Nearly at the Finish Line

It's been a fun trip out here in LA for the WPT Legends, but I'm getting the itch to be back home, and nearly looked into changing my ticket to fly back home this morning. Thankfully for the poker bankroll, I didn't, which meant that I spent about six hours late last night at the silly $2/3 NL $100 max tables, cashing out nearly +$700 when it was all said and done.

I got off to a pretty dismal start, losing my first $100 buy-in in about ten minutes when AA was no good versus A7o, with all in the money going in pre-flop. I re-bought and before I could even get chips another buy-in went down the tubes, as the very next hand QQ went down in flames to JJ on a flop of 10 7 2, with a jack spiking on the river.

Two hands after that I look down to find KK, raise it up and get approximately 296 callers. I somehow managed to win that hand, though, with Q10o calling me down all the after a 10 high flop. Then I collected a nice monsterpotten with 89d, as there were tons of limps, a raise to $10, and everyone called to see a flop of Ad 10d 4d.

The pre-flop raiser fired out $75 into a ~$90 pot and it folded to me, with two people left to act behind me. Which actually is a bit of an awkward spot, as everyone still in the hand had around $200 behind, but due to the way these games play with all of the gambooler types, even if I shove for $200 or so I probably can't chase anyone out behind me, even/especially if they just have a big diamond. The flip side of that coin is people were calling all sorts of bets in spots like that with things as weak as Ax if it was "cheap" enough to call, so I finally decided to just call the $75 bet, hope at least one of the guys came along, and then shove on a non-diamond turn.

At which point the original raiser immediately declares "He flopped a baby flush, with something like 89d, but he's just worried about you", pointing to a guy yet to act. Which was half right, but still impressive.

Both guys behind me call the $75 bet and the turn is the Qc. Original raiser bet out something like $100 into a $400 pot (leaving him $50 behind), I shove for $150 more, one fold, then a call, and the original raiser disgustedly calls.

Turn is something like the 3c, putting Ad 10d 4d Qc 3c on the board. Original raiser had 10 10 and the caller after me had Ac Qd, so I actually had to dodge a lot of cards there on the river.

Not long after that I limped with 10 10 (there were already six or seven limpers in front of me, and it was pretty pointless to try to raise to knock anyone out, as people were simply calling anything). 8 players see a flop of 10s 8c 4s and I bet out fairly big when checked to me and get two callers. Turn is the case ten. Checked around. River is a heart of some sort. I bet out about one-third the pot and immediately get raised all-in. Second opponent dwells and dwells and despite all my jedi mind-tricks he finally folds. I call and table my quads and the other guy rolls over AA. Umm, well-played, sir.

I also chopped a private SnG we ran with the PokerRoom.com folks here, for $420. The guy and I who chopped were going to play the $1,000 + $70 bankroll rebuilder tournament advertised at the Bike, but when we went over there we discovered they'd cancelled last night's tournament. Not sure if that was just last's night, so we may try to give it another go tonight if the tournament is running. Part of me just wants to book a nice, profitable trip, but I'm about +$4,500 at this point for the trip, so donking a chunk of it back taking a shot at a bigger tournament still leaves me with a pretty solid showing.