So yesterday was my birthday. Yay, me. Creeping ever closer to 35, which is halfway to 40. Jebus. How in the world did that happen?
Playing a $1,500 NL tournament at the Rio wasn't going to work schedule-wise, so I played the $540 deep stack tournament (sorry, Roman overlords, but I refuse to refer to it as a "megastack" tournament no matter what you say) yesterday at Caesar's instead. 50 minute levels and 15,000 starting stacks made for quite a bit of play. Which was good, because I needed every single bit of it to keep my head above water as long as I did.
I was pretty surprised at the quality of play, as I expected it to be similar to the Venetian deep stacks tourneys I played back in April (which had the inevitable dead money but all in all had pretty competent players) but no, not so much. We lost three or four players in the first few hours who called off all their chips with hands like K10 on a K high flop, 88 on a Q 10 4 flop, etc.
I managed to lose a good chunk of my stack in the second level (about 8K) when I flopped top set but couldn't chase out a guy with the nut flush draw, who got there on the river. For the next 8 hours or so, I was rocking a pretty short stack, usually between 5K and 15K, and teetering on the brink the whole damn time.
For most of that time the biggest hand I had to work with was 22, but I managed to steal and re-steal enough to stay on life support. Frustrating, though, as I needed a double up (or three) to have any breathing room and just couldn't get it, or even find a decent enough hand to make a stand with facing early action, as I was more than ready to lump it in with something like 89s, J10s to try to double or end my misery.
I did have sort of a funny hand at the 200/400 level, when I was sitting on about 7,200. It folded around to me in the CO and I had 6h8h, and the blinds were super-super tight older guys. I'd been folding for about an hour myself, so it was a pretty safe assumption that the blinds would get out of the way unless they had a really strong hand.
My only worry was the button, who was the stereotypical clueless poker fanboi, who didn't shut up from the moment he sat down and told some long-winded story about Phil Laak but kept insisting his nickname was "The Jackal", talked about his high level strategy plays such as running a "stop and start", and so on. He was kinda steaming after he got caught bluffing in a hand (after he was re-raised he tanked for a long time, but kept checking his watch while he was in the tank, and finally folded then told the table that the "punishment" for re-raising him was that he'd make you wait at least 3 minutes before he acted) and had been over-shoving a good bit.
My stack was kinda awkward-sized for shoving so I opened for 1,200, ready to turbo-muck if either of the super-tight old dudes woke up as I could still limp along with 6,000 and blinds of 200/400 and raising much more than 1,200 leaves me pretty committed. Button and SB folded but BB instantly perked up and shoved, and I dwelled a bit to look appropriately pained and mucked.
Standard enough, except Fanboi starts clapping and congratulating the old guy, saying something along the lines of "Man, great read. Soul read." And kept on chattering about it for five minutes or so, until I finally couldn't help myself and asked him why he thought it was a great read on the BB's part. Looking at me like I regularly ride the short bus, he says "Because he knew you were on air." Mmmkay, fair enough. Super read, sir. You indeed have your finger on the pulse of the table.
After about 8 hours of short stack misery, I finally doubled with JJ versus AK, then got donkfish lucky right before the dinner break, in the BB with A2s and it folded to the SB, who was short-stacked and had been talking for thirty minutes about doubling or going home so as not to have to prolong the misery through the dinner break. He shoves and while I have him covered, it's only by about 10K (and blinds are 1K/2K after the break). I hate calling with A2s there as I'm very likely to be ahead of his range in that spot but only marginally ahead at best. But fuck it, I called, and he actually had AKo, so I'm looking pretty stupid until a 2 flops and holds up.
Won another big pot after the break and finally, nearly 11 hours into play, I'm close to average stack again, with about 60K and average stack of 65K, with about 80 players left and top 45 spots paying. With blinds of 1,500/3,000 I'm in the BB and look down to find KK, which is the biggest hand I've had all day. Of course it folds around to the SB and I'm mentally muttering and swearing when he instantly says "All-in".
He's got about 80K in chips and has been fairly active but not too crazy, and seems to know what he's doing. I pause for a tiny bit trying to make sense of such a ridiculous overshove giving the blinds and our stacks, but hell, I think I need to stop playing poker if I ever fold kings there.
I call and he immediately says "Oh no," which pretty much rules out aces. He instead rolls over J9o, and I immediately get that sinking feeling of dread. J on the flop, 9 on the turn pretty much confirms sinking feeling of dread, and that's all she wrote.
Not really sure what to make of the end there, as it's one of those odd cases where none of it makes sense. He wasn't an idiot or short-stacked and blinds and antes weren't big enough to make such a move very worthwhile, as his normal raise of 3-4xBB would have done the trick if I had nothing. He decides to pull that move for the first time the one time I have a huge hand, on my birthday, after patiently scratching and clawing away all day to keep myself alive and finally picking up some chips (and poised to pick up a ton more), and it proceeds to work out perfectly for him.
So, err, thanks poker gods. I guess I could have gone on a mad coke and hookers binge if I'd gone on to cash big in the tournament, so maybe you really were looking out for me.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
World's Worst Angle Shooter Ever
I never thought I'd say this, but American Airlines actually managed to deliver me to Las Vegas yesterday without screwing up anything terribly. One connecting flight was 45 minutes late leaving the gate but that's pretty small potatoes based on my past experiences with the beast that is AA, so a grudging tip of the hat there.
Checking in at Mandalay Bay went off without a hitch, and I'm digging it so far. Other than being in BFE compared to my usually haunts (Caesar's/Venetian), it's pretty nice, and it's a welcome change to get out of the Bellagio, as backwards as that may sound. Much more eye candy to look at (well, that's not paid for eye candy) and it's nice to be able to grab a cheeseburger and fries in the sportsbook for less than $20, or a coffee and muffin for less than $15.
I got in too late to hit any of the noon tournaments yesterday so I ended up catching up on some PokerRoom work, then played some $1/2 NL at the Mandalay Bay poker room. After about five hours of play I finished down $20 or so, so yeah, not too eventful a session personally, as I won some smallish pots here and there but never really got involved in any big pots.
When I sat down, though, there was already all kinds of shit breaking loose, and it took bout ten seconds to realize why. Two to my right was a super drunk guy drinking Heinekens that was absolutely terrible but had apparently been running over the table, catching flushes, straights, you name it. He'd show his hand every single time, win or lose, would show every time he mucked at any point (even preflop), and exposed his hand two or three times when there was still live action at the table.
So on the down side, we were getting in about 4 hands an hour due to his shenanigans, but he was sitting on about $1,500 and doing everything he could to give it back. I sat down right as he was taking another big pot off the guy to my right, who was a muscley tatted up guy from Brooklyn who was decent but thought he was much better at poker than he really was (like that description doesn't apply to approximately ten million people). Tattoo Guy was pissed about losing the hand but also pissed that another player. Young Asian Kid, also came along for most of the action, as Tattoo Guy had wanted to isolate Drunk Guy.
Tattoo Guy keeps telling Young Asian Kid (who was pretty much the only player at the table who knew what the hell he was doing) "You stay out of my way, I stay out of yours. You take your turn, I'll take mine. We're after him. You understand what I mean? Hey, buddy, you know what I mean? You hear what I'm saying?" And Young Asian Kid keeps nodding at him and trying to shut him up, as he's indeed on that trolley. But Tattoo Guy keeps persisting, as he apparently won't stop asking until he gets a clear verbal declaration as such, until the dealer inevitably steps in and says "Guys, that sounds bad. Play however you want at the table but don't talk directly about stuff like that."
Tattoo Guy doesn't like this at all, especially coming from a female dealer, and he keeps insisting that he can say whatever he wants, as he's the customer, the dealer is there to deal, etc. Dealer calls the floor, the floor warns him, and about fifteen minutes later the inevitable explosion occurs.
Drunk Guy makes his usual open raise to $15 from MP, and Tattoo Guy bumps it up to $40. The BB cold calls (just sat down at the table and hadn't done much noteworthy but he semed kind of inexperiences just from his demeanor) and Drunk Guy calls.
Flop is As 7c 8s. BB checks, Drunk Guy checks, and Tattoo Guy bets out $100. BB check-raises all-in for about $150 more and Drunk Guy gleefully starts talking, saying "Oh man, I have to. I have to. I can't fold this hand." Then he momentarily forgets where he is and has to be reminded of the action so far. He's playing with mounds of dirty stacks and he finally just shoves a huge pile of red chips into the middle after the action is explained to him.
Tattoo Guy instantly says "Call", plain as day. He's sitting right beside me and isn't a quiet dude. So the dealer starts counting out Drunk Guy's dirty stack to see if it covers Tattoo Guy (who had about $300 behind after he led out for $100 on the flop). As she's doing that, Drunk Guy proudly tables Ks 2s and declares "Flush draw" . BB looks around slightly confused, as the dealer is still counting, then tables Ad 8c for top two pair. Tattoo Guy goes real quiet and then reluctantly turns over 10s 9s.
Drunk Guy's raise covered Tattoo Guy, so the dealer finishes counting it and tells Tattoo Guy that he needs to put at least one stack of chips across the betting line to signify that he called all-in. And he pauses for a beat, and you can just see the grimy wheels turning, and then he goes mock-ballistic and bellows "WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT I NEVER SAID I CALLED!"
At first he tries to claim that he said "He called", that he was working the action through in his head and "accidentally said it out loud". (As in "Hmm, brain, what can they have? He check-raised, he called..."). The dealer is absolutely not buying it, but he adamantly swears she's a lying bitch. The floor is called, it's all explained, and half the table is vocally backing the dealer up, saying Tattoo Guy clearly said "Call". For whatever reason, Tattoo Guy singles me out, and says that I was sitting right next to him, what did I think he said?
Sigh. I said he definitely said "Call", not "He called?" or any variation of that. And he immediately responds, "Exactly. I said 'Call', with a question mark. 'Call?' I didn't know if he raised or called. I said 'Call?'" The very best part is that every time he said "Call?", he way overemphasized the rising inflection at the end, but unintentionally did it in a Scooby-Doo voice, which was pretty damn funny to hear, especially in rapid succession.
Floor rules it a call, Drunk Guy spikes a spade to scoop another big pot, and Tattoo Guy eventually gets a forced time-out as he won't stop bitching at the dealer after the hand is over. Drunk Guy unfortunately gets cut off at the bar and immediately racks up his +$2,000 in chips (boo), and no more fireworks for the rest of the night. Well, minus Tattoo Guy coming back from his time-out to buy back in, double up, and then donk off all his chips to Young Asian Kid when Tattoo Guy called a 5 bet shove preflop with just JJ and was of course up against AA, which held up to bust Tattoo Guy.
Moral of the story? Beware the $1/2 NL games at Mandalay Bay, as there are some pretty skilled angle shooters lying in wait for you, trying to take all of your mobneys.
Sigh.
Checking in at Mandalay Bay went off without a hitch, and I'm digging it so far. Other than being in BFE compared to my usually haunts (Caesar's/Venetian), it's pretty nice, and it's a welcome change to get out of the Bellagio, as backwards as that may sound. Much more eye candy to look at (well, that's not paid for eye candy) and it's nice to be able to grab a cheeseburger and fries in the sportsbook for less than $20, or a coffee and muffin for less than $15.
I got in too late to hit any of the noon tournaments yesterday so I ended up catching up on some PokerRoom work, then played some $1/2 NL at the Mandalay Bay poker room. After about five hours of play I finished down $20 or so, so yeah, not too eventful a session personally, as I won some smallish pots here and there but never really got involved in any big pots.
When I sat down, though, there was already all kinds of shit breaking loose, and it took bout ten seconds to realize why. Two to my right was a super drunk guy drinking Heinekens that was absolutely terrible but had apparently been running over the table, catching flushes, straights, you name it. He'd show his hand every single time, win or lose, would show every time he mucked at any point (even preflop), and exposed his hand two or three times when there was still live action at the table.
So on the down side, we were getting in about 4 hands an hour due to his shenanigans, but he was sitting on about $1,500 and doing everything he could to give it back. I sat down right as he was taking another big pot off the guy to my right, who was a muscley tatted up guy from Brooklyn who was decent but thought he was much better at poker than he really was (like that description doesn't apply to approximately ten million people). Tattoo Guy was pissed about losing the hand but also pissed that another player. Young Asian Kid, also came along for most of the action, as Tattoo Guy had wanted to isolate Drunk Guy.
Tattoo Guy keeps telling Young Asian Kid (who was pretty much the only player at the table who knew what the hell he was doing) "You stay out of my way, I stay out of yours. You take your turn, I'll take mine. We're after him. You understand what I mean? Hey, buddy, you know what I mean? You hear what I'm saying?" And Young Asian Kid keeps nodding at him and trying to shut him up, as he's indeed on that trolley. But Tattoo Guy keeps persisting, as he apparently won't stop asking until he gets a clear verbal declaration as such, until the dealer inevitably steps in and says "Guys, that sounds bad. Play however you want at the table but don't talk directly about stuff like that."
Tattoo Guy doesn't like this at all, especially coming from a female dealer, and he keeps insisting that he can say whatever he wants, as he's the customer, the dealer is there to deal, etc. Dealer calls the floor, the floor warns him, and about fifteen minutes later the inevitable explosion occurs.
Drunk Guy makes his usual open raise to $15 from MP, and Tattoo Guy bumps it up to $40. The BB cold calls (just sat down at the table and hadn't done much noteworthy but he semed kind of inexperiences just from his demeanor) and Drunk Guy calls.
Flop is As 7c 8s. BB checks, Drunk Guy checks, and Tattoo Guy bets out $100. BB check-raises all-in for about $150 more and Drunk Guy gleefully starts talking, saying "Oh man, I have to. I have to. I can't fold this hand." Then he momentarily forgets where he is and has to be reminded of the action so far. He's playing with mounds of dirty stacks and he finally just shoves a huge pile of red chips into the middle after the action is explained to him.
Tattoo Guy instantly says "Call", plain as day. He's sitting right beside me and isn't a quiet dude. So the dealer starts counting out Drunk Guy's dirty stack to see if it covers Tattoo Guy (who had about $300 behind after he led out for $100 on the flop). As she's doing that, Drunk Guy proudly tables Ks 2s and declares "Flush draw" . BB looks around slightly confused, as the dealer is still counting, then tables Ad 8c for top two pair. Tattoo Guy goes real quiet and then reluctantly turns over 10s 9s.
Drunk Guy's raise covered Tattoo Guy, so the dealer finishes counting it and tells Tattoo Guy that he needs to put at least one stack of chips across the betting line to signify that he called all-in. And he pauses for a beat, and you can just see the grimy wheels turning, and then he goes mock-ballistic and bellows "WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING TALKING ABOUT I NEVER SAID I CALLED!"
At first he tries to claim that he said "He called", that he was working the action through in his head and "accidentally said it out loud". (As in "Hmm, brain, what can they have? He check-raised, he called..."). The dealer is absolutely not buying it, but he adamantly swears she's a lying bitch. The floor is called, it's all explained, and half the table is vocally backing the dealer up, saying Tattoo Guy clearly said "Call". For whatever reason, Tattoo Guy singles me out, and says that I was sitting right next to him, what did I think he said?
Sigh. I said he definitely said "Call", not "He called?" or any variation of that. And he immediately responds, "Exactly. I said 'Call', with a question mark. 'Call?' I didn't know if he raised or called. I said 'Call?'" The very best part is that every time he said "Call?", he way overemphasized the rising inflection at the end, but unintentionally did it in a Scooby-Doo voice, which was pretty damn funny to hear, especially in rapid succession.
Floor rules it a call, Drunk Guy spikes a spade to scoop another big pot, and Tattoo Guy eventually gets a forced time-out as he won't stop bitching at the dealer after the hand is over. Drunk Guy unfortunately gets cut off at the bar and immediately racks up his +$2,000 in chips (boo), and no more fireworks for the rest of the night. Well, minus Tattoo Guy coming back from his time-out to buy back in, double up, and then donk off all his chips to Young Asian Kid when Tattoo Guy called a 5 bet shove preflop with just JJ and was of course up against AA, which held up to bust Tattoo Guy.
Moral of the story? Beware the $1/2 NL games at Mandalay Bay, as there are some pretty skilled angle shooters lying in wait for you, trying to take all of your mobneys.
Sigh.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
T-Minus 4 Days
Sweet jebus, time is passing quickly. I keep thinking in my head that while I'm flying out to Vegas on June 28th for the gig covering the 2008 WSOP for PokerRoom, that's still like a month off, so I have plenty of time to take care of assorted stuff before jetting off. Umm, yeah, not so much. Commence the mad scrambling to get tons of stuff done as I won't be back until July 16th.
Which is a long damn time. The wife is coming out July 1st-July 6th, so that'll be nice, but I'm already dreading being away from home that long. my birthday is June 29th, so it'll kind of suck to be away all by my lonesome for that. On the work side of things, I'm pretty excited, as it's much different than last year when I set sail and had absolutely no idea what to expect, and things are a lot more structured and planned out this year, much less intimidating, and all that good stuff.
Plus I'm looking forward to actually playing some poker, and with the sale (finally) of the last flip house I did, I actually have a bankroll to work with on this trip, as opposed to the last few trips where I was playing on a pretty short roll. I've flipped-flop a bit on whether to play some of the $1,500 donkaments or whether to instead hit more of the smaller Caesar's/Venetian deep stack events. I guess I'll just see what happens once I get out there. I'm going a bit early and should have a solid 3-4 days to splash around before the work portion of the trip kicks into high gear with the Main Event.
As far as the online pokers, I think I managed to burn myself out a bit. Results are still pretty decent, but I'm falling into the same pattern as last month, with very nice results for the first 20 days or so of the month and then a crash-and-burn day torpedoing things, followed by pressing too hard to get things rolling again, yada yada yada. I've been mixing in some $1/2 tables and some 6 max tables, trying to mitigate the monotonous grind of pretty ABC $100NL full ring play, but with mixed results so far. I'll probably shut down the online play soon
for the month, and with rakeback I'm liking at about a +$2,000 month. Which is nice, indeed, but I've been playing a ton, so the hourly rate is in the neighborhood of $15/hour. Which is kind of grindy, and points to me needing to work harder on my game, as I definitely should be showing a better profit than that.
I feel a bit wheel-spinny at the moment as the online bankroll is healthier than its been in many moons, and I could comfortably sit in $2/4 games. Until I can consistently beat the crap out of .50/$1 games, though, it seems pretty foolish to play any higher, especially given my propensity for blow-up days (and the resulting fallout) that I can't seem to completely work out of my monkey system.
It's nice to grind up the bankroll a bit, don't get me wrong, but in the end it all comes down to opportunity cost, as far as whether I could be making more money doing any number of other things, or, heaven forbid, doing something fun for the sole sake of having fun. Although the recent purchase of an Xbox360 and GTA4 and Guitar Hero have definitely helped out with that last quandry.
Which is a long damn time. The wife is coming out July 1st-July 6th, so that'll be nice, but I'm already dreading being away from home that long. my birthday is June 29th, so it'll kind of suck to be away all by my lonesome for that. On the work side of things, I'm pretty excited, as it's much different than last year when I set sail and had absolutely no idea what to expect, and things are a lot more structured and planned out this year, much less intimidating, and all that good stuff.
Plus I'm looking forward to actually playing some poker, and with the sale (finally) of the last flip house I did, I actually have a bankroll to work with on this trip, as opposed to the last few trips where I was playing on a pretty short roll. I've flipped-flop a bit on whether to play some of the $1,500 donkaments or whether to instead hit more of the smaller Caesar's/Venetian deep stack events. I guess I'll just see what happens once I get out there. I'm going a bit early and should have a solid 3-4 days to splash around before the work portion of the trip kicks into high gear with the Main Event.
As far as the online pokers, I think I managed to burn myself out a bit. Results are still pretty decent, but I'm falling into the same pattern as last month, with very nice results for the first 20 days or so of the month and then a crash-and-burn day torpedoing things, followed by pressing too hard to get things rolling again, yada yada yada. I've been mixing in some $1/2 tables and some 6 max tables, trying to mitigate the monotonous grind of pretty ABC $100NL full ring play, but with mixed results so far. I'll probably shut down the online play soon
for the month, and with rakeback I'm liking at about a +$2,000 month. Which is nice, indeed, but I've been playing a ton, so the hourly rate is in the neighborhood of $15/hour. Which is kind of grindy, and points to me needing to work harder on my game, as I definitely should be showing a better profit than that.
I feel a bit wheel-spinny at the moment as the online bankroll is healthier than its been in many moons, and I could comfortably sit in $2/4 games. Until I can consistently beat the crap out of .50/$1 games, though, it seems pretty foolish to play any higher, especially given my propensity for blow-up days (and the resulting fallout) that I can't seem to completely work out of my monkey system.
It's nice to grind up the bankroll a bit, don't get me wrong, but in the end it all comes down to opportunity cost, as far as whether I could be making more money doing any number of other things, or, heaven forbid, doing something fun for the sole sake of having fun. Although the recent purchase of an Xbox360 and GTA4 and Guitar Hero have definitely helped out with that last quandry.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Find the Best PokerStars Marketing Code
If you're looking for the Best PokerStars Marketing Code, an obvious place to start would be www.pokermarketingcode.org. The site offers exactly what it promises, which is a PokerStars Promo Code that gives new players the following:
* $50 bonus on your first deposit (100% match up to $50)
For Spanish speakers, check out Pokerstars Codigo.
Promo codes and marketing codes can be pretty helpful to new players as they learn the ropes, as the extra bonus money can definitely keep your head above water as you work on various aspects of your poker game.
* $50 bonus on your first deposit (100% match up to $50)
For Spanish speakers, check out Pokerstars Codigo.
Promo codes and marketing codes can be pretty helpful to new players as they learn the ropes, as the extra bonus money can definitely keep your head above water as you work on various aspects of your poker game.
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