StrayBullet
Vegas Trip - Last Day, part 1 (Venetian Deep-stack)
by StrayBullet on 10/06/07
Day9, 9/29:
F’variance, F’the poker gods, F’karma….f’em all Now don’t get me wrong here, I ALWAYS have fun when I visit Vegas, it’d just be nice to run down the odds and little more than the bitch has been crushing me I believe I’m playing good poker, making the right decisions, staying focused, etc but I just need ‘em to fall my way. I’m always open to discussion on the hands, and would love to hear thoughts, good or bad.
I indeed got some much needed good sleep and kicked off the day as any other would to prepare to greet the poker playing world. I parked the rental at my preferred home-base location the TI parking garage, then leisurely strolled over to the Venetian. I stopped by the registration desk inquiring about the number of entrants. I got a very nice “political-esque” reply from Andrew He said, “we expect anywhere from 40-60 players today.” I thanked him and decided to come back closer to the start to survey the action; it was about 11:20am at that point. It’s not like I wasn’t going to play, as there weren’t too many other options at that point. I did my “normal” routine and head up to Tintoretto, the little Italian Bakery for a quick bite/drink and a sidewalk seat to spy on the gawkers parade. I grabbed a ham and cheese croissant and an iced-coffee, then settled in for my morning eyeful. I got back down to the poker room just a few minutes before noon, finding nearly 38 players spread over 5 tables. I coughed up the $550 for the 2nd time within the week and drew seat 10, ohhhhhhh my favorite.
Not only am I running horrible, but I seem to be getting stuck with good loose-aggressive players on my left the whole week, and today was no different. But this time, I had the joy of being sandwiched, with another on my direct right, just damn! I’d decided to play “faster” as I didn’t want to limp into the money or even worse (like last week) work for 7 1/2 hours only to get a $10 comp for my efforts! I stand by my decisions; I was just trying to adjust for looser players around me and my own aggression factor. It wasn’t too difficult to assess the rest of the table, so all I needed were the cards to fall my way to marry up with my executable plan. It’s 10k chips and 40 minute levels with a GREAT structure. I order up a Fiji water and settle in for some cards, my last playing day in town.
I catch pocket queens early on and open-raise to 125 with blinds at 25/50. I get2 callers and we see a flop that is king-high with 2 hearts. It’s checked to me and I make a standard continuation bet and get called from the bb. Turn blanks with the same action ensuing. A heart hits the river, completing the flush draw and he immediately leads out. I elect not to call, he wasn’t making a move on me, I was beat and not going to pay him off…down 700 right off the bat. I then play QJs from the button by raising a gaggle of limpers. I thin the field down to 3 of us seeing the set of cards hitting the felt. The board is pretty inconsequential as when it’s checked to me, I make a standard continuation bet. Now it’s down to me and the LAG on my immediate right, quiet-bearded-old-guy, (GBOC). The turn is dealt and he immediately leads out and I have to fold, once again bleeding chips on my way to game adjustment! Lost another 800 or so during that hand, so now I’m down to T8500 I then play pocket 3s from the sb for a raise hoping to snag a stack-breaking set. I check-call a modest flop bet looking for the turn to bail me out but all it does is succeed in drawing more chips away from my stack and into others. Let’s play a game, can you say, “down to 8,000 chips in under 40 minutes?” what a goober! I still really don’t mind the plays, especially considering how deep we are but it’d be nice to scoop a damn pot! We drive right on through into L2, 50/100 and I’ve watched the LAG two to my left, young-grinder-splasher-“kid” (YGSK) nearly triple up when opponents just can’t stop paying off holding 2nd or more times than not, worse than 2nd best hands! GBOC has also been on a tear, topping it off with, getting paid when he turned quads, holding A5o.
I play ATo from the bb, calling a raise from GBOC when the table folded to him in the sb. We saw a flop that connected my ace with little concern of anything else. He leads out and I flat-call. He checks the blank turn and this time he checks and I bet; he makes the call. The river action takes the same course and once again, it’s not me taking in the chips as he’s holding AKo allowing me to feed him all the way. In hindsight, checking behind on the river would’ve been the most prudent as he was adept at calling very thin. That hand really took its toll, cutting my original starting stack of 10k chips damn near in half! When GBOC open-bets again from late position, I raise from the button with pocket 4s. The table folds around, as does the villain. WOW, I can get pushed chips, HOLY CRAP Batdude!!! I find a turtle shell to crawl into for the rest of level 2 and most of L3, 100/200.
When I play the next hand blinds are still at 100/200 and I have 5,700 chips. I open-bet to T600 from early position with pocket kings and it’s folded around to a player that’s just been recently seated at our player busting table, so no real reads. When the action gets to the villain, he raises, making it a total of T2k to go. It’s an additional T1400 for me to call which would leave me with a pot sized bet behind for the flop. There’d be T4,300 when we saw the flop and I’d have T3,700 left, he had me covered. So, I could flat-call and hope for a non-ace flop, leaving some SERIOUS work to be done. Or I could push all-in with no folding equity at all hoping I’m good ‘till show-down. What would you do, call or push? Folding is out of question here. If you decide on flat-calling the raise, how do you play a flop of Qxx, rainbow? Quick now, all eyes are on you
I’d rather not punk-out and play kings for a flat-call and hope to see a non-ace board. I mean, I can’t always be up against monsters under the bed, right? I push, he calls, and yup….you see it every tournament, at least once. It was his pocket aces against my kings. I didn’t get any help and shocked as I am, I can’t believe I’ve busted without even making to the first break, good gawd y’all?!?!?! One more deciding factor, it was in fact the last hand of the level and when coming back the cost of an orbit would’ve been T550, and had I called, then folded the flop, I’d been left with about 6 rounds to double up, more than likely going into 200/400/50 short-stacked. Anyway, comments are welcome of course!
If you’ve Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (and if you haven’t, why ) then you know how I felt. The hero in the movie gets staked in a high-stakes cash game with money that can’t be lost. Turns out the game is “fixed” and when he eventually loses the entire roll, the room and more accurately the world, swirls by. Shocked and stunned, it’s all I can do to keep my cool and pack up to take the stroll of shame. I skulk out of the Venetian for what will most likely be my last time on this trip, dejected and left wondering if it’s really in the cards for me to be playing cards. Damn it sucks to lose! So I start off my trip with a deep run in the same tourney eventually getting my pocket kings getting cracked by pocket queens after 7 1/2 hours of play instead of tripling me up and making a nice run to a $6k score and finish it all up with the overrated and hum drum, kings versus aces after a scant 120 minutes into the match.
F’variance, F’the poker gods, F’karma….f’em all Now don’t get me wrong here, I ALWAYS have fun when I visit Vegas, it’d just be nice to run down the odds and little more than the bitch has been crushing me I believe I’m playing good poker, making the right decisions, staying focused, etc but I just need ‘em to fall my way. I’m always open to discussion on the hands, and would love to hear thoughts, good or bad.
I indeed got some much needed good sleep and kicked off the day as any other would to prepare to greet the poker playing world. I parked the rental at my preferred home-base location the TI parking garage, then leisurely strolled over to the Venetian. I stopped by the registration desk inquiring about the number of entrants. I got a very nice “political-esque” reply from Andrew He said, “we expect anywhere from 40-60 players today.” I thanked him and decided to come back closer to the start to survey the action; it was about 11:20am at that point. It’s not like I wasn’t going to play, as there weren’t too many other options at that point. I did my “normal” routine and head up to Tintoretto, the little Italian Bakery for a quick bite/drink and a sidewalk seat to spy on the gawkers parade. I grabbed a ham and cheese croissant and an iced-coffee, then settled in for my morning eyeful. I got back down to the poker room just a few minutes before noon, finding nearly 38 players spread over 5 tables. I coughed up the $550 for the 2nd time within the week and drew seat 10, ohhhhhhh my favorite.
Not only am I running horrible, but I seem to be getting stuck with good loose-aggressive players on my left the whole week, and today was no different. But this time, I had the joy of being sandwiched, with another on my direct right, just damn! I’d decided to play “faster” as I didn’t want to limp into the money or even worse (like last week) work for 7 1/2 hours only to get a $10 comp for my efforts! I stand by my decisions; I was just trying to adjust for looser players around me and my own aggression factor. It wasn’t too difficult to assess the rest of the table, so all I needed were the cards to fall my way to marry up with my executable plan. It’s 10k chips and 40 minute levels with a GREAT structure. I order up a Fiji water and settle in for some cards, my last playing day in town.
I catch pocket queens early on and open-raise to 125 with blinds at 25/50. I get2 callers and we see a flop that is king-high with 2 hearts. It’s checked to me and I make a standard continuation bet and get called from the bb. Turn blanks with the same action ensuing. A heart hits the river, completing the flush draw and he immediately leads out. I elect not to call, he wasn’t making a move on me, I was beat and not going to pay him off…down 700 right off the bat. I then play QJs from the button by raising a gaggle of limpers. I thin the field down to 3 of us seeing the set of cards hitting the felt. The board is pretty inconsequential as when it’s checked to me, I make a standard continuation bet. Now it’s down to me and the LAG on my immediate right, quiet-bearded-old-guy, (GBOC). The turn is dealt and he immediately leads out and I have to fold, once again bleeding chips on my way to game adjustment! Lost another 800 or so during that hand, so now I’m down to T8500 I then play pocket 3s from the sb for a raise hoping to snag a stack-breaking set. I check-call a modest flop bet looking for the turn to bail me out but all it does is succeed in drawing more chips away from my stack and into others. Let’s play a game, can you say, “down to 8,000 chips in under 40 minutes?” what a goober! I still really don’t mind the plays, especially considering how deep we are but it’d be nice to scoop a damn pot! We drive right on through into L2, 50/100 and I’ve watched the LAG two to my left, young-grinder-splasher-“kid” (YGSK) nearly triple up when opponents just can’t stop paying off holding 2nd or more times than not, worse than 2nd best hands! GBOC has also been on a tear, topping it off with, getting paid when he turned quads, holding A5o.
I play ATo from the bb, calling a raise from GBOC when the table folded to him in the sb. We saw a flop that connected my ace with little concern of anything else. He leads out and I flat-call. He checks the blank turn and this time he checks and I bet; he makes the call. The river action takes the same course and once again, it’s not me taking in the chips as he’s holding AKo allowing me to feed him all the way. In hindsight, checking behind on the river would’ve been the most prudent as he was adept at calling very thin. That hand really took its toll, cutting my original starting stack of 10k chips damn near in half! When GBOC open-bets again from late position, I raise from the button with pocket 4s. The table folds around, as does the villain. WOW, I can get pushed chips, HOLY CRAP Batdude!!! I find a turtle shell to crawl into for the rest of level 2 and most of L3, 100/200.
When I play the next hand blinds are still at 100/200 and I have 5,700 chips. I open-bet to T600 from early position with pocket kings and it’s folded around to a player that’s just been recently seated at our player busting table, so no real reads. When the action gets to the villain, he raises, making it a total of T2k to go. It’s an additional T1400 for me to call which would leave me with a pot sized bet behind for the flop. There’d be T4,300 when we saw the flop and I’d have T3,700 left, he had me covered. So, I could flat-call and hope for a non-ace flop, leaving some SERIOUS work to be done. Or I could push all-in with no folding equity at all hoping I’m good ‘till show-down. What would you do, call or push? Folding is out of question here. If you decide on flat-calling the raise, how do you play a flop of Qxx, rainbow? Quick now, all eyes are on you
I’d rather not punk-out and play kings for a flat-call and hope to see a non-ace board. I mean, I can’t always be up against monsters under the bed, right? I push, he calls, and yup….you see it every tournament, at least once. It was his pocket aces against my kings. I didn’t get any help and shocked as I am, I can’t believe I’ve busted without even making to the first break, good gawd y’all?!?!?! One more deciding factor, it was in fact the last hand of the level and when coming back the cost of an orbit would’ve been T550, and had I called, then folded the flop, I’d been left with about 6 rounds to double up, more than likely going into 200/400/50 short-stacked. Anyway, comments are welcome of course!
If you’ve Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (and if you haven’t, why ) then you know how I felt. The hero in the movie gets staked in a high-stakes cash game with money that can’t be lost. Turns out the game is “fixed” and when he eventually loses the entire roll, the room and more accurately the world, swirls by. Shocked and stunned, it’s all I can do to keep my cool and pack up to take the stroll of shame. I skulk out of the Venetian for what will most likely be my last time on this trip, dejected and left wondering if it’s really in the cards for me to be playing cards. Damn it sucks to lose! So I start off my trip with a deep run in the same tourney eventually getting my pocket kings getting cracked by pocket queens after 7 1/2 hours of play instead of tripling me up and making a nice run to a $6k score and finish it all up with the overrated and hum drum, kings versus aces after a scant 120 minutes into the match.
Comments
Anonymous says
At least you didn't raise A10 on BB and I think the river bet was more of a value bet. You could have checked the river if you had a read on him. Check or bet seem ok to me.10/09/07
Anonymous says
It was one of those tournaments. It happens to all of us. A few points. First, I agree that a check on the river would be fine, but I have no problem with the value bet. It certainly appeared, based on your description, that you had the hand won and he was likely to pay you off. On the KK hand, I think a push was the best option. As it turned out the money was going in no matter what. The advantages the push are a) you don't have to make a difficult decision on the flop; b) you get pairs to call you PF, but they are likely not going to call your push on the flop if high cards appear; c) you might even get many Aces to call you PF given that your push could look like a short-stack move.10/10/07
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