Bellagio Five Diamond, Day 0
Brrrrr! Howdy y'all. It's freakin cold here in Vegas. The locals are pissed. I walked out to my truck this afternoon and slipped on ICE on the sidewalk. I think the high today was mid 50's. Complete bull if you ask me. We still managed to head out onto the lake and checked out a new island. We dubbed it Shipwreck Island, but have since found out that it was already named that. So much for being original. When we pulled into the cove where we moored we saw a small 18' boat about ten feet below us, and on the other side of the peninsula there was an old 40+' wood boat on the beach. Pretty crazy exploring those. Rode the motorcycle home and froze my arse off.
Last few days have been pretty lazy. I've played a few sessions of 100-200, winning them all. I won $3100 Mon night, $400 Tue night, and $1000 Wed night. Can't complain, that's for sure! In the $400 session I played an interesting hand heads up with Svi, a Toronto native that plays a pretty solid game, but a little too weak-tight, and thus I three bet him with the K Q out of the cutoff. I was sitting one to his left. The flop came K Q 3 . He checked, I bet, he raised, I 3 bet, he 4 bet, I 5 bet, he 6 bet, and I just called. Now He's pretty straight forward in his play, so there's no way he had KK (would've 4 bet pre), and highly unlikely that he has QQ (maybe 5%... same reason. Would've 4 bet). He never raises with small pairs, so that ruled out 33. Thus, his most likely holding is KQ, and second most likely is J T . The turn came an offsuit deuce. He bet, I raised, and after some complaining he folded and showed two face cards. Players to my left said he had KQ. Made sense, and I played perfect. But... oops. He actually had QQ. QQ! Second nuts! And mucked! There was $2400 in the pot, he's thinking it's gonna cost $400 more (turn and river), and he only has one out. Now, it does make sense for me to have KK there... I basically play it the same way... but I also play KQ and 33 the same way too. So sweet...
So, the Five Diamond starts tomorrow, $1500 NL. I'm planning on playing events 1-3 and 6-8, which are all 1500, 2000, 2500. I don't really want to invest more than 12k into this series. If I so well I will play more or if I get somebody to take some of my action I will play more. Offer is still out there if anybody wants a piece!
Until tomorrow...
Peace and good luck.
Devo
Sunday Night Date Night, Drunken 10-20NL
"I flopped quads." Uggggggghhhhhh.... damn my head hurts. I've been awake for about half an hour. It's 6:07pm. I just popped an 800ml tab of Mexican Ibuproferen. Like, really... it's from Mexico. I'm hungry. I stink. Lara informed me of that. But damn was it a good night last night!
It all started somewhere around 6:30pm when Lara left the house headed to the Wynn for a date night. We went and saw Le Reve, the new Franco Dragone show. I was really excited to see the show because of the themes that Dragone was employing, and I completely missed all of that. Flew right over my head. And I'm usually pretty good at picking up that kind of stuff. Instead I enjoyed the beauty and the awesomeness of the acrobatics that the performers were pulling off. Pretty flippin incredible actually. The show was well worth it.
From there we headed to Capo's for dinner... the goodest Italian restaurant ever. Unfortunately my regular server wasn't there, but the food was still as delicious as ever! We went to the Bellagio after that to try and round up some kids for a little late night fun. It ended up being Lara, myself, and my buddy Jay who went to VooDoo on top of the Rio. Jay is a friend of mine from Minnesota who now lives in San Diego. I really believe he has a promising future in the poker world. He's been professional for a few years now and is a better hold'em player than I am, but like many of the Minnesota boys, he's generally avoided any kind of fanfare. I think however that he sees the metagame value in all that extra stuff and is going to give it his best shot. He's young, good looking, talented, and a ton of fun, all the necessary elements for a following.
After some cocktails at 51 stories, we decided to go play some dice. Who's idea? Lara's of course. We'll make this long story short. No clue when we started. We quit sometime around 5am. Lara made over $1k. I made over $1800. Jay made over $4k. Good times. But wait... it gets better. From there we took a cab back to the Bellagio where Jay was staying and my truck was parked, and naturally had to wander into the poker room. Not sure how it happened, but I took an open seat to "kill some time" in a 10-20 NLHE game.
Now, don't forget... I'm way hammered at this point. Not destroyed by any means, but I couldn't even operate a R/C car at that point much less any other form of machinery. I think that's why I decided to sit for a while, because I was too drunk to drive. Clearly a good time to sit in the highest stakes game in the room at the point, right? The good news though is that I realized my intoxication and the image that I could cultivate, and I used that to the maximum.
I dropped my flag ($5k chip) on the table and asked for a rack and three, which means one rack of $20 chips and 3 $1k chips. I told the table in my best drunken slur that I was putting these three yellow chips in my pocket and they could only take my two thousand. I was drunk, but something was clicking in my mind actually. My reads were spot on, and I used my image perfectly. I bluffed a guy in the very first hand I played with king high on the river. He told me he had ace high. I then said, "If you have ace high, you should call because that beats my king high." He then folded. I showed my king high.
The best hand of the night came when a guy opened from the hi-jack (two off the button) and I read him as weak in the small blind, plus I had to mix up my game a little bit, so I re-raised with the 22 to $420. He called. Flop: 227. I immediately bet $500. LOL. Good slowplay, right? He raises to $1500. I re-raise for an additional $1200ish, total bet of $2700. He finally calls. "I flopped quads." Damn that was fun to say.
Lara meanwhile crushed the 2-5 NL game for over a thousand, and we finally walked to the cage together somewhere around 8:30am. Good date night. As I was cashing out, she asked me how much I was in for. $2k I told her. The cashier counted over $12k in chips. OH MY GOD. I booked a win in one hammered three hour session of a game that I suck at for over ten thousand. I've never won five digits in a cash game before. Ever. It was a pretty sweet feeling. However, thinking back on the night, I obviously cashed out the three yellow chips in my pocket, so I only won over $7k in three hours of drunken poker. What a sweet feeling. I might have to give the ol NL a few more shots!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Thanksgiving Week Roundup
Little Mr. Mom, little 100-200; all in the life of a poker pro. Happy Thanksgiving boys and girls!
Last time I wrote I was headed off to the UPC $600+60 event, hoping once again to make the elusive TV table. However, the most exciting thing that happened there was seeing Pam Brunson, a friend of mine, who HAD made the TV table from Sunday's event... wearing the last bracelet that her dad (Doyle obv.) had won at Binions. So freakin cool. It was a neat moment to wish her good luck before she sat down. From there I headed to Bellagio after my 2.5 hour visit to Binions and sat immediately in the 100-200 game. The game was a total rock garden and I escaped after two hours up 1200. I then moved to the 40-80 mix which was super juicy and ran TERRIBLE. Enough said there. Then, went home, played online, and blew another $600. Total loss for the day around $2k.
Tuesday I woke up and decided to be Mr. Mom - doing laundry, cleaning up, and generally catching up on everything that I have failed to do for the past two months. I got insurance on my bike and paid for six months, went to the DMV and registered it, bought a mouse, fed my snake, and continued to do more house chores. I think I did somewhere around eight loads of laundry. Sick, eh?
Wednesday I woke up with intentions to do much the same, and after doing more laundry, cleaning the bathtub, and attempting to clean my room, I gave up. I headed into the Bellagio around 5pm to play some 1-2. They finally got a THIRD (sweet, eh? not even a tourney in town!) game started around 6:30. I sat, played four hands, folded them all, and then got moved to the main game. I folded my first hand, won the second, and then won the third... good for up $3k immediately. NICE! I played for another few hours and finished up $4800.
The game was pretty interesting. The mix consisted of Scott Fishman, two local pros, and myself - which is usually an outlook for a pretty bad game, but it was actually a pretty good game. After the two local pros shipped out, Kenna James shipped in, and let me tell you - I was very impressed with what he did to the game. He reminded me much of what I like to do to a game - walk in, be loud, be funny, be personable, and generally fire up the game so it's fun and loose. I hope to reach that point where I can do that to a 1-2 game. I was also impressed with Scott's play - 100% solid. There were no real interesting hands, but y'all might get a kick out of this one. Dave, who looks familiar and regularly plays in the bigger games, raises UTG+1. The fish to my right cold calls, and I three-bet with the A K . Dave 4 bets, and we both call. The flop comes rags. Dave bets, fish calls, and I muck my AK - figuring that I'm drawing to 6 outs at best - quite possibly 3 or 0. Either way, bad spot. The turn comes a Q , Dave bets, and the fish folds. Dave shows 5 8 . Atta boy! Pretty silly when you broke it down, but it sure was good for his image, and he played it good post acting on his reads.
So, here I am fifty-one minutes into Thanksgiving. I was really hoping to head home for the holiday, but found out this week that my sister was not coming down from Colorado, nor were we sure if we'd be able to see extended family. I was planning on heading down and then coming back immediately tonight to meet Lara, who flys in at 1:30 PM today! WooHoo! So instead, I'm picking her up from the airport and we're headed to John's house. I'm pretty excited to have a family thanksgiving dinner with one of my best friends here in town, my girlfriend, and my roomie Danny. Should be good times!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Life is a journey... return to Vegas.
Find yourself. I received an e-mail yesterday saying that I needed to be writing about poker more. Aparrently all my recent blogs have been about "fishing and [sex]" according to my friend Larry. Thanks for the e-mail buddy - I laughed quite hard.
So I got back from Montana Saturday at 1:30pm and went straight to the Bellagio because my life is all about poker and I am an action junkie. *NOT* (in typical Borat fashion). I went straight to the lake, cracked a beer, and cast a line in the water. I love the lake. It was so nice coming from thirty degree weather to having my shirt off and the sun on my chest in perfect 75 degree weather. After we got back, THEN I headed into the Bellagio for a little cards. I must admit, I did have the itch for some serious action. All this small NL online stuff and small live stuff I've been a part of lately was definately rubbing on me - and I wanted to sit in a big game. I started in the 40-80 mix game, moved to the 100-200 game which sucked, moved to the 10-20 NL game that was decent but broke, and headed home after a few hours. I made somewhere around a dime.
Sunday I woke up later than I wanted to and had to kinda hurry down to Binions for the UPC $300+40 NLHE event. I need to make one of these TV tables man! However, nothing went right for me and I was busto within four levels. I won one hand in the third level when I raised pre after one limper and everybody folded. LOL. It was quite fun though to see some of the friendly faces that were there; my friends Brandon Cantu and Pam Brunson as well as several other people that I recognized from the circuit. Also in the field was Todd Brunson and Hoyt Corkins. I'm going to play in the $600+50 event today. Hopefully I'll bust out in level two so I can get on the lake before it's too late!
That evening I came home and played some online and ran pretty well. More importantly though I have been playing pretty well in the past week. I'm officially un-stuck from my online lessons and actually up about a thousand. Well, while crushing the game, Randy (friend in town from LA) got all fired up to go play some cards, so Danny, Jared, Randy and I headed to the Sunset Station to play some 3-6-9 limit hold'em. I decided that instead of playing my usual reckless style I would only play reckless pre-flop. Anytime it was limped or folded to me, I would raise. If it was raised in front of me I would play straight. It was good to put myself in some weird situations with huge pots. I definately learned a thing or two about value betting cause I knew I was getting called by some super weak hands! Plus, it's just a ton of fun to roll over king-three offsuit on the river, say "The nuts," and not be lying!
Well... in other news I'm going to be playing mostly cash games until the start of the Bellagio Five Diamond starting on the first. I'm selling up to 50% of myself for the events simply because I don't feel like investing $30k into a couple of weeks of tournaments. Fifteen sounds much better! So if you or anybody you know is interested, please let me know. Otherwise you'll only get to read about some of the events and not the main event i'd be playing!
Last night I watched the movie
Cars for the second time this week. It is an extremely beautiful movie in all aspects. It really captures the essence of the fact that life is a journey, an adventure. Relationships are more important than destinations. It is a wonderful reminder that we all need to take some time to just slow down and forget about time for a while. I highly recommend that you buy the movie, watch it, let it sink in, laugh, cry, and then watch it again a few days later. Here is the lyrics from the song played during the epilogue that really brings the movie home.
Find YourselfBrad PaisleyWhen you find yourself in some far off place
And it causes you to rethink some things
You start to sense that slowly you're becoming someone else
And then you find yourself
When you make new friends in a brand new town
And you start to think about settlin down
The things that would have been lost on you
Are now clear as a bell
And you find yourself
Yeah that's when you find yourself
Well you go through life so sure of where you're headed
And you wind up lost and it's the best thing that could've happened
Cause sometimes when you lose your way, it's really just as well
Cause you find yourself
Yeah that's when you find yourself
When you meet the one that you've been waiting for
And she's everything that you want and more
You look at her and you finally start to live for someone else
And then you find yourself
That's when you find yourself
Well we go through life so sure of where we're headed
And we wind up lost and it's the best thing that could've happened
Cause sometimes when you lose your way it's really just as well
Cause you find yourself
Yeah that's when you find yourself
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Ramblings from Helena
Still in Montana Woke up yesterday morning, didn't feel like getting out of bed, called the airline and pushed it back to tomorrow. God I love being a poker player :-). Lara and I spent the day yesterday doing absolutely nothing, and it was everything I wanted it to be. It feels so good to add a vacation element of relaxation to this trip. We went out to dinner at a really nice restaurant here in town, and holy schneikes was it inexpensive! Two beers, bottle of wine, appetizer, and split king crap legs - total bill of $73. How do they make any money?!? We then went to see Borat, and I must say I was a little disappointed. I love the jackass type stuff, but this was a little insulting at times, very disgusting (but funny) at times, and I suppose that my expectations were too high. I laughed, but I won't be seeing it again.
I have come to love mornings again on this trip as I have been experiencing them. Wake up whenever I do, have a couple cups of coffee, catch up with e-mails and myspace stuff, play a little online, read the paper, and just relax. This morning I chatted with my sister for a good hour and I am so proud of her. She's living in Colorado Springs and doing pretty well. She is an artist and just got picked up for a regular thing. Check out some of her work here, and hey, maybe you'll like it and buy some! She's pretty dang talented. I'm very proud of her.
I have been playing a bunch online during this trip. I'm officially un-stuck from my no-limit lessons and actually up about $1k. I've made about 3 this week thus far. I'm finally refreshing my love of online poker which feels good.
I fly back tomorrow, land at 1:30pm, and head directly to the lake. Back to normal life or whatever life in Vegas is called!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Smitten Spontaniety
Absolutely zero poker content whatsoever. Except I play and she rakes. I have a tattoo on my right calf that is flames with the verse "James 4:14" inscribed within the flames. It says, "You do not even know what will happen tomorrow, for what is your life? It is a vapor that appears for a moment and then vanishes." The tattoo means many things to me, but at this moment I am simply amazed at how neat life is. We really have no clue what it ever going to happen to us at any given moment in the future, regardless of how near or far away that moment is. I truly believe that we should all make more of an effort to release the micro-management of our lives and return to the fundamentals of living for the moment that we find ourselves in now .
Saturday afternoon I was chilling on my boat, stoked to be back with my boys, enjoying a Bud Light hoping the fish would bite. Sunday morning I was getting onto a plane to fly someplace that I had never been before, not really sure why I was going, but feeling that for some reason I needed to go. I did not have anything else going on that week and saw a neat opportunity to get away from Vegas and the tournament trail for a few days of rest and relaxation. I had no idea what to expect really. My primary contact was Lara, but I had never even met her. Ever. I knew a friend of mine was in Montana, but this is a pretty big state and I had no idea where he was. I knew that I was giving a poker seminar and getting put up in a sweet hotel. And, well, that's about it.
I'm really glad I came here.
It's Wednesday night. I fly back to Vegas tomorrow at 12:25pm. Lara is sleeping next to me. And I am the luckiest man alive.
I really had no intentions of pursuing any sort of serious relationship for quite a while - at least until after the next Series. I've been through some tough things in the past year on that front and really just wanted to take some time off, live a bit of the bachelor lifestyle that is so easily supported in Vegas. But what I found up here in Montana has very much changed my life for the forseeable future. She's very much involved in it.
No, not getting married anytime soon. No, not moving to Montana. But I do have a girlfriend :-).
It's just so werid though how little control we have over our lives it seems. I was fully committed to my singlehood but this girl has completely changed my opinion. She hasn't exactly been trying to either. It's just clicked so well that I'm still in shock over it all. Her personality is incredible, she's a ton of fun, she actually likes poker (kinda comes with the owning a poker room territory), she is passionate about life, she's driven, motivated, intelligent, and pretty much drop dead gorgeous. Yep. I'm hooked.
I feel so fortunate and blessed to have had the ability and freedom to be able to get onto a plane with twelve hours notice and fly 800 miles to a place I've never been before simply because I want to. This trip has been so sweet on so many levels and I'm so excited to see what happens next.
Who knows what will happen next. I used to think that I had a pretty good grasp on what was happening next in my life. I'm supposed to be on a plane tomorrow at 12:25. Maybe they have a later flight :-).
Thanks for reading.
Devo
My Name on a Marquee?!?
I don't know how to tell you this... I'm kinda big deal around here.
I have never experienced anything quite like this!
Lara and I
So here I am at the Woodpeckers Casino, home of the Bluff Poker Room that Lara owns preparing to give a seminar tonight. The subject material is loosely a discourse on what it takes to be a professional giving the lessons that I have learned the hard way. I am going to be very open and honest about what it is like to be a professional and then follow it up by a Q&A time - there's no question that I won't answer honestly!
In other news, I finally kicked Coinflip's ass at a coin flip. I'm now a strong .333 in our three sessions. Thank God there is two more days left in this trip so I can get un-flip-stuck.
Off to mingling.
Peace,
Devo
Monday Morning in Montana
I'm on vacation baby... Satruday went a little something like this. I woke up at 6am (this story's already weird, eh?) bright eyed and bushy tailed. I had gone to sleep Friday night at 7pm and slept straight through finally putting my body back onto a normal schedule after LA. The only thing I could think of was putting my butt on the back of my new toy, a 2005 Honda VTX1300C Cruiser motorcycle pictured below. I've been fixin to buy a bike for a few months now (I gave my old POS to my neighbor in MN since I didn't have room in the trailer to move it out here) and figured that was a great way to reward myself for a successful past several weeks.
So I woke up, fired her up, and headed out on the morning open road toward Lake Mead. I rode across Hoover Dam, hung out for a little while, and then rode back into Boulder City to find some random Mom and Pop breakfast shop. I love those things! I found the best one ever in the Las Vegas area, spent some time mingling with the locals and conspiracy theorists, and finally rode back home, where something else unusual happened. The entire house was up by 11am.
The night before Shaun and Jared fixed the trailer on the pontoon boat and we were finally ready to get her back out on the water. The three of us headed out on the water, and as soon as the boat was launched we knew there was problems. We were sinking. Again. But really this time. Aparrantly when the boat was crashed into by the truck some of the welds on the pontoons were broken, and the last time it was out while I was in MN, they filled up with a ton of water, and thus we were low-ride-in.
Back to the trailer.
We pop three fresh beers, pop the drain plugs on the back of the pontoons, and siphon an estimated 50 gallons of water out of the pontoons over 40 minutes.
That's when things started getting werid for a Saturday.
I called my friend Lara Miller in Montana cause I said I would at some point during the day, and I figured that sinking my boat and fixing it was as great a time as any. Her and I have been chatting through the world of MySpace for a while, know a ton of the same people, and have partied in the same room before, but have never consciously met before. We think that we may have met at some point during the series, but *I know* that I *don't know* much of what happened at those poker parties, so it is very likely that I forgot most of anything. Yeah. Anyways, the conversation went something like this. She is coming down to Vegas for the Bellagio Five Diamond in December, I said that's too far away cause I want to hang out sooner, she said how bout next weekend, I said how bout tonight, find me a flight, and hung up. She called back about fifteen minutes later with a flight for Sunday morning at 8:25am.
Oops. Bluff called.
So, I decided to re-raise all-in and said, book it for me, I'll pay you back later, and I'll be on that plane.
She said sure. Looks like I was going to Montana.
Sunday morning I woke up again at 6:30 am, grabbed my still packed bag from LA and headed to the airport. I had genuinely forgotten how much the airport in Vegas SUCKS on Sundays for obvious reasons. I never get to the airport early like most americans because I'm a poker player and we don't do that. I speeched my way through the 30 min check-in line, speeched my way through the 1hr long security line, speeched my way out of another "random" bag search that I was subjected to, and made it onto the plane 10min before takeoff, the last guy on-board naturally. I hate those random bag searches. Not sure how they know, but something about last minute tickets paid for in cash combined with traveling light and having cash on me somehow means "terrorist" to the TSA. Thirteen Arab's and me in a room getting ready for the random search. Riiiight. Anyways, I digress.
I finally made it to Lara's poker room in Helena, MT Sunday night at 5pm. Three feet in Jeremy asked me if I wanted anything to drink, and within thirty seconds an ice cold Bud Light was in my hand. I like this place already. I'm still getting a grasp on the state laws here and the state of poker, but basically Lara rents space from this sports bar/casino (casino meaning they have like twenty old school video machines) and runs a poker room. She carries endorsements from Bluff and Full Tilt Poker, so their name is all over everything, and it's actually a pretty cool vibe going here. About five minutes into my adventure Terry "Coinflip" Manska walked in the door. Coinflip was dubbed by Rick Fuller who was up here last month. He demanded that we flip a quarter for $100. I lost. I then played in the cash game, basically a $2-150 spread with a $300 cap on the pot (state law), and, well, lost. I then played online and lost. Patterns? Aparrantly I run bad in Montana, but based on how good the trip is going thus far, I don't care in the slightest about my poker results.
I am here until Thursday. I'm basically taking this like a vacation. I do have to do some work along the way though. I'm giving a seminar up here Tuesday night so I have to do some reasearch for that. Totally worth it though for the suite they're putting me up in! The shower is literally big enough for four guys to shower comfortably in... but there's only two showerheads in it (only... sick). I love it. Also on the work plate I have an article deadline Wednesday so I suppose I should put all those thoughts onto paper soon so I can edit, eh?
Ok.. that's enough for now. Thanks for reading, and I hope that you're shaking your head and chuckling by this point at how absurd my life is. :-)
Peace and good luck!
Devo
Commerce Holiday Bonus Tournament Day 6, $300+30 Final Table... Good news!
I told you this was going to happen!!! About 40 days ago I predicted that I would win a tournament this fall. You can read about it here. 17 live events later including two third place finishes and one 15th place finish, I fulfilled that prediction. I began the $300+30 NLHE event #5 final table tonight at 9pm PST second in chips looking to take down a long awaited first place finish.
When I sat down at the table I was quite happy with the outlook. We were actually ten handed and I was in the ten seat. The good news was that my friend John Turner was in the 8 seat who was the chip leader and the only other serious player at the final table. But, that was about all the good news that I was going to be having in the beginning of the final table. I started out very slow until this hand came up. I was in the big blind on the 1500-3000/500 level. UTG with just a couple less chips than me limped, MP2 limped, and it was folded to me in the big blind. The MP limper had about 35k in chips. I looked down at J J and raised it 8k more. The UTG player, who I have never seen nor played any hands with before called pretty quick, and the MP player folded. The flop came 8 8 2 . I bet 15k and the UTG player moved all-in after a little thought. The raise was enough to leave me with only 7500 in chips. This was a spot like I have never been in before in a tournament situation. The way the hand was played screamed AA, maybe KK. I went into the serious tank and I got absolutely zero read from him either way. I tried every trick in the book and still got nothing. I finally laid my JJ down after showing it to John. The UTG player showed me 7 7 . AYA. But, even though, I still felt that I was in a good spot.
The play went pretty standard from there on out. I actually caught some big hands and was able to put together a ton of chips. I trapped a guy sweet with AA, smooth calling his raise pre-flop, and he shoved with AK on the 9 high flop. My hand was good and I made a ton of chips. I busted him a few hands later when he raised with QJ and I went over the top with A J and my hand was good. Five handed I took a SICK beat for a pot worth over 120k with the 76o on a Q77 flop. My opponent had about 45k left and I knew he wanted to shove badly, so I only bet 15k on the flop into a 43k pot with my flopped trips. He called, and shoved on the 5 turn. I called instantly and he showed 55 and I did not improve.
We got down to three handed with John holding most of the chips and me and the 55 guy being about even. Then this sweet hand came up. I raised the button my standard with the A K , 55 guy cold called the SB, and John folded the BB. The flop came K 7 6 . He checked, I bet 30k, he called. The turn came the A . He checked and I went all-in for just over 65k. He called after some thought with the K T and I had him drawing dead. John eliminated him on the next hand and we were heads up.
Now, John is a friend of mine and also an excellent player, so we decided to make a save. We saved 25k each and decided to play for the remaining 5700. He had a 40k chip lead on me. I picked up a few small pots and then this hand came up.
I raised the button with T9o standard, and he called the BB. The flop came K Q 8 , and I had a gutterball. He checked, I bet 40k, and he raised it to 100k. He played it so perfectly that I really didn't think he had anything that could stand any heat and I shoved all-in. He called quickly with the A A . Ouch. But, running good is running good and I spiked the J on the river to take down the pot and pretty much the tournament. He doubled on a pointless hand, and then I finally finished it all-in blind with the T 9 to win the trophy, the extra 5700, and the few extra best all around points. Such a sick beat that I put on him. I am really glad that we made a save so that it was only a 5k bad beat, not an 18k bad beat. It was only the 2nd bad beat that I put on anybody the entire tournament, and I have taken my extra share of beats this week!
Thrilled to win one. Such a nice bankroll boost to add $30k cash to it. Thanks so much to my Mom who came out and watched, seeing me in action for the first time ever, Doug, Katy, and to Mike C, Kirby, and Mike P who stayed as long as they could before they had to head to the airport. Your support meant so much to me!
A couple of funny things happened yesterday that I want to talk about. First, when we consolidated tables to the money, one player set his chips down on my table, left for a smoke, came back and said, "Where are my chips?!?" His chips mysteriously vanished. Uh oh. Instead of stopping the clock and figuring out what was going on, they continued play on the other two tables and held us up while they figured out what to do. They then gave the guy a new stack of what he said he had, fortunately only 3k. Second mistake. He went busted two hands later, and two hands after that we went on break. Thank God they actually took time to figure out what was going on during the break and held everything up until they came to a conclusion. The surveilence tapes came back inconclusive as to what happened to the chips, which is very fortunate to whoever swooped up the chips, because they would have been disqualified. Bad job not figuring it out immediately, good job taking the time to figure it out on break.
Second, with about 20 players left I found myself against an all-in player pre-flop with the A7o v. ATo. The flop came QJ9, turn 2, river 9, and I turned my hand face down because I thought I lost. The dealer pushed the pot to the other player when John, who was standing behind me watching, said, "Hey! That's a chopped pot!" I quickly grabbed my cards and turned them face up and got half the pot. WOW. Nobody at the table, including the dealer, saw the chop. Thank you John!
So, great great night... one of the best ones ever. Thanks for your support!
Peace and good luck!
Devo
Commerce Holiday Bonus Tournament Days 4 and 5... So Sweet.
A beautiful day in mudville... I have so much fun stuff to write about! So, we'll just start chronologically, but I want to tell you about how I went busted in the limit tournament in 1:03 and then went bowling with two hot actresses and one hot country music star, played 100-200, slept, woke up, made a final table of a tournament, and then played some more 100-200.
If I had written this blog yesterday I would have complained about how fruatrated-running I have been lately. Is that a word? I'm not so sure, but it's 9:26am and I haven't been to sleep yet so you will have to excuse me. Now that you have excused me resume laughing. Thank you. But basically up until today I have been basically spinning my tires, but it hasn't been the I'm happy to be even spinning my tires. I've had so many sets and top pairs and top two pairs shoved up my ass on the river in the 60-120 game and 100-200 game that it's not even funny. I suppose that I should be thrilled to be even (which I am), but with so many huge hands it's really hard to not be up.
Going into the $200+25 event #4 LHE event I was pretty sure that I was going to do well. Anybody that has ever played a LHE tournament with me knows that I raise a lot of hands and see a lot of flops. A guy told me once, "I hear 'random number's up out of you more than anybody I have ever played with. Sixes up. Eights up. Threes up.'" But for this event, I was even more motivated to get a ton of chips or go busto. They only gave us 1k to start with the blinds at 25-25, so there was not much room for running bad. My reasoning for wanting to go busted quick is that my roomie here Melissa was going out with Tiffany Michelle and several other people. Too much fun, and I've been wanting to meet Tiffany for a while. "And friends" in this case meant her actress roommate, her country star friend Jenna (who was supposed to open the CMA's but got ousted last minute by Kelly Clarkson), and Jeff Madsen (winner of two bracelets this summer). Also joining us was my friend Johnny Monnette who is a ton of fun. We went to this sweet ass bowling alley that felt like more of a club than the typical bowling alley atmosphere. I sucked, we bowled, and all had a good time.
The night ended early and we headed back to the Commerce. I sat in the 100-200 game for about 3 hours, winning a whopping $540, which I promptly blew in the 40-80 game with John. Go to bed, play online NL (which I am finally getting! 4 winning sessions in a row!), sleep, wake-up, play in $300+30 NL event.
So I played today. I promptly blew half my stack in the first level, built it back up to 2800 and got it all in on a J22 flop with J8o. I was against QJ, caught an 8 on the river, and cruised from there. I ended up in the same seat that I went busted with TT in during event #3 which is funny, and then this hand came up. I had ~9k in chips and the blinds were 100-200/25. I had A K early and raised my standard, 575. A tight old guy in the 2 seat with a few more chips than me re-raised to 1800. The button called the raise cold and it was folded back to me. The button had ~6k left. Based simply on the play the button had no better than QQ, and based on my read of the situation the re-raiser also had no better than QQ (It also helped that I had one each of the A and K making AA or KK that much more unlikely). Basically the re-raiser didn't like being called by the button. He really wanted to isolate me, esp. since I had been so active. But until that point I had not made any big plays, so I thought this would be a perfect time for a squeeze play. I shoved. I knew that if I was called it was going to be a race, there was a decent chance that both players would fold, and that by getting them all-in pre-flop I was doubling my chances of winning with the AK (tough to call somebody's all-in bet post flop without a pair). The re-raiser thought forever and finally folded, and the button thought forever and finally called off his last 6k, rolling over TT. There was an ace on the window and I was the new chip leader.
From there on out I had zero big hands. I won one race to bust a guy when we were down to two tables, but I pretty much had to manufacture chips the hard way, and things worked out where I was able to do what I wanted to do. Good news.
The outlook for tonight is pretty good. I'm 2nd in chips with 69k. There's 513k in play, 9 players left. The chip leader is a buddy of mine, also a Vegas pro, who has a billion (billion=~125k) chips. Damnit. Why can't some donk have all the chips? Three players have ~55k, but I've played a ton of hands with them and have a pretty good read on them. One's at ~35k, and three are at ~15k. Blinds will be 1k-2k/300, 40 minute levels. I don't want to go to deep into what I'm thinking because I will be playing with John (chip leader) tomorrow and he knows about this blog. Hi John! First place is over $36k, and it's about time I took one of these things down, don't you think? I'm sick of these seconds and thirds!
So, if you're in the LA area, Commerce Casino, tonight at 9pm. I would love the sweat! I greatly enjoy a loud, obnoxious, and drunken cheering section.
After play broke last night at 4am, time to get rest, right? Nope. I saw a juicy 1-2 game. All my buddies were in the main game. I sat and beat it for $2k in 2 hours. Good times.
Lastly, shout out to Kirby's mom. Hi Kirby's mom!
Peace and good luck!
Devo
Commerce Holiday Bonus Tournament Days 1, 2, and 3
Suck, suck, and suck. So here I am, laying in the bed of my hotel room... again... less than two hours after this tournament started. Today was the $200+25 event #3 NL Hold'em Shoot-out. I've never played one of these events, but I REALLY like it. Today's event started with 320 players on 32 tables. Rather than a regular tournament where tables are broken down one at a time, this one plays all 32 tables down to one player, and then those 32 players advance and finish off regular style with all 32 making the money. Anyways, within the first five hands I had AA twice and built my stack to 2475 from the starting 1000. Good news. Then I doubled a short stack with my nutter butter flush draw, and then I got shoved in on 4 handed with top pair and I was against a flush draw and he caught. Bummer. I really like the structure. Get us to the money quick while being able to employ short-handed skills in getting there and then play a tourney.
Yesterday was the $200+25 event #2 NLHE event. Once again I accumulated a ton of chips, went deep, was chip leader for a while, and then blew them all at one time before the flop with TT. We were playing seven handed with about 70 left and UTG made it 2400 with the blinds at 300-600/75. I had not played a hand in a while and decided to re-raised all-in with my stack a little over 12k. Unfortunately the only player with more chips than me called behind with KK and I did not improve. How come I can't ever hit a 2 outer? After I went busted I had the best post-going busto experience ever. John, Melissa and I went down to the Redondo Beach pier for a little drinking and partying. It was great to get back to the ocean and feel the sand between my toes once again.
Friday was the $300+30 $250k guarantee multiple re-buy NLHE event. Same ol story, I was up to 4600 within nine minutes of the start of the event and then promptly had AA and KK shoved up my ass on the river. Anyways, I floated for five hours of the event and finally went busted with three high no draw. Three high you ask? Well, long story short, I raised pf, checked the JT7 flop, bet 2/3 on the 6 turn, and when I got called I was pretty much done with the hand unless I caught perfect on the river. I was reasonably sure that he held either 99 or 88 and that I could get him to lay it down if an A, K, or Q came. It came Q and I shoved the rest of my stack (about 2400) into the 5500 chip pot. Now, it may have been a no good spot since he had a ton of chips and I was only able to bet 1/2 pot, but seriously, what can he put me on that he beats with that river? I'm anti-short stack and wanted to have some chips and was 95% on my read. He finally called and rolled over the 99. Nice call, I guess. It was a tough table too and I wasn't going to do anything short. On the table was Amir Vahedi, his girlfriend Kristi, Mike Pickett, and several other guys with a ton of chips. Oh well.
I've been playing a bunch of the 40 and 60 games with nothing exciting happening. My basic pattern has been get stuck a rack and a half and then come back to win a little. I actually booked a 3 hour session where I won $5 in the 60-120 game a couple of days ago. That made me laugh.
Anyways, peace and good luck!
Devo
Commerce Casino Holiday Bonus Tournament, Day 0
Weird memories from this place... I made the drive last night from Las Vegas to Los Angeles to play in the Commerce Casino Holiday Bonus Tournament. My friend Melissa Poff drove down with me last night, John Fruitkin is driving down right now to join us, and several of my MInnesota friends are here too: Mike Pickett, Kirby Rogers, Mike Carlson, and CMO. These tournaments are so much fun when you are here with a bunch of friends.
Last night I played for a couple of hours in the 40 game and won $996. I quit when I saw Pickett walk behind me and I spent about an hour and a half watching him play 20-40 NL. Gawd that kid is good. I watched him throw out a $5k chip and say "raise" over his opponents $1500 turn bet. The board read Q 7 3 , 9 . I did not see Mike's cards. His opponent went into the tank and finally folded. Mike drug the pot and returned to his spaghetti and meatballs on the white tablecloth covered food cart behind him. After a noodle vanished into his mouth he let out the slightest little shit-eating grin that nobody in the world but me noticed. He had nothing. We talked about the had later and he said, "I knew what he had, and I knew he couldn't call a big raise." Damn this kid's good.
I've been surrounded by a weird emotion returning here to the Commerce. I attended school at USC, just about ten minutes up the freeway, and this was the first joint that I snuck into before I was 21. The first time I played here was in a 6-12 game at the tender age of 19 without any fake ID. This is where I learned this game of poker. It is where I took three $300 cash advances off of my credit card and promptly blew them all in the 9-18 game, the biggest game that I had ever played at that point. I just paid off that credit card this summer for a little over $3k. This is where I played in my first 15-30 game, and I will never forget my first hand ever. I posted behind the button and saw a flop 4 ways with the A2o. It came A23 rainbow, I bet and raised the whole way, and lost to A3. I went broke that night too. This is where I came really close to probably getting my ass kicked for being a 20 year old involved in a jackpot. I had AQ on an AA2, A board. Here any pocket pair plays in a jackpot. I had no idea what to do - because I knew my one opponent had a pocket pair. I bet the turn and a K came on the river counterfiting my kicker. No jackpot. PHEW. I have not played more than a couple of goof-off sessions here since the fall of 02 and all those dark days of my early poker career.
But, here I am. I'm planning on playing all the events while I am here and either staying through the main event or heading to Foxwoods with a bunch of kids for the main event there. Tonight is the $250k guarantee $300+30 multiple rebuy NL event. First prize is expected to be around $120k. I will let you know how things go as the trip progresses, and as always, thanks for reading.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
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