Location: Orange County, California, United States
I've been playing holdem for two years now. I play online at very low limits on UB, Stars, and Full Tilt. I've hosted poker at my place since July '04, with a $10 cash game on Thursday nights and a $10 tourney on Sunday nights. Thursdays now alternate between a $20 NL cashgame and a limit HORSE cashgame. Sundays are now $20 rebuy tourneys. Good times.
Albert and Derek busted out of Event #2 in fairly short order. I don't think either of them saw Level 4. After a sweet session of $4/8 limit at the Bellagio, Albert and I played in the $225 Second Chance tourney that started at 11pm.
My ticket says that it was WSOP Event #53. June 27, 198 players, $38412 in the prize pool. Twelve and a half grand to first, and top 18 paid.
I finished 17th, just inside the money. It was my first ever casino tourney money finish - I've only played in about a half dozen of them. 17th paid $384.
I just shared a sixer of Heineken Light with the guys to celebrate. I know I feel way too happy about my money finish... that people wipe their ass with four hundred bucks around here. But for a guy that doesn't have an online MTT win, or a prior casino money finish, it feels really nice. The question during the tourney wasn't "Did you play in Event #2?" but "When did you bust out of Event #2?" I'm pretty sure it's a big tell when you announce to the table that you're in this tourney because you had a very good session of $4/8 limit earlier that day.
And I played pretty damn well too. I think I busted out at 5am.
So I'm not lying, only stretching the truth to the breaking point, when I tell people that I monied in a WSOP event.
(Oh, and I have no clue why my RSS feed has different size fonts. Sorry folks.)
Event #2 of the WSOP was full on Monday at 6:30pm (taking alternates after that - sorry, Bill Gazes, you were a little too late not to be an alternate). I had played in two single table $125 satellites by that point, finishing 5th in both. One suckout at the tight table, and one bad play and emergency all-in at the loose table.
But more importantly, Albert has company in tomorrow event. Derek played in one $125 single table, and he won it. He took his two $500 lammers and $500 cash, and signed up for Event #2 right before it was announced as full.
I'm gonna root for them both tomorrow - it's pretty sweet that two regulars from my low-limit homegame are playing in a WSOP event.
And probably sit back down at the $4/8 limit, half-kill cashgame, too. Them suckers are juicy.
Tonight, we leave for Vegas. Yes, it's way too early for the Blogger trip, but we've got our own plans. Michelle is in my car. The other car has a Gomez, a Sanchez, a short superaggressive Jewish guy, and a former Mormon who often plays at the $3/6 razz tables on Full Tilt. Long-time homegame regular Albert is already out there.
Michelle wants a vacation, and a visit with her friend, who just had a baby.
The rest of us are here for the poker. Specifically, Event #2 of the WSOP. Albert will be buying his way in directly, and the rest of us are hoping to win our ways in with single table satellites.
We'll arrive tonight, enjoy some satellite goodness on Monday, and hopefully have our seats in Event #2 come Tuesday. It's a 3-day tourney, and being optimistic, we've elected to checkout on Friday morning. My bartending shifts are on weekends, so I won't miss any of those. This trips works nicely around the shifts I want to keep. That fact, unfortunately, is why I won't be attending the Blogger Thing later this summer. It's very expensive for me to go to Vegas on a weekend, when I factor in the money I'm missing by not working. And I'm not a good enough poker player (yet?) to use my bankroll, or a big MTT win, to finance it.
I've promised myself (and Skipper) that I'll play some $4/8 limit in Vegas, and I might give a Second Chance tourney a shot. Michelle's bringing her laptop, so I won't be 'netless.
Hopefully I'll have a happy blog post per day.
And I shall sleep tonight, dreaming of Tiffany Williamson-type luck.
I thought this was amusing. The following is a part of a chat I had with one of the regulars in my homegame. He missed the cashgame following the tourney. I was telling him about how I lost my first buy-in when my opponent came from behind on the river:
Skip: i can just picture doing what you always do after a bad beat Skip: you shrug, lean back, and look around your apartment for something that isnt there Skip: and let out a sigh Skip: its always the funniest Skip: compared to my 'he cant beat me with skill, he should fucking die'
I chuckled when he told me this... I hadn't noticed it, but that's my normal reaction.
I couldn't resist, even though I have more experience at LO8 than PLO8... Full Tilt's got a $5 Double Stack PL Omaha/8 tourney starting in 14 minutes. Might as well blog as I go.
7:17pm: Andy Bloch has been a busy guy today, and he's signed up for this tourney. There's a lot of "red" tourneys, and most of them are him. He's exited very early in many of them, so I'd wager he's a "gamble early, gamble often" kinda guy at these low stakes. And I wonder why he's in a $5 tourney, when the $200's are chump change to him.
7:19: Albert, from my homegame, is in too. Like me, he's a moderately bad Omaha/8 player. I tend to stay away from the bad river calls he occasionally makes.
7:26: Duggle and Yosoy are also playing. We're all in chat. Duggle's our resident expert. The over/under on dumb questions I ask him in the course of the tourney is set at 5.5.
7:30: 296 to start, $1480 in the prize pool, 27 paid.
7:35 Al got moved to a table with a 12K stack and a 10K stack. We started with 3K. Eep!
7:39: 20 people out already.
7:41: I've gotten two playable hands, and chopped both. 2900 in chips.
7:49: Cheap flop, doesn't fit my hand, fold to a half-pot flop bet. Rinse, repeat. 2700 in chips.
7:53: Al gets quartered pushing the nut low (little chance for high).. He's looking at 1600 chips.
7:58: Yosoy ousted when three callers to her turn all-in all improve with the river card. Ouch. She's gone in 225th.
8:00: I just got owned, but kept a pittance in chips (500) when the river low diamond scared us both. He had flopped trip Q's, and I thought I liked my trip J's on the turn.
8:05: I just figured out that Duggle got moved to Al's table. Al's royal draw didn't hit. He still has more chips than I do.
8:11: Folded a straight draw with a flush draw on board. Flush would've given me my straight. I didn't chase. And I bet he had it.
8:13: Almost a doubleup! I decide to donk around a call a minbet on the flop with AT86, suited to the ace. I hit the gutshot straight to the ten, and the flush draw didn't get there. Two people with me to the river means I'm up to 850. I believe this will be the highlight of my tournament.
8:20: Donkey Doubleup! After a few limpers in my BB, the SB raised, so I went all-in for my 840. Two callers, and my trashy AT87ss tripled me up. No low, and my T7 boat was goot!
8:28: Al still hanging around, with 850.
8:33: Break time for PLO8. Our attention shifts to Yosoy, who just went on a big run in her 200K satellite, and is top 5 with 24 left, 9 seats to the $200K tourney paid out.
8:46: Al's out of PLO8, Duggle staying strong at the tourney chipleader's table, and Yosoy's on break. I still have an underpar, but playable, stack of chips with 3300, blinds at 60/120.
8:59: I'm short, so I potted it preflop with A39Qss. It put me out in 113th. TT4 flop, I had gotten one caller, and he checked it to me. I jammed almost potsized, and he called me with AK43. WHAAA?
Oh well, perhaps it's time to play some live poker.
Here's a hypothetical situation for you. You're in a $8K guaranteed Full Tilt tourney, and you've made the final table. Three-handed, you bust the shortstack, and on that hand, your other opponent loses his internet connection.
You begin heads-up play with a 450K to 350K chip advantage, against an opponent who is not there. The blinds are 4K/8K/1Kante. First place pays $3500, second is $2200.
