JeffreyLipsey.com

For the first time in several days I’m starting this tournament not feeling bad so I take my seat. It wasn’t long before I realized I had a horrible table draw. The three guys to my left were all online regulars and the player to my right was a solid player from the day before. Out of a field of 600 I got stuck with probably the toughest table of the entire tournament.


There weren’t too many hands today, although I don’t think I won any that saw a flop. There was a player from New York to my left who knew his terminology and could accurately describe ranges, he just wasn’t that great and he liked to talk a lot. He lost 1/2 his stack when he 4bet/folded QQ vs the internet kid to his left. On a hierarchy of bad plays, 4bet/folding QQ is much, much worse than 3bet/folding and I don’t think there is a worse way to actually play the hand (open folding saves you 4000 chips lmao).


So the New Yorker was down to only 9000 chips and everyone else had 15,000 or so. UTG open raises and he’s an OK player, I have no idea what his UTG raising range is but when I see AK I don’t want to make the mistake of 3bet/folding AK. It’s a very standard situation for me to just call and keep all his dominated hands in his range as well as use some deception. So i call the t450 raise and the New Yorker to my left reraises 1/2 his stack up to 5000 even. UTG thinks and then folds and I said “I’ll gamble with you” and ship it in. Both of us flip over AKo and I managed to dodge a flush by him to chop the pot.


That hand sets me up for my next scenario. I get QQ and I face an MP raise; his range is somewhat wide but I don’t think his calling 3bet range is that wide and frankly we’re 100 bb deep. I decide to cold call his 5bb open raise (although sometimes I’ll reraise with a better read) and the New Yorker behind me rather quickly shoves in all his chips, approximately 7000 at blinds of 75/150. The original preflop raiser hemmed and heehawed enough for me to know that if he calls all in then I’ll be shipping afterwards because I have him crushed. He folded though (I later found out he had 99) and I again said “I’ll gamble with you” and flip over QQ. To my surprise the New Yorker actually had KK. The board ran out: A2345 and we chop the pot; I got lucky but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I was thinking later about how good players make their hands easy to play by not putting themselves in difficult situations. If I reraise the MP opener and the guy behind me open 4bets then I’m in a real shitty spot. By flatting the original raise my call is pretty standard there given the over shove behind me. Granted, I didn’t know that he had KK but it really didn’t matter either.


I got into the first break doing OK with 16,000 chips but we’ll know by the end of this next hour where I’ll stand for the rest of the tournament. I pretty much blind down 12,000 before the end of 200/400/25 when an EP raiser makes it a very small 875 and I’m in the big blind with T8s. I call here and plan to play it carefully:
EP Raises to 875, Hero in the BB calls.
Flop: Q87ss (Pot 2600)
Hero Checks, EP Checks
Turn: 9s (Pot 2600)
Hero Checks, EP Bets 1100, Hero Calls
River: 7x (Pot 4800)
Hero Checks, EP Bets 3500, Hero thinks, and calls.


Opponent had been fairly aggressive and from listening to him he plays mid-high shorthanded cash online at FTP, although the way he brags he also plays HU. He has no idea what level I’m on because I never say anything anyway but I assume he thinks I’m a tight reg. His big river bet in comparison to his small turn bet was a bit fishy, especially when the 7 paired. When he checks the flop he either has Qx with no kicker or 99-JJ or maybe a set or missed overs, although I’m thinking he would bet the Qx and the sets to protect against all the draws all out there so mainly 99-JJ or overs. His small turn bet could very easily be a value bet now with 99-JJ but also with any AT, KT and AsJx, AsKx so that’s why I called. The river seemed to help me more than him and his big river bet was not indicative of TT-JJ value-towning me so really his range is 99 (maybe 88) or a missed draw. Given that I was getting over 2-1 on a call he very rarely needs to be bluffing there (6 combos of value max he only need 6 combos for a bluff and either the missed FD or missed straight draw there will be enough to make the call). Unfortunately for me he did have 99 and turned his hand and I missed my redraw. Now I’m down to 7000 chips.


Blinds go up to 300/600/50 and a couple new players sit down, one has a ginormous stack but is also rather older. He’s either good and solid aggro, an old nit, or a donk combination of the two. I pick up QJs in the BB and he makes a standard open of 2.5 bb and I’m in a bit of a quandry. If I shove I’m practically giving him 2-1 on a call so I don’t expect him to fold (although he might if he’s bad). He made it 1600, my shove would be for 6600 and he would have to call 5000 to win 9000; since he has the monster stack I don’t expect him to fold so I had to let it go. If I had 2-3 bb more I could feel more confident with a reshove there and have fold equity but with no fold equity I just let it go.
I did make one shortstack shove on the button for 10 bb, I had Q4s and stuck it in and took it down. 6 hands later I would get 77 UTG+1 with 12 bb and make the standard shove; I run into KK and that's good game/summer. That makes it 2 weeks without even a day 2, let alone a cash. Better luck next year I guess, if I decide to come.

Today’s tournament didn’t start like the others have: I didn’t have a lot of success early. I had quite a few marginal hands that didn’t go my way and a couple big ones that didn’t either.


I did my share of isolating and continuation betting the first 2 rounds, but I don’t think I took down a pot. I was picking text-book boards to do it on but nothing really went in my favor. The first big hand was at 100/200 and I’ve got 12,000 chips after starting with 15,000.


There had been a lot of limping and horrible play on my table, including people turning made hands into bluffs and really no idea at all on how to play poker. In this hand, UTG raises to 525 and a big donkey in MP, tired of losing his pots postflop, has decided to just shove preflop when he wants to play a hand. He’s down to 6,000 chips and just shoves them all in at 100/200 with no antes. I look down in the SB with KK and snap call; UTG folds and the MP Donkey flips up AJo… a pretty bad shove and standard fold in that spot. Flop comes Axx and I brick out and lose to the bad beat and I’m down to 6000 chips.


We’re still at 100/200 no antes and I pick up AJo on the button, it folds to CO who open limps and I raise to 800. My plan was to check behind any flop I wasn’t prepared to get it all in with since I have position and my opponent seemed like a donkey. He calls and the flop comes 9s 7c 3c; CO Checks, I check. Turn brings the Js; CO Checks I bet 1000 into the 1900 pot and CO Calls. I don’t put him on any kind of flush draw as if he had the draw there would be a real good chance he’d bet that turn into me instead of c/c. He can’t have much more than just TP because he would raise any two pair/set given the stack sizes and the drawy boards so I figure I have pretty much the near nuts. The river brings the 2c and he fires 2300 into the 3900 pot and I’m confused. Even though the flush hit I’m fairly confident he doesn’t have it. I think he is just block betting me with a worse J but he wont call a shove with much worse than 2 pair so I decide to flat. CO shows Jh 2h for the concealed river two pair and I am confirmed on his donkey status; also my read was right but who puts anyone on J2? He said later it was his favorite hand.


Now I’m down to 2000 chips and EP open limps–I pick up TT in Late Position and just stick it in. For some reason EP decided to bluff catch with KJo and I win my coin flip and double up to 4000 chips right before break.


I’m still not out of the water or anything; blinds are going to 100/200 after break and I’ll pretty much be in push/fold mode. Within 5 minutes after break though the same guy who limp/called the KJ now open shoves his stack (roughly 4200) and I look down and see AA. Nice. I get my chips in and he has me covered by only 1 BB or so–What’s this?! A lady over calls behind and we have a 3-way all-in! Woot! The original raiser had 88 and the overcaller behind had JJ, fairly standard IMO other than the guy’s open shove with 88. I flop top set and hold on to triple up to 12,000 chips; I’m still not at my starting stack but compared to 2000 chips 12,000 sure feels like a lot.


Here’s where the wheels fall off unfortunately. Blinds are still 100/200/25 but it is the last hand before going up to 200/400/25, so I’ll be going from 60 bb to 30 bb. I pick up Tc6c in the big blind and UTG makes it real cheap, like 525 to my left and gets a cold caller. I figure now’s probably the last time I’ll be able to see a cheap flop multiway with a hand like this so I take the opportunity. The flop comes 4d4s3c and I check, UTG raiser checks and the cold caller checks behind; I figure everyone bricked and I’ll be leading most non J+ boards on the turn and take it down quite often. Fortunately for me I pick up a monster draw on the turn: 5c, giving me the open-ended straight and flush draw. I bet 1500 into the 2000 pot to discourage a loose call and I was surprised to see the original preflop raiser make the call. He can’t have much in this spot, possibly on the very bottom of his value calling range and not willing to go much farther. He either has like Ace high or another type of draw that, even if I miss if I fire again I’ll be able to take it down; if I hit a 6 or a T for top pair I’ll probably c/c. The river brings an offsuit Q; I guess it completes a couple of his TP to go with his draws but that would only be like AQ/KcQc/QcJc and that isn’t very many combinations. I fire 2300 into 5000 pot, a very intentional small bet but looking back at it now I thought the pot was 4000 and not 5000. Making it under half pot there on the river is asking for a lot of trouble but to be honest I wasn’t expecting my opponent to fold a pair regardless and I wanted to look like I was going for small value. My opponent quickly calls and shows TT and I was very confused. I didn’t expect him to check that weak of an overpair on the flop multiway but it is possible that I don’t have enough value betting ranges in me that my hand looked like a bluff. Either way I lost 1/3 of my stack and I’m down to 8000 chips.


I was able maintain my chip stack at 8000 until 300/600/50, giving me 12.5 bb. UTG Shoves all in for 13,000 chips; something that he had done previously and is the same guy who cracked my KK earlier with AJo. I was really up in the air on if I should get this hand in or not (I had 88), especially since the blinds are going up to 400/800/100 in less than 5 minutes and I’m going to be on life support soon. I take a minute to think about it; he basically never has QQ-AA maybe even JJ in this spot because he’s going to want action on those–even if he is extremely weak and poor. So the hands that he has me crushed are pretty much 99-TT and maybe JJ 50% of the time or so; if he ever shoves there with 66-77 then it basically counteracts the equity from the domination. There might be 3-6 dangling combinations where I have only 20% equity. However, if you throw in the AJ+ of his shoves and maybe even KQ (which would be fairly standard for the player that weak) then that is 48 maybe 64 combinations where I’m a 55% favorite. So if you include KQ I’m a 55% favorite 90% of the time and 20% favorite 10% of the time which gives me: (55*.9 + 2*.1) or 51.5 % equity(ish) and I make the call. Obviously I didn’t do that in my head at the table but that is what I was thinking about and now that I think about it it was a standard call. My opponent flips up TT and I don’t catch up and bust out just before the 2nd break.


Whatever bug I had seems to be letting up, even if only marginally. I had only a few ill feelings during today’s 4 hour session so it looks like I will be finishing up the day tomorrow with another $560. Finally, I’d like to mention I did get 1 walk in the big blind at 300/600/50 with only 15 minutes and it was the only one of the entire tournament. Unfortunately I had KK in the big blind, which pretty much was a spit in the face given that at least 1 person was raising every other hand before and after that.

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.

The title pretty much sums it up here. I decided I’m no longer playing live cash games because my hourly online is exponentially higher and it doesn’t make much sense, especially when the internet is working well at the casino.


I never left the hotel today; the only times I left the room were to get food or drink. I guess you can call that relaxing I just call that doing what I normally do at home. Otherwise I just played online and made some money that way instead of live.

I finally met up with some other Poker Buddies out here that I met last year. We went to dinner at Dos Caminos at the Venetian which I went to last year and is a pretty baller Mexican restaurant.


I ordered some Queso Fundido and a side of Mexican Street Corn on the Cob; both were extremely good and relatively inexpensive–$16 for the two combined. There was a bit of problem with the tab at the end of the meal as 10 of us were at the table and I only owed $16 for the meal and they wanted me to pay $45. I gave them $20–enough for the tip and when told I needed another $25 I sternly but confidently said ‘I’m not paying for your guys’ alcohol. I felt like I might have been a little out-of-line but I also felt like I had a right to defend myself and I just hoped nobody took offense to it. I do not have the kind of money some of these guys have and I certainly wasn’t ordering many $11 margaritas (although I did order 1 and paid cash for it). Looking back at it now I should have given another $5 because we ordered some Guac at the start and I didn’t contribute any to that and for that I feel bad for. Hopefully no one else noticed but I’ll just give $5 extra the next time we go out.


Afterwords we go up to their pimp room at the Venetian; I swear its larger than my apartment and it has 2 (yes two!) bathrooms for the one bed. They got a good deal and certainly beats the hell out of my shitty place at the Imperial but I am saving like $150/night so I don’t feel so bad . They had a few bottles up there as they wanted to pregame before going to a strip club; I had some tequila while catching up. We then went down to the floor to gamble some; I spent $5 on some stupid game but I did get a Corona out of it, which is worth the price lmao had I ordered it at a restaurant but it was more me just spending time with them than anything. We walked around for a while until their limo arrived then I headed back to the IP to write up my posts.


I need to do some research regarding tomorrow’s Ceasar’s tournaments as there is a chance that I may not play it given some changes they may have made. If it becomes true tomorrow I’ll explain more about it and probably play cash most the day. I also might play a couple satellites into other Venetian tournaments but not certain on that.

I didn’t play Cash Games for too long today, given I had already put in like 3 hours at the tournament table but I think in total I put in 2.5-3 hours but I don’t remember. Like yesterday the session was made or lost in just a few hands.


The first big hand of the day occurred in the 2nd session (I played 2 small sessions instead of 1 big one); I’m dealt TT and I’ve done nothing but fold, fold and fold some more. I isolate up several limpers and get 3 callers at $11 apiece; the pot is $40 after rake and I get a pretty good flop for my hand: 653 with two clubs. Its checked to me and I bet $30 and get two calls, the pot is $100. The turn brings an offsuit jack and I still have a good feeling that I’m ahead, although if I get raised its a pretty easy fold. I bet $60; enough of a bet that it protects against draws and I leave myself room to fold to an all in. Luckily that doesn’t happen and I do take the enlarged pot down on the turn.


Not 10 hands later I again get TT and I isolate a limper to $11, and again I get 3 callers. The flop comes a very safe 965r and the SB donks $15 into the $40. I put his range a lot for value/information rather than a complete bluff although I guess he shows up with a semibluff here too some of the time. I don’t think about it too much and raise it to $45 to get it HU between the two of us. He thinks for a bit and calls and the pot is now $130 (I play big pots!). The turn brings a dry 4 and I still have a feeling I’m ahead, although again if he raises me I’m dead. He checks to me and I bet a strong $90 into the $130 leaving me with probably $120 behind; I thought maybe I could have bet $70 and it would be more +EV but I don’t want to induce a bluff shove so I’m fine with my bet sizing. He thinks then calls for a second and the river brings a K with the pot being $310; I wasn’t planning on shoving anyway but now it gives me reason to check it behind and my opponent shows 65s for two pair and the winning hand. I shrugged it off as I feel like the number of two-pair type hands there is extremely limited and if he had a set/straight he would have raised on the turn.


Also not 10 hands later I get KK in the big blind. An aggressive player who likes to pay off raises in MP to $11 and another aggressive opponent reraises it up to $33 preflop; I’m pretty much doing back flips in my head lol. The guy who reraised had also reraised earlier as a bluff with KJo vs the same open raiser and then fired 2 horrible barrels only to suck out on the river so never do I expect to be behind.


I did have a decision to make though, did I want to cold 4 bet or just call and then check/bomb any flop; I chose the latter and induce the other guy to call and if the ace comes on the flop then gg. Luckily for me, the other guy did call and the pot going to the the flop was $100 pre-rake and the board came 994r. I checked to the reraiser who cbet $60 and I went all in for my remaining $170 and flipped up my cards. The board bricked out only to have my opponent show AA For-the-Win and I get stacked. Not much I can about that either unfortunately.


In all I finished down $300 at the 1/2 cash game. It’s not a whole lot but the prospects of me playing 2/5 have severely gone down hill given my downswing. Back to the grind tomorrow.

Tourney: I played the $330 deep stack at the Venetian and I lasted about 3 hours. There were only 3 important hands that I played the entire tournament and the summary could be summed up with those.


Hand 1: We are in the first level of the tournament probably not 30 minutes in, I had some pretty good reads on my opponents even though I haven’t played with them before. I get AQo in EP and raise it to t300 (blinds 50/100 effective stack 12k) and the button calls; he’s very taggish but in a bad way–very predictable and easy to put on hands. I put his cold calling range on pocket pairs and broadway cards, which is fairly narrow given how bad some of these players can be.


The flop comes J92 rainbow and since I’m OOP here my standard play is to C-bet and get my opponent to fold 33-88 as there aren’t many strong hands in range given this flop, although there are a fair amount of draws that I get value from. I bet t400 in the t600 pot and he flats; the turn is a blank 4 and I check to him and he checks behind with the pot being 1400. I fully expected him to bet though if he did have a hand like 33-88 on that turn just because a lot of bad online regulars/tournament players turn those hands into bluffs and I would have folded. Once he checked back though his range was much weaker than had he bet so that’s a plus for me. The river paired the 9 on the board and was a very good card for me. Not only did it reduce the likelihood that he has the 9 but its a relatively safe card not likely to help me either and makes it a good card to expect a bluff on. I check to my opponent and he fires t900 into the t1400 pot and I started to think of all the hands that he would do that with and it didn’t add up.


Before I played a lot of HU I wouldn’t even have thought about calling, or maybe I would have attempted to turn my own hand into a bluff and fired again. Assuming my preflop reads are good he’s not likely to bet 33-88 here as that would make no sense (and if someone did bet it here it is extremely note worthy) so his river bets are going to be JJ+ (unlikely), Jx and I guess 98s for value and a ton of missed straight draws like KQ, QT, T8s. The problem is a Tag isn’t likely to have too many Jx hands in this spot, maybe QJ, KJ and AJ only (30 combos) and then 98s (2 combos) to complete the value range. The bluffs will make up 22 combinations and my opponent needs to be bluffing only 900/2300 for my call to be profitable. Since he’s bluffing 22/54 our call is mainly on the break even variety but I felt like he was bluffing a lot more than for value so I did make the call, and he showed QT for the missed draw. This call alone pretty much made my day even if the results didn’t turn in my favor. My chip stack: ~t13,500.


Hand 2: The only woman at the table was sitting to my right and thankfully she was friendly because otherwise it would be a complete Bore to play as I was doing a lot of folding. She seemed to know what she was doing to some degree, but you could tell from the way she complains about the beats that she’s not the most experienced of players. She’s down to roughly t5500 chips with blinds of 75/150 and limps in EP; I make a fairly loose isolation play with QsJs up to t600 and I get 1 caller plus the lady to my right. The flop is KdTs7s giving me a sick draw; the lady to my right leads into me 1000 chips and I don’t think too much about it and raise it up to 3000 chips. These players like to lead fairly weak into the Pre-flop raiser mainly for ‘information’ so i wouldn’t be surprised if she did bet there with Tx and I don’t expect her to ever fold a king anyway. My raise size made it so that if she did have top pair her most +EV move would be to just go all in right there and give me my most equity; if she called though and she checked to me on the turn I could very easily check behind when I missed as she’s committed anyway. Unfortunately she did just call though to my displeasure but no worries, I turned my flush. She decided to put the rest of her chips in after I hit it and she was fairly upset that I raised here ‘with just a flush draw’ but oh well. Chip stack: t19,500.


The final hand for me had the effective chip stack at t18,000 with blinds of 100/200/25. I’m on the button with KK and it folds around; I make it t600 to go and both the SB and BB defend their blind, the pot is t1800. The flop comes T54 two-toned and my Taggish opponent in the big blind leads t1000 into me and I don’t really hesitate to raise it to t3000 and he quickly makes it t7500. At this point I had some pause but with the flush draw out there this is how many people would play naked flush draws like 4 years ago when they thought they had fold equity. Fortunately I know better than to fold an over pair to my opponents while playing tournaments lmao and I just ship in my last 15,000 chips. He didn’t snap call but he did make a ’sigh’ before calling and flipping over K5s for the bare flush draw. His equity was pretty poor and I really don’t like the bet/3bet line as a semi-bluff in this situation; I would have either bet/called the flop or check/called and possibly check/shoved had the stacks been small enough. The turn brings the flush and its gg; I bust probably around the 675th mark out of a mammoth starting crowd of 850 and head to find something to do.