaining about how she screwed up and because of her screw up she gets behind pretty quickly. Finally, after quite a while Brown explains to her that it was actually he who screwed up on the hand, not her. She then looks confused again and realizes after a few seconds that he is right. He screwed up, not her. If you think about it, the only mistake she really made in the playing of the hand was not betting the flop, and this is debatable. Her turn bet was just fine. There was too much in the pot to let Brown take it away with a bet (she would have to fold to any bet on the turn by him if she checked) so leading out on the turn and representing an A is fine. Brown folds if he doesn’t have an A. Her river check was correct too, so she really played the hand fine.

Now I haven’t seen Gazes play much and I have never played with her myself, but I hear that she is a good, solid player. So in this case I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she just spaced out. What is really interesting about this match is not that she screwed up, because as I hope I showed above, she played the hand fine. The real lesson here is to try and clear bad thoughts related to previous hands and continue to play your game to the best of your ability. Things like misreading hands, making wrong bets, acting out of turn by mistake, receiving bad beats can all throw you off your game. However, the best players are able to block these things and continue to play their ‘A’ game. This is true both in poker and in all sports. Tiger Woods, for example, is a master of getting birdies on holes after he gets a bogey. I believe he is consistently #1 at doing this. In tennis, which I play quite a bit, it is critical to block out bad points or bad games from your mind. The better we do at this, the better our results will be.

In the hands they showed on TV, Gazes made a few critical mistakes AFTER the 6666 hand. One time she turned a straight and checked even though there was a flush draw on board. Brown hit his flush on the river, but most likely folds to any reasonable bet because his cards were very low. There were other mistakes too, and it was clear that she was not playing her game and continued to let her donkey move grate at her. Ultimately, she lost the match.

Played in the $125 plus one rebuy tournament last Monday. There were approximately 130 entrants and we started off with 1500 chips at the 25/25 level. I'll just report on a few significant hands:

1) Get AQ in mid-position and make it 100 after one limper. Both blinds call as does limper. Flop comes AT5 rainbow. I make it 350 and get check-raised all-in by BB. I played with him for a while in a cash game while I waited for this tournament and he seemed pretty solid and reasonable. In a non-rebuy event or perhaps in a bigger buy-in event I fold here in a minute -- especially given that there was no flush draw on the board that he could be semi-bluffing with. However, given that this is a rebuy event I called for two reasons a) there is a chance he could be making a move with AJ or even the same hand as me. If he had AK I'm pretty sure he raises preflop; and b) it's a rebuy event so I can just rebuy. I was pretty sure he had AT or A5 and sure enough he had AT and I had to rebuy. Not crazy about my call, oh, well...

2) Nothing much happens for a while and then at the 25/50 level I call a raise from lp with KQ. Three of us see a flop of AKT, so I have second pair and a gut shot. EP makes it 400 and one guy calls before its to me. There's about 1300-1400 in pot and neither of these guys seems that strong. I don't think the 2nd guy has a strong A or he would have raised. The first guy could have a strong A but he could also have a flush draw (2 spades on board) or a weaker A, he's also the initial raiser so he could be making a continuation/feeler bet with a pair. I have 1500 left and decide to push. The 1100 more is significant to both assuming they don't love their hands. Even if they have an A I still have potentially 10 outs. They both fold and I'm back to even with around 3000 chips.

3) I get QQ from LP at the 50/100 level and make it 350. Two callers. Flop comes with an A. Checked to me. I bet 800 and both fold. That worked out well.

4) Women goes all-in with only about 1000 left. Guy to my right calls. I look down at JJ and push (I have 4000 at this point). Caller folds and I'm heads up against T9 and my J's hold.

5) Here's a mistake: Blinds are 100/200 with 25 ante. I just won a nice pot and am counting my chips when a guy who is short pushes with about 1000. I have AJs from the button and just call. The BB calls. Flop comes QJx and it's checked to me. I make it 1600 and get check-raised all-in by BB. He has me covered and I fold. He had QJ and would have folded PF if I would have isolated the all-in raiser AND my hand would have held-up against the all-in raiser. That sucked, but that's what I get for not paying attention. Unfortunately, I'm usually good for 1 or 2 of these per tournament. Need to avoid these.

6) A little later with blinds at 200/400 and 50 ante there are 3 limpers and I push with A6. I'm down to about 4000 at this point. One guy calls me -- he has me covered and he turns over 55 which is the best I could hope for. I turn an A and double up.

7) For the next hour or so I move up to about 10k, but it's up and down to get there. I come over the top of a 2k pf raise with 99 and he folds (he told me he had 66 and did seem to seriously consider calling... to bad). A few times I try to bully guys off hands and get re-raised and have to fold.

8) We are down around 30 -- pays top 18 or so. I have about 10k in chips with the blinds at 300/600 and 75 ante so there is close to 1500 in pot each hand before betting. I'm about 3rd in chips at my table, but probably around average for all participants.

Folded to button (which is pretty rare at this table). Button makes it 2000. I'm in BB and have K9o. The button is good LAG player. He has shown the ability to fold a hand. Another consideration... when I had A6, he agonized and folded, but there was one caller who had 55 and I won the race. He clearly wasn't happy with his fold that time.

I put myself in the button's shoes. It was fairly rare that it would get folded to the button in this spot with the blinds and antes so large so there were very few hands that he would not raise with. He also wasn't the kind of player to limp from the button knowing that I would likely smell weakness and raise him off his hand. So therefore his range was close to any two cards -- any pair, any A, K, Q, and connectors, two gappers, etc.

I also didn't feel like he was reckless, so he was likely to fold a large % of the hands in his range. Perhaps as high as 70-80%. Do you think this is too high?

Last, even if he called, I would not be in terrible shape to most of these hands. The only hands I really don't want to see are 99-AA, AK-A9 and KQ-KT, and there's a good chance he doesn't call with the K hands given that I could easily have an A.

The pot represented a 3rd of my stack. I'm not sure how this could be a good fold, but I would love to hear thoughts. Anyway, I call he turns over A9 and I get to go home!