WSOP Main Event Day 1b

Like everyone else in the Main Event, I began the day with 20k in chips. I didn't recognize anyone at my table, but later learned that the player to my right was Keith "The Camel" Hawkins. I chipped up early and the table dynamics became quite clear: Keith and I were doing the raising and betting, everyone else was doing the checking, calling and folding.

There was one lady at the table who was too funny for words. She thought that a bet of 600 was the solution to all problems at the poker table. I'm not kidding when I say that her open-raise was 600 (blinds 50/100), her 3bet size was 600 (raise from 275 to 600) and her bets on the flop, turn and river were also respectively 600 each! As you can probably imagine, it didn't take her too long to bust out, I did the honors with QQ on a KcTs9s flop against her AK for her last 3.8k in chips. A jack on the river sealed her fate.

Loaded with around 30k in ammunition, Keith raised from EP to 600 at blinds 100/200. He had me covered and I made the call with 22. Everyone folded and the flop came down 7c 8c 2h giving me bottom set. He surprisingly checked and I fired 1k, which he very quickly called. The turn was the 10d. He checked again and I fired 2400, which he once again called quickly. The river was the 3c, completing the flush. However, it was not very relevant because I think he is almost always contbetting that flop with a flush draw, so I opt for a value bet of 5k even which he SNAPS. To my surprise, he reveals 96o for the straight and I lose almost 30% of my stack.

The very next hand I raise 88 and flop a set against someone else, allowing me to win back approx. 5k in chips. The next orbit Keith raises from the same position again and I know his range is so incredibly wide not only because of his showdown beforehand, but also because the guy in the BB is probably the tightest player to ever have played the Main Event. He literally never played a hand, constantly complained about the crap the dealer dealt to him and almost had a heart attack when we had to play 7-handed for a couple minutes while we waited for new players. He called the floor over at least 4 times to remind them to send someone over ASAP.

Anyway, new blinds are 150/300 and Keith raises to 800 and this time I elect to 3bet to 2500 with JTo. He calls and we see a flop of Js4d2d. He checks and I check it back for deception as well as the fact that I don't want to be pushed off my hand quite yet. The turn is the Jc and he check/calls my 3300 bet. The river is a Qs, he checks and I go for a 7100 value bet, which should confuse him beause my line looks a little strange. He makes the call and instamucks when I show him my hand, later on he told me he had 66.

With the final break about to begin, an old man (stack ~16k) raised UTG+1 to 1200 and I found AQs in MP. I made the call and we saw a flop of As9h7h. This old man hated me because I had already 4bet him twice, only with kings and once with T9s, though neither went to showdown. Still, I had the feeling that he was not in the mood to be giving me any more chips. He bet 2k and I made the call. The turn was the Kh and he announces "All-in" for 12.7k (double the pot-size). This was now a pretty difficult decision. I tanked for about 3 minutes and after some chit-chat I finally made the call. He showed JhJd, I dodged his 11 outs and sent him packing.

The last level consisted of me moving to a new table, making a bad fold against an unkown that should have sent him to the rail and then losing a few chips in the final hands because I thought people would just want to get through the day without much confrontation. Still, I ended the day with 66,350 chips so all is well for now. Play continues on Tuesday and I'm ready to get back in the zone.

Vegas Pics, Part 1

Rockstar, the instruments have been sitting around ever since

View from the Pure night club

Sutti, Daniel, Matthias

Sonja + Seri

girls we met at the club

in the gabbana

Seb teaching Ferguson how to play Stud Hi/Lo

Sieg!

A vegetarian grilling meat, kind of ironic

Our first house barbeque

at the Tao Beach

Come on! Go Nico!

Wendy and Seb

Schnib, Rifter and I think Heiko just hit my head trying to give me the bunny ears

Instant classic

I still have pics to post from the bracelet party, the villa and other random adventures, I'll probably upload them at the end of the trip.

Lights out, party, ping pong and steak

The bracelet party for Seb/Martin/Jens was planned for Saturday night and it ended up being at Tao at the Venetian. When all was said and done we were a party of 40+, so it made it kind of difficult to get a big enough table without sacrificing a good location near the dance floor. Though some people were forced to stand, I think most had a pretty good time.

The night was made interesting 2 hours before the limos came to pick us up, when the power in our house went out. We prayed it come back in time to get ready, but inevitably everyone ended up showering putting on the finishing touches using laptops as the only light source. Though it was interesting, I certainly wouldn't want to repeat it, it's amazing how much we depend on electricity these days.

Anyways, back to the party. After picking up some girls on the way there (not those kind of girls, though) we made our way into the club. They were a little slow on getting us the alcohol, but once it was there it was flowing pretty much nonstop until I left at around 4am. I have some pictures on my camera as well, but for the meantime you can checkout Intellipoker's gallery of the party located here: http://www.intellipoker.com/gallery.php?id=98&act=list . Luckily they cut out the inappropriate pictures, which some people I'm sure are relieved about :)

Other than that, I've just been keeping it low around the house. Somehow I managed to lose a mid 4-figure amount betting on the wrong horses at ping-pong. I seriously couldn't win a match, it was pretty sick. I haven't been able to chase those losses yet, but I'm sure opportunity will come knocking soon enough!

Last night was one of the rare times we went out to eat well. In the whole near month I've been here now, I've only made it to Ruth's Chris one time and the rest of the time it's been a random mix of burgers, pizza and chicken wings that I've been shoving down my piehole. Last night we opted for the N9ne Steakhouse at the Palms Resort and Casino. The steak (New York Sirloing) was, needless to say, phenomenal. The wine was right on the money and and price could not have been better either, considering Seb got stuck with the bill yet again after losing credit card roulette. In all fairness, he is running pretty bad in that game, haha.

Event 46, $5k shorthanded

I expected the field in the $5k shorthanded tourney to be somewhat strong and in fact it was probably the toughest table I've ever played at at the WSOP. To my immediate right was ThAY3R, to my immediate left was Shane "Shaniac" Schleger and to his left was Lou Esposito. Luckily Shane was eliminated in level 3, only to be replaced by Ryan Daut.

I built my stack up to 20k or so without many showdowns and then ran a terrible blind-on-blind bluff against Ryan Daut. Had I known it was him, I never would have tried the bluff, but I thought it was some random guy who couldn't stand 3 barrels of heat on a 3s6sJhTcKs board. He snapped me with J8o and I was down to 10k.

I then got lucky for the first (but not last) time against Lou Esposito. He raised and I jammed from the BB with Ad7d. He called with AQo and I flopped a flush draw and turned the flush. He wasn't thrilled to say the least.

After chipping down again I squeezed KQo all-in after a button raise and an SB flatcall. The button folded and the SB unfortunately made the call with AJo. Blank blank blank blank King to the rescue!!!

On the final hand before the break I had around 16k and once again got it in bad, which was kind of the running theme of the day. On a flop of AdJs6s I had Ks7s for the nut flush draw and was checkraised by my friend Lou Esposito. I jam on him and he instacalls with AJ. Well, I guess I'll just have to hit a spade then, which is precisely what I did on the turn. 32k stack now.

I then doubled someone up when my TT could not hold against his A5o, but I certainly was not going to start complaining. After losing a few more pots I was once again down to around 12k when the following freaky hand came up:

I shove 12.6k UTG+1 with 99 at blinds 400/800/100. It's folded around to Lou in the SB, who says loud and proud: "CALL." He then throws 400 in the middle, thinking he was just calling the BB. He then looks over at my 12.6k stacks of greatness I have in front of me and realizes he just got himself in a sticky situation. The floor is called over, Lou is extremely heated and the floor forces him to call the complete 12.6k. The BB folds and it's my 99 vs Lou's 64s for my tourney life. He flops a gutshot but fails to improve, doubling me up and reenforcing his eternal hate for me.

After a few preflop 3bets I was now up to over 50k entering the final level of the day with around 100 players left, 78 getting paid. I was moved to a new table towards the end and with 3 minutes left on the tourney clock I was dealt AKo in the CO. I raised to 3200 with blinds 600/1200, the button called and the SB makes it 13000. It kind of sucks because I have absolutely no reads, but he does have me slightly covered. Still, he has no reads on me either so I elect to shiperoo with my 45k stack. He tanks and eventually makes the call with QQ. Blank blank blank blank blank busto.

It sucks to play so long for nothing, but that's poker. The Main Event will most likely be my next tourney, Day 1B ftw.

On a side note, congratulations to Martin Kläser for winning a bracelet in Event 43! Ship it!

All kindsa stuff

WSOP:
I haven't played any tourneys lately, my next tournament is the €5k shorthanded coming up on Thursday. After that I will most likely lay low until the Main Event, which I think I'll be playing on Day 1B, but I'm not 100% sure yet.

Big congrats to Seb for taking down the Stud Hi/Lo bracelet!!! It was really fun to be part of his cheering section, it figures that Luckbox would be the first one to ship a bracelet.

€5k Challenge:
With Chris leading 3-1, we dove into table tennis as our next match. After an incredibly long warm-up, he finally wanted to play the game and I took it down 11-8. He was so tilted that he insisted we play mini golf immediately.

We drove to Circus Circus where they apparently had mini golf, which turned out to be a joker course with 17 holes and an 18th hole that could not have been created any stupider. Anyway, he won by 5 strokes (which is supposedly not that much he tells me?) and finally admitted that he might have an edge in mini golf. O rly?

Bowling was up last night and I took it down with relative ease, something like 152 to 125. So now the score is 4-3 with 4 more games: Pinball, Crossbar shooting, Basketball and No Limit Hold'em. It's still all open and I remain optimistic!

Vegas Pics:
They're coming, be patient!

By the way, I ended up getting a Sony Vaio, so whoever Stefan A is, you won $50! Drop me a comment with your email address so I can contact you regarding payment.

$2500 Shorthanded Tourney

We were running a few minutes late getting out of the house on time so by the time I arrived at the Rio and eventually my table, I had missed a couple hands. As I finally saw my table in the distance, I started to walk as fast as possible because I saw the dealer dealing out a hand. As it turns out, it was my BB and I didn't *quite* make it to the table in time, but since the dealer saw me coming, she held on to my hand for me (thanks again, Heather!).

As it turns out, UTG raised to 150 (blinds 25/50, starting stack of 5k) and the button 3bet to 600. I look down at Queens (thanks again, Heather!) and contemplate my options. I opt for a cold 4bet to 1800, obviously committing myself to my hand. UTG folds and the button shoves in for 5k. I make the call and was pretty shocked when he flipped over 55. The words that then came out of his mouth were pure gold:

"Oh my f***ing God. We're playing 6-handed and I'm dealt a pair and you get a higher pair. What are the odds of that? What a cold deck."

I put on a little smile and look over to him expecting him to be smiling as well, but as it turns out he was dead serious. I dodged the two remaining 5s in the deck and doubled up to 10k thanks to the unbelievable "set-up" situation of pair vs overpair (thanks again, Heather!)

I continued to chip up to 15k, playing with the likes of Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and Bill Edler, who by the way is one of the nicest poker players I have ever met. I lost a substantial part of my stack after raising to 550 with blinds of 100/200. The SB 3bet me to 1550 and I 4bet him all-in with AQs for around 7k because he had 3bet me so often. He made the call with 99 and I lost the race. I suppose I could have slowed down and just called the 3bet or even folded preflop, but if I had won that hand I would have been patting myself on the back for playing so well. Results-orientation ftw.

My stack continued to whiddle down before I found myself with just 3800 left and blinds of 100/200/25. The button (most active player at the table) raised to 600 and I shipped my stack in with A9o. The BB reshoved for 4600 and I figured I was drawing to 3 outs for sure. To my surprise, he tabled 77 after the button folded and I had 6 outs to hope for. However, I bricked all 5 community cards and found myself in the taxi line a little sooner than I would have wished for.

Not much else to write about, I'm going to be playing online these next days and stop donating to these WSOP prize pools for a while. I think we're going out partying tonight. If I'm in the mood I'll take some pictures and post those later. Peace!

Break

I'm in Kansas until Sunday evening so there won't be any updates as I won't be playing any poker. I'll be back in the groove of things on Monday, my new computer and 30" monitor are all set-up for the rest of my time in Vegas!