Recent Live Tournament Play, and the WSOP Circuit

So. I've played some poker here and there over the past few months -- maybe four or five tournaments in total, spread out over a few different venues and a few different buyin levels. In general, the story has been the same when I have played lately: lose some early as I play too loose with subpar cards trying to hit a big flop, then find a way to survive, and eventually chip up enough to last through the halfway point of the field. But then, by the time around two-thirds of the field is gone, invariably I find myself short-stacked as I just have not had the cards to be able to win some big showdowns, nor sufficient sack to push as much as I obviously have to be doing in big pots even I know I do not have the best hand. Eventually I try to make a move that is a pretty obvious play given my short stack, I get caught, and I'm out short of the money positions. I'm playing ok poker early on in these events, but I seem to be consistently just not amassing enough chips in the early and middle stages to have enough chip utility to really play poker in the final third of the tournament.

I've written about this many times, but I know why this is happening. I just don't play enough poker anymore. This did not used to be my problem when playing in live tournaments. In general I am surely a much better live player today than I ever was four or five years ago showing up in a casino and hoping to get nailed with the deck like never before. But when it comes down to it, as I've described previously, I can literally feel my instincts being off almost every time I sit down to play these days. I just don't have near that feel for when to push em all in, for when I can take down a big pot with a large bluff, that I know I used to have all the time, and that you simply need to have more attuned than I do these days if you're going to run deep. Short of that awesome deck-smacking I mentioned above, it's the only way to survive deep enough with a big enough stack to make a real run, and I simply have not been able to do that, for months on end, at the poker table.

It's sad, really. Unlike so many crappy players out there, I actually know what I'm supposed to be doing, at least in general terms. I am conscious sitting there at the table that I am not stealing enough, that I should probably bluff this guy here because I know he is bluffing himself and his bet has made the pot a good size. And I just know when other people are doing that move to me, making me lay down with what I am fairly sure is a bluff. But am I going to call them down with AK high just to try to prove them wrong? Am I going to bust early from a tournament with zero pairs, just to try to catch a bluffer who has made a small pot into a big one by firing barrel after barrel, good money after bad?

I've also mentioned this before, but one thing that is clear as a bell from my recent live play is that I play much tighter than the rest of the table post flop. The bottom line is, there are very few scenarios where I would call an allin with just one pair -- any pair, even slow-played pocket Aces -- early in a tournament. Period. Now, I'm never saying never here. But it's just not my thing, busting out from a tournament in the early stages, with less than probably top two pair, or at least top pair and something else very solid. Another pair, a huge draw, something. But I cannot tell you how many times I watch people get it allin with just TPTK, with just the Ace-King on the Ace-high flop, all the way through the first few hours of these large tournaments. And the amazing thing is, these clowns who call down with TPTK seem to be right more often than they're wrong! I just can't believe it. Similarly, I couldn't count the number of true "hero calls" I've seen guys make in the early rounds, calling down a guy they're sure is bluffing, with just their pocket 7s or whatever it is. Again, I seem to see an inordinate number of those guys who end up proving to be right when they do make the call, but in my mind that does not make this a good play necessarily. I mean, who calls down with pocket 7s for all their chips at the river against a guy you are 50% sure is totally bluffing with nothing, very early in a tournament? How do you do that? Can that really be a good play in an early-tournament context? Very rarely, it seems to me. And yet, I see it all the time in these things. All. The. Time.

I'm sure that learning to make donkey calls with weak hands for huge chips based on a hunch is not really what my game is missing these days in order to be able to amass a real stack by the midpoint of one of these tournaments. And yet, it's got to be something. It's too much of a pattern for me not to notice it when I apply my objectivity to the situation. I'm definitely not being aggressive enough, and even though I know that going in and choose to make it a focus, in the heat of the moment I am just not finding the situations where I'm comfortable making a move with nearly the frequency as I think I need to in order to keep up with the table.

Will I go to Las Vegas this summer to play in the World Series of Poker again, after taking my first year off in five last summer? That is maybe up in the air at this point -- though ultimately the choice will be up to me -- but one thing I definitely do plan to do is try to sit in at least one or two other larger tournament fields before the summertime, to get that old feeling back and really to see if I can hone my skills sufficiently so that I do feel like I have enough of a chance to drop the buyins on a WSOP tournament or two this year. I'm not making any rules for myself as far as having to cash in this-or-that tournament or I won't go to Vegas, or having to win my buyin in cash games in order to play in the desert this summer, nothing silly like that. However, I do want to get myself into a real big tournament setting once or twice, and see how I perform "under the spotlight" so to speak, before I make any decisions about Vegas and the World Series.

To that end, the WSOP Circuit is coming to Caesars Atlantic City -- a poker room which I have frequented several times over the past few years -- from March 1-14 of this year, and I intend to be there to sit for at least one of the events of that series. Ideally I would play an event over a weekend, with either a Friday or a Monday built in, so I could play and only take off one day from work to do it, as most of the WSOP Circuit events are two-day events. And although the one-day jobs are always easier and more efficient for me to play in, I think I'd like to get involved in another 2-day event, and give myself yet another try to make just my second-ever Day Two in a live tournament, which to this day is still among my greatest personal embarrassments when it comes to poker tournaments. So here is the schedule for the WSOP-C at Caesars:

2011/2012 WSOP Circuit Event - Caesars Atlantic City


Thu, Mar 1st
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #1: No-Limit Hold'em
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Thu, Mar 1st
5:00 PM
1-Day Event Main Event Mega Satellites through March 3rd (Non-Ring Event)
Satellite to the Caesars Atlantic City WSOP Circuit Main Event on Saturday, March 10. No 5pm Mega Satellite will be held on Thursday, March 8th. $190

Thu, Mar 1st
7:00 PM
1-Day Event Nightly 7PM No-Limit Hold'em Tournaments through March 12th (Non-Ring Event)
No 7PM nightlies will be held Friday, March 9th through Sunday, March 11th. $200

Fri, Mar 2nd
12:00 PM
3-Day Event Event #2A: No-Limit Hold'em Re-Entry
Re-entry event. Players eliminated in 2A may re-enter in 2B. Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Sat, Mar 3rd
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #2B: No-Limit Hold'em Re-Entry
Re-entry event. Players eliminated in 2A may re-enter in 2B. Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Sun, Mar 4th
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #3: No-Limit Hold'em
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $555

Mon, Mar 5th
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #4: No-Limit Hold'em
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Tue, Mar 6th
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #5: No-Limit Hold'emOfficial WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $555

Wed, Mar 7th
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #6: No-Limit Hold'em Six Handed
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Thu, Mar 8th
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #7: No-Limit Hold'em
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Thu, Mar 8th
5:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #8: Limit Omaha Eight or Better
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Fri, Mar 9th
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #9: No-Limit Hold'em
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $1,080

Fri, Mar 9th
7:00 PM
1-Day Event Main Event Mega Satellite (Non-Ring Event)
Satellite to the Caesars Atlantic City WSOP Circuit Main Event on Saturday, March 10th. $190

Sat, Mar 10th
11:00 AM
3-Day Event Event #10A: No-Limit Hold'em Main Event
Re-entry event. Players eliminated in 10A may re-enter in 10B. Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $1,600

Sat, Mar 10th
5:00 PM
1-Day Event Ladies No-Limit Hold'em Event (Non-Ring Event)
$230

Sat, Mar 10th
7:00 PM
3-Day Event Event #10B: No-Limit Hold'em Main Event
Re-entry event. Players eliminated in 10A may re-enter in 10B. Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $1,600

Sun, Mar 11th
12:00 PM
2-Day Event Event #11: No-Limit Hold'em
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Sun, Mar 11th
5:00 PM
1-Day Event Seniors No-Limit Hold'em Event (Non-Ring Event)
$230

Sun, Mar 11th
7:00 PM
1-Day Event Road to the Main Event: 2012 WSOP Main Event Satellite (Non-Ring Event)
Satellite to the 2012 WSOP Main Event at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, NV $550

Mon, Mar 12th
12:00 PM
1-Day Event Event #12: No-Limit Hold'em Turbo
Official WSOP Circuit Ring Event; Counts in points standings. $345

Mon, Mar 12th
5:00 PM
1-Day Event Road to the Main Event: 2012 WSOP Main Event Satellite (Non-Ring Event)
$1,100


Let me know if anyone thinks any particular event looks good for me, or for you. If anyone in the area (or who can be in the area) is thinking about attending any of these tournaments, let me know and maybe we can meet up there together. Although I have some inclinations about which event to play and when, I am generally flexible as long as they decisions are made fairly soon as opposed to at the very last minute. Preliminarily, I am thinking about that $345 re-entry Event 2A/2B on the first weekend of the series, Event #9 which is the $1080 buyin nlh tournament on the second Friday, or even Event #11, the $345 nlh event on the second Sunday of the weekend. The Turbo one-day event is also a possibility, although as I mentioned I am more interested right now in playing in a more WSOP-like two-day event to try to get myself in as close to a WSOP situation as I am likely to find.

Anybody else planning to play any of the WSOP Circuit tournaments at Caesar's in a few weeks?

Unbearably Bad Poker

So I've been watching a little bit of ESPN's WSOP Main Event coverage from time to time this year, moreso here as we wind down towards the November Nine, and I find myself struck by frankly the same thought that I've had in each and every one of the WSOP Main Events I have ever watched over the past decade or so:

These people absolutely suck shit at poker.

Yeah that's right, I said it. It's true. These people play like absolute anusshit. And that, I think, is being kind.

I mean, this is the biggest tournament of their lives by definition. Each and every one of these guys, once we're down to the final 27 players or so, is for sure playing poker for the most money they have ever played in their lives. There is not just the immediate cash payouts on the line, but the sponsorship opportunities involved with making it to the November Nine final table and with potentially winning the tournament. There is a literal lifetime of playing poker and never having to have a real job again within their grasp. All this and more is at stake here for every single player left as the ESPN coverage worked its way down this week to the final table and a half remaining in the WSOP Main Event.

And what are these players doing with this tremendous opportunity?

They're reraising an early-position raiser preflop from middle position with 42o.

They're calling large bets on the flop for a quarter of their stack with just an overcard and an inside straight draw.

They're reraising allin preflop with A7s.

They're calling allin preflop for 50% of their stack with AQs.

And, my personal favorite, a super aggro guy who's been raising all day raises again preflop, this time with pocket Aces. The guy on the other side of the table reraises with JTs. The guy with AA re-reraises again, a fairly small amount, which itself was a truly bad play because (1) it makes it very, very obvious that he has precisely pocket Aces, and (2) the small raise gives the first player now better than 5-to-1 to call the re-reraise with his JTs, well known as the literal best hand to crack what he now knows his opponent has in pocket Aces.

And then the shithead insta-folds his JTs, getting better than 5 to 1 to call the re-reraise!!!

You could not make this stuff up, and you certainly can't defend these plays from a poker perspective. I've watched the Main Event coverage on ESPN for years, albeit some years more than others. But every single year, my reaction to the quality of play I've seen throughout has been more or less exactly the same.

The Main Event is an absolute donkfest. Sure, good skill will work much better for you than no skill, and a player who has played on the big stage before and knows how to extract chips will always have a better chance of surviving than one who doesn't know shit and is quaking in his boots because of the amount of money on the line. But that increased chance of success is still utterly minuscule, given the field and what it takes to survive the kind of indefensible, thoughtless donkery you will be facing right from the first deal on Day 1A, and clearly lasting all the way up to the final table itself. Last year it was that unthinkable idiot Chino Rheem freaking six-betting allin preflop with Ace-rag with just a few players remaining and directly costing himself probably about $15 million in tournament winnings and sponsorships as a result -- if you don't know you're not only beat but crushed after your opponent re-re-re-re-reraises you preflop and you are holding Ace-rag, then you are absolutely, utterly hopeless as a poker player on the big stage -- and this year the play to make the final table is enough to make just about anyone with half a poker brain scratch their head in amazement.

Somewhere, I imagine Phil Ivey is out there watching this week's coverage with that same absolutely classic look on his face as when Jen Tilly didn't bet her boat on the river against Patrick Antonius and then proclaimed that she thought he had pocket Kings, at 2:03 of the clip below:



All I know is this: the raging clowns playing for the biggest money of their lives at this year's WSOP Main Event are doing nothing to help anyone out there who loves to argue that poker is a game of skill and not luck. Sure, there is more than a little skill involved, but for these players to have lasted this long, and to be playing for this amount of money after surviving some 6600 other entrants, while playing as unmitigatedly horrible poker as they are here even at the end, it's certainly not helping the luck vs. skill debate.

Big, Big Folds

For those of you watching ESPN's WSOP Main Event coverage as it runs on Tuesday evenings, did you see the hand they showed the last part of this Tuesday night when one player 6-bet small preflop with pocket Jacks? My eye was literally twitching when I watched someone make as bad of a play as that, and then my entire side started aching as I watched the other player move all in with pocket Queens, and then I passed out when the guy with the Jacks instacalled. I mean, it's one thing to call an allin reraise preflop when you're fairly short and there's not sufficient chip utility out there to play a 3- or 4-bet pot before or after the flop. But in this hand, the guy had 6-bet with pocket Jacks from something like 2.1 million to something like 3.5 million, opting specifically not to move allin (a horrible play with Jacks, btw, in particular if you're just going to instacall if your opponent pushes in his entire stack). Despite the idiocy and horribad fishiness of this hand on both sides, the bottom line is that, in my experience, if someone 6-bet raises you preflop, and they're doing it not even moving all-in but instead a smaller amount that seems more callable, and you have Queens, you are probably about 25% to win the hand if you call, plain and simple. In that scenario, you'll be up against pocket Aces probably about 85% of the time, pocket Kings 14% of the time, and an incredibly fishily-played AKs or some other garbage the other 1%. That the other player would be so unmitigatingly terrible at no-limit holdem as to get it allin in that spot with a hand as bad as pocket Jacks, is such an outlier that it doesn't even show up in the percentages. I think that might literally be the only time in the history of poker that somebody in a big, big spot (1300 players left in the Main Event, not down to two tables in the Mookie) 6-bet raised small preflop, and only had pocket Jacks. I said it above and I'll say it again: when you get 6-bet small preflop in no-limit in a big spot, it's pocket Aces pretty much every single time. That is equally true about a four-bet, for that matter, but for six bets it's a complete joke.

How either of those monkeys got themselves through 5000 other players in this event is beyond me, because if one thing shows what an inexperienced, amateurish nlh player someone is, it's not folding a hand like pocket Jacks or pocket Queens for all your chips when you are obviously, obviously beaten preflop. Play enough nlh and you'll run Kings into Aces, let alone Queens or Jacks into Kings or Aces, more times than you ever thought possible. Seriously -- KK vs AA sounds to many players like the rarest of long shots, but when you actually sit down and play a million hands of holdem, you just can't believe how many times setups like that can and do occur. And in this case, that small 6-bet raise should have been the absolute last possible straw to tell the pocket Jacks and the pocket Queens guy that they are hopelessly behind and they should GTFO of the hand right then and there. Queens vs Jacks for a small 6-bet and a call preflop. God, you could hardly dream up a worse-played hand between two absolutely hopeless poker clowns.

This all reminds me of a hand described on Goodnight Moon's blog a few weeks back involving Toph Moore, the 21st place finisher in this year's WSOP Main Event. As Moon describes the hand:

"At 80-160k blinds, Anton Makiievskiy, a strong young Ukrainian player, raised early and Toph called in position with the AJ of hearts. Toph had Anton outchipped roughly 12m to 10m. The flop came out KJJ rainbow. Anton fired a standardish continuation bet of 450k on the flop and Toph raised to 1.1 million. Anton then made it 2 million to go, and Toph clicked it back to 2.9 or 3 million. This all took a while going back and forth with both players carefully considering, but then Anton quickly moved all-in for about 9.2 million, and Toph quickly called. Anton had KJ and the board ran out blanks."

The majority of the commenters about this hand on Moon's blog generally seemed to think that it is simply results-based thinking to be focusing on this hand, that it was an all-time great cooler and there is no way anyone should ever even consider getting away from AJ on the KJJ board in this spot, which occurred late on Day 7 of the Main Event, well into the money positions already. Like Moon, however, I do not think I agree with this over-simplified analysis, and it really comes down again to the number of raises, and what the smallish size of the raises says about the hands in question.

Of course, Anton is a highly aggro player and thus his standard c-bet on the KJJ flop means precisely nothing. When Toph raises him to $1.1 million, though, that's where the hand starts to get interesting. To me, a raise on flop, absent any other information or relevant details, generally signifies a good but not necessarily monster hand. Most players will at least consider checking, or check-calling on the flop if they have a monster, not wanting to scare away their opponent, whereas a flop raise more often than not defaults in my mind to signifying a good but beatable hand, usually a top pair good kicker type of hand, or on occasion a solid draw on a semi-bluff. The raise sizing for Toph here seems more or less normal, and thus my first thought on the KJJ board when seeing Toph raise the 450k c-bet to 1.1 million, is that Toph thinks he is ahead but is not totally sure. Maybe a KQ type of hand, maybe a medium pocket pair, something like that, and that's what I would expect Anton to put Toph on once Toph slides in that 1.1 million chip raise.

When Anton re-popped this hand to 2 million, the alarm bells first start going off in my head. I mean, you can't fold AJ in that spot to the reraise to 2 million chips, because Toph's raise on the flop is generally going to signify a good but not monster hand, and thus, with Anton knowing that, he could easily be trying to put a move on Toph on the understand that Toph is not super strong, and the small size of that raise could be consistent with either a flopped monster wanting to draw Toph in, or someone making a move with nothing great, but not wanting to lose too many chips if forced to fold to a reraise there. But still, re-raising in that spot at a huge inflection point in the world's biggest poker tournament, that definitely got my dander up, even holding the AJ for top trips in Toph's hand.

Toph responds as I probably would in his spot, which is to bump it up again, and he opted for what amounts to very nearly a minimum re-reraise, to around $2.9 million or 3 million chips. That's as small a raise as you can get, and as I mentioned above, when you're seeing a 3-bet or 4-bet (or 6-bet, see above) that is itself a minimum raise, you are looking at the stone cold nuts almost every single time. In this case, Toph did not have the mortal nuts but the third nuts, losing to KK (high boat) and KJ (under boat), but the fact is that Anton could not perceive a reraise there from 2M to just 3M -- given effective starting stacks of around 10M -- to be anything other than extreme strength. It screams such obvious strength that I don't even like the bet from Toph, who I think should probably have just moved in rather than making such an obviously-strong min-re-reraise there, but in the end of course it would not have mattered.

What does matter is that Anton then takes this clear and obvious showing of strength from Toph, and quickly pushes allin. And this is where the analysis on Moon's blog breaks down in my view. I mean, if I am Toph in that spot, I am pretty sure I would fold my AJ face-up, confidently knowing I have to be behind, and just move on disgustedly to the next hand. I mean, it's not close. AJ on a KJJ board looks super pretty, and the fact that it is trips with top kicker is very attractive, I won't deny. But as I mentioned above, this isn't even one of those one-outer type of scenarios where it's just so mathematically improbable to be beaten that you just have to call -- rather, in this case, as I mentioned Toph isn't sitting on the nuts, or the second nuts, but rather the third nuts, albeit a very pretty-looking third nuts -- but once he puts in that silly min-re-reraise to 3M, and his opponent responds to Toph's obvious showing of extreme strength by quickly moving all-in, if you think about it could it be more obvious that AJ is facing one of those two superior hands?

I know this is a huge, huge fold, but the truth of the matter is that I don't think Toph should have min-raised there, but since he did, Anton's response could not have screamed any more that he was ahead of the third nuts. Do you think any kind of a decent player is going to reraise that flop with a hand like JT (maybe, at best), and then follow that up by re-re-reraising allin after the most obvious monster-hand bet that Toph has ever made in his life? With a Jack and a medium-strong kicker? I am just not seeing it, and neither should have Toph, who in my book should have made the biggest fold of his entire poker career, and done so confidently knowing he had to be hopelessly behind given the action in that spot.

It took me a long time and hundreds of thousands of nlh hands under my belt before I started accepting the frequency with which absolute setup fuckings happen to anyone who plays this game. But several years ago at this point, I learned to accept that if all possible signs point directly to my opponent having one of the two or three mathematically improbably hands that could beat my strong hand, he almost always does. Despite the craziness of folding AJ on a KJJ flop this late in the biggest tournament in the world, as I read the hand history the very first time through, I knew the AJ was behind the minute I saw Anton's instant five-bet push following Toph essentially screaming at him with his 4-bet that Toph has AJ. In my game, when you basically get in someone's ear and scream at them that they're beat, and they insta-allin you, it's time to start thinking like PLO and assuming that whatever the stone nuts is, it is out there against you.

Main Event Busto

Well, so much for the building interest level of the WSOP Main Event that I was talking about last week. Monday was like D-Day for all the notable players and stories remaining in the event, as basically every last one of them was eliminated as we played down from 57 to 22 players remaining out of the 6500+ field that started about a week and a half ago at the Rio in Las Vegas.

First it was Andrew Brokos of Thinking Poker, who was one of the first bustouts of the day on Monday in the low 50's, and a big bummer to me as I long for the day when someone I consider to be an actual poker blogger (as opposed to a pro who also keeps a blog, etc.) wins a gold bracelet somewhere, somehow. Then Erick Lindgren, probably the last widely-recognizable pro remaining and one of the just a couple of full tilt red pros to cash in this year's Main Event, busted in the low 30s a few hours later, leaving us with no really recognizable names left in the field of still four tables remaining at the time.

But even then, there was still at least one interesting story left to me -- Erika Moutinho and David Sands, a boyfriend and girlfriend who not only both cashed in the Main Event, but both ran deep deep deep to the final 30 players and who even sat right next to each other at the ESPN featured table throughout Monday's play. To think that a couple would both survive this deep in such a huge poker tournament is truly unbelievable, and that they got to sit with each other and enjoy this once in a literal lifetime experience just strains all credulity, but it happened. I could not believe what I was seeing, actually -- these two played a few key pots against one another, but for the most part they were whispering to each other what cards they were holding whenever they folded without having to show. Right in front of everybody. I was salivating at the thought of all the media coverage this destined-for-fail pairing was going to bring if they could survive down to the final couple of tables (and obviously at the final table, if that could even be imagined), while at the same time frowning at the tournament director for allowing what was very overtly the sharing of hole card information after the respective hands were played, but which when I have played at the WSOP requires one to tell the entire table what they had if they reveal their hole cards to any one or more players. But somehow, because these two were seated next to each other and allowed to whisper with abandon in between playing hands, I could not believe what I was seeing. Not that I have the perfect answer to this conundrum, but yknow Jack Eiffel, you could have maybe just seated them at different tables -- or at least not directly next to each other -- in the interest of promoting fairness and equality for all the players involved.

In any event, eventually both boyfriend and then girlfriend ended up busting pretty close to each other in the 20s, eliminating what to me was the very last thing worth caring about in the WSOP Main Event this year. Especially since the advent of the ridiculous "November Nine" such that we won't even know which of the unknowns is the eventual winner for another several months here at this point, Monday just took the last scraps of air for me out of this year's World Series of Poker. It's unfortunate really -- I mean, I know some people get off on seeing a bunch of noobs playing it out on live tv for the $8 million first prize, and of course I will be happy for whoever survives to pull off that feat this fall in Vegas, but in reality, there's very little more boring to me than the thought of watching nine total and compelte unknowns whom I never cared about before this tournament and won't care about after this tournament, slinging poker chips around with mostly preflop allins. I'm not saying the WSOP needs to change anything or that this is any kind of an unacceptable outcome, but rather than my level of interest in the WSOP Main Event just fell off a cliff on Monday as the last of the stories fell by the wayside once and for all. Let's just say that I won't have wsop.com on auto-refresh anymore starting today, as there'd be nothing for me to even follow along with that is of any moment to me whatsoever.

And thus ends for me the first WSOP without myself there in participation since 2006. I actually made it through ok, all things considered; no bouts of withdrawal, no urge to jump on a plane and call my wife from the air when it was too late to turn around. Playing that tournament at Foxwoods a couple of weeks ago helped to ease the pain a little bit, and I am planning on a similar outing sometime in August or September as well, probably down to the Borgata to play in the Fall Poker Open or maybe back to Foxwoods to get a little more of my poker on later in the year. But not playing at the WSOP in 2011 was ok in the end, and I certainly do not regret my decision not to throw away a couple grand on a tournament that I am nowhere near practiced-up enough to play my best in. Here's to making it back out to the desert for my annual summer reunion in 2012, when some 15 months of no online poker in the United States is I can only assume set to produce lower fields than the record numbers we saw across the WSOP this time around as players made that extra effort to take their existing rolls out to the WSOP given the shutdown of online poker in April 2011.

The Main Event

I have to admit, over the past several years, these have been some of my most fun days from an internet lurking perspective. For television, those first few days of March Madness every year is the event, the one that has me glued to the tube for hours on end, just watching and taking it all in. Well, in terms of things that aren't televised live like college basketball games, that thing is the Main Event of the World Series of Poker.

The first time I remember really following along with the Main Event coverage live on the web was when Greg Raymer made his incredible back to back run so deep in the big one. I must have followed Raymer's stack and hand histories like a hawk for several days as we wound down from the early rounds, to the money, and especially as we worked our way down to just a few hundred, and then eventually under 100 runners remaining. I remember obsessively railing another incredible deep run from our very own blogfather Iggy in the Main Event a few years ago, one that had me finding a whole new set of websites where I could look up individual players' chip counts on a fairly realtime basis. In the more recent past -- mostly with the advent of the ridiculous "November Nine" schedule -- there haven't been quite as many big storylines to follow, and yet every year I'm out there lurking to get the latest on Phil Hellmuth's rantings, Darvin Moon's huge bluff, or the latest story about Dennis Phillips's fan club. And then of course last year, it was Phil Ivey and, to a lesser extent, Antonio Esfandiari who really captivated my attention and made themselves something I really cared about for a few days in the middle of June.

Well the Main Event is back again now, and I am following along, as usual. We had the usual array of bustouts early in the first four levels on Day One, but there are a number of people I have some interest in whose stacks I will be keeping an eye on for the time being, while they're still alive in the tournament anyways. Former Main Event champion and investment banker Robert Varkonyi, a guy who played right next to me at the Taj Mahal in AC a few years ago and again in the tournament I played at Foxwoods just a couple of weeks back, is alive and kicking, with 118,000 chips as of this writing. After his father's uninspired first-day bustout, Todd Brunson has basically the same stack, and another former ME winner and very dangerous player in Carlos Mortensen is also in action on Day 2b with 85k in chips at the moment. E-Dog Erick Lindgren, a guy I've always liked, is very short with under 30k but he's still alive and kicking here about halfway into Day Two, so that's another guy worth watching at least until he either doubles up or gets crippled. For those who love HSP, Patrik Antonius has a nice stack with around 220k in chips, and Steve Dannenmann, who has himself has two deep runs in the Main Event in the past few years, is looking solid with 135k in his stack as well, to go along with around 50k in chips for Darvin Moon. All of these guys are worth watching for me here on Day 2b, in addition to Thomas Fuller, whose blog I've enjoyed reading for quite some time, and who I'm following pretty actively on the twitter feed as well, and Terrence Chan, author of another blog I've enjoyed for years. Both are nursing fairly short stacks at or around the starting stacks, which as Day Two draws on are going to start looking awfully small in comparison to the size of the stakes likely being played at their respective tables. Edit: Moon won some pots in the last hour, and has now nearly doubled his previous stack to over 60k. Go Moon!
Further edit: Moon went on a great post-dinner run, made some big folds, turned a flush and flopped a set, and ended Day 2b with 145k in chips, nicely above average. Wtg Moon!!

Adding to the Day 2b action are those who survived strong from Day 2a yesterday, which list includes online pro Shaun Deeb with nearly 300k in chips, and his father Freddy who is also alive although on a much smaller stack at the moment, and there's Peter Feldman -- Nordberg from the old full tilt days whom I used to love to follow and whom I watched win a WSOP circuit event a few years ago, also sitting on over 275k in his stack. Miami John Cernuto finished Day 2a over 180k chips with still plenty of room to move, and Andrew Brokos, another very prominent longtime poker blogger, is sitting on 137,900 chips after two days of play. Former Main Event champion Tom McEvoy -- whose books on omaha I have read several of over the years -- survived Day 2a with 143k in chips, and I am also following along with Eli Elezra -- another HSP regular -- who has just over 151k in chips.

Any one of the people I mentioned above would be an interesting story that I would definitely be following along with over the coming week of increasingly higher-stakes play at the Rio. And, there are a whole bunch of other players not listed above in whom I would also take an avid interest if they start making a deep run. Despite the staggering proliferation of poker over the past decade both in this country and around the world, and in spite of the several years of mass availability of the game from a great many online sites in most counties in the world, and even with the WSOP continuously selling out by increasing the number of bracelet events year after year in a blind push to growing the gross participation in the WSOP without regard to damage being done to the overall brand, the Main Event continues to stand out as the one big poker event of the year that everyone wants to keep track of, and I am certainly no exception.

Now That is a Horribad Call

From wsop.com:

7/7/2011 4:04:33 PM PST (about 1 hours and 21 minutes ago) Arieh Eliminated
Preflop action had left three players still in the hand, including Josh Arieh in the big blind. Together the trio had built a pot of 6,100.

The flop came Q64 rainbow, and the small blind checked. Arieh fired a bet of 2,400, then the player in late position raised all in for about 20,000. The small blind got out, and after tanking for a bit Arieh called the raise, committing his entire stack of about 19,000.

Arieh tabled AQo for top pair, but was behind his opponent's 64s. The turn was an 8and river an offsuit 2, and Arieh -- who finished third in the WSOP ME in 2004 -- hits the rail before the end of Level 2.


Wow. I mean, Josh Arieh is a guy who clearly is supposed to see himself as one of the skill guys in the tournament, that we know for sure. And here he is, calling off a raise of 10x his bet on the flop -- representing 190 big blinds at 50-100 -- with just TPTK. That simply makes no sense. What hand is he ahead of here? Seriously, who is pushing in 200 big blinds on a flop raise with KQ in this spot? In a raised pot no less. That's basically impossible. And on top of that, this is just about the dryest flop in the world -- in a raised pot, there's no way someone is semi-bluffing a draw here, so that raise is absolutely screaming "monster!" How Arieh goes down calling like this just over four hours in to the WSOP Main Event is beyond me. Odds are the guy is still tilted after losing a big chip lead late in the 50k buyin championship event the other day. That is just the kind of play that the predators in this thing are waiting for one of the fish at the table to screw up and make.

By the way, I'm just reading the live coverage that we are looking at just south of 900 runners on Day 1A of the WSOP Main Event. Building in for the usual growing crowds as we head into the later Day 1's, I'm thinking this looks more like a 5000-person field than last year's 7300+.

Thinking of Vegas

So as the summer draws closer, and with the few poker bloggers left who still have major poker media outlets to write for beginning to write about departing for the desert, my thoughts have continued to swirl about this year's World Series of Poker. And although I would never have thought this could happen, the shutdown of online poker in the U.S. actually has me re-thinking whether or not to even head out to Las Vegas this year.

It's weird because, just a few weeks ago, shortly after the April 15 online poker shutdowns in the U.S., I posted here about how Vegas was only a couple of months away, I couldn't wait, etc. But since then a few things have happened. My normal crew that has come out to Vegas with me each of the past few years is leaning towards a camping trip instead this summer, in Jackson Hole or some other appropriately well-known outdoor site where I, frankly, have zero desire to be, whether in the middle of June or any other time of the year. I work too hard every day all day to spend my leisure time pretending I am homeless and at one with nature. But rather than try to convince them to hit up Vegas this summer, I am fine with them not going, I've been to Vegas before by myself, and in a lot of ways a solo trip can provide the kind of focus and clarity of thought that only isolation can bring and which might actually be a benefit in a poker tournament context. It's kind of exciting to me, in fact, when I really sit and think about the possibilities. Plus, I know a lot of people who will be in town when I'm there, and it's not like I will really be "alone" in any event, right? Right.

But then I started thinking about the poker. And about how I would be looking to plunk down $1500 or $2000 on a no-limit holdem tournament, when I literally will not have played no-limit holdem even one time -- not even for play money, not even with my daughters on the family room floor -- in nearly three months. I have always maintained right here on the blog that being even a minimally-successful nlh tournament grinder requires excellent timing and impeccable reads, both of which are much more based on instincts, instincts that unfortunately can only really be developed and maintained through practice. I mean, sure we're all degenerate junkies here, but it's more than addiction that led me to play some form of mtt's most nights of the week when my game was on and I had the time to do so -- it's my survival instinct. Because I know I don't play anywhere approaching my best nlh tournament poker unless I'm out there on the (real or virtual) felt practicing it, living it, every single day. Sure I could take off a day here and a day there and see no retracement whatsoever in my skills -- I did that all the time -- but it would be sheer folly for me to even suggest that I could stop playing poker for 11 or 12 weeks heading up to the WSOP, and then just waltz in to the Amazon Room at the Rio, plunk down a couple large, and play my best.

Quite the opposite -- I would probably play terrible, in relative terms. Relative to my "A game", anwyays. And that's what is really giving me pause here as my expected trip to Vegas marches ever closer and closer, all without me still having any plane reservations, any room selected, anything at all really. Do I really want to fly 6 hours each way, waste my precious little vacation time away from Hammer Wife and my awesome young kids, just to do what essentially amounts to throwing away a couple grand? You won't find anyone with more confidence in their poker tournament abilities than I, but even I have to admit that me not having slung a chip or even seen a playing card in nearly three months is not going to be a good matchup for the skill of the players at the WSOP, this year moreso than in past years as I would expect far fewer donkeys with online poker now no longer possible for U.S. asshats to play.

So what's the thought here? Do I suck it up and head out to the desert anyways, maybe shorten my trip, just stay a night or two, and take a chance at the WSOP? And if my plan would just be to stick to the Venetian DSE and other tournaments with smaller buyins -- ones where I would have an equally small chance of success in, given this forced poker layoff -- then why not instead consider just a trip down to Atlantic City for the Borgata Summer Poker Open which is also in mid-June, and maybe a trip to Foxwoods for their big tournament series that run throughout the summer months? That would enable me to get some poker on, play for smaller buyins which is more befitting of my forced-poker-layoff self, but still to be with my family and not waste a lot of vacation time that I could otherwise be spending with the people I love the most. Throw in a family trip maybe later in the summer with that extra vacation time, and now it starts to become really tempting.

So what is a poker blogger to do?

The Question Nobody Wants to Ask

So with all the fallout from last Friday's online poker ban in the U.S. still working its way through the collective psyche of poker players and enthusiasts everywhere, one question seems to be looming out there, growing ever larger by the day as online poker players in America get further and further away from the days when we could toil away at our pc's accumulating valuable hand experience at a rate several times faster than any live grinder could ever hope to achieve. And yet, for some reason, I haven't seen anyone writing about this question, or what its ramifications are in the longer-term for this game we all know and love, or for live, televised poker in general:

What's going to happen to the WSOP Main Event this summer in Las Vegas?

With online poker firmly cemented into the offices, studies, living rooms, dens and bedrooms of Americans, the question hasn't needed to be asked for years, not since 2006 when the specter of the UIGEA first reared its ugly head and threatened to stop the long-term growth cycle in the largest televised poker tournaments around. Despite that UIGEA-inspired dropoff in 2007, the Main Event resumed it climb in attendance in 2008, and it has grown in each of the years since then, vaulting back over 7300 entrants in 2010 as the field in the massive 10k-buyin tournament last summer in Las Vegas proved to be the second-largest ever in WSOP history, second only to the 2006 Main Event just before the UIGEA was passed in the United States. I recall a few short years ago that pokerstars alone had sent over 3000 online qualifiers to the Main Event, and lord knows full tilt, UB and the other major poker sites out there all chipped in with solid contributions of their own to these swelling fields in the biggest buyin nlh tournaments around the world.

But with pokerstars, full tilt and UB now all blocked from serving U.S. players, and with anyone who plays on any other site having to be an damn fool to put anything more than a trifling amount into that site (and knowing it may be next to impossible to get anything out of the site even if one does win), it's a safe bet that WSOP attendance in general is going to take a huge hit this year. Just how big is anyone's guess, but 2010 saw total WSOP attendance jump nearly 17% just from 2009, and over 22% over just the past two years. With more or less no U.S. players able to qualify for the WSOP Main Event via online satellite tournaments, and with U.S. players' poker bankrolls in general under attack, unable to grow from online poker play between now and the WSOP, and in many cases stuck in limbo in the cashier somewhere of full tilt, UB or otherwise, one can only assume that we will be looking at a much smaller number than 2009's 7,310 runners in the ME.

How much smaller is anyone's guess. Personally, I'm thinking we're probably looking at closer to 3000 runners than 7000. Maybe less. But then, I bet the satellite room in the back of the Rio is gonna be rockin, pretty much dawn to duskdawn for the next couple of months.

Venetian Deep Stack Extravanganza -- Summer Schedule

I saw this on cmitch's blog, but the Venetian has finally released the schedule for this summer's much anticipated Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza. This tournament will always be near and dear to my heart, and frankly, although the Day 2's leave a lot to be desired in terms of room to play, thanks to a very favorable Day 1 structure the DSE represents a much better tournament bang for your buck than even most of the lower-buyin WSOP events available during June at the Rio.

Although I am waiting for some contingencies to work themselves out before picking my exact dates for my WSOP trip to Vegas this summer, as I have mentioned previously, the odds are very high that my trip will be somewhere between Saturday, June 11 and Monday, June 20, 2011, so I have naturally been focusing as well on which events the DSE will be running on those days. Well, I am happy to report, there are a great many of them, unsurprisingly, mostly all of them very attractive to me.

For starters, on both Saturday and Sunday, June 11-12, as well as on Thursday the 16th and again on Sunday the 19th, there is a $340 nlh tournament at the DSE on each day. Generally I would prefer a higher buyin event, but it is great to know that there is a favorably-structured tournament in no-limit holdem at my favorite poker room in all of Las Vegas on both days of that weekend as well as the middle of the next week, should I opt not to pursue multiple of the myriad $1000 and $1500 nlh events at the WSOP this year. These $340s are a great option for anyone who is out in the desert and yet who does not want to drop the 2k or more often required to play in that day's WSOP tournaments, but who is looking for a great structure and a great location to wile away the hours playing a no-limit holdem tournament, and I may very well be partaking in such offerings during my stay in Sin City in a few months.

Kicking the buyin level up a notch, on each of Wednesday, June 15 and Saturday, June 18, the Venetian is also hosting their standard larger-sized $550 buyin nlh tournaments, which is the buyin where I had my biggest ever poker tournament score a few years back. All things equal, I tend to prefer the events that are above the minimum DSE buyin of $340 for any of their deep stack events, as the $340s therefore will attract the lowest level of poker player, and as a rule I have had somewhat better success playing against that next-level-up opponent than I have at the cheapest buyin level. This is true both in my live play as well as online, where I have logged numerous big mtt scores, but very few of them at the $10 and $20 level, much more focused instead on the $50 to $200 buyin mark for the most part. There is also a $550 buyin PLO tournament in the afternoon on Wednesday, June 15, which is intriguing to me as PLO has always been one of my favorite poker games to play, especially in a tournament format. The only issue there is that it is a re-entry tournament, which means people who are already donking it up in a chase-happy game like PLO will likely be donking it up even more than usual, which can be frustrating unless I am truly willing to drop a couple of buyins getting chasemonkeyed all over the place for a couple of hours. Still, it's yet another nice option to have at the Venetian while the World Series runs on at the Rio.

But it is the higher buyin level still where most of my focus lies, as I look at the DSE schedule during the time I will likely be in Vegas to participate in this tournament series. For example, on Tuesday, June 14 is an interesting $1070 buyin nlh tournament, which frankly may be the perfect buyin level for what I am looking to play in while in the desert, and not one I have had the opportunity to play before at the Venetian. And meanwhile, on both Monday the 13th and Monday the 20th are fatty $1590 buyin tournaments, also no-limit holdem, which is also a buyin level I would give serious consideration to playing as I imagine the prize pools for those badboys could get pretty large depending on the number of players, which should be significant at this time of year. There is even a $2100 buyin tournament on Friday, June 17th, which is attractive for the reasons I stated above, but which I would probably not be as likely to play as I might opt to take a stab at the more prestigious WSOP if I'm going to be shelling out over 2k to run in a big nlh tournament while I am in town.

And make no mistake, this decision ultimately comes down to prestige, and not a whole lot else, at least not for me. Because, as you've probably seen written about in various other forums such that I don't need to rehash it here, there is no doubt that, all other things being equal, I would probably opt for the beauty and comfort of the Venetian over the Rio, and the more favorable buyins, and the more favorable tournament structures and game choices of the DSE over the WSOP every day of the week without much thought if it weren't for the prestige of the WSOP. In particular the tournament structures are not close between the two tournament series, as the lower-buyin WSOP events provide only three or four hours of what I would call solid, deep-stacked play before the tournaments basically turn into all-in preflop luckfests -- believe me, I've been there several times -- whereas the DSE will offer a full day of pretty great structured poker on Day 1, before they come back and ream like you it's a WSOP donkament on Day 2 to get things over with as quickly as possible. But it's that prestige -- that allure of the gold bracelet -- that keeps me considering playing once again in the World Series of Poker this year. I could chop up another five Venetian DSE events and it simply wouldn't mean as much as even final tabling at the WSOP. I mean, can you imagine, cashing in a televised WSOP tournament some year, and when they put up my picture on tv, it says underneath "This is Hoyazo's fifth WSOP cash and third WSOP final table"? Hah! A final table at the World Series of Poker is itself a resume builder that no one can ever take away from you and that everybody in the world of poker immediately knows to respect. And you win one gold bracelet, and your name is suddenly known all across the poker world, and you will forever be enshrined along with the names of all the greats of the game's history who have ever joined you in claiming one of those elusive gold bracelets. I mean, the last time I checked, nobody really cares that I've made a final table at the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza.

Well, nobody except my bankroll, that is.

WSOP 2011 Schedule

As most of you probably know by now, this week Harrah's officially release the schedule of events for the 2011 World Series of Poker, to be held once again at the Rio Suites and Casino in Las Vegas, starting on May 31 of this year. We are up to 58 events in this series, as Harrah's just keeps chasing the extra rake at the expense of whittling away at the value of winning a World Series bracelet a little bit at a time, year after year after year, and once again we've got the one big buyin (25k) heads-up event in the earlygoing of this year's Series, we've got the 50k Poker Players Championship event near the end in early July, and peppered throughout once again are the regular bracelet events, and the "Championship" events, each of which sports a $10,000 buyin, including the well-known no-limit holdem Main Event that will start this year with Day 1A on Tuesday, July 7. Due to some time constraints, I am basically looking at mid to late June as the best time for me to be making my pilgrimage to the desert this coming summer, so I have highlighted in red those events below that I have some interest in playing as I look to plan this year's poker trip:

Tue, May 31st, 12:00 PM, 2-Day Event Event #1: Casino Employees NLH $500
Tue, May 31st, 5:00 PM, 4-Day Event Event #2: Heads Up NLH Championship(256 Max)
$25,000
Wed, Jun 1st, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #3: Omaha Hi-Low $1,500
Thu, Jun 2nd, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #4: NLH $5,000
Thu, Jun 2nd, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #5: Seven Card Stud $1,500
Fri, Jun 3rd, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #6: Limit Hold'em $1,500
Fri, Jun 3rd, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #7: PLH Championship $10,000
Sat, Jun 4th, 12:00 PM, 5-Day Event Event #8: NLH $1000 -- This event has 2 starting days. Day 1A on Saturday, June 4 and Day 1B on Sunday June 5, both at 12pm.
Sat, Jun 4th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #9: 2-7 NL Draw Lowball $1,500
Mon, Jun 6th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #10: NLH / 6max $1,500
Mon, Jun 6th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #11: Omaha Hi-Low Championship $10,000
Tue, Jun 7th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #12: Triple Chance NLH $1,500
Wed, Jun 8th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #13: NLH Shootout (2,000 Max) $1,500
Wed, Jun 8th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #14: Limit Hold'em $3,000
Thu, Jun 9th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #15: Pot Limit Hold'em $1,500
Thu, Jun 9th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #16: NL 2-7 Draw Lowball Championship
$10,000
Fri, Jun 10th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #17: H.O.R.S.E. $1,500
Sat, Jun 11th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #18: NLH $1,500
Sat, Jun 11th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #19: Limit Hold'em / 6max $2,500
Sun, Jun 12th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #20: NLH $1,000
Sun, Jun 12th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #21: Seven Card Stud Championship
$10,000
Mon, Jun 13th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #22: Pot-Limit Omaha $1,500
Mon, Jun 13th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #23: Eight Game Mix $2,500
Tue, Jun 14th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #24: NLH Shootout (2,000 Max) $5,000
Tue, Jun 14th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #25: Seven Card Stud Hi-Low $1,500
Wed, Jun 15th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #26: NLH / 6max $2,500
Wed, Jun 15th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #27: Limit Hold'em Championship $10,000
Thu, Jun 16th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #28: NLH $1,500
Thu, Jun 16th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #29: 10-Game Mix / 6max (NLH, Razz, Limit Hold'em, Badugi (Limit), Seven Card Stud, NL 2-7 Draw Lowball, Omaha Hi-Low Split, Pot-Limit Omaha, 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (Limit), and Seven Card Stud Hi-Low) $2,500
Fri, Jun 17th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #30: Seniors (50 or older) NLH $1000
Fri, Jun 17th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #31: Pot-Limit Omaha $3,000
Sat, Jun 18th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #32: NLH $1,500
Sat, Jun 18th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #33: Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Championship $10,000
Sun, Jun 19th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #34: NLH $1,000
Mon, Jun 20th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #35: Pot-Limit Omaha / 6max $5,000
Tue, Jun 21st, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #36: NLH $2,500
Tue, Jun 21st, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #37: H.O.R.S.E. Championship $10,000
Wed, Jun 22nd, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #38: NLH $1,500
Wed, Jun 22nd 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #39: Pot-Limit Hold'em/Omaha $2,500
Thu, Jun 23rd, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #40: NLH / 6max $5,000
Fri, Jun 24th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #41: Limit Hold’em Shootout $1,500
Fri, Jun 24th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #42: PLO Championship $10,000
Sat, Jun 25th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #43: NLH $1,500
Sat, Jun 25th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #44: Seven Card Razz $2,500
Sun, Jun 26th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #45: NLH $1,000
Mon, Jun 27th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #46: NLH / 6max Championship $10,000
Mon, Jun 27th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #47: Omaha/Seven Card Stud Hi-Low $2,500
Tue, Jun 28th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #48: NLH $1,500
Tue, Jun 28th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #49: 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (Limit)
$2,500
Wed, Jun 29th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #50: Triple Chance NLH $5,000
Thu, Jun 30th, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #51: Pot Limit Omaha Hi-low Split-8 or Better $1,500
Thu, Jun 30th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #52: Mixed Hold'em (Limit/No-Limit)
$2,500
Fri, Jul 1st, 12:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #53: Ladies NLH $1,000
Sat, Jul 2nd, 12:00 PM, 5-Day Event Event #54: NLH $1000 -- This event has 2 starting days. Day 1A on Saturday, July 2 and Day 1B on Sunday July 3, both at 12pm.
Sat, Jul 2nd, 5:00 PM, 5-Day Event Event #55: The Poker Player's Championship (Limit Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, Seven Card Razz , Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, NLH, Pot-Limit Omaha, 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball) $50,000
Tue, Jul 5th, 12:00 PM ,3-Day Event Event #56: NLH $1,500
Tue, Jul 5th, 5:00 PM, 3-Day Event Event #57: Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-low $5,000
Thu, Jul 7th, 12:00 PM, 13-Day Event Event #58: NLH Main Event $10,000

So preliminarily it seems like I am looking at a trip out to Vegas sometime between Thursday, June 16 and Sunday June 26 -- which could mean I would need to stay out for another couple of days if all goes perfectly. Based on past experience, I would probably end up being out in the desert for somewhere around half of that window -- four or five days, with the possibility of tacking on an extra day or two at the end if necessary. Now, for the past two years, I have ended up playing just the one WSOP event (two years ago, no WSOP event actually -- long story), and then at least one other tournament elsewhere in town among the many tournament series that now proliferate while the donkey masses swarm into town for the WSOP. The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza looks like it does not have its summer schedule posted yet, but suffice it to say that I am confident based on past experience that they will have more than enough appropriately-sized buyin nlh events on hand while I am there to make that a realistic option.

For some reason, that Event #34, the Sunday 1k buyin nlh tournament looks like a good option to me -- it is right in the middle of my window, it's a cheap buyin and yet will only give me barely a worse chance than in the $1500 buyin tournaments to get lucky early and make a little run. And the best 1-2 combination of events on successive days is that Saturday and Sunday, June 18-19, with the $1500 nlh event on Saturday at noon, and then the 1k I mentioned above scheduled for Sunday. Both are three day events, and for a total of $2500 I could play if I so choose in two WSOP events for the minimal amount possible on consecutive days. But as I mentioned above, with the Venetian DSE -- a tournament series that will always have a soft spot in my heart for obvious reasons -- as well as various other casinos' tournament series likely in full swing that entire time I am looking at above, playing one WSOP event that I really like is probably just as good as aiming for that one period when I can spend more money than I otherwise would just to buy in to two separate WSOP tournaments.

Anybody else out there reading this planning on being out in Vegas between June 16 and June 25? As always I would love to meet up with readers and especially fellow WSOP participants who read this corner of the Internets.

WSOP 2011

With the WPBT winter gathering now come and gone, it's time for me to start focusing on my own annual poker trip out to the desert, to play in the WSOP and to live it up in sin city for a few days. After recording my biggest ever poker tournament score of just a hair over 50 grand back in 2009, and then following that up with a win of around 8 or 9 grand in 2010 on a mixture of poker tournaments, cash games, sports betting and even some horses thrown in for good measure, it seems like a return to the sands of Las Vegas in the summer of 2011 is all but assured. The WSOP claims to have released the schedule for the 2011 WSOP this week, but in reality they have only so far announced the start date (May 31, 2011) and stop date (the WSOP Main Event will run from July 7 through July 19 when the final table will be determined), and the location, which will be slightly off-strip at the Rio for the seventh consecutive year despite rumblings that Harrah's might be readying for a move back onto the strip to one of its other Harrah's / Caesar's properties. The full list of the actual WSOP events for 2011 is slated for release some time in January.

Once again I have no plans to play in the Main Event itself, due to constraints of timing but also the buyin, as I've played more than enough poker tournaments in my day to know that I don't want to plunk down 10 grand on something as fickle and luck-based as any poker tournament. Probably someday I will take a crack at the Main Event, but frankly it's just not something I have any desire to do these days, and I'm not sure I ever have really. But I definitely would like to make my annual appearance in the Amazon room at the Rio and sit down for one of the preliminary events, most likely no-limit holdem but there are always options on that front. I feel competent enough to play most of the games spread at the WSOP, be it no-limit holdem, pot-limit Omaha or pot-limit O8, any of the shootouts, or heads-up tournaments. Just about the only games I would not really consider playing in the World Series are limit holdem -- I was once a pretty solid limit tournament play but I long since decided that no-limit was more the game for a guy of my temperament and skill set -- as well as 2-7 lowball (no real experience playing this), Razz (I'm not an effing clown with a rainbow wig and a squishy red nose) and any limit Omaha game (again, not a clown). But this leaves most of the preliminary events as options, and although in general I tend to prefer the lower-buyin $1500 events where possible, I am fortunate to have the financial freedom to be flexible with the buyin, easily willing to play a 2k or $2500 buyin tournament if that is what works best, schedule-wise.

So, I'll know more once the official WSOP schedule is released next month (next year!), but suffice it to say that I do plan to make my annual trek again next summer, and I do not expect much resistance from Hammer Wife as I have not had for the past few years. I live in a beautiful new home that was purchased more or less with poker winnings, my wife drives a beautiful new car which is paid for monthly out of poker winnings, and things like that tend to go a long way towards easing the tension about me taking a week off in the sun to party like a rock star and try to win some money while I'm at it. Ultimately, my annual trip to Vegas isn't even about the money though -- it's really about me having a hobby that I love to do but never really get to do in a live setting other than at most three or four nights a year in Atlantic Shitty. So taking my week in the desert each summer has become kind of an anthem for me, my chance to do what I love to do in far and away the best setting in the world to do it, to get a break from a job that I work at probably harder, longer and with more dedication than anybody I know, and most of all, my chance to remember and delight in my (dwindling) youth for a few short days on a somewhat regular basis.

I can already taste that hot, arid air as I emerge from the baggage claim area and into the taxi line at McCarron airport. Is it summer yet?

BBT, Can It Be?

Did I hear correctly this weekend that all three people who won the WSOP Main Event prize package in the BBT5 this past spring all took the $T on full tilt instead of playing in the Main Event?

Do people even want there to be more BBTs and more free stuff for us?

I mean, can this even be possible?

The best part about this is that people blew their effing tops for days on end when Al first announced earlier this year that the BBT Invitational was going to be just that -- an invitational -- extended only to those people that full tilt felt were a good gamble to actually use the money they graciously hand out to ungrateful bloggers every year to actually play in the actual World Series of Poker. Full tilt wanted the invitational because in the past people just would not use full tilt's funds to play in poker tournaments. They also wouldn't blog about the tournaments, even the few times when past BBT winners did actually play in the events they won prize packages to in the BBT.

One of the things I always try to teach my kids and the others around me is ownership of your decisions. If I decide to take a big risk and willingly don't use my seat belt whenever I drive 5 miles or less from my house, then you won't hear me complaining that my car was unsafe when I do get into an accident close to home and suffer worse injuries than I would have if I had chosen to wear the belt. If I decide I'm going to make a bunch of flagrantly racist or homophobic remarks in front of mixed company, then you won't hear me getting mad at someone who gives me legitimate crap for what I said being hateful and bigoted. And it's just as true in a poker context by the way -- if I decide I'm going to try to get it allin preflop automatically any time I find a pocket pair 66 or higher, and I do just that by pushing in 100 big blinds early in a big tournament and I lose a race to AK or AQ, you won't hear me complaining. I make a decision, and then I own that decision, for better or worse. This notion of personal responsibility is one of my defining qualities and something I focus on regularly, be it at the poker table or the table of life.

All of you people who gave Al endless, interminable shit for what was originally I think only around 50-60 players in the first BBT5 Invitational, you as a group need to learn to own your own decisions. It's gone on for years at this point, and I personally cannot believe it. We're bloggers for crying out loud, and the only reason full tilt ever came to us with prizes the first time around was for the marketing possibilities of paying for bloggers to play in and write about the biggest poker tournaments in the world. Instead, we as a group have repeatedly, consistently -- for several years now, amazingly -- given a huge, fat middle finger to full tilt and made them sorrier and sorrier each year about the money they have largely wasted on the BBT winners. Shit, bloggers have even won the money from full tilt in the BBT, and gone to Vegas and played with that money, and they still don't blog about it, not one whit! And don't get me wrong, I'm not judging anyone for any decisions they have made with respect to money won from full tilt or any online poker site -- but you're damn right I am judging those people for not using the money they won, and then for complaining to Al that they were not included in the Invitational the next time the BBT comes around.

Own. Your. Decisions.

If there is ever another BBT tournament series, full tilt should definitely, obviously, undeniably use an invitational format, at least for a big part of the determination of who wins the WSOP prize packages. And most of the hypocritical whining we'll inevitably see about it don't even deserve the time of day. Dickheads will post on their blog about not being included in the Invitiational like it's their job, but damn when they actually win the money, they and their blogs just vanish like a fart in the wind.

Without a doubt this is one of the most pathetic aspects of poker bloggers today.

The Poker Rebound

No, this isn't a post about me bouncing back from a bad streak lately. The poker has been fine just lately actually, with a couple of winning days in a row after a few stinkers that I'd much rather forget ever happened. But no, the rebound I wanted to talk about today was in the popularity of poker in general in this country, and really around the world, which somehow to me seems to be flying largely under the radar out there in media land. Poker is back, baybeeeeee!

The World Series of Poker had a huge year in 2010 as far as I'm concerned, and yet for some reason nobody seems to be talking about it. I mean, as many people have mentioned whenever this topic comes up with respect to the WSOP, things in the world are not good right now, economically speaking. Way fewer people are employed, asset prices across the board have deflated dramatically over the last few years, and entire nations are preparing around the world for austerity measures that will dampen economic activity and put in a measurable crimp in growth for a long time to come.

And yet, in the midst of all of this economic and financial ugliness, the 2010 WSOP shattered participation records across the board. This year 41st annual WSOP crushed on its way to setting a new overall attendance record with just over 71,000 total entrants through all events including the Main Event. The previous record number of participants, set in 2009, was 60,875, so we are talking about an increase of more than 10,000 players, or close to 17% from just last year, which was itself a record. Seventeen percent! In one year! From an all-time record! In this economy!

Now, to be sure, comparing these records over long periods of time makes little sense since there were so, so far fewer events back in the day than there are today, and of course so, so far smaller a number of people actually played the game well enough to even consider competing for the big money. But I mean, how much better of a comparison can you get than the last few years? To be clear, what happened at the WSOP in 2010 has absolutely nothing to do with increasing the number of events. We had 56 bracelet events in 2010, 56 events in 2009, and 55 events in 2008, so the difference in number of events is hardly significant. But, across more or less the same number of events over the past three years, attendance at the poker world's greatest spectacle has quietly skyrocketed, surging from 58,250 in 2008 to 60,875 in 2009 and now to just over 71,000 in 2010.

WSOP attendance is up 22% over the past two years, we just put together the largest live poker tournament of all time other than the 2006 Main Event in the 2010 WSOP ME with 7319 entrants, and about three-quarters of the events on this year's WSOP scheduled attracted more participants than the corresponding events in last year's WSOP. And this, again, in the midst of one of the worst global economic outlooks perhaps of our lifetimes. The arrival of Tom Dwan on the scene seems to have re-energized interest in poker on tv -- in particular High Stakes Poker which really seems to be striking a chord with the poker-on-television audience out there -- and the passing of the regulations governing enforcement of the UIGEA this summer seems to have had no effect on the ability to get money into or out of the major online poker sites, which themselves are setting new records yearly in terms of annual participation and rake fees paid.

After a few-year hiatus to be sure after UIGEA was first passed, poker is booming once again. Wonder how long it will be before everyone else starts realizing it?

Bad Beat Stories

I'll tell you what's the one thing I miss the least about not being in Las Vegas anymore: the bad beat stories.

Anyone who's played in a number of significant live events, ever been to the Amazon Room at the Rio during one of the breaks in the live WSOP action, and certainly those poor guys and gals out there covering these poker tournaments for seven weeks straight, knows exactly what I am talking about. You get your 15 minute break, you head to the bathroom, outside for a smoke, or just find a quiet place to relax inside the poker room, but you can't avoid it. The incessant chatter of your fellow players, all meeting up during break time to swap bad beat stories.

It's such a weird thing to do, in my opinion. I mean, I've told a gillion bad beat stories in my day and I'm sure I'll tell a million more. But don't these people at the tournament realize that (1) they sound exactly like everybody else around them, and (2) nobody probably believes them anyways?

For starters, it never ceases to amaze me how many different people -- literally hundreds, at any given second during any large tournament break -- are out complaining about the horrible thing that befell them at the poker table over the past couple of hours. It's literally all around you. I go out to have a breaktime smoke, and I have to walk about 150 feet away from the building before I can't hear anyone telling a stupid bad beat story from somewhere. And they all sound exactly the same! It's amazing. To your left: "So I pushed all in on the flop, and the guy calls me with Jack-Two. Jack-Two!! Can you believe it? And then of course, a Two on the turn and another on the river and I lost three-quarters of my stack just like that.". Meanwhile, over by the next pillar in front of me: "I re-raise with pocket Aces before the flop, and the guy in middle position just smooth calls me. Flop comes down JT8, he bets out, I push and he instacalls with K9. The straight fills on the turn and I'm out." So you turn entirely around and walk to the corner, and then it's the guy who walks up next to you on his cell phone, talking to some lucky person: "I push allin with pocket Kings, the guy snap calls me with pocket 8s. The flop is clean, the turn is clean, and then motherfucker the river is an 8 and I'm crippled!" It's just everywhere, and I have to say it is literally probably the most annoying thing about playing in big live tournaments.

And yeah, the other part about this that I just don't get is do these people really think everyone believes every word they say? F-Train made a funny comment to this effect in his blog the other day as well, but poker tournament players as a rule must be the smartest, most skilled group of people on the earth. I mean, if you believe every bad beat story you hear just during the first break of a major live tournament like the WSOP, then by the fourth or fifth hour, there is literally nobody alive who got their chips by getting the money in ahead. Nobody. You stick 1800 players in a big giant room and play some no-limit, there's just no way you can have 900 suckouts and only the 900 donkeys left who got it in behind. Shit, some of these stories you hear are just so outlandish, you just know they're at least partially if not totally made up. Do these people really think everyone else is that stupid? Yeah, I'm sure the guy called you down with K6 unimproved allin on the flop with nothing, then hit runner-runner 6s for trips to beat your flopped two pairs. And yeah, I bet the guy called you allin with AQ unimproved on the Ten-high flop and then went Jack-King for the runner-runner straight. I'm not saying I've never seen plays that bad (surely I have), but the odds of most of these stories being true -- or at least not omitting some material fact that makes what happened to them not close to as bad as they are making it out to be -- is astronomically low. My guess? A good half of the clowns making the walk of shame during the first couple of rounds, if they got runner-runnered, they probably flopped big and checked intead of betting a couple of times, basically forcing their opponents to catch up for free, and then got bounced and conviently "forgot" that they allowed their opponents to catch those free cards to eventually beat the speaker. And most of the guys who busted early who claim to have been "rivered" really took on a race with the JJ vs AKs type of hand, were ahead until the river, and then either the Jack, or the Ace/King fell on the last card to knock them out "on the last card". With the stories that you hear from every direction, all around you, hanging out in a place like the Amazon Room for an entire day during WSOP time, you just know a good portion of what you're hearing is total and complete bullshit.

So that's my rant for today. The next time you're playing in a live poker tournament, I challenge you not to be one of the clowns with the pervasive bad beat stories. I'm sure you will come off better to those who know you and certainly to anyone within earshot, but I guarantee you you will feel better too not spewing out these largely made-up and overblown stories of woe for all the world to imbibe.

What's the Big Deal About the WSOP?

Bill Rini had an interesting post up earlier this week about the World Series of Poker, and why it is such a Big Huge Deal in the poker world. Although the whole post is definitely worth a read, I have duped below Rini's essential point from his very entertaining post:

"That being said, this time of year seems so contrived to me. You have about two months of journalists/bloggers, PR people, poker rooms, etc, all trying to make something out of what is usually nothing. Day after day everyone has to come up with some reason to make it seem as if something exciting is going on regardless of the lack of anything exciting actually going on....

The biggest online poker rooms pay out a bigger prize every Sunday than some of the WSOP events. While I’m quick to give a congrats to winners, is anybody really impressed if you won the $1000 buy-in hold’em event? Will anybody remember your name the next day? Yet, nearly the entire poker journalism/blogging world is there covering every boring detail."

It's all true, isn't it? So they why is the World Series of Poker such a Big Huge Deal?

I've spent much of this past week pondering this very question since reading Bill's post. And I think I have my answer.

It's the Legends.

The Legends are the ones who tell me the WSOP is so special. It's Doyle Brunson dedicating entire sections, entire chapters even, in Super/System to Jack and Benny Binion and the legend of the WSOP. It's Phil Hellmuth writing page after page about how winning WSOP bracelets is the end-all be-all for a poker tournament player. It's Ivey and Deeb and Lederer and Seidel and Farha and Chan and all the others in the poker world who focus on the number of bracelets each player has. It is those things that, for me, make the World Series of Poker what it is.

In addition, with the proliferation of poker on television, on podcasts, on YouTube, etc. as compared to, say, ten years ago, and with all of these WSOP events essentially being "open" events where anyone can go and play if you're willing to plunk down the buyin, there is in many ways more direct access to the legends and the big-name pros in this sport than in any other. Which itself makes the whole WSOP thing kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy, because all the big pros and the legends play in the WSOP because they all think of it as the end-all be-all, and then if I want a chance to go to a poker venue and see, interact with, meet and maybe even play with all those same pros that I know and love from tv, then going to the WSOP takes on special significance for me as well because that's the one place all year where I can go to meet all of them.

And let's not forget the side games, which any of those legends above in addition to pretty much all the pros on the circuit today will tell you is where the real, consistent money is during WSOP time. It's basically 6 weeks out of every year when more or less every donkey in America -- in the world, really -- descends upon the same city, and puts their (sometimes) hard-earned cash on the line. I have zero doubt that there is more poker "dead money" -- both in cash, and in tournaments -- in Las Vegas during these six weeks than there is in any other city anywhere else in the world, at any time, ever. Period.

So the legends are the ones who have told me that the World Series of Poker is what it's all about. That's what makes the whole WSOP thing such an attraction for many students of the game, aspiring pros, tournament wannabes still looking for their first big big score, and cash gamers looking to test their mettle against the best players around at their level. And that's what originally got me to want to go out to Las Vegas during Series time in the first place myself. But along with that is the attraction of knowing that you can see all of those people you love to watch on tv, live and in the flesh, in the Amazon Room. Shit, they can even sit at your table and play live against you. It's unheard of access to someone who in many of our minds is already a bit of a "legend", and that also adds to the allure of heading to Sin City during this period every summer. And lastly, -- and I am as good an example of this as anybody -- the skill players know that, due to the crowds who are drawn to Vegas every summer to be there during WSOP times, there is simply no better opportunity in the world at any other time of year to make money from all the fish and the monkeys who you will run into in the various card rooms all over the city, be it a WSOP tournament at the Rio, the Deep Stack at the Venetian, the daily MGM morning no-limit tournament, or the Bellagio for cash games, etc. After my last few years in the desert around this time of year, I am more convinced than ever that Las Vegas during the WSOP is the mecca of poker profits for a seasoned poker veteran with a couple million hands of experience and a desire to leave town with more money than he or she started with.

So that's my answer. Why do you think the WSOP is such a big deal?

Props to Good WSOP Coverage

Other than the usual media outlets, and of course Dr. Pauly's excellent coverage year-in and year-out from the Rio, I thought I would give some props today to a blogger who has been putting out quality content almost every single day here during the 2010 World Series of Poker -- F-Train. I've been a reader of F-Train's blog for some time, but probably never so much as I have become over the last few weeks since the WSOP started. In a world where so much is made of every single poker tournament played at the Rio over a six-week period, many of which are openly referred to as "donkaments" by those in the know, in largely shallow-stacked events where luck predominates over skill in the eyes of anyone who really understands how mtt's work, F-Train has had very little trouble finding something interesting, well thought-out and well-reasoned to say about the Series almost every single day.

One thing F-Train has been doing is keeping track of the number of players this year as compared to last year in the corresponding WSOP events. A couple of weeks back when F-Train started tracking this, a disturbing trend appeared -- and one that surprised me to be honest, given the (somewhat) improved economic situation both in the U.S. and abroad as compared to last year -- each of the first five events of the 2010 WSOP was down in participation from the corresponding events in 2009. In fact, 8 of the first 12 events saw a drop in attendance since last year. I was really surprised -- even having just been out in Vegas, at the Rio in fact, and remarking here on how incredibly slow Vegas was in general as compared to prior years in the summer -- because I just didn't get how fewer people could be playing in the Series this year given the general improvement in the global economy over the past 11 or 12 months. Last year, the WSOP started just two months away from those disgusting March 2009 lows in the stock market, and just a month or two away from the four and five hundred thousand jobs lost every single month, and in general the market was what, a full 35% or so lower than it is today? How could more people have plunked down between $1500 and $10,000 on a luck-dependent poker tournament last year than this year?

Well, I was less surprised to see F-Train's recent updated post on this topic, where this strange trend seems to have reversed itself, in line with all logic and reason. Since Event #14, 11 of the last 12 WSOP tournaments have recorded increases in attendance since the same event in 2009. What started out as a strange, somewhat inexplicable dropoff in participation has proven to be just a slow start to the 2010 WSOP, and it appears now that we are going to come in I bet between 5 and 10% up for WSOP participation overall this year as compared to last. So far F-Train is the only real media outlet I have seen keeping close track of these numbers, and it's been an interesting angle that has made for some interesting posts and thoughts during the WSOP this year.

Similarly, F-Train had some excellent coverage on the scandal with the WSOP Ladies Event this year, a nice post detailing the truth about the behavior of Men Nguyen when he won his 7th bracelet earlier this month, and of course some excellent reports of the Tom Dwan circus when Durrrrr managed to steal the center of attention from the entire Amazon room when he played his way to heads-up in Event #7.

As I mentioned above, F-Train has found a way to provide interesting content related to the WSOP on a daily basis to a poker tournament loving guy like me. You should check it out if you haven't been already.

Update

Well, Thursday was a much better day than Wednesday on the poker front here in Las Vegas. I opted to play the $340 buyin tournament at the Venetian Deep Stack Etravaganza, and although I don't have the time right now to give the tournament a more detailed review, suffice it to say that I played much, much better than my first WSOP tournament earlier this week, in more or less equally non-conducive situations, and made a nice run before finally getting caught bluffing just short of the money positions. Once again there were a lot more entrants than I ever expected -- 843 if I recall correctly, which made this tournament even larger than the one I won last summer which was chock full of WSOP overflows after that final donkament of the 2009 WSOP sold out more than a day in advance of starting play. With that many players and a $340 buyin, the prize pool was something over $244,000, and first prize was a shade over 50 large. The top 81 spots would be paid.

Long story short, I lasted 9 1/2 hours in this thing on Thursday, and my god what a difference a day makes. Much like on Wednesday, the cards I received in this thing were a fucking abomination, I would not wish it on my worst enemy. My god over 9 1/2 hours of play, I never once received AA, KK, QQ or JJ. I saw TT once, 99 once , 88 once and 44 once (those were my only three pocket pairs on the day), and I even got AK on only one occasion over all that time. I saw AQ twice, and a million JackAces (of course), every single one of which I failed to instacall allin with for some reason I cannot explain. But I mean, I played all effing day in this thing and just got more and more and more frustrated as the day wore on, having to watch again and again the tourney luckboxes at my table showing down pocket Aces and pocket Kings -- many of them three or four times each over the day -- while I was forced to deal with a constant stream of 84o (must've seen that hand 25 times on Thursday) and the like.

But the big difference was, unlike my play in the WSOP on Wednesday, I was much more effective in willing myself to survive anyways, even with absolutely zippo to work with in terms of starting cards. It was just one of those tournaments where you have to make the best of bad situations, try to make some preflop calls with less than stellar starting hands but ones which might be able to hit something good on the flop, and otherwise just bluff and semi-bluff a ton whenever you think your opponents are weak. These kinds of tournament runs can be really enjoyable if you're in the right frame of mind for it (I was), but at the same time, by the time you're getting down to the final 10, 20% of the field, with the blinds creeping higher and higher (we were at 1k-2k with a 300 ante when I busted on Thursday) and the Ms lower and lower, you're eventually going to need to get that one or two big hands every hour or two in order to stay afloat.

Unfortunately for me on Thursday, those big hands simply never came when I needed them as we got deeper and deeper into the field. Ever. I did win a few nice pots early when I flopped two pairs in an unraised pot out of the blinds and took some chips from a top pair monkey with QJ, and once when I rivered a flush with A6s after calling a preflop raise with it into a multiway pot, and I was able to ride those two pots won with shitty starting cards to an above-average stack throughout most of the first five hours or so in the Venetian tournament. My high on the day turned out to be around 5 or 6 hours in, when I flopped top set with my pocket Tens and proceeded to get called twice by another top pair monkey with JT while two overcards fell on the turn and river, filling by the end a 1-card straight to any 9, a broadway straight to any AK, and a flush draw, so I could not bring myself to bet again on the river. That hand brought me up to just over 61k in chips (starting stack was 12k), at a time when the tournament average was just under 40k, so I was doing ok for a while there, all while still never having seen a premium hand all day long.

From there though, I coasted into dinner break barely winning any hands over the ensuing couple of hours. Amazingly, I saw zero -- literally -- pocket pairs during my final three hours in this tournament. I don't know what the odds are of that, but couple it with also being dealt nothing higher than AJ, and zero suited connectors during that time period, and you can imagine how utterly shitty that was to go through, just as the tournament was heating up and people were positioning to make a run to the money spots starting with 81 players remaining. From around 330 left to 145 left when I eventually busted, I did not receive a playable hand, so was forced to make my own action and take things into my own hands, which those of you who know me know is something I have some skill at doing. But the problem with being forced to do this all the time -- again, especially as stacks get short and the big stacks have more and more incentive to call you down -- is that eventually, you are going to get caught if you are forced to just bluff, lie and steal for every chip you get. I fought my best to stay afloat after the dinner break, but in that final hour I slipped to half of average with around 30k in chips as we got down below 200 players remaining. I literally envisioned pocket Aces every single time I looked at my cards for those final couple of hours after dinner, figuring there was no way I could continue not to get dealt a damn thing to work with over the entire day, but it just never happened. I was forced to basically push allin almost every time anybody limped in front of me, hoping they would just fold, and for the most part they did, which is the only reason I was able to stay afloat right around half of average for my last hour in the tournament. Finally, a guy I had pushed on already once when he had limped, limped again from middle position, I looked down in the small blind to find 92s, and I pushed allin with a better hand than probably the last two times I had made this move. This time he insta-called me with pocket 9s, and I was of course finito, out in around 145th place on the day. Damn if I could have just been dealt those pocket 9s one time in those last couple of hours, I would have re-pushed on anybody preflop and just taken my chances. Shit, there is zero doubt I would have done that with any pocket pair, even against the tightest person at the table. But I just had nothing. I've written about it many times before here over the past few years, but playing this stealy, bluffy style is difficult but something I can do well, yet at the same time I am all too aware that you eventually need to get some real cards to back it up or by definition you are eventually going to get caught, plain and simple. That was me on Thursday night at 9:45pm.

So, in all, the Venetian tournament on Thursday did not end up the way I wanted it to, and in many ways it was equally frustrating to my performance in the WSOP on Wednesday. But the big difference was, this time around I was able to build a nice stack nonetheless, and actually enjoyed a good part of the tournament well out in frot of average and with plenty of room to breathe, survivng not at all on the strength of good starting cards but rather just my instincts and the pressure I could apply on my opponents. It was a nice confidence boost after the debacle of WSOP Event #8 earlier this week, and I am looking forward to getting in two more days of solid poker tournament action before heading home on Sunday morning.

For today, once again I am not 100% sure yet what the pokery plans will be. There is another $1500 donkament in the WSOP at noon, and that is a definite possibility. The structure is just so much shittier though than a place like the Venetian DSE -- which has another $340 mtt at noon today as well -- and it rewards donkery and luck so much more as a result, that I am actually considering playing that instead, or there are some other options as well. Not sure what I will end up doing but will take the next few hours to think it over and make a decision. And of course I will post here when I am back at the pc all about the day's exploits, as always.

It's gonna be 108 degrees out here today people. Make sure you wear light colored clothes, stay inside if possible between 12 and 5pm, and get plenty of liquids. Alcoholic, preferably.