JeffreyLipsey.com

These are taken from the FTR Twitter:

http://twitpic.com/75az8

http://twitpic.com/735y8

I get up and head over to the Rio where they hold all the WSOP Events. Today started my first WSOP tournament in almost 3 years; the last time I played one must have been in 2006 during my first summer in Vegas while I was still playing Limit Hold’em. We start with 4500 chips and blinds at 25/50 and 60 minute levels; I’m pretty happy with their blind structure and it seems to move the tourney along fairly well too.


Nothing much happens in the first two hours for me, I steal a couple blinds and I basically just chip down and enter the first break with 4000 chips with blinds going to 75/150. I met an old friend Maxxscam from FTR (Chris) outside the room and caught up with him for a while, as he explains to me that he knows a guy at a table who is a complete donk (he didn’t have to tell me haha). This guy apparently won 800,000 Euros in Austria and since then buys in to every live event; he’s absolutely horrible but more on this guy later (referred to as Donk).


One thing that I would like to say is that the players and dealers on my table were all very friendly and they made the time enjoyable. I think there was a live female pro but I have no idea who the heck she was; she played fairly straight forward but it seemed she paid off way too much when it was obvious she was behind.


The first hand of consequence did happen at 75/150 blinds though, with around 4500 effective stacks. The same lady raises it to 450, Donk from above calls as does Aggro-Asian. I wake up with AQo in the big blind and have no idea if I should reraise or just call. Frankly, I know calling is a +EV play because I’m sure I have a ton of equity against all of their opening ranges. I’m a little worried though on stacking off; the last thing I want to do is turn my hand into a bluff by reraise/folding preflop so if I were to reraise it would be to call the all in. I’m still up in the air on whether I should stick it in or not, but I decide to just call and the flop bricked everybody, including the lady who raised which tells me nothing. So, I spent about an hour debating whether I should have reraised that hand and it would have cost me about 1000 chips on top for value so I hoped that it wouldn’t come back to bite me in the end lol.


So after the first break I raise up AQo in EP and it folds around to the aggro-asian; I feel like I have a pretty good set of reads on him and fortunately I both have position on him and he’s a deep stack so I could eventually get my chips from him. Here’s the hand, we’re about t4000 deep at 100/200.


Hero raises to t600, 8 folds, BB Calls (He had earlier called me in the same spot with 85s and played two pair passively on drawy board when I checked down ace high, my guess is that he was inducing)
Flop: 9c 8h 3d (Pot 1275)
BB Checks, Hero Checks
Turn: 9d (Pot 1275)
BB Checks, Hero Checks
River: 3s (Pot 1275)
BB Bets 1200, Hero Calls
BB Shows 22 for two pair, Nines and Threes with 8 Kicker
Hero Shows AQ for two pair, Nines and Threes with A kicker
Hero wins t3600 pot.


It’s not exactly the hardest of calls as I feel like we split this a lot but I also feel that he would have value bet me on the turn with a marginal 1 pair hand, like 8x or even 77 or something. Secondly, his big river bet was fairly polarized and it seemed like he didn’t want me to call, so I did. I was thinking about this hand afterward and I don’t know of a good amount that he could have bet that would have made me fold, except for maybe a massive overbet or a shove but that would be retarded too. With this hand I’m now up to around 6500 chips.


The next hand I get I call in the bb with a set and enduce a bluff from one guy that got me an additional 1500 chips or so. I then raised up 88 and flopped a set and slow played the flop, resulting in an additional value bet of 1000 chips on the turn.


An aggressive opponent makes it t475 to go at 100/200/25 and I thought this was a ridiculously small sized raise so I cold called in position with QTs. Luckily several other guys came along too which added profitability to my call but at least I was in position (if he made it t600 i probably insta-muck it). The pot on the flop is 2400 or so and it comes QT9r, giving me top two pair. The SB with 3000 chips open shoves, the original PFRer folds and I call; I’m shown JJ for the OESD + 2 out set draw. I couldn’t express joy for too long as he turns the J for the set but luckily I river the K for the split pot. I didn’t ‘lose’ chips but I feel like I lost 4k in value there from the suckout, but I played it pretty well and there isn’t much else I could have done. After these I’m up to 9900 chips and that is as high as I would go as it wouldn’t be long until I busted.


Blinds remain 100/200/25 and I’m in MP and open raise it to t600 with KTo, not exactly the tightest of ranges but it plays fairly standard and I normally raise this up in this spot with my chip stack. I get called on the button from the guy who had JJ earlier and I get called in the BB from the donk I mentioned earlier at the beginning of this post. Here’s how the hand worked out:


Hero in MP Raises to 600, Button Calls, BB Calls
Flop: Tc 7d 2s (Pot 2250)
BB Checks, Hero Bets 1200, Button Folds, BB Calls (t5000 behind)
Turn: Jh (Pot 4650)
BB Checks, Hero bets 3000, BB Raises AI, Hero calls remaining 2000.
BB Shows J9o for Top Pair, Jacks
Hero shows KTo for Second Pair, Tens
River: 3c; BB Wins t12000 pot


After this hand I was down to only 3100 chips, or roughly 16 big blinds. This guy was pretty bad though, three times had he called an all in on the turn with only a draw and he got there 2/3 times too which was just gross. The Jack certainly isn’t a scare card or anything as J9 was the last hand I put him on. My only problem would be my small flop bet but I forgot to add in the antes into the pot size when doing the calculation. I would have liked to have made it 1300-1400 otherwise but I don’t think that is going to effect him folding the flop or anything.


Five hands later I’m in the BB and down to 2800 chips with 66. The donk open raises in MP and he gets two cold callers and I try and find a reason to not resteal/squeeze. I was worried that one of the guys would have cold called with a higher pair but I wasn’t getting correct odds to set mine and I figured I was getting a good enough price that I could make the resteal. Well, the Donk rather quickly reshoves Allin to isolate and he shows AQs for a coinflip. The board comes KJ78T and he hits the broadway FTW and I’m busto.


In all, I’m pleased with the way I played the tournament. The 1000 chips that I might have missed in the first hour didn’t come back to haunt me at all and if I was going to lose a coinflip there wasn’t much I can do about it. No more tournaments for me until Monday so until then I’m out! I’ll continue to update my blog though with non-poker related aspects of the trip.

I got a phone call around 6ish I think to head over to the Venetian, where the FTR Admins and GMML (Carl) have landed and are having drinks in their suite. Sounds fun; I must first buy some mixers though, which turns out to be the least annoying part of my trip to their suite.


Once I get to the Venetian its takes a few minutes to find the right set of elevators to the suites. Before doing that though every person must get checked by security to get up the first set of elevators and if you don’t have a room key then that security person must call the room you’re going to. OK, so, whatever. Just call and get me up there.


Apparently you go up to the 10th floor and its not really the 10th floor, its the 1st floor again (I’m confused) and we’re at another lobby. I cross this kind of bridge to another wing and head right, where I’m met by another (douchebag) security guard. This guy is such a tool its hilarious; anyway he asks for my room key. I explain to him that I’m just going up to the rooms and I’ve already had security call and he basically just says ‘yeah whatever OK go.’ Before I realized that I was on another lobby I go and knock on someone else’s door until I realized that I was on the wrong floor and I needed to go up another 10 levels.


So I go back the way I came right by the douche bag security guard who stops me again. I feed him the same story and he does just say ‘yeah whatever leave, but you need a key to get upstairs in the elevators.’ This guy reminds me somewhat of Detective Lassiter on Psych, but he knows his life sucks as he works for $10/hour as a security guard. Anyway I go the other way from where I came from, passed another security guard who just nodded at me as I passed (what’s with all the security?) and eventually make my way up to the correct room.


We had drinks between us and probably 8-9 other FTRers which is always a big load of fun. It got to the point where we were all pretty loaded and just started all talking over each other and having a blast. They’re hungry so we go down to get food at the Grand Lux Cafe and afterwords they wanted to play drunken live poker. I wasn’t really interested in that so I make it back to the hotel and crash after a long day.

I decided to play the $550 at the Venetian on Wednesday and I was playing/running pretty well. The very first hand of the tournament I raise AcQc UTG, 15,000 chips deep at blinds of 50/100:


Hero (UTG) raises to t300, 6 folds, Button Calls, SB Folds, BB Calls.
Flop: Jc 7c 3c (Pot t950)
Hero Cbets 700, Button Folds, BB Calls
Turn 8s (Pot t2350)
Hero Bets 2100, BB Raises to 5700, Hero Shoves to 14,000, BB Tanks and Folds
Hero Nets 6700 Chips.


He folded after hemming and hawing, he said the worst I could have there would be a badly played AcAx or something and I figured him for a set. I was debating whether to call the turn or wait to get it in on the river but given the way it is played I’m still up in the air. His c/r range on the turn is only lower flushes and sets and he should probably be folding 100% of his range in this spot; basically I gave him a way to play his hand correctly. The main reason why I didn’t wait until the river was there were a shit ton of cards that were scary or I would lose value from. Any board pair I would have to call because he’s still representing a flush/boat and any club I would lose all value from sets and lower flushes alike. So basically I’m looking at 8 clubs and 10 cards to pair the board out of the remaining 46.


So 8/46 I net 0 chips, 10/46 I lose -(3600+8300), and 28/46 I win 8300. So that’s -2825 + 5052 = Net 2227 Chips, or rather 22 big blinds. That’s actually a rather large EV and if its a cash game its the best way to play it. The biggest difference in this spot though is that if we lose we are out of the tournament and fore go a ton of $ev by busting so early. Either way I ended the hand with close to 22,000 chips and I am feeling good.


The next hand came blinds of 75/150 and I raise up 88 from MP. A semi-station calls from the SB; he’s the type of player who ‘defends’ his blinds a lot and calls down too much so I don’t mind it when he plays. Here’s the hand:


Hero raises 8h8d in MP to t450, SB calls, BB Folds.


Flop Th 5h 2h (Pot 1050)
SB Checks, Hero bets 600, SB calls
Turn 2s (Pot 2250)
SB Checks, Hero Checks
River 4s (Pot 2250)
SB Bets 1300, Hero Calls
SB Shows 9d9s, Hero Mucks


I actually thought I was ahead here almost always and I was surprised to see he value bet 2nd pair there. I feel like my play was fairly standard it’s just annoying I dropped like 10% of my stack on this hand.


The next hand was my final hand, I wake up with AA in the SB vs an Aggressive opponent in the big blind. I had t16,000 and blinds of 100/200/25 and he had me covered. This guy was a pretty solid opponent, and willing to make big bluffs. Already I have seen him make a good bet/3bet bluff with Ace high on the flop vs someone who likes to turn a made hand into a bluff. I’ve also expected some of his other hands to be bluffy as he’s very aggressive and has shown at least one other bluff. He’s also Australian if that matters


Hero raises to 600 with AA in SB, BB calls
Flop Kd Jc 8d (Pot 1200)
Hero bets 800, BB thinks and calls
Turn 9c (Pot 2800)
Hero Bets 2200, BB raises to 5000, Hero Shoves 15,000ish, BB Calls
Hero Shows AA
BB Shows K9
River 2h, BB wins with two pair Kings and Nines
Hero Mucks and Gets up.


I mean obviously we have Aces with less than 100 bb, blind vs blind against an aggressive opponent on a drawy board. Any other opponent and I would try and 2nd guess myself and maybe play it a little slower on the turn; to be honest I didn’t even think I was behind here either and there are a ton of scare cards on the river, including any card 8-K as well as either of the flushes. So I stuck it in there and lost, but if I lose every tournament on KK or AA I should be good to get a couple day 2s.


I get up, head to the Rio to register for the 1500 the next day and go back to the room for partying that night.