WSOP $1,500 HORSE Day 2 Recap

As per usual, I find myself a little blogged out at the end of a series of tournament that required tons of blogging. As a result I'm going to make this quick.

I got off to a terrible start on Day 2, despite being at a great table. I had 19,000 when I looked at my first hand of the day and at the end of that hand I had about 14,000. Not what I was hoping for!

It was all down hill from there. I won a few small pots here and there, but after close to two hours I was down to 5,000 chips playing Omaha with 400/800 blinds. On my final hand I found myself all in on the turn. Another player was also all in and when the two of us and a third player turned up our cards I saw that if I could hit a heart (any heart - amazingly there was no low draw and neither of my opponents had a full house draw that would be completed by a heart) I would scoop the entire 20,000 chip pot. A black river card put an end to my tournament.

I finished about 170th of 827.

WSOP $1,500 HORSE Day 1 Recap

We started this $1,500 HORSE tournament with 824 players each with 4,500 chips. This is a ton of players for a HORSE tournament!

Looking around many of the top pros were mixed into the field, but there were also a slew of older players who tend to be much weaker than the players in their 20's and 30's. Why is that? We'll when you're 22 and you have no one but yourself to take care of, you have roommates, and can live on the cheap it's easy to get into playing poker for a living (like I did). But when you're 55 and you have kids in college, a house and a car payment, it's always just going to be a hobby.

Of course there are plenty of online no limit hotshots who don't know shit about playing HORSE who are even better to play against, but also a little more volatile.

I got off to very slow start in this one. I was between 2,500 and 3,500 chips for pretty much the first 4 hours of play. I won a few split pots during that time, but no big pots or even significant pots at all.

After the dinner break we started level 5 and during levels 5 and 6 I made up for the first 4. By the even of level 6 I was up to 12,000. A few minutes into level 7 I was up to 16,000. Average at that point was about 7k or 8k so I was really liking my chances.

Then I went stone cold. I couldn't make anything and of course the stakes kept getting higher. The end of level 8 which would mark the end of day 1 was looming and I thought the worst thing would be to make it to day 2, but have almost no chips. My plan was to fly home Thursday afternoon and another day in Vegas would mean added expense and more time away from my family who I'm missing like crazy right now.

At the same time if I had 4,500 chips they were still worth $1,500 and even if I had 2,250 (an amount I could get all in before the flop) the were worth $750. That's not the kind of money you want to just throw away, but I was in go for it mode as we approached the end of day 1.

I found myself with 3,500 chips playing hold'em (the H of the HORSE) with the blinds at 300/500 (stakes of 500/1,000) and I picked up 22 in middle position. Normally I would fold here, but I knew at most we'd be looking at 5 or 6 more hands before the end of the day.

So I raised, got reraised, the big blind came along and I made it 4 bets. Now 2,000 of my 3,500 was in the pot and I was committed. I prayed for a deuce on the flop and instead got J 8 5. I bet anyway and both opponents called. The turn was a 9 and I went all in for my last 1,000 getting one call. I was against AT who shockingly missed all of his 14 outs.

This old timer in seat 1 gave me a little smile and I said "The worst thing is to make it to day 2 with no chips."

Two hands later he raised and I looked down at JJ. I three bet it and he four bet it it. I thought he had a real hand, but I knew he was also thinking about those deuces. Amazingly the flop came down jack high! BOOM! Now I was really hoping he had something. He bet the flop, I raised him, and he three bet me. Ah ha! I'm going to punish this guy!

The turn was a queen, he bet, I raised, he reraised, and I raised again. The river was a brick and he bet out into me! I put in my last 1,600 and he called. He rolled over AA like he thought he was getting that pot, but when I showed him my JJ he knew that he'd over played it.

There were 19,000 chips in that pot and two hands later I bagged them up. They'll be there waiting for me at the Rio at 3. Right now I'm in 79th of 280. 80 spots pay.

After three day 2's let's hope I can make my first day 3!!!

WSOP $2,500 6-max recap

I finally found myself with some time to kill, so after much delay here is the recap of Event #26!

As I mentioned briefly before, I got off to an INSANE start in this tournament. I've never picked up so many chips so quickly at the WSOP despite the fact that just about every player at our table for the whole day was a pro of some kind.

1,254 players entered this one and we started with 7,500 chips each. For me the first two hours were about chopping out small pots. I made a few check raise bluffs, won the blinds plenty of times, and picked up some chips with standard continuation bets. I was at 11,000 after two hours.

Then I got involved in one of three huge pots that I'd play against Jon "Apestyles" Van Fleet. Jon has won a couple million dollars in online tournaments and wrote a book with John "pearljammer" Turner. I've played against him many time online and he's a very strong player. He also seemed like a good dude from the little interaction we had.

In the first hand blinds were 75/150 and apestyles raised to 400 in the cutoff. He'd been very active this level, always making it 400 to go. I looked down at KT suited (a hand I would have folded against someone playing fewer hands) and raised to 1,200. Apestyes just called which turned out to be a big mistake for him!

The flop came down T T 3 giving me trips! Now I just had to hope he had something. I bet 2,000 into the 2,600 chip pot and got called. The turn was a queen, I bet 2,500, and again I got called. The river was a blank and I looked over at my opponent's stack. A quick glance told me he had 5K-6K chips. I thought if I put him all in he might fold, but if I bet a little less I'd get paid off since I was pretty sure he had something at this point. In the end I settled on 3,500 and I got a call with body language that said "I think, I'm beat, but I can't fold this hand." Later unprovoked when he was listing some other complaints it came out that he had AA on this hand!

Then I went on a busting streak. KT flopped a ten vs my QQ and was out the door. AK missed against my 88. And then AK hit for me against 88! HA!

Just before dinner I got involved in another big one where I put the screws to Apestyles. Although I had him down to about 2,000 chips after I cracked his AA, he built it back up to about 11,000 just so I could take some more from him!

The blinds were 200/400 with a 25 chip ante and he raised to 900 which seemed to be a standard raise at our table for some reason. I looked down at A7s and reraised him to 2,500. This is not normally a play I'd make, but I had a tight image and three times as many chips as he had so I figured I'd push him around. Well he had a strong hand again and this time he reraised me to 4,500. I would have folded to anything over 5,000, but I was getting 4 to 1 on my money, in position so even though I was sure to be dominated I decided to see the flop.

The flop came down queen high and to my shock Apestyles checked. What? He had less than a pot sized bet left and to me this meant that he had a rock solid hand (QQ, KK or AA) and was trying to get me to take a shot at the pot. But I wasn't biting. I checked behind him and the turn was an ace. Now this was getting interesting!

I could tell from his very subtle, but visible reaction that he didn't like the ace and he checked again. Or there was some chance he had AA and just made top set. At this point I figured him for KK. Given that, there was no reason for me to bet. If he has KK he folds, and if he has a monster hand I'm cooked so why bet?

The river was a brick and he checked again. Now I thought "how much is the most that I can bet that he'll call me with KK?" I decided on 3,000 and sure enough he called me and he did in fact have KK! Again I had him on the ropes, but he'd be up to 30,000 chips by our next confrontation! Dammit Apestyles why can't I kill you!

At the dinner break (after 6 levels) I had 45,000 which was six times what we started with. After level 8 I had 67,000! It was so much fun! I was blowing people to pieces and I was sure to be in the top 10 if not the top two or three chip stacks in the entire tournament.

Then I had two major miscues. On the first Apestyles got his revenge. The blinds were 300/600 and he raised to 1,400. I had AK and made it 3,500 to go. I'd actually been reraising him a lot all day and getting away with it. A few hands earlier I'd made the exact same play with 99 and won the pot on the flop. So when he made it 8,000 I thought there was some chance he was just getting fed up with me reraising him left and right. I had AK so I figured I'd put him to the test. I moved all in and he called me in a microsecond and rolled over AA! ACK! I was about 7% to win and I didn't. I lost 30,000 chips on that pot!

To make matters worse I lost another 20,000 with AQ to another guy who had AA a little while later! Bastards!

Now I was feeling like I'd totally blown it. After having 70,000 chips at my peak I was down to less than 20,000 with less than an average stack.

Sometime later 2006 WSOP player of the year Jeff Madsen got moved to our table, directly to my left. Jeff is a very aggressive player and I knew he'd be big trouble if he got some chips. The good news was he only had about 10,000. The better news is shortly after we started level 9 I took him out. I raised with AK suited, he moved all in with QQ and I flopped an ace. Bye Jeff!

I was hoping to get someone soft to fill that seat since the rest of my table was a bunch of ball busters. Instead I got Shaun Deeb who either wins or finishes in the top 3 on the yearly pokerstars tournament leader board every year. Can you imagine how hard that is? It's not like he got hot for a week and won the weekly tournament leaderboard on some bullshit site. He's had great results year after year on pokerstars. Well I busted his ass too.

In that hand the blinds were 400/800 and I raised to 2,500 with AQ from the small blind. He thought for about 2 seconds and moved all in for 28,000 from the big blind. I knew that couldn't be a strong hand so I called for about 28,000. He rolled over 55 which meant he was ahead. The flop came down K T 4 with two spades (I had the Q of spades). The turn was another spade. I saw the river was a 2 and I was like "fuck, I'm out! Oh shit it's a spade! It's a spade! I'm the king of the world! Suck it Deeb!" We counted down our stacks and I had him covered by 100! Ha!

I finished day 1 with 46,400 chips. 154 players made it through the day and 126 spots paid. I was in 90th place going into day 2 and my plan was to play tight until we made the money and then go for it.

As you may have seen in my Day 2 preview I got a great table draw. My table for day two had one player with about 50K and everyone else between 20K and 30K. When I got to the table it was better than I hoped. It seemed like only one of these guys was a strong player. But 15 minutes in, just when I was getting pumped about my chances of smashing these jokers, they broke our table.

My new table was much tougher and I saw Apestyles sitting in seat 6 with over 100,000 chips! Why aren't you dead Apestyles?

Despite my plan to play conservatively I couldn't help but be aggressive. And it didn't work out. The blinds were 600/1,200 and the under the gun player raised to 3,000. I was in the big blind with 44 and I called. The flop came down 9 9 3 which meant if my opponent didn't have a pocket pair or a 9 I was ahead. I checked, he bet, and I decided to put him to the test. When the hand started he had 28,000 and I had 50,000. We were 10 players away from the money and while I was hoping he didn't have anything, I thought there was some chance he might fold a strong hand given the circumstances. Sadly he called me with TT and I was down to 22,000.

Right after that I was moved to an even tougher table where everyone but one guy had over 100,000 chips!

Happily I was still able to cruise into the money. Actually it took quite a while, but not too many hands. When we got down to 128 players they started hand for hand play. The way that works is every table plays one hand and then the dealer stands up so the people in charge can see that the table is done with the hand. Once one hand has completed at every table they deal another one. And so on until we make the money. The do this to prevent people from stalling. With 22 tables it took at least 5 minutes for every hand and it took over an hour to go from 128 players to 126.

The very first hand after we made the money I picked up KK for the first time in the tournament! A player with 66 raised, I reraised and he put me all in. That had took me up to about 37,000.

The blinds were 800/1,600 at this point so I had plenty of chips to work with, but then one of those situations where there's nothing to do but go broke came up. I got dealt AKs, raised, got reraised by the big blind, went all in and he had JJ. I couldn't win this race and I was out.

I finished 98th which paid $5,211. A strong finish which gives me two cashes in three tournaments at the 2010 WSOP. Not to shabby!

When I went to get paid out, there was Apestyles at the cage getting his money too. I guess someone had finally taken him out. Nice playing with you Apestyles.

Day 1 update delay.

I'm going to rest before my tournament instead of rushing to put up a post. I'll get to it later today or tomorrow. It was interesting so hopefully it will be worth the wait.

WSOP Event #26 ($2,500 6-max NL) Day 2 Preview

I ended day 1 playing on a total ball buster table, with 5 opponents who all play poker for a living (one big name - 2007 WSOP main event champ Jerry Yang - and 4 online pros). At the end of day 1 we all put our chips into tamper proof plastic bags and they magically appear at a new table with new opponents the next day.

I was able to find my table redraw online and here is what it looks like:

Seat 1: Mitchell Kelly - 23500
Seat 2: Petr Bartagov - 49900
Seat 3: Shawn Hattem - 28900
Seat 4: Wesley Huff - 46400
Seat 5: Samuel Ngai - 22600
Seat 6: Erich Kollmann - 29800

I don't know any of these guys which is good. More importantly 4 of them have significantly fewer chips than I do and everyone has a below average stack. That means I'll be the one who is able to apply the pressure as we approach the money bubble.

Right now we have 156 players left and 126 spots pay. I'm in about 90th and given my table I have a great chance to make the money. You can check out all the chip counts here.

You can check out all the prizes here.

The highlights are: 126th pays $4,782, I need to make it to the top 36 to net $10,000, 6th is $77,000 and 1st is an insane $630,000!!! I have at least a 1 in 150 chance of winning outright.

Look at twitter for updates and pokernews.com for general tournament coverage.

WSOP Event #26 Day 1 Recap (Under Construction)

WSOP event #26 was $2,500 No limit 6 handed. I had a crazy day 1 and I'll have a recap up by 2 (hopefully).

WSOP Schedule Update

After yesterday's tournament and three days of play I felt like I needed a break so I opted to skip the $1,000 NL event that started today at noon. The noon start time and the fact that this is the blandest of events, made it an easier decision to skip it. Instead I plan to take this $1,000 and use it to try to qualify for the Main event once I get back to California (backers, you'll be in for the attempt - more details coming later).

My friends Jake and Chrissy are in town for the weekend and my wife Jen is arriving this afternoon. We're going to do the $155 a person chefs tasting menu at Latalier at the MGM tonight followed by some heavy drinking and negative EV gambling. Then tomorrow night Jen and I are going to see the Elvis Cirque du Soliel at Aria.

Poker is on hold until Monday (I'm already registered for $2,500 6 handed no limit), but I'm sure this is going to be a fun weekend.

WSOP Event #23 Recap

I went into event #23 $2,500 limit 6 handed feeling good about my chances. But, if you read my tweets you know that this tournament was like my own personal hell.

I was playing my best game, against VERY weak competition, at the WSOP and I could not make ANYTHING! It was ridiculous!

I had 5 opponents. Seat 1 was played with seeming randomness before the flop, but was totally ABC after the flop.

Seat 2 kept limping before the flop with hands like J8 off suit or 56 suited and was generally clueless.

Seat 3 was solid, but nothing special.

Seat 4 had backed a buy who finished 2nd in a tournament a few days ago so he was playing this tournament even though he'd never played limit hold'em before. Some people say that and you know it's bullshit, but he said it ten times, and it was obvious that it was true based on his plays and the questions he was asking.

The guy in seat 6 was absolutely spewing chips. He was in half the hands, played them all like shit, and blamed every dealer for his bad luck. I swear to God that at one point he said to the dealer in all seriousness "the reason I lost that last hand was because you didn't pull the bets into the pot before you put out the river." I've heard all sorts of crazy superstitions, but that was a new one.

The fucking guy who had never played limit hold'em before was the second best of my opponents! AHHHHHHHH!!!! How did I not destroy these guys?

It boils down to this. In the first two hours we probably got dealt 80 hands. 70 of those hands were totally unplayable garbage. Of the other ten I won one pot with a bet on the flop, maybe 5 I took to showdown with a 2nd best hand of top pair or better, and 4 I folded post flop with total confidence that I was beaten.

There were two hands that maybe I could have folded on the turn, but they were both top pair aces and I lost to better kickers both times. Other than that I feel like I lost the minimum on every hand.

On the last hand before the first break I was down to 425 chips from 7,500 that we started with. I got AK, flopped top two, there was 4 way action and I quadrupled up. That was about the only thing that well in this tournament.

After the break I got it back up to 2,500, before getting blinded back down to 1,300or so. On the final hand I raised with K9 of spades, the spewmaster called me, and seat 1 reraised me. The flop came J 7 2 with two spades. I check raised the flop which unloaded seat 6, but seat 1 called. The turn was a 7, I bet and got raised all in. The river was a jack and my opponent showed me J5. Jack five? You three bet two players with J5? What - the - fuck? How did I not destroy these guys?

Now that this post is done this tournament is behind me.

WSOP Event #23 Preview

Today at 5 I have $2,500 6 handed limit hold'em. This is my specialty. Coming off a cash in another limit hold'em event I feel great about my chances.

I played this event last year and we got something like 500 or 600 players. But last year there was a $2,500 no limit event at noon which drew off a lot of the players. This year the noon event is the $1,000 buy in ladies only event so I'd expect more players. I'd also expect more players who don't normally play limit who are here for a few weeks like me and want to play something today.

We'll be playing 8 levels today so I'll be looking at a 2:45 am finish if I make it to day 2. In fact if I make it to midnight I'm very likely to skip tomorrows $1,000 no limit at noon which would have me off until Monday.

When I went to sign up I peaked in on the ladies event. It was very surreal. Normally the fields in these tournaments are 90%-95% men. I played against 30 or 40 players in the limit event and two of them were women. So seeing a huge room filled with 1,000 women and no men playing poker was odd to say the least. For some reason it seemed a much more positive and light hearted environment.

WSOP Event #18 Day 2 Recap

We started with 109 players needing to get to 45 to make the money. I was in 79th place chip wise to start the day, knowing I'd need to win a few pots early to survive.

But my only plan was to play my best and take it one hand at a time. With that said it's really difficult NOT to plan. I had 13 hours between day 1 and day 2 and you can bet that the majority of my thoughts during that span were about what was going to happen on Day 2. But there's no reason to go into it thinking I'm going to do this and I'm not going to do that. Even saying I want to have X chips by the next break is dangerous. You have to let the situation dictate your actions and if you follow a plan you came up in a vacuum you're doomed to make mistakes.

Everyone redrew for seats at the end of day 1 and happily I went from a miserable table where everyone could play and had a ton of chips to a table with a few soft spots. If fact once again the two worst players at the table were sitting on my left and my right.

Even better I got off to a great start. We were playing 1,000/2,000 stakes so every pot I won added to my stack significantly. I stole the blinds a few times. I won a pot or two with a continuation bet on the flop. I finally got pocket aces for the first time in the tournament and won a fair sized pot that was three bets preflop, one bet on the flop and no call on the turn. I won with JJ at showdown.

By the time the stakes went up to 1,200/2,400 I was up to 37,000 in chips! It was about the best possible day 2 start that I could imagine.

Then I didn't win a pot for the next hour and to make matters worse I played one hand very poorly. I raised in the cutoff with T9 suited and got called by the fishy player on the button. The flop was K 9 2, I bet and got raised.

The only thing he could have here is a king (or AA maybe). There were no draws, KQ, KJ, and QJ were what I figured to be his most likely holdings given the preflop action, and I knew he didn't have a pocket pair since he 3 bet me a little earlier with 66 (that was the hand with JJ).

I called the flop which is defensible, but I also called the turn and the river which is nothing short of foolish. He rolled over KQ suited and took down the pot. This was the worst hand I played in the entire tournament.

By the time we made it to the first break of day 2 (2 hours in) I had 21,000. More than I started with but much less than I had before.

While all this was going on players were blowing themselves up all over the place and we were down to 69 players as we started level 13 which was 1,500/3,000.

My 21,000 chips were equivalent to having $210 in a $15/$30 game, an amount that could go in on one pot. Even worse I went cold for almost an hour folding 100% of my hands preflop.

At the very end of level 13 I was down to about 9,000 chips when a big hand came up. Pokernews.com actually reported this hand in their tournament coverage, but they were not even close to what actually happened. Here is what they said:

When we arrived at the table the board was reading 3h Qh Kd 3d 5d and Donev was holding pocket tens. Wesley Huff tabled pocket queens and doubled up through Donev.

Huff is now up to 21,000 chips and Donev slipped to 50,000.

OK. About the only thing they got right here is the players involved and the chip counts at the end of the hand (some of the cards are similar I guess).

What really happened is I had KT of spades and I raised to 3,000. Donev in the small blind reraised to 4,500 with QQ (with the Q of clubs). The flop came down K T 3 with two clubs (notice it was all red cards in the pokernews version) which of course was a monster flop for me. The first card I saw was the king and given that I had half my stack in the pot already it was a welcome sight.

On the flop Donev checked which I thought meant he had a big hand, but I put him on AA or AK and no matter what he had I was getting it all in with this hand. I bet and he just called. The turn was the A of clubs which was the worst card in the deck (not knowing what he had). Donev checked again and I put in my last 3,200.

Before he turned over his hand he said "I just have a draw." This was good because it gave me a chance to say "good, I hope you miss it!" This little micro conversation kept me from thinking about the fact that a club, a jack or a queen (14 cards out of 44) would put an end to my tournament. It was about 2 seconds from the time I saw his hand to the time the river card was on the table. I hadn't processed what he needed to beat me yet, but I knew a ten made me a full house and I was still alive.

KT beating QQ on a A K T T 3 board is a little different from QQ beating TT on a K Q 5 3 3 board. Boo pokernews!

That pot kept my head above water for a while, but soon the blinds sucked the life out of me. I got absolute garbage after that hand. Nothing even close until I was down to 7,000. At that point we had 50 players left. 5 spots out of the money and the blinds were taking 3,000 chips out of my stack every round. It did not look good.

Finally I got QJ suited which was the best hand I'd seen for almost an hour! The under the gun player raised, but I still thought I had to go for it. I three bet making it 6,000, he put me all in and I was pumped to see him turn over TT. I expected to be behind 60/40 or maybe even worse, but instead I was 50/50. Even better I flopped a queen and my hand held up.

Maybe 5 minutes later we went on a 60 minute dinner break with 47 players left. I had 18,000 and looking around at the other stacks there were two players with about 6,000 (the blinds would be 1,500/3,000 when we came back) and 4 others with between 8,000 and 15,000. So my chances were very, very good of making the money. But it's not like I was going back to the table and folding AA or KK so if I made a big hand and lost I could still come up short.

I had an hour to let my mind spin all the scenarios. Every time I thought about missing the money I made sure I thought about winning the tournament outright. Looking back I think I had a much better chance of making the final table than of going broke short of the money.

Two hands after we came back my resolve got put to the test. The under the gun player who might have been the tournament chip leader raised. This guy was very aggressive and I was 100% sure if I'd get more action than I wanted. I looked down at QQ...

Jesus. Can I really fold QQ here? I knew calling was not an option. If I reraised it would be to 9,000. Then if I bet the flop that's another 3,000. And since I was all but sure I'd get check raised I'm looking at getting it all in by the flop or the turn.

Did I really want to get it all in with QQ two spots from a $4,000 payout? No I didn't. This was the first time in over 2,000,000 hands of limit poker that I folded QQ before the flop.

After I folded another mega stack in the small blind three bet it and the flop came down ace high. There was a bet and a raise on the flop so I'm confident I didn't fold a winner.

5 minutes later we were in the money! Whoo! 2 hands after that I was out. Boo!

I got dealt Q9s in the small blind and I raised. The big blind called and the flop came down A K 9. Not great, but at least I had a pair. I had to bet and I got called. The turn was a brick, but I bet my last 6,000. My opponent thought for 20 seconds and called with K8. No help on the river and that was it.

I finished in 45th place which paid $4,097. Also I missed the Stud event so I have $5,597 more in my fat roll of hundreds than I could have at this point in my trip.

A very good start and a good boost for the confidence.