Instead of playing the usual online tournaments yesterday I was playing the $10K PLO tournament at the WSOP. I was pretty excited for this one being a big buy-in in a game I feel confident I am picking up very quickly. There's an awful lot of gamble in PLO though and I ended up on the wrong side of one I probably would have done better to avoid. I had built my stack up to around 29K mostly by winning a big pot with double suited aces against a wrap hand when this hand came up:

A weak player opened to 1500 UTG at 250/500. He had just won a huge pot off of Toto Leonidas when he made a really terrible flop call, and Toto was now pretty short. Next to act, Toto re-potted to 5250 with very little behind, maybe somewhere in the 4-7K range I'm not really sure. The way he/everyone was playing this is almost certainly AAxx, though having just lost a big pot he could be steaming a little and possibly doing this with worse, though I certinaly feel it's some kind of big hand. A T6 Poker pro who seemed good cold called quickly in the cutoff with a big stack and I found 8765ddss in the SB. Generally when a pot is going to be multiway like this one will be if I call this is exactly the type of hand you want. However, in this case there are two important factors which I think lean the hand towards a fold:

1. This is a tournament not a cash game. I'm getting into an extremely high variance situation where my edge isn't that big and I'm going to have to commit my entire stack on a lot of flops not knowing how much equity I really have. There are lots of weak players and I can surely wait and find better spots to get my money in. Usually this is the excuse of the weak-tight player as he makes a bad fold, but I feel like this is exactly the type of situation where it applies.

2. The CO, being a competent player, will often also have a hand similar to mine, and if his wrap is slightly higher than mine he will have me in really bad shape. Flops that it looks like I hit really hard he will have hit even harder. I think this is the more important reason. Without this consideration folding preflop would be passing up way too much EV, but when you factor this in you realize I'm not in nearly as profitable a situation as it may appear at first glance.

Still, calling is hardly ever going to be much of a mistake with such a strong hand, and that's what I did without much thought. The raiser decided to come along for the flop as well of course. The flop came As8s7c. Seemingly a monster flop for my hand, but there are lots of obvious possible problems:

1. My spades may no be live.
2. Toto probably has top set so my two pair doesn't do me much good.
3. I could be up against a better straight draw. Only a 4 gives me the nuts.

However, with so much money in the pot my hand clearly has way too much going for it to fold. Toto doesn't have too many chips left so if I end up all-in my two pair may hold up in a side pot against another draw that also calls. I quickly lead out for pot hoping to clean up my spade outs and get value from other draws. The original raiser ends up folding the nut flush draw luckily, but Toto and the CO both quickly call. Toto shows AAQJ for top set, and the CO shows 9865 for a wrap. This is a great spot for me however. My spades are live to scoop the whole pot. I have 6 additional straight outs to chop the entire pot, and even if I miss my 2 pair is a big favourite to scoop the large sidepot against the CO's 9865. Unfortunately a 6 hit on the river giving the CO a 9-hi straight and busting me from the tournament.

There are only 3 WSOP events left. Today is the final 1500 NL event which I will be playing. Tomorrow is a 1500 limit holdem shootout which should be good value too, and then the main event. I will be playing Day 1B on Friday. However the Bellagio Cup is also getting started soon so there's still lots more poker to be played. One final table finish could still easily salvage the entire Series for me.

Mike

Well I finally cashed a WSOP tournament today. Things got off to a very good start when I won a whole bunch of smallish pots to get up to over 90K. Then I played this hand really bad which killed my chances.

I raise to 5500 in MP with TT and the BB Ben Fineman calls with around a 53K stack. I'm already super scared because I think he is trapping a big pair a whole lot but there's other stuff in his range as well. The BB who is a big donk also calls. Flop 443 two clubs, BB checks and I decide to check and see what happens since I'm not crazy about my hand. He bets 8K, BB folds and I'm not sure what to do. I was sort of planning to just call and play the hand passive but then I decided we were short enough that making a goofy sized checkraise and stacking off might induce him to get it in with worse hands so I did that and he obviously just had AA as I suspected all along. As much as I hate bet/folding overpairs this is the perfect time for it. If he raises my bet he always has a bigger pair than me except for the occasional time he has a flush draw which folding too is fine since he'll always have overs with it anyways. I seriously need to stop stacking off to this transparent bullshit it's so obvious and I know it but I still let it work.

Anyways then I basically folded into the money and eventually shoved KTo into AK. I got 69th for ~$8700. I then played the $1500 Stud Hi/Lo tournament which did not go well. Every time I play this game I realize I'm worse at it than I previously thought even though I do a lot of things right. So tomorrow is a $2K NL event. Hopefully now that I've got the first one under my belt I can start making deep runs more frequently in these things.

Mike

I'm through to Day 2 of the $1K rebuy with 61K in chips which is about average. I'm now 4/4 in making Day of these tournaments at the WSOP, and I'll be looking to make it 2/4 arriving on time for Day 2 and 3/3 in cashing when I actually do eventually show up on Day 2. Today was a typical day when nothing went my way but I outplayed my opponents so badly that I was able to get by. Some quick examples:

Hand 1: Down to 3500 at 200/400 a50 I move in with J6o in MP. Button calls with TT and I make jacks up on the turn to double.

Hand 2: Raise KTcc and a shortstack shoves a small amount such that I have an automatic call. He has KJo and the board runs out 5 diamonds for the chop.

Hand 3: Raise AQo in EP to 1650 at 300/600 a75. Button instahoves for 7K more. Through a combination of pot odds and the fact that I showed down the ol J6o not too long ago and my image probably isn't stellar I take myself into calling. He obv has AKs but I show why it's superior to have 2 flush draws by running out a 4-flush.

Hand 4: I have 12K at 400/800 a100. Folds to this huuuuuuuge fish in MP. He looks at his cards. Starts pushing them forward like he's going to muck them. Pulls back. Looks at them again. Starts playing with his chips with a clear look of pondering on his face. Eventually he reluctantly decides to throw in 800 for a call. It was actually one of the most hilarious displays I've ever seen at a poker table. There is basically zero chance he's angleshooting, he's just that huge a tellbox. CO limps. I find A2s in the SB, and have to decide between shoving and raising big then shoving any flop. I decide to make it 5K. Fish folds, CO quickly shoves and I have to call off. He has ATs. Board runs off 6444J for the chop.

After that I basically just coolered some people to get to 61K. A true example of how the superior player doesn't need to rely on the luck of the cards to win at tournament poker. Anyways I intend to continue implementing the play bad run good system to it's full potential tomorrow, hopefully the poker gods are cool with that and supply the run good for me.

Mike

Now up to 0/15, -51.5K. I had relatively quick and painless exits in the $1500 NL and $2000 PL events last week. I skipped the $1500 NL event on Saturday and $1500 mixed holdem on Sunday to play online those days, and there was no event on Monday so I had a nice little 3 day vacation from losing real money. On Friday night we went to Treasure Island and did the drunken mixed games thing. Hilarity ensued when one usually more reserved 2+2er went a bit overboard on the Jagerbombs (see the thread on 2+2), but good times were had in general before and after we had to worry about taking care of him. On Saturday I slept in a bit and only played a few tournaments and more cash. I finished 2nd in the $50 rebuy on Stars after losing a 10:1 chip lead because I run good like that. It was only $6500 though, I forgot how small the prize pool was in that tournament since I don't usually play it. In cash games I had a lot success (read: luckboxing) in the PLO games but I've been getting killed in holdem. I've been playing the 25/50 cap PLO game on Full Tilt and find it's often pretty good, as well as some 5/10 and 10/20 on Everest and Mansion. My holdem play was mostly 10/20 on Everest and Mansion and a couple times I sat 25/50 on Stars when I saw a softish looking game but that's basically just gone terribly, though my play has been fine.

Speaking of Everest, I finished 7th in their big Sunday tournament for $3K. It is basically the softest tournament ever, like playing on Paradise 3 years ago sort of. The structure is really bad so it becomes a huge crapshoot except everyone plays way too tight waiting for big hands and you just run them over and pick up the blinds constantly. They doomswitched me at the final table though, my KK was obv no good vs AA. I also went deep in the $200 rebuy on Stars but busted on maybe a questionable shove, though given the information I had at the time I think it was definitely fine. So it ended up being a breakevenish Sunday with those 2 cashes and a min-cash in a $100 rebuy on Stars as well.

Monday night I skipped tournaments and went for a late dinner at Wing Lei, a very nice Chinsese restaurant in the Wynn, with a big group of mostly online players. After that we ended up doing some -EV gambling and playing beer pong at O'Shea's, which was pretty hilarious. I couldn't stay out too late though because I was playing the $1500 PLO8 event today. This event was my best finish in the WSOP last year when I finished 10th after getting countefeited on the river, and though I still don't consider myself especially good at the game, my expectations were still high as basically everyone in this tournament is waaaaaaaay worse. Unfortunately I couldn't repeat my performance. I chipped up a bit in some small pots and had a few semi-intersting spots that I think I played well, but in the end I played a really standard hand against Joe Hachem where I got over a third of my stack in preflop with AAQ8 double suited and lost to his AJ43 with the suited ace of spades when he flopped a low draw + flush draw and turned the flush. There is another stretch of consecutive good tournaments coming up though. Tomorrow is the $1K rebuy and the next day is the $5K 6-max. These are definitely two of my favourite events and I'm looking forward to them very much. It's actually kind of a shame I may have to miss the 6-max if I make day 2 of the rebuy. After those two there is a $2k NL on Friday and then on Sunday it's the $10K PLO which I've decided to play. It should go without saying that I would not be opposed to running good in a few of these.

Mike

0 for 12 -46.5K now. Gave all my chips to JC Tran in the 1500 PLO rebuy today like a true holdem donk after luckboxing a stack early. Played meh in the 2500 6-max on Monday and didn't last long. Gotta go lose another 1500 now. How can I be this bad?

Mike