2009 WSOP Event #21 ($3,000 HORSE) Recap

First of all thanks to my wife Jen, for posting some of the little tid bits that I texted. I haven't done much texting and I have an old phone so I pretty much kept it to the bare bones information with none of the flavor.

We started the HORSE event with 452 players, who each had 9,000 chips. Unlike online HORSE tournaments where all the tables play one game for a certain amount of time and then switch, here every table independently plays 8 hands of each of the five games and then switches to the next one in the order: hold'em, Omaha-8, razz, stud, and stud-8.

I got what looked like a tough table draw to start. Two seats to my right was Ivan Demidov the runner up in the main event last year (who also made the final table of the WSOP Europe main event). To my left was "Miami" John Centano who is one of the old guard and has been a pro for a long time and to his left was Robert Misrachi. The rest of the table was a mix of OK or good, but not great players.

The interesting thing about many of the big name pros is they've almost all made their name playing no limit hold'em. That doesn't always mean they are great at the HORSE games which require a different set of skills.

The first few hours felt like warm up. We started out playing 75/150 stakes and it climbed slowly from there to 100/200, 150/300, and 200/400. My stack went down to 7,000, then up to 11,000 and settled back at 9,000. Not too exciting, but it did give me time to get a strong feel for how the other players at my table were playing.

In my second text update I made sure to include "These guys aren't so tough." I backed up that statement a few hours later.

Maybe my favorite hand of the tournament came up when we were playing 7 card stud. The stakes were up to 300/600 and I started with Q66 with one of the 6's up. Demidov raised the bring in to 300 with a jack showing, another player who had a 2 up called and I also called. On 4th street Demidov caught another jack, the other player caught a brick, and I hit a queen giving me two pair. Demidov bet out 600 and we both called. On 5th street Demidovn caught an 8, the other player paired his 2 and I bricked.

Now I was pretty sure I was in bad shape. I thought one or both of my opponents could easily have three of a kind here. It's often the case that if a player plays a hand for a raise that they have a pair and the most likely pair for them to have is a pair of whatever their up card is but I hadn't seen any other 6's or Q's the pot was getting big and I was almost positive if I hit I'd get paid off. 6th street brought another 8 for Demidov, an ace for the other player and a queen for me! BINGO!

Demidov bet again, the other player called, and I raised it to 1,200. Amazingly both players called. On the river Demidov bet out again! The other player just called and even though I knew I was going to raise before I did I peaked down to see what I caught. It was the fourth queen! BOOM! Quads baby!

I raise and Demidov reraised me! Now I thought there was a good chance that he'd made four jacks or four 8's. The other player folded (later he said he folded a small full house) and I made it four bets. Demidov thought for about 60 seconds before saying "I guess you could have sixes full and the pot is too big to fold," and then he called. I showed my hand and took down a massive pot.

By the time hold'em rolled around I finished him off. He was running short on chips and raised with K3 on the button. I three bet with 88, he raised again and I put him all in for his last chips. I dodged the king and sent him packing. A few hands later I took the last of Robert Misrachi's chips too! These guys aren't so tough!

At that point after 6 hours of play I had my 9,000 chip starting stack up to 32,000. We only had 2 more hours to play before calling it a day I was feeling like I'd be happy just cruising for the last two hours and moving on to day 2.

But that wasn't to be. The last two hours went almost as bad as they reasonably could have and I ended day one with only 10,300 chips.

It was 3 am when we called it a day and now I had to go back to my room, pack, and move over to the Bellagio where I'd be spending the next three nights. I'd called ahead that morning and let them know that I'd probably be checking in late, maybe as late as 4 am and I wanted to make sure I still had a room when I got there.

I made it over by around 3:45 went through the normal check in process but when the lady at the front desk handed me my keys she said "Wait here for a minute, the manager is coming down to show you to your room." "OK?" I replied. "I think I can find it on my own?" "No." She said. "You can't."


Of course I was intrigued. I made the logical jump pretty quick that they must be out of normal rooms and were going to be putting me in a special room that was no doubt going the be sweet.

When the manager got there he said "We're going to be putting you into one of our Villa Suites. You'll have to switch rooms tomorrow, but for tonight I hope you'll enjoy it." SCORE!

He led me to an unmarked door behind which was a bank of elevators. When we got out he led me down a long hall way that looked like it belonged in the White House. There were paitings and sculptures and chandeileres and flowers lining the whole hallway and it was at least twice wide as a normal hotel hallway with ceilings that were also twice as high.

We made it to suite 11 and they showed me into the nicest hotel room I've ever stayed in. Again there were paintings, a few sculptures, flowers and a slew of mirrors. There were four TVs: one in the living room, one in the bedroom, and one in each of the bathrooms. That's right there were two bathrooms, one with a huge jacuzzi tub and the other with a shower that had a door so tall that I couldn't reach the top of it (I can touch the ceiling in a normal hotel room). It was pretty cool.

The next day I woke up around noon, switched to a normal room and headed over to the Rio. There was a redraw for seats at the end of day 1, so I was at a new table with 7 new opponents. We started day 2 with 198 of the original 452 players and since I was fairly short stacked I knew I'd need to make some hands early.

Luckily I did. In fact I ran super duper crazy hot during the first two hours and took my stack from 10,000 (less than half of average) to 48,000 (twice average).

The ups and downs continued through hours three and four. I plumeted down to 17,000 and then came back to 35,000. On the last hand of hour four (level 12 of the tournament) I took a terrible bad beat. We were playing Omaha and my opponent raised under the gun with AKQ5. This is kind of a marginal hand to be raising first to act. I was in the big blind with A345 with the A4 of diamonds which is a better hand.

In Omaha hi-lo split the lowest hand (which must be 5 cards 8 and lower - which is why this games is often called Omaha 8 or better of just Omaha-8)and the highest hand split the pot (you have you use exactly two cards from your hand and three cards from the board to make each hand although you are allowed to use different cards from your hand for low and for high). Aces are both the lowest and highest card. With a few exceptions the best starting hands are the ones that have a lot of potential to win the low half of the pot with a little pop for high and not the other way around since it's much easier to make a strong low hand than a high one.

I thought about reraising before the flop, but instead opted to just call since I would be out of position for the entire hand. The flop came down QJ5 with the QJ of diamonds. I check raised my opponent and he three bet me with his two pair (a little thin if you ask me). The turn was the perfect card, the deuce of diamonds! Now I had the nut flush, and the nut low draw. I check raised my opponent again and he just called. Based on his flop action I assumed he had a set and I was thinking "No board pair!" as the river came out. The river came out and it was a 5. AHHHHHHHHH!

I checked, my opponent bet, and even though I was pretty sure I was beat the pot was so big that I had to call. When I saw his hand I realized that there were only three cards (two queens and one five since I had one of the fives) that could come on the river that would allow me to lose that pot.

There were 34,000 chips in that one pot and now instead of having over 50,000 I had less than 20,000 going to dinner.

But once again I managed to stage a comeback. I had it up to 40,000 and we were down to about 80 players when Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (he looks like Jesus) came to our table and sat down right next to me. I'd played for the full 10 levels of day 1 with Chris in 2006 and found him to be a very likeable guy.

Here is a name dropping story for you! So I said to Chris Ferguson "I was talking to Daniel Negranu and heard that you were pretty much playing every event you could this year." He said "That's right" I was about to ask him if he'd made any final tables when he said "I haven't cashed once yet." That made me feel better about my starting for 3 this year and my 1 for 10 showing in 2006. Ferguson is one of the best. He won the main event in 2000, he has at least two if not three other WSOP titles, I don't know how many other final tables and cashes, he's a certified genius, isn't sweating the money at all, and has the toughest possible table image. If he can blank 15+ tournaments in a row then 0 for 3 doesn't seem so bad!

Anyway I scooped a big pot against him in the Omaha. I had about 40,000 chips and we were playing 2,500/5,000 stakes. With around 70 players left I didn't exactly have the kind stack I could cruise into the money with, but it was still more likely that I'd make it than not.

At that time the following hand came up. Ferguson raised from the button and I looked down at AAK2 with the AK of clubs an the K2 of hearts. This is a premium hand. With the AA part of the hand I am ahead against 95%+ of his possible hands for the high half of the pot and the A2 is the best possible starting two cards for the low half. To top it off I have two flush possibilities. This one was a real monster with a ton of potential.

I reraised, he just called and the flop came down Q J 2 with two clubs. I wasn't their yet, but I had the nut flush draw, still had the aces and the nut straight draw. Of course I bet out, and he just called. The turn was the 6 of clubs. BINGO! Now I had the best possible high hand and I bet. He just called and the river came out an 8. This was a bad card for me. Since I'd paired my 2 I could no longer make a hand with 5 cards below 8. But since I was guaranteed to win the high half of the pot I bet. Ferguson reluctently called and showed two pair with no low! SCOOP!

Now I was up to 60K and that's about where I stayed for a long time winning small pots here and there to compensate for the blinds and antes I was losing. When we made the money around 10:30 I had 55K. It felt great to make the money in this event since it was a totally stacked field. On top of the dozens of pros that I recongnized (I won't list them all here) at one point on day 1 I saw Doyle Brunson (10 WSOP titles!) at the table to my left, Phil Ivey (5 WSOP titles and one already this year) at the table to my right, and Barry Greenstien behind me(he's made the final table of the $50,000 HORSE every year they've run it - which is three times in a row - even though there have been 100+ or 150+ entrants each time). These guys are the best players in the world without a doubt and play $4,000/$8,000 HORSE cash game against each other and a few other players. None of them made the money and I did.

My plan and my results after making the money were a microcosim of the tournament as a whole. I started off losing a few substantial pots and fell all the way down to 14,000 (the stakes were 4,000/8,000 at that point). Then I bounced back.

I went on a tear and took my stack all the way up to 140,000! At that point we were down to 32 players, and we only had about 90 minutes of play left before we'd call it a day and go on to day 3. The average stack was about 120,000 at that point and I was starting to think about the final table. But then I made three second best hands. One in the Omaha and two in the Razz and that was enough to do me in.

I finished 28th which paid $6,449! Hopefully I can take at least one more of these tournaments deep.

HORSE Recap under construction

I'm sure some of you are eagerly checking the blog to see what happened in the HORSE. I'll Keep you in suspense a little while longer, but wanted to let you know I'm working on the recap and it should be up soon.

In the money!

In the money!

57 People Left!

Just got this text from Dave:

57 people left average 70k. 58k for me. First time I've been a little nervous this year even thought I'm doing well. Chris Fergusan at my table

Only 9 people to go!

More HORSE Updates

Some more texts from Dave

At 6:40 - 20k left 90ish players left. Last hand before dinner lost 34k pot. Had nuts on turn and lost to 3 outs.

8:00 - Back in black! 50k!

According to pokerpages.com, which has an hourly commentary, there are about 70 players left making the average stack about 58,000.

-Jen

Texts from Dave

Dave's doing great! I got these two texts from him since he started today:

At 2:40 - Major rush, 28k!

At 4:20 - Absurd 1st 2 hours of day 2. Up to 48,000! 128 players left average is 32k. To the stables!

-Jen

Horse Update

Hi, this is Jen. Dave wanted me to put up a quick post saying that he's made it to day 2 of the HORSE tournament!

He is a little short, with 10,300 chips. He's in about 160th place out of 200. Average is about 20,000. 48 spots pay, with 48th being $5277, 8th is $32,647, and 1st is $311,899.

He starts up again today at 2:00 PST

WSOP Event #21 Preview!

Event #21 is $3,000 buy in HORSE. For those of you who might be new to my blog and don't know a lot about poker let me give you a brief explaination of how HORSE works. HORSE is an ackronymn for five different forms of poker (H)old'em, (O)maha, (R)azz, (S)tud, and Stud (E)ight or better. You play each game for a short period of time and then switch to the next game.

I find that most players seem comfortable with either the flop games (Hold'em and Omaha), or Stud and Stud-8 and otherwise good players sometimes have no clue what to do playing Razz (7 card stud where the lowest hand wins). The reason why many players don't know how to play Razz is the only time anyone ever plays it is as part of a mixed games format like HORSE. If you don't play much HORSE you might still play all of the other games, but not Razz. Unlike many of my opponents I play all of the games well and since I play as much HORSE as I can, I play a fair amount of Razz and feel very comfortable with it.

I've played three HORSE tournaments in my life with buy ins over $1,000. I've finished 2nd of 32, 13th of 60 (I was in first with 15 players left, but blew it), and 4th of 444. I have high expectations for this tournament.

I'm moving from the Rio over to the Bellagio tonight which is going to be a small pain in the ass. If I make day 2 of the HORSE (which starts at 5 pm) I'll be playing until 2 or 3 am, heading to the Bellagio to check in, and then I'll need to be back here at the Rio by 2 pm. As a result I might not have time for a detailed blog post, but I'll try to put up something.

Derailed by Dinner?

My Dad recently put a comment on my last post that it seems like I'm doing well until I have dinner and then I'm going broke and maybe what I'm eating is affecting me mentally.

First of all let me say that the main reason I'm going broke after dinner is around that time is when the stakes get high enough that it's much easier to go broke. In the first two tournaments (which were limit tournaments) the stakes were so low in the first few hours compared to the number of chips we had that it's near impossible to go broke. In fact only 1 or 2 players in of the several hundred entrants went broke in the first hour and only a handful in the second hour. But by the time hour 5 or 6 rolls around the stakes are high enough that a few (or even one) bad hands can send you packing.

With that said, my diet has constantly been on my mind while I'm here. I know from past experience how draining it can be to eat restaurant food day after day. From the day that I got here (and even in the days leading up to my departure) I've been trying to make the best food decisions that I can. The biggest problem is the lack of easily available options (no grocery store nearby and no kitchen in my hotel room), but I think I've been doing a good job so far and a third of the way through my trip I still feel good physically and mentally.

Thanks for he comment Dad!

Changing topics for a moment. This is my 500th blog post! When I started this blog it was just a way to avoid making a ton of phone calls to report my results at the 2006 WSOP. But it's turned into so much more. Thanks to everyone who reads!

2009 WSOP Event #19 ($2,500 6-max NLH) Recap

Event #19 started with 1,068 players (quite the contrast compared to the 46 we got for the $2,000 event in L.A.!) each with 7,500 chips and blinds of 25/50. For me this tournament was filled with insane ups and downs. I started off at a good table. It was me, Antonio "The Magician" Esfandiari (he used to be an actual professional magician), and four weak players.

My first big hand came about 20 minutes into the tournament. One player at our table was clearly very nervous. More nervous than I was my first time at the WSOP. Clearly he was being very careful. On the hand in question he was in the small blind and made a small raise to 125. I was in the big blind with 85. Clearly this is a garbage hand, but I felt confident that if my opponent didn't hit something big I'd be able to blow him off the hand in later betting rounds.

I threw in 75 more chips to call and the flop came down J 7 5. My opponent bet 200 into the 250 chip pot and I just called. The turn brought an 8 which made me two pair and almost certainly the best hand. Now my opponent bet 600. I thought for a moment and made it 1,800. When he didn't instantly fold I knew he had something and figured him for an overpair. After about 30 seconds he moved all in and I called. He showed AA which was about what I expected and meant only 8 of the remaining 43 cards in the deck would make him the best hand. Sadly the river was a jack making him two bigger pair and knocking me down under 2,000 chips.

At the first break, 2 hours into the tournament, I was up to 2,700 and on the first hand back I doubled up. I got dealt JJ, got it all in vs AT and my hand held up. That had me at 5,500, but I faded back down to 4,000 before getting my money in bad. This was the first of many times in this tournament that I was in bad shape and got bailed out. I had QJs and raised from the small blind. The big blind reraised and I called. The flop came down K T 5 and I check raised all in. My opponent who had stared the hand with 3,000 chips called with KJ, but I hit an ace on the river. It was a good play on my part, but still a spot where I needed to get lucky once the cards got turned over.

With about 7,000 chips I got moved to a new table, which also turned out to be pretty soft. No one there was terrible, but these guys were not on my level.

This leads me to time number two where I was in bad shape and got bailed out. I had 88 under the gun and came in for a raise to 600 (the blinds had just gone up to 100/200). Two players just called and the big blind moved all in for 6,000.

We call this a squeeze play. If you're the player in the big blind you see 2,100 in the pot and you can be pretty sure that the guys who called the raise don't have great hands because they didn't reraise. If you can get past the first raiser (who still has to worry a little bit about the players behind him) you're usually gold.

I figured the big blind might move in with any ace or any pair in this spot so I moved all in too. It turns out he did have a pair - it was kings! Amazingly four hearts showed up, I had the only heart, and I took down a nice pot of about 15,000 chips.

Then I procedeed to run quite a few bluffs. There was a lot of calling before the flop and goofy small raises from the players at my table. As a result I was seeing more than an average number of flops and missing them all. Some of my bluffs worked and some of them didn't.

After one of the bigger ones failed horribly, I fell all the way down to 4,500. This leads me to time number three where I got my money in bad. I tired a squeeze play of my own with A7 suited and got called by AQ. Miraculously, I flopped a 7 and survied. That put me at around 9,000 chips. Which is where I stayed. For what seemed like forever. As I folded. And folded. And folded garbage hand, after garbage hand slowly bleeding my chips away until I only had 5,000 left.

After six hours of play it was time for dinner. I came back up to my room, ate some cereal and a ham sandwitch, and watched some TV. When I got back to the poker table some crazy shit happened very fast.

When we came back the blinds were 200/400 with a 50 chip ante. A few hands in, it got folded around to me in the small blind and I made it 1,400 to go with QTs. The big blind thought for a minute and moved all in. I only had 3,700 more and there was already about twice that in the pot so I decided to go for it even though I thought I was behind. I was up against A7 and in hand number where I got bailed out (I was about 40% to win here so my call was actually correct) I flopped a queen and was up over 11,000 chips.

About 10 minutes later I got dealt KK. On the hand before there had been a raise to 1,100 and a call, and I moved all in for about 10,000 (with A2s - squeeze play again) and got no callers. Now the same player had raised to 1,100 again and gotten two callers. I breifly thought about just blowing all in to make it look like a bluff, but instead I made it 3,000 to go. The initial raiser folded, but the first caller made it 8,000! When it got to me I moved all in for about 12,000 and he called with TT. I won and was up to 25,000!

Now I was feeling good. I'd come from 5,000 up to 25,000 which was about an average stack in just under 15 minutes.

Then I got dealt JJ in the big blind. All right! It's on now bitches! The button who was a new player to our table (someone had gone broke in his seat a few minutes before) raised to 1,000. I made it 3,000 with my big pair and he moved all in for 16,000. It took all of 2 seconds for me to call and when he turned over his cards up he had A7.

When I was winning all of those hands where I was behind I kept thinking, I bet I'm going to get it in with the best of it later and lose a big pot. I was about 70% to win here, but sure enough an ace came on the flop and a 33,000 chip pot (worth $11,000 in real dollars - fuck!) got pushed to my opponent.

About 10 minutes later I went broke. On my last hand maybe I out thought myself and made things a little too complicated or maybe I played it brilliantly and got screwed.

I got dealt Q9s on the button and everyone folded to me. Like I said before there had been a lot of just calling before the flop, but I hadn't once just called when I was first in. Q9s is a great hand to see a flop with and I figured I'd give calling a shot. The small blind just called behind me and the big blind who was the chip leader at our table with over 70,000 chips made it 2,800 to go. This was too much for him to have a strong hand. He was one of these goofs who liked to make small raises and if he had a big hand (or even an OK hand) he'd make it 1,600 or 1,800 (or maybe some goofy shit like 1,475). On top of that he was a thinking player and I figured he'd think I had AA or KK if I reraised him since people will rarely limp in and then reraise with anything but a monster hand. So I tried to look like I was trying to look conflicted (now that's a professional manuever!)and moved all in for about 12,000.

He instantly called me with A2 off suit! ACK!

In retrospect maybe I should have made it 6,000. Now that would really look like AA and would still give me enough to fire a decent sized bet at the flop. I actually flopped a queen and I thought, I'd done it again, but an ace came on the river and that was it. I finished about 300th of 1068.

There are a lot of ways that last hand could have played out differently. If I raise before the flop I might get called or small reraised (which I would call) and when I flop the queen I put enough heat on that A2 can't call. Or if my opponent raises smaller I just call, flop the queen, and move all in vs his flop bet which would no doubt lead to a fold from him. Or I could have just won that pot with the f-ing jacks! Damn it!

The walk of shame down the very long, long hallway of the Rio convention area is never fun.

Tomorrow HORSE! Look for a preview in the morning or afternoon.