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I don't recognize anyone at my table and most people look pretty nervous so I just peg everyone as inexperienced unless they show my that they are not. I already discussed the hand during the first orbit where a guy mucks KK after spending 2/3rds of his stack. What I didn't mention was that that the guy who won the hand and is sitting to my left has been playing 3 out of every 4 pots and comments to the table that he might as well get his money's worth. Well it doesn't last long and he is the first victim after only 20 minutes or so. He tries to bluff the active woman at the table who I also wrote about in my last blog. She happened to have the nut flush and he is out. His strategy wasn't bad because she has been raising light many times before and this wasn't an exception. Only this time her A3s happened to make a flush.
This Loose Woman who I talk about in my last blog looks a bit like a 45 year-old Betty Davis. I could have showed a 45-year old Betty Davis below, but to my she was more like bitchy 70 year-old Betty Davis so enjoy:
Marcel Luske sits down at our table and is very nice and livens things up a bit. Mlagoo from 2plus2 also joins us but doesn't last long. The loose woman (read my previous blog for more on her) raises preflop and Mlagoo reraises her all-in -- he's a bit short but has enough to get her off of most of her range. However, he didn't count on her calling from the low end of her range with 55. His KQ doesn't improve and he's out. He did win the pokerstars million the next day and took home $315k, so he was probably better off getting knocked out then and having a day to get his act together!
I won a few small hands and gradually chipped up a bit and then picked up AA in late position. There are two EP limpers when it comes to me and I raise my standard 3x BB. The flop comes K high, it's checked to me, I raise about 2/3rds the pot, get one caller. Nothing changes on the turn and I raise again and the EP reraises all-in. I don't like it but it's not that much more to me. He shows KQ and I'm off to the races.
My stack is now at about 5k -- we started at 3k, I continue to chip up just a bit. I don't believe I ever lose a hand or have to show my cards. I move slowsly up to 7k over the next hour or two. The loose woman had slowed her play considerably when Marcel sat down at the table. I believe she was star struck and my belief was confirmed when I saw her getting his autograph during a break and telling him what an inspiration he is to her.
I am sitting two to her left and decide to play pots with her. I'm at 7k and she has a monster stack now with about 15K+. Nobody at our table has more than 5k. I call her PF raises twice with any two cards and win the pots when she checks the flop and I raise. Then this hand comes up. One limper at 100/200, she raises to 700, I call with JJ from LP. The flop comes 974r, she makes it 2.5k which is a weird overbet. I didn't really have a good stack to just raise so I push hoping she didn't have something funky. She goes into the tank and folds. I could see that she was visibly frustrated with me. I'm pretty sure that she felt that I was making a move and appeared close to calling me light with a hand like A7. Too bad she didn't.
I'm now up to about 11k and she still has me covered but not by much. I'm now double of anyone else at the table. On the very next hand after the JJ hand a MP player makes it 300 and the loose woman makes it 1k. I look down at QQ. Normally after a raise and reraise I might just call with QQ, but the first raiser only has 4k-ish, so I'm fine with playing for his stack. Against this loose woman, I'm not too concerned with her just yet. She has been making reraises with almost any two cards. I decide to make it 2500. The MP raiser folds and the loose woman takes a bit of time before pushing.
Oh, boy. I don't like it but how can I fold QQ against this player? At one point after she comments that I probably don't have much I said something to the effect that I'm only worried about 2 hands'. She got all mad saying that I effectively told her what I had. I replied that it didn't matter given that she has no more decisions in the hand. Perhaps I should have realized right there that she had one of those two hands, but I just couldn't bring myself to fold. I call, turn over my hand and she acts like she is all upset for about 3-4 seconds and then smiles, completes the slowroll and turns over AA.
If this were the movies, a Q would have showed up and she would have been taught a lesson. However,this is the WSOP and I'm destined to continue to take one hard shot to the face after another. Oh, well. I go to shake her hand and she comments in an extremely sacrastic manner that I'm a great player. Clearly my comment early on (see last blog) to Marcel has set her off. In truth, I did feel she sucked, but my comment was simply meant to get her to loosen up again.
I apologize for running a bit behind on my tournament blogging, but I did write up a long post two nights ago only to have it vanish in the internet time-space continuum. My internet connection for Vegas was horrible and I needed to use my Treo 700wx as a modem. However, I haven’t figured out a way to get it to block calls, so whenever a call comes in, the connection is dropped. Oh… well. It only took me about an hour to write the post!
I’ll try again to get up to date, but rather than blogging about specific tournaments and results I thought I would give you a flavor of some of the players and type of plays I have seen at the WSOP.
I HAVE TWO PAIR, CAN YOU BEAT IT?
This happened on the 3rd hand of the 1500 NL event on Saturday. A MP player raises to 175 at the 25/50 level. The BB calls. The flop comes Q78. The MP player bets 500 and is called. The turn is an A and the MP player bets 1200.
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I get to my seat, which is #6 and find Jeff Lisandro seated there. He apologized and moved to seat 5. Jeff won the bracelet the night before in the 7 card stud event and lots of guys came by to congratulate him. He's a great guy and a fun person to talk too. In fact, he was probably a bit too much fun to talk with because we really hit it off and I probably wasn't focused as much on my poker as I should have been. Jeff told me stories about his years managing poker rooms in Russia, grinding it out in rooms all over the world playing different games and some crazy stories about some poker screenplays he had written and how his stories have been stolen from him and made into films (some very well know films!). At first I was a bit skeptical but after a few minutes of hearing the details I had no doubt what he said was absolutely true. If you run into Jeff and have a few minutes of his time, ask him about this. Interesting stuff.
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My first wsop event of 2007. Pretty excited and ready to open up my game. I get lucky and am at a table full of tight-passive players. Over the first few levels I pretty much have my way with the table. I'm not trying to look crazy and reckless, but there are tons of places to resteal against weak players to my right and I quickly build my stack from 3k to 8k by the second level. There were no major premium hands that held, just lots of hands like this:
I'm in the SB, a late position raiser makes a standard raise, the button calls, I can see that the late position raiser is not happy so I pop it and they both lay down their hands. On another hand UTG raises to 225 at 25/50 blinds, UTG+1 calls, it's folded to me in the BB and I push with 2600. The stack sizes were awkward to raise and I didn't want to call. They both folded and showed JJ (UTG), AK (UTG+1).
One hand I'm on the button and a MP raiser makes it 300. There is one more caller and I call with A9o.
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My first WSOP event isn’t until tomorrow (thurs) so I decided to play in the Venetian Deep Stack $330 NL event today. I started off strong and was quickly the chip leader at my table and probably the tournament. I went from 6k in chips to 18k within the first few levels. I doubled up pretty quickly with this hand:
I get 77 UTG and limp with blinds at 25/50. Four people see the flop of 7QQ – bingo. I’m second to act and make it 200 hoping that nobody will believe it and really hoping that someone has a Q. I’m rewarded by the button (who just doubled up himself when his nut straight beat the second nut straight) who min-bets me to 500. It’s folded to me and I decide to mini-bet him back hoping he’ll think I’m still making a play – nobody plays back if they have it. So I make it 1k. He now pumps it to 2.5. Seems like a limit game…huh. Well, it’s very weird. I’m sure I have him.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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2
9
and Brown calls.