The Playboy Mansion
GOOD TIMES! Saturday night a ton of us hopped on a shuttle at 5:15pm to head up to the Celebrity Poker tournament at the Playboy mansion. Mikey and I talked about how stupid poker is, and the bus was full of excitement as we pulled into a parking lot for an abandoned Robinsons May off of Santa Monica Blvd.
Huh? "Hey! We just took a shuttle to the shuttle!" I said. Everybody laughed. Then we got pretty annoyed as we saw the huge line that we were supposed to stand in.
Poker players don't stand in line. After some great speeching by Lara we were registered and on our way within 20 minutes and we finally arrived at the Playboy Mansion.
The place is incredible.
We did some red carpet stuff, some interviews, and we were off to the bar.
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Jon Friedberg and I in the Grotto
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Touring the grounds
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Mikey feeding Spider Monkeys
The grounds were incredible! There were over 300 species of animals on the grounds. I got a call during the evening asking where I was. I then returned the question and she said, "Jon and I are following a peacock around the lawn." Nice. Quote of the day. We could not go into the mansion as Hugh lives on the property and was hope. That's pretty sweet that he lets people throw awesome parties at his awesome residence. Eventually everybody made their way under the tent and the poker tournament got underway.
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The fabulous Shannon Elizabeth, who took second in this event
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Steve Dannenman, who took first in the event
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Marcel Luske, always the gentleman
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Jennifer Tilley and my friend Greg
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Don Cheadle. It'll be nice working with proper villians again.
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Devilfish
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David Singer
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Mark Newhouse
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Jennifer "Jennicide" Leigh
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"Neverwin"
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That blue thing was sticking out from between my legs
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Annie Duke and Steve
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Thomas Walhroos and Joy Miller
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After the fiasco of getting there I was nothing but impressed. They sure know how to throw a party there! From there we took a shuttle back the shuttle, got sick of waiting for a shuttle, took a cab, and we closed down the hotel bar. Awesome night!
Sunday morning Lara and I woke up in time to head to Bel Air Presbyterian Church where I worked for two years during college. It was a great experience seeing some old friends and some of the kids that I used to work with, and they're not kids anymore! Most of them are finishing their first year of college! So neat seeing the bonds that we formed so many years ago still running deep. I really miss working with kids, and I am going to make an effort to volunteer with a youth ministry somewhere around here in the near future.
Tomorrow is the $5k main event at Caesars, and I'm looking forward to a good run!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
WSOP Circuit at Caesar's Palace, event #5 $2000+80 NLHE
Devo = Amir's Donkey In 35 minutes I will be leaving the Sheraton with everybody to head up to the Playboy mansion, so I'm gonna have to make this a quick one.
Yesterday at first break I was feeling great about my chances to final table the 2k event. I had 10,300 in chips from our 4k starting point. I had picked up aces for the first time in four days, I flopped a set and busted a guy, I turned the nut straight and got a guy all-in on the river... with the same hand... and I was playing excellent poker.
Coming back from break I continued to play well and built my stack up slowly to somewhere around 14k and my game was wide open. Then, as usual, the wheels fell off. I lost a pot worth a little more than 6k with AA vs. JJ all-in pre-flop when he turned a jack. Then my small-ball game was simply not working as I missed every flop while my opponents hit hard.
In the fourth level, blinds 100-200, I played a hand pretty poorly with Amir Vahedi. I opened early to 550 with A Q and got called in three spots, all behind me. With 2750 in the pot the flop came 8 7 2 . My first mistake was when I decided to continue for 1400, although it is a marginal mistake. I should have simply checked since I was out of position to three players and just given up on the hand, because it was going to be impossible to play a small pot with that board and three opponents and an already large pot. Amir was the only one who called me, and I convinced myself that he was weak/drawing/floating. Thus, I fired 2600 at the 9 turn and was quickly called.
Dumb thinking and here's why: First, no need to bet the flop. Nobody's screwing around in this pot. There is an arguement to be made for betting, but when we're talking about more than 10% of my already well above average stack, it's an overall losing play on that decently coordinated board. At least I didn't bet more than half the pot. Second, betting the turn is just plain retarded for the same reason. This pot has gotten unnecessairly large and nobody is screwing around in it. Amir's call represents a huge draw or huge strength and he is not going anywhere. Once you lose control of the size of the pot you really need to back down, especially when out of position, and I failed to do that in this hand and cost myself a third of my stack unnecessairly.
From there I simply kept losing small pots, got short, and re-raised all-in with AQo and ran into aces. Oh well...
Tonight! Party at the Playboy Mansion. A full blog is sure to follow.
Monday! $5k Circuit Main Event. We're going deep in that one.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
WSOP Circuit at Caesar's Palace, $1500+70 NLHE
Stupid ace high calldowns. Not too much to report today. I never had a big hand, never flopped anything good, and played a huge pot for most of my chips when I called off my stack with A6 on a 347 board knowing my opponent had nothing. He tabled K9o no draw and spiked the same 9 on the turn. Oh well. That crippled my stack, and then I moved all on on the K Q T with J T and was called by KJ... pretty rough shape there :-).
Tomorrow is the $2000+80 NLHE event that hopefully will go a little better!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Bellagio WPT $25k World Championship: MY End of Day 3
That sure was fun while it lasted... Well, I'm obviously very disappointed that I did not go further, especially when I found myself top 15 in chips with 570k when the bubble burst and then busto 60 minutes later. I played incredibly though and am very happy with how I played and honestly believe that I did not make a single mistake day three. I saw that most of the hands that got me to 570k were covered on some reporting site or another, but nobody caught how the wheels fell off from there.
First big hand I played was on the button. Blinds were 3k-6k/500, UTG goes all-in for $35k, Can Kim Hua flat calls, and I make it 100k to go with Q Q . CK thinks for a while, makes it 300k total, and after some thought I throw my queens into the muck. UTG had KJ and CK had AA. I felt very good about that, and was thrilled that I only lost 20% of my stack on the hand.
Six hands later I opened to 22k UTG with A Q and was called only by the button. 67k in the pot, flop is 3 3 5 . I continue for 42k, and he goes all-in for somewhere between 70-80k more. I think for a long time, finally pick up a read, make the call and turn up my ace high first.
"I'm pretty sure this is good." It was. He turned over A 9 . I stood up and said, "Yeah! What a sick call!" My emotions were quickly deflated though when the 9 peeled off on the turn, and I was dropped to well below average, somewhere around 330k. So sick that the biggest pot I play of the tournament is with ace high on the flop when all the money goes in, and I'm still an 86% favorite. Gawd I was playing well.
After that I lost a few small pots, and then about two orbits later with 260k in my stack, blinds 4k-8k/1k, I open in middle position with 9 T and am called by my opponent to my left. Flop 9 7 3 , and I make my usual 42k bet, and I get called. Turn 8 , and I bet 80k, leaving myself with 120k, and get called. I would have put it all-in if my opponent shoved there. River 5 , I checked, he shoved, I mucked, and he showed me his flopped set. Won the minimum and almost lost the maximum there buddy... thanks!
I played through my blinds, and then found myself on the button with 103k holding the A 2 , folded to me, so I stuffed it all-in. The BB woke up with kings, I got no help, and GG me.
That night as I was unwinding with Katie Porrello and John Friedberg we talked about how few hands I really had. In the entire three days I never saw aces, only saw kings twice, and queens three times... once they had to go into the muck pre-flop! I never made a flush or better, I made two straights, and then got no further action on the flopped one when it turned a four-straight. I made trips three times, once in the first level and twice day 2. I only made one set. I had less than ten two pairs. My biggest pot of the tournament was with Ace high and I was an 86% favorite when all the money went in. I sucked out once when I called a small all-in bet with ATo and beat KK. The pot was less than 50k.
So... I'm thrilled with my performance. It was very fun while it lasted. But, I'm back on the horse tomorrow as I am playing the $1500 NLHE circuit event at Caesars!
Thank you all so much for the phone calls, texts, e-mails, and comments of support. They have meant so much to me!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Bellagio WPT $25k World Championship: End of Day 2
Much better... now it's time to run good.
Pheeeeewww... what a roller coaster ride! Yesterday was something along the lines of a slow bleed, today's first three levels were like a stressful roller coaster ride. I doubled up in the 30th minute on the first hand I played, calling a raise in position with T9, and on the TT8 flop the BB bet 6k, the original raiser shoved having me covered, and I went all-in as well and cracked his aces. I was thinking, sweet! But, by the end of the level I was back down to 64k after having to fold flopped top two on the river on the last hand of the level. I was up and down the next two levels, dropping as low as 48k and being as high as 88k, and by the time the fourth level, 800-1600/200 came around, I was ready to roll.
I had won some small pots in some key places, picked up the blinds here and there, and it seemed like every time Hoyt opened from late position I found a big hand in the blinds and either flat called his raise and won the pot post flop or re-raised him off the pot pre-flop. Unfortunately for me though he never had a big enough hand to give me a ton of chips as I would have insta called his 4 bet all-in's with my KK, QQ, JJ, or AKs, all hands that he mucked pre-flop.
This hand was quite interesting though that ended up propelling me to where I am at right now. Hoyt opened for a very large raise pre-flop in the same level, somewhere around 8k or 8500, and I decided to flat call with my 99 as I felt there was a good chance that he would shove on me after re-raising him again , and I didn't want to call off all my chips with 99.
The flop came 6 6 3 . Could be a good flop, could be the end of me flop. I decided to check and see what happened. Hoyt fired 20k, a slightly larger than pot sized bet.
Boy, what a spot I was in. I had about 80k left while facing the 20k bet and Hoyt had me covered. He either had me crushed, had nothing, or had a flush draw, which would put me ahead, behind, or coin-flipping depending on if he had 0, 2, or 1 over-cards. I couldn't just give up, but I hated just calling, but I hated shoving, but I didn't have the wiggle room to make a small raise. Or did I?
After thinking for about three minutes, I raised to 50k, leaving myself with slightly over 30k. I was fully prepared to muck if he shoved over the top of me, and if he insta shoved I probably would have.
Hoyt said, "Your nines are good," and threw his cards in the muck.
Sick read. Nice bet.
Two hands later I flat called his normal raise from the button with AQo, flopped Axx, and he check folded. I then raised 5 of the next 6 hands winning three of them pre-flop and the other two post after a continuation bet.
I went into level 10, 1k-2k/300, with about 140k. Things started off more slowly than usual, picking up a small pot, losing a small pot, stealing the blinds, etc. Then in the last ten hands things started running good. I stole the blinds twice, and then with four hands to go, I opened UTG+2 to 6500 with A T and was flat called by the button who had about 90k. I flopped huge, J T T , and continued for 12k. The button decided to raise it to 26k. After some thought I asked, "How much are you playing?" He had a little over 60k, and I just called. We both checked the 2 river, and I had him squarely on AJ, KJ, or QJ. The river was the 7 and I figured 30k was a good bet into the 70k pot. I didn't want it to look like a "call-me" bet, nor did I want it to look like a big hand. I wanted it to look like a busted draw that would fit with my flop speech. After a ton of thought he folded KJ suited. Nice laydown.
Two hands later I limped UTG with 22. I was torturing the table so much at this point that I could get away with this :-). Folded to the button who limped, Hoyt in the SB completed, and Erik Sandstrom knuckled from the BB. Flop Q 8 2 . Sweet! First set of the tournament with only one more hand to play! Both blinds check, I bet 7k into the 11k pot and the button raised to 20k. He only had about 60k left and had been talking about how he wanted to come back tomorrow with chips, so I stuffed a bunch of blue 10k chips in the pot putting him all-in. He picked up on the read that I was giving off.
"I know that you have a flush draw and I know that you know that I'm going to lay this down. Damnit." He thought, and thought, and thought, and finally mucked. Damnit! Stack off to me one time!
It's been driving me nuts in this tournament. Everybody knows what they're doing!
So, I thus ended day two with 217,800, good for somewhere in the top 50 of less than 220 remaining and a well above average stack.
Sick thing about today is that I honestly did not run good. I ran good to not get going broke hands, but I never had any set-up hands, never had AA, had KK, QQ, and JJ once, all that won small pots. AK twice, one won a small one, other lost a medium one. I never made a straight or better, nor did I ever flop a draw that I could do anything with. I flopped that one set of deuces. I did flop trips twice, once to double up early which was key, and the AT hand that won me a bunch of chips.
Day one: Play good, run cold
Day two: Play great, run okay
Day three plan: Play world class, run like God.
My goal for the end of the day is 600k, and with the table draw that I have I think I have a very good shot of doing it. Here it is:
48 1 Eric Deregt 154,800
48 2 James Patton 83,200
48 3 Bryan Devonshire 217,800
48 4 Martin De Knijff 160,500
48 5 Melissa Hayden 66,400
48 6 Paul Snead 40,000
48 7 Carlos Mortensen 220,900
48 8 Allen Kessler 52,400
48 9 Jani Sointula 91,500
Weird fact of the day: Last night my backer had a dream about buying a class ring. He's never bought nor worn a class ring. Today on the poker table he saw a class ring on some dudes right ring finger and thought of his dream and was like, "Weird."
It was a USC class ring. I went to USC. My backer met me Friday.
Good mojo, JoBu.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Bellagio WPT $25k World Championship: End of Day 1B
Not exactly what I had in mind...
Today at the end of level five I wrote my name and chip count on my bag and then dropped eight chips into that bag.
That's the bad news though. Four of them are 10k chips and the other four are 100 chips.
Today pretty much felt like going to class for nine hours straight. Long, boring, nothing too exciting, and plenty of annoyances. I only voluntarily saw one flop in the entire fifth and final level, and never saw beyond the flop nor was I pushed a chip the entire level. Here's a little tally of my made hands today:
Straight or better: 0
Sets: 0
Trips: 1, first level, got paid off on river.
Two pair: 1, Mark Seif folded turn when I made 2 pair.
Flush or straight draws: 0
Blinds stolen: 1
AA, KK: 0
QQ: once in level 2, had to re-raise a raiser+3 callers big to protect myself, no flop seen.
JJ, TT: 0
99: 1
88: 2
77: 2
66-22: a bunch.
AK: 0
AQ: 2, one won my biggest pot of day.
AJ: 2
Needless to say, I'm pretty thrilled to still have 40,400 of my original 50k. I played very well all day and only made one mistake which may or may not have made me an additional 7k, which we will talk about later. My table was pretty tough, but I had position on the two worst players on the table and was in prime position to take all their chips... if I ever made a hand!
I got 5 outed in a 10k pot on the river, but it came with the 2 out side that cost me an additional 2500 when I could have escaped if the 3 outs came. This was the other interesting hand that I got rivered on:
I see a flop from the button for 1200 each in the 200-400/50 level with the T 9 behind the fish (original raiser) and Ian Johns in the cutoff. We checked the 7 4 3 flop. The 9 peeled off on the turn and the fish checked, Ian bet 3k. I was 98% sure that Ian was on a flush draw with over(s), T9, or 98. I popped it to 7k for several reasons, mostly because I wanted to goad Ian into a mistake. He knew his bet on the turn looked suspect, and he knew that I knew that, and he knew that I was capable of a bluff raise, and I knew that a small raise would looked suspect, and I knew that he knew that I could very likely be full of it, and I knew that Ian was capable of bluff/semi-bluff re-raising.
Catch all that?
If Ian re-raised I was calling for sure and possibly stuffing depending on how much he re-raised. Anyways he just called.
The 2 peeled off on the river, Ian checked, and I didn't even think for a second of betting. If we were chopping we were chopping, but I kinda thought that I was getting shipped the pot because he did not bet the river (meaning no completed flush). After I checked he snapped his fingers, said "Awwww..." and rolled over A T . It actually started a pretty interesting discussion after I said, "You're nuts if you think I'm going to bet that card!" Ian knew that I knew he would lead the river with a made flush 98% of the time to try and get value and thus there was more value in going to "value-check-town" cause he knew I could not call a river bet unless I also made a flush, in which case I would be betting the river also! Good thinking Ian!
The other interesting hand was reported on pokerpages. Here's the entry:
With two limpers, Bryan Devonshire popped it from the button to 1K. Both limpers called. The flop came A 5 7 . Seat 6 checked, Seat 7 bet 1.5K, Bryan raised to 4.5K, Seat 6 folded, Seat 7 called. The turn was the K and Seat 6 led out again, this time for 7K. Bryan raised again to 14K and got called again. Both players checked the 9 river. Seat 6 showed A T but Bryan had A Q for the better kicker and scooped the pot.
Interesting hand here. Wanna hear a little secret? I screwed up on the turn. I wanted to put in 21k, but when firing one of the 10k chips slipped out of my hand and I only fired 11k into the pot, committing myself to a 14k raise. My opponent quickly called as I expected because I had him read for exactly where he was at: a pair and a flush draw, most likely with the A , but also possibly the 6 8 . He was making a blocking bet on the turn and I wanted to charge him the maximum. He said he would've folded for 14k more but not for 7k more, but I'm not really sure if I believe that or not. If so, my mistake made me an additional 7k in the short turm, but could've cost me quite a large pot.
So, my low point was 36k today, my high point was 58k, and I could just never get anything going. Oh well... I still have 18 m's ready to rock tomorrow and plenty of run good stored up from today! I'm still in high spirits and stoked to be a part of the most prestigeous NLHE tournament of the year.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Devo's Is Playing the WPT Championship!
Blogging is way more fun when things are going well! How do I go from feeling like the unluckiest bastard on the face of the planet to feeling like everything is going just the way I want it in four days?
A formerly submerged cell phone works perfectly the next day that's how.
Tomorrow I am about to embark on a possibly life changing journey in the Bellagio WPT World Championship $25k NLHE event.
Yes, you read that right. Devo is playing the $25k.
Yesterday after an awesome night at Light playing high stakes rock paper scissors I found myself playing 15-30 at the Wynn when I noticed a 100-200 mix game going that looked extremely good. I called my good friend John Fruitkin and let him know about it. After 90 minutes I found myself sitting in the game with John taking the majority of my action. We played four handed for a long period of time when two new guys sat in the game that neither John nor myself recognized. John, myself, and four guys we had never seen before playing 100-200 mix. It was a very good game.
One of the new guys kept proposing different ways of how to put one of us into the $25k event but nothing ever panned out. The game finally broke around 11pm with me up almost $2k, a marginal win for me and a decent win for John. On the way to the cage the new guy said to me, "How much will you play for if I put you in tomorrow?"
Wow. I thought I had a good reputation but... WOW! I quickly said, "I'll play for 20%."
He finally decided that he only wanted to put up half and that we would both try and raise the additional 12.5k to put me in.
It really was weird calling so many people at 11pm asking to be staked for $10k. Funny part is that it kinda felt normal.
So, Saturday rolls around, I still haven't raised more than 2.5k, and I meed my backer at the Bellagio. We finally came to an agreement that he would put me in two single table satellites and the mega satellite. If I was able to win a seat then I would get 30%, and if not then oh well.
I just knew that this was going to be my day. My confidence level is super high and I have learned so much over the past six months that I was sure that I was going to find my way into a seat.
The first satellite started off well. I built my stack to 36k from a starting point of 25k playing my usual small ball. Then I took a stinker in a medium pot, made a really bad play that cost me 15k, and then busted on a stinker, first one to hit the rail.
My confidence was not rattled one bit.
The second satellite stared with Kevin Sung sitting across from me, Paul Darden to my right, and an excellent high limit player to my left. First hand: Paul busts to the village idiot when the other guy calls Paul's all-in on the flop of 886 rainbow with AJo vs. Paul's 99 and spikes an ace on the river.
My equity sure just went up.
By the time we were seven handed I was a marginal chip leader once again playing my classic style of small ball. At six handed I was slightly behind first and second and looked down at the ever so sexy A A . I had 41.5k in my stack with blinds of 1k-2k. I opened to 6k and all folded to the chip leader who called out of the big blind. Flop came 8 4 3 . He checked and I bet 12k, hoping to get called and then move in on the turn. He exceeded my expectations. After asking for my count he finally decided to move all-in.
I insta-called. My favorite part is that I knew he had a pair at best and at worst I had to dodge five outs. It was just so stinking obvious that he had nothing good. He said, "Oops. Bad read," and rolled over the J T . OMG. I have him drawing so thin! The 7 turn had me seeing images of Devo falling off the top of the Stratosphere if a 9 happened to come on the river, but it blanked out and I doubled up and was now the huge chip leader.
From there I cruised, busting two players along the way, and found myself heads up with Kevin Sung with 155k in chips vs his 95k in chips, blinds 2k-4k. My backer and Kevin eventually reached a very fair deal, and I went to the cage and registered for the tournament! I will be sitting at table 25 in seat 5 and cannot wait for the cards to get in the air tomorrow! I would love your sweat right here at pokerpages.com in the live updates.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention. Friday I got invited to a party at the playboy mansion this coming weekend! Lara hooked that one up using her PR skills. It's a celebrity charity poker tournament. Are you freaking kidding me?!? I will be posting another blog about that later this week, but for now I need to go get some sleep!
Peace and good luck!
Devo
Video Replay for High Stakes Ro-Sham-Bo
Wednesday morning I woke up, frustrated about the fact that I had to spend a good portion of my day going and buying another cell phone to replace my recent aquatic accident. I decided that I would put the phone back together and give it one last ditch effort, and whaddya know, the damn thing worked! How does that happen? Usually if you think about water around a cell phone it stops working. But, this little piece of cellular technology spent 10-15 minutes sitting on the bottom of a lake 10-15 feet under water and ended up working 18 hours later. Wow.
I drove into the strip for a few hours of work before my softball game juvinated for a good session, having the sense that I was finally running good at life once more.
Long story short: the ever-consistent 15-30 game at the Wynn broke at 6pm on a Wednesday night and Devo was left sitting on the table putting 400 $5 chips into racks. Nice.
Thursday I headed into the Bellagio for what was looking to be a very long evening. I was planning on working all day, meeting people for dinner, going to the WPT party at Light, and then trying to find a way to get home after all that fun.
After 90 minutes I finally took a seat in a 15-30 game and basically ran great for 4.5 hours once again winning another two racks. From there I met a large party of people at Olives, some fancy schmancy restaurant at the Bellagio. My advice to y'all: don't ever eat there. The service was terrible - it literally took me 25 minutes to get a beer in hand. The food was decent, but extremely overpriced and not even close to worth what we paid for it.
Then we all wandered into Light, the nightclub at the Bellagio. Straight through the line and straight into a VIP booth. Oops... FIVE booths! The WPT was throwing this party as a thank you to us poker players with all you can drink booth and bottle service. I bet that bill was expensive! It sure was nice partying good and not having to worry about the tab at all.
The highlight of the evening was when high stakes rock paper scissors broke out. I'm not really sure how it happened, but Jon Friedberg and I decided to play for $100, best of three. Somehow the TV cameraman and reporter got wind of the match and a camera was in our face complete with microphone and really bright light. Poker players are instinctive shameless self promoters, so like moths Rick Fuller, Brandon Cantu, and Jeff Madsen, and Jim Shipley were all vying for camera time in the vicinity. I beat Jon in a good best of 3 battle and before I could even celebrate Rick Fuller wanted a piece in a best of 5 battle. The camera was queued, and Rick says to me, "I'm going to throw paper first throw."
Rick was drunk, so I actually bought it. I threw scissors, he threw rock, and gave me a huge "I got you" grin as Rick took the first trick. Slimy bastard pulls out trickery in the first set. I got back into the zone and quickly took the second set and we were tied one-one.
At this point I wanted a coach in my corner and put my arm around Madsen and tried to recruit him. Jeff deffered and went to the dark side in Fuller camp, but my good friend Brandon Cantu was there when I needed him most and jumped in my corner. Madsen and Cantu wanted in on the action and quickly had $500 side action betting their respective players.
I ask Brandon what to throw, and he responds "scissors." We win, up 2-1, celebrate, Fuller and Madsen are interviewed about what level of ro-sham-bo thinking they were stuck on, and Cantu and I return to the tank to figure out how to bring this match home.
"Throw rock every time until we win," Brandon said to me while the losers were getting their TV time.
I threw rock. Rick threw scissors. Devo and Cantu win! We started celebrating, and then Madsen, Ships, and Fuller killed the buzz by saying that we were only up 2-1. We argued about it for a while, Fuller and Cantu made a $1k bet on whether it was 2-1 or 3-1, and I declined the same bet with Ships cause $1k means a lot to me right now and, well, I was drunk too so maybe it was 2-1. The red flag was thrown.
We were going to video replay.
After about 4-5 minutes of video, the evidence was conclusive that I did in fact win 3-1 and the money was shipped. $100 to me, $1500 to Cantu.
Sometime later Gavin Smith and I had a go at it and I beat him 2-0 for another $100. After that he said to me, "I'd better make the blog for this."
Really? Gavin reads my blog? I was honestly flattered. I see the traffic that I get but it never really crosses my mind who's reading these words right here. So, what up Gav! Glad you enjoy the ramblings.
The night pretty much fades into a blur after that. But for now I'm going back to the grind and hopefully I can bang out another win!
Peace and good luck,
Devo
This Is How Bad I Run
Frustrated. Today was a windy day on the lake. No problem. It was just Danny, Jared, and myself, and we posted up in Hot Coal Cove which is pretty dang sheltered from the wind. We pulled out the chairs, sat on top of one of the jump rocks, and simply chilled, drinking beer, and watching the sunset. The wind was blowing off the lake out of the West, and that was the direction we were facing. A few times one of us would get up and our chair would blow over from the wind to the East, away from the lake. My chair had not fallen over because I had not gotten up. Ever. The one time I decide to stand up, a freak wind blows out of the east, knocking my chair over to the west and directly into the lake. DAMNIT. I empty my pockets, take off my hat and glasses, jump in the lake, and retreive my soaking wet chair. I get back to the top of the rock with my chair dripping water and look for my cell phone because I was expecting two phone calls from beautiful women who wanted to join us on the lake (yes, you Emma...). Phone is not there. Jared and Danny swear that they do not have my phone, and quite frankly I do not beleive them. I remember taking my phone out of my pocket and putting it on the rock.
I was wrong.
Jared points down at the water below and we can see my cell phone on the bottom of the lake about 10 feet below water.
Arrrg. At this point we were down to three beers total, hungry, but really wanted to keep staying out there. The girls were our ticket to those things including the bonus of great company. Instead I am left with a cell phone dripping water.
Anyways, if you want to get a hold of me, the electronic method is going to be the best way for a brief while. Myspace, e-mail, here... BTW... send me your phone number if you do cause I don't have it any more!
AYA.
Wednesday, 18th of April 2007 01:24 PM
So this morning I woke up and said to myself, "I'll give the phone one more shot. Whaddya know, it actually works perfect! I must go to work immediately now!In poker news, I've lost the last two sessions I've played in typical run bad fashion. Really don't want to talk about it. My favorite was when I got all-in with K Q on a J T 9 board, and it went K Q runner runner. J 5 beats me.
Virginia Tech. Now thats some bull shit. I run bad, but that's really running bad. My heart goes out to those kids. Why do some people have to suck so bad?!?
Politically, it's driving me nuts that this is being turned into a renewal of the push for banning guns. Now, seriously. Is banning guns going to keep guns out of lawbreakers? Mass murders? No. Period. It will take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. It makes no sense. If somebody that messed up is going to do something that messed up, a gun ban law is not going to keep them from getting their hands on a gun. What needs to happen is that our cultural mentality needs to change and it needs to be okay for people to defend themselves. If even ten percent of those students were armed themselves things would have turned out a lot differently. I would rather be tried by twelve than carried by six, and I would rather be armed and not need it than need it and not have it.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Non Poker: UFC Bull S&@%
I hate publicity stunts. I am quite the closet MMA fan and thoroughly enjoy watching every UFC fight that I can get my hands on. However, after watching the episode of "Bad Blood: Dana vs. Tito," I am quite disappointed. The plot line was that after several years of trash talking between Tito Ortiz, champion MMA fighter in the UFC octagon and Dana White, UFC president, as part of Tito's new contract they were supposed to have a 3 round 3 minute boxing match to settle their bad blood. The episode has been advertised for the past week at if the fight was going to happen, and I was pretty pumped to see it tonight on Spike TV.
Long story short, I wish I had those 90 minutes of my life back. It was basically 90 minutes of the Dana White show documenting how much he trained over the past seven months to fight Tito and then Tito did not show. After some internet digging I learned that Tito was not getting paid for any of the show and that he refused to show up for something that UFC was making money on without being conpensated.
Either way, it's a super bad play for UFC in my opinion to show this episode. Why do they need to show Dana White to be this good guy that showed up for a fight when one of his top moneymakers did not show up for? What is the point of making Tito Ortiz look bad in a 90 minute episode? Why leave millions of loyal UFC fans disappointed after a show that has received so much hype in the past week?
I'm strongly disappointed in Dana White for his executive decision to do this episode. I understand that he may have been frustrated with Tito for not showing up for a fight that he had trained seven months for, but the UFC is his child, and it is his professional duty to run UFC in a professional manner. This show was not professional and quite honestly a waste of my time and the time of everybody else who is a fan.
For what it is worth.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Sometimes I Wish I Didn't Know What They Have.
A62, K, T, $200 to me? Call. I have QQ. I recently signed a pact with myself that I would no longer bluff while playing NL. The early reason was that I was losing a lot of money on bluffs and I didn't know why, so I decided to eliminate the big bluff from my arsenal. Obviously I'm still going to c-bet (continuation bet) to pick up un-claimed pots, but the big bluffs have been not working almost every freaking time.
After a short session yesterday though, I have ammended my reasoning. These guys just don't fold often enough to make pot sized bluffs profitable.
Here's how this hand played out. I had been at the table for about 90 mins and had been playing ultra tight. Every time it went to showdown I had the nuts or close to it. Every single river bet was a value bet. Now, the words of my friend Travis echo in my mind right now, "Dude, they wouldn't notice if an elephant walked across the table much less [how you have been playing]." However, I thought my opponent in this hand was slightly more observant.
I raised several limpers and blind+dead posters from the hi-jack (two off the button) to $30 with 7 7 . I was called by the cutoff only, and our effective stacks were about $1k. I said, "You sure are itchin to play a big pot with me, eh?" He was calling me a lot trying to make some sort of cooler hand and bust me as I was one of the few big stacks on the table. The flop came A 6 2 , $81 in the pot. I bet $40, he said, "I raise a little," and put $60 in the pot. I said, "What's that?" The dealer then informed him that he had to put $20 more in to complete the raise, and he said that he "thought [I] bet $30."
At this point I knew without a doubt that he had AJ at best, but I was pretty sure that he was even weaker than that: small chance of a flush draw, but I really had him on a pocket pair bigger than mine. This player was aggressive, and I decided to call the flop with the plan of check-raising all-in on any non diamond turn. The turn came the K , I checked, and he checked behind. I could also tell that he hated that card. The river came the T , I could visibly see that he also did not like that card, so I figured I would take the pot away from him right there. I bet $200. He thought and thought and thought, and I was using all my Jedi mind tricks to get him to fold his AJ which I was convinced that he had at this point, and he finally called. I said, "Good call, pair of sevens." He showed me Q Q and raked the pot.
Wow. Funny thing is that I play AA, AK, AQ, AJ, AT, KK, TT, 66, 22, K T and Q J the SAME EXACT WAY. If I had K Q/J or J T I don't bet the river, and there are very few hands that I could show up with at the river that I would be bluffing with here. This of course makes perfect sense to me, but where I failed in my thinking was in getting on the level that my opponent was thinking on. He thought to himself that there was a good chance I was bluffing because of my big river bet and lack of action on other streets.
I was pretty shocked to see him roll over QQ. I came to the conclusion that either I'm a walking tellbox or that he just really sucks at NL, and after some more thought, I have arrived at the latter conclusion. Things I have learned: "Deceptive" play against these types of opponents will result in loose calls on the river. Bluffs against these players are a waste of time and money. And, after talking with Fruitkin about this hand, for some reason my opponents consistenty think I am full of it. For this reason I really need to stop bluffing. AYA...
Peace and good luck,
Devo
Work Week.
Good news: I put in hours and actually made some bucks. I woke up Friday morning planning on going to the lake, however I had a sudden premonition that perhaps I should do some work like normal people. So, in the last five days I worked two eight hour shifts and three six hour shifts. You read about the first one, and here's how the rest of them have gone:
Saturday I wandered into the Bellagio to experience some of the tournament vibe and really got bummed that I am too broke to play in any of the events. I posted up in a 15-30 limit game and basically felt like I was sitting in a dentist chair for six hours. General torture, you know how that goes. I lost $626 and was never up.
Sunday I went into the Wynn for much of the same, was never up, and lost $639 in six hours.
So much for a great confidence booster on Friday.
I did feel much more comfortable and confident playing limit, but with that confidence and comfortability came the torture of incessant riverings that come with limit.
Mondays and Tuesdays are dedicated to the Palms for the next few months. They are having a $1,000,000 freeroll with the qualification period ending June 30th. Anybody who plays 300+ hours is entered in the tournament.
Yes, you read that right. A cool million. They're expecting 300 players, but are currently only on pace for 150. Even if they get 300 players, that's a $3,333 equity per person, and the quality of the field is going to be the worst ever for a million dollar prize pool for obvious reasons. I figure my equity to be somewhere in the neighborhood of $10k. In an effort to qualify more players, the Palms poker room has made Mondays and Tuesdays double hours days, so I only need to play 150 hours in the next 11 mondays and tuesdays.
They spread a 2-5 NL game with a $1k max buy-in, and the quality of the game is all over the place. Sometimes it's incredible and sometimes it's a bunch of guys like me there to get more hours for this freeroll.
Monday I played six hours in a game that was very good for a large period of time but I managed only to scrape together $342 in profit.
Tuesday I worked eight hours and won $744. I was pretty happy with my play overall, but I made one mistake with AA out of the SB that cost me a few bucks, and then I made a call on the turn that was questionable that I'll discuss in a moment.
There was a guy pretty similar to me with a ton of money on the table, and we were both naturally trying to figure out a way to get each other's stacks. He raised one limper to $20 and I looked down at AA in the SB. I elected to just call which was a pretty poor play. I had re-raised him at one point pretty big out of the SB with JJ and he called earlier, and being out of position I was actually putting myself in a dangerous spot rather than setting a trap for him. Oh well.
Then, I raised one limper from middle position with the KxQ and got three callers with the original limper folding. The flop came K T 6? . Check, check, I bet $60, and the girl to my left made it $120.
Little history here. She's dating a friend of mine who is also a professional poker player. She has the ability to bluff/overplay hands, as she stacked off to me earlier very light overplaying a hand, and she's generally straight forward other than that.
She had about $180 more after the $120 raise, so I elected to call and see what developed on the turn. It came the 9 , and she visibly did not like that hand. I checked, and after some genuine hemming and hawing she decided to go all-in.
Ok, first: It's costing me $186 for a shot at $506, about 2.75-1, pretty decent odds. I knew that she did not have better than two pair based on her tells and speech. How many outs did I have? I had her on this range in this order: KT, AK, KQ, KJ, most likely the first two, but possibly the latter two. Assuming she does not have the A , I have 9 outs, 3 J outs, 3 Q outs, and could possibly even have the best hand or freerolling if she happened to have KJ or KQ. So, I decided to call, and I'm still not sure if I like it or not or if it just doesn't matter enough to worry about.
Well, she rolled over A A ! Wow. Where did that come from? I found myself having 6 outs instead of the 15 I thought I had. The 2 river sealed my fate and she won the nice pot. Well played, good trap. I never even saw it coming.
But, of all things that happened tonight, my highlight was kicking Jim's ass at Rock Paper Scissors for $5. He still doesn't believe that it's a game of skill...
Just kidding buddy.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
A Week on the Lake and a Night on the Felt
I'm up almost $14k more than last month already!
Yesterday I made the easiest $75 of my life. While playing cards at the Venetian this buddy of one of the guys on the table really wanted more cash to go blow in the pit. He pulled out one purple and one black chip from the Excalibur (500+100) and offered it to the guy sitting next to his buddy for $500. The guy declined, and I quickly said, "Sold!" At that point the guy realized that he sould try to bargain, and he finally got me all the way up to $525. I put the chips in my pocket and said, "Have fun!"
Later that evening when I cashed out, I pulled the chips out of my pocket and asked Brian at the poker cage if he could cash them. Ninety seconds later after a phone call to the Excalibur main cage he handed me six $100 bills. Nice.
That's kinda how things went for me yesterday. I played my first session for the month of April after some more time off and time thinking about my game. I have been on this no-limit adventure trying to find a way to increase my bottom line but the bottom line is that I am not good enough yet to make the type of money possible in those games. Right now with my bankroll dwindling I need to go back to my bread and butter, limit hold'em, and especially of the whiffle ball variety.
I sat in the 15-30 game at the Wynn yesterday afternoon feeling like I was going to the dentist. I mean c'mon. A couple months ago I was playing the highest regular stakes games in town, and now I'm not even in the top section any more. But, I'd gotten myself to this place, and now I have to get myself out, just like you have to go to the dentist if you break a toof, and my face has been bashed in recently.
Well, the fun didn't stop as soon as I sat down. I get stuck $350 immediately while not winning a pot in the first hour. I then go on a sick little rush to find myself up $350, and then QQ runs into KK and AA runs into AK and KQ on a K high flop.............. yeah a bunch of money went in the middle of that pot. Running like Sebok I call it.
Anyways, I quit the Wynn up $31 which felt monumental considering recent history. I then heard that the Venetian had a 15-30 game going and I had to go play there. I strongly encourage y'all to support the Venetian poker room as much as possible as they are easily the best room in town. Their customer service is top shelf. The room is beautiful. There is space between the tables! You can have delicious comped food delivered right to your table. Like, actually really good food. I order creme brule there all the time. And, for the 8-16 limit games and up, rake is....... $1. Good luck beating that anywhere in the world.
So, I sat down and immediately lost $160 on my first hand. Arrrrgh. I don't remember which hand did it, but shortly thereafter something clicked and I could not lose any more. I believe it was my following big blind where we saw a flop three handed (SB, me, Button limper... good game) and I held the Q J . Flop 8 9 x , check, I bet, call, call, turn x, check, bet, raise, fold, 3-bet, call, and called on the x river. So much sweet action! I never looked back from there. I took KK into a 4-way capped (5 bets) flop that came K87 rainbow, get 3 bets in on the flop 3 ways, 3 bets on the turn 2 ways, and paid off on the river by a severely overplayed AK. All this action was against a tight old guy (image... learned later far from reality) too. And I thought I had just gotten lucky against aces LOL.
I think I flopped sets four times in a row holding pocket pairs, and three of them won huge pots, while I made my only mistake of the day on the fourth one. Long story short I held 88 on a Q 8 7 , 7, Q board, and the only possible hands that my opponent could have had to pay off my river bet were JJ, TT, 99, or A8, but my opponent would have 3-bet me pre-flop with the first three, and the fourth is so unlikely that I should have checked behind on the river when the second queen fell. I obviously did not like the card at all, but I never miss a value bet, and as the thought "There's so many other hands he'll call you with Devo! Fire!" I kissed six chips goodbye and threw them in the pot. There's a big difference between betting for value and making bad bets, and this was a case of the latter.
Anyways, I quit after four hours up $1358, plus the free $75, plus $31 from the Wynn, good for my highest winning day since February 23rd. How sick is that?
This has been a super rough month both professionally and personally. I lost almost $12K in 130 hours of work and my personal life has been seeing some struggles as well. I have been forced to miss work on several occasions due to personal issues and I have taken time off due to run bad/confidence issues, and then compound that with the fact that my bankroll is the lowest it has been in a year. This life of a professional gambler is not easy on the soul. It's quite tough at times, and I totally understand why so many people go broke so frequently. I've been greatly tempted to take my entire roll and play 200-400 and see what happens, or put it all on the don't and figure out now whether I'll be broke or get a roll going again. It's hard to revert back to a place that you were a year ago, wondering what the hell you have done with the past year, but then again, I have more cash and money in the bank than I did a year ago, I have more toys than I did a year ago, and I am happier with my life now than I was a year ago.
And then I talked to people with jobs and how hard it was to get one of those jobs, and I thought about how much I make simply playing the 15-30 game ($50/hr), and how much I really don't want to go broke anymore. I'd much rather play 15-30 for the rest of my life than have ANY career job that I could possibly get right now.
The past week has been dominated by the lake. Every day Sunday through Thursday was spent on the lake. Here are the highlights:
Sunday: Went and checked out the ruins of St. Thomas on the far north end of the Overton Arm. St Thomas was a Mormon settlement from 1867-1938. The town was abandoned as the waters of Lake Mead rose into the streets and forced people from their homes. I'm not sure whether the government paid for those houses and property lost or not, but either way it is a trajedy in my opinion. Let private property be private. The lake could have easily be held at the level it is at today and the town preserved. The lake level is down almost 100 vertical feet from the high water level, and the ruins of the town of St. Thomas are once again above water. It was quite fascinating wandering around the town for the afternoon.
Monday: Went out with Jared intending on fishing for the afternoon. Ran into friends on another boat. Went to beach far away. Drank a bunch of beer, and then after sunset when faced with the prospect of cruising the boat 90 mins back to dock, putting it on a trailer, and then driving 45 mins home did not sound like a wise option when our friend had extra sleeping bags for Jared and I.
Tuesday: I crawl out of my sleeping bag with the morning sun heating my bag to about 700 degrees. I got up, shook off the sleep, jumped in the water, and began cleaning up the beach. At this point I saw a park ranger boat at the mouth of the cove with a guy on the bow looking at us with binoculars. In case you did not know already, I have an aversion to authority, so I'm like, "What the heck do these guys want?!?" Also mind you, we're ten miles from the nearest marina, 12 miles from another, and 18 miles from the one we launched out of. We're in the middle of nowhere as far as Lake Mead is concerned.
So, the boat pulls all the way in, I walk out to the point to talk to them, and he asks me if I am with the other boat. We had our pontoon (renamed "Piece of Ship") boat out and were with Ron's boat, and the Search and Rescue volunteer was asking about Ron's boat. Yeah. Those are my friends. Then he said, "Do you know Bryan or Jared?" Wow. You gotta be kidding me. Yep. I got search and rescue called on me. I was supposed to be back Monday night, but never really had an official itinerary, and couldn't call anybody due to a lack of cell phone service. Of all the things I've done in my life, of all the places I've guided, of all the missions I have done as a member of Search and Rescue in Colorado, this is what I get search and rescue called on me for: drinking too much and deciding to sleep over instead of driving and boating home in the dark. Life is funny.
Tuesday, part two: On the way back Jared and I come across a 93 Kawasaki stand-up for $300, pay $280 for it, pick up Danny, and head right back to the lake. Nope. Not addicted at all.
Wednesday: We fix said jet-ski, fix another, head to the lake to "test" them, head home, put on softball gear, and head straight to softball game with jet-skis still hanging off the back of my truck.
Thursday: Same procedure. More stand-ups on the lake.
It's really good for your overall poker game to have a place that you can go and escape the distractions of the world for a little while. The lake is that place for me, and it has been a sanctuary in the past month.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
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