Crushed, beaten, annihilated, squelched, wrecked … you feel helpless and empty and start questioning what you’re doing with your life and why you’re wasting so much money.

A new year is supposed to be a time when everyone is feeling the most hopeful and positive and have the brightest outlook on what the next 12 months may hold. I try to put a positive spin on everything and especially the things I write on twitter and in this blog with an audience in mind. I’m sure there are some people who take joy in other people’s down times because it makes them feel better about their own situation. But I just think it’s a better EV play to try and inspire people rather than give them something to wallow in.

I wish I could follow my own advice, but today I don’t see how.

We can at least start off at the highest point, which is right before the calendar turned a page to 2012. Following the win streak that I wrote about last time, I went through an extended break-even stretch that lasted through early/mid December. There were lots of ups and downs and I never gained any traction for about a month straight. A win followed a loss which followed a win followed by a loss, over and over. Finally, and without even really realizing it until after Christmas and just before New Year’s Eve, I strung together another double-digit win streak and took my total winnings to their highest point since I took my two month hiatus. It wasn’t a ton of money, as the vast majority of all my sessions played are $1/$2NL, $1/$3NL, and $1/$2NL-PLO. But I was proud that my results showed such a nice overall uptrend, and was able to break out of a couple of sideways movements on my graph.

Things could not have taken a more drastic turn as they have in the year 2012. I’ve played almost every day, and have posted a grand total of one winning session. And none of the losing sessions have been small losses. Pick any word with a negative connotation, and then break out your thesaurus and go through the list of synonyms for that word: crushed, beaten, annihilated, squelched, wrecked … All these words weigh on me and make me hang my head and stare at the hideous carpet of various Las Vegas casinos as I make my walk of shame to the valet. It’s infinitely worse than a break-even stretch because it piles and compounds on itself so quickly — you feel helpless and empty and start questioning what you’re doing with your life and why you’re wasting so much money.

I don’t bombard twitter with bad beat stories because we all know the beats need to happen in order for poker to exist. There needs to be a luck factor in order to attract casual players and for us to be able to make a living playing the game. I know this, you know this. My buddy Jaymes knows this. But I don’t give a fuck as I bombard his text message inbox with beat after beat in an effort to release the pain.

KK < AT aipf

JJ < A8 T64 guy floats flop and magically finds an A.

You get the idea.

To crawl out of my hole, I was grinding at Treasure Island the other night. If you play 60 hours in a week there, they pay you $599 cash back, and I was putting in some hours after a long session earlier in the day. I had already dusted off one buy-in thanks to a superfish waking up with AA vs my JJ on a board that made it difficult to get away from.

I had about $250 in front of me when the action folded around to my button in our 5-handed game. I opened the action for $10 (which was a smallish raise for this game) with 3h5h looking to bring in the weak player in the big blind. The small blind, who was the only other decent player at the table, reraised to $25 and I made the call after the big blind folded. I’m looking to connect hard in some sort of pair/two pair/combo-draw fashion or else I’m dumping the hand, as I know the sb isn’t looking to waste time getting into a leveling war when there are 3 fishy players at the table. The flop comes A35 rainbow, and he checks. I don’t know why but he likes to check for deception more often than he should, in my opinion, and I already know that all the money is going in at some point. I check back and the turn is a 7. We waste little time; he bets $30, I raise to $75, he snap shoves. Just after I make the insta-call he asks, “Do you have AK?” which immediately defines his hand as AQ. I hold up my cards so he can see them and I say “Two pair…” just before the river falls, which I quickly follow up with “…no good” as we both identify the Ace.

I’m sure it was written all over my face before that last hand even started. The start of 2012 was the worst 1.5 weeks of poker in as long as I can remember, with every session ending deeper in a darker hole. Grinders know never to say “sorry” when they beat someone in a hand because it was exactly what they’re trying to do and will try to do it again the next time. But when that ace fell on the river and I immediately got up to leave, the guy who won the hand patted me on the shoulder and said “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t have it in me to say “It’s ok” or even anything at all. I just put on my backpack and trudged out of the poker room, head hanging and eyes staring at the casino carpet. Wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do.

I’ve torched a lot of money being irresponsible … Vegas definitely has a way of seeping into any crack in your guard wall and blowing it wide open.

If you think that low stakes live poker games tend to be pretty soft, you should check out some of the tournament series that are running this month and next around Vegas.  You’ll see things that will make your head shake and leave you feeling good about the future of poker and its draw to the casual players.  However, these are tournaments we’re talking about, which means you’re a bit handcuffed in regards to how much manipulation of tourists you’ll be able to partake in compared to the cash games.  The structures for a lot of the events are pretty good, but variance is still a bitch.  I won’t go into detail about some of the ridiculous beats I’ve taken over the past week to send me on a walk of shame toward valet.  I’m gonna keep plugging away though with a healthy mix of the series, and cash games when there isn’t an event to my liking.

After I busted out of the AVP tournament at MGM last Saturday, I couldn’t help but notice a plethora of tourists all over the property with Hawaiian shirts and leis on, tropical drinks in hand.  I asked a dealer what type of nonsense was being celebrated in Vegas this weekend but she didn’t know either.  I recalled reading a story about the Margaritaville Casino opening that weekend, which would be attached to the Flamingo.  I don’t know if Jimmy Buffet himself was in town for this grandiose gala of tackiness and vastly overrated music (I fucking hate Jimmy Buffet) but there were a hell of a lot of his fans about.  I decided that I needed to just get it over with… Even though it was basically just a section of the Flamingo, it was like there was a new casino on the strip.  I’d have to go walk through the damn Margaritaville Casino.

I parked at O’Sheas and made the walk across the drive, where there had been set up “the world’s biggest margarita” and entered Margaritaville.  I guess they plan on playing Jimmy Buffet music in there 24/7, which is expected, and which also means I may never go back.  I took a look at the It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere Bar, threw up in my mouth a little bit, and decided to go check out the poker room at the Flamingo, hoping some parrotheads (zzzzzzz) would spill over.  It was actually pretty quiet when I sat down, and all of the players seemed surprisingly sober.  That is, until this guy sat down and instantly announced (slurred) a bounty on another dude at the table:

Here was your standard tourist enjoying himself and who knows how many free drinks, and once again he had found a way to plop himself into my game. It’s a scene that is set nightly in one card room or another around Las Vegas and I almost always find it entertaining in some fashion.  But it really got me thinking. When I look back over my past 3 years playing poker, there are a few leaks I can point to.  Not having poker-playing friends for a long time to really dissect hands and strategy has definitely hindered my development as a player.  I now have some great friends that I can go to anytime I want input, but I wonder where I’d be if I had a coach when I started.  Boredom at the tables is also up there on my leak list.  If I’m card dead, I have to constantly remind myself not to make stupid plays with stupid hands just to keep myself entertained.  But if you want to know what leak has directly cost me the most money, it’s not even close.  That would be playing after drinking.  It’s pretty embarrassing and really dumb, but I’ve torched a lot of money being irresponsible, both online and live. In the past I was really good at grinding up online bankrolls, moving up through the limits with proper money management, and more than once, bombing my account after coming home from being out all night.  I blame myself entirely but Vegas definitely has a way of seeping into any crack in your guard wall and blowing it wide open.

I feel like a very different poker player now than before I took a couple months off.  I’m more patient and things seem clearer.  I obviously will always have leaks and losing sessions but I’m taking more accountability for my own actions and focusing on just playing well. If the cards would cooperate in one of these tourneys that’d be spectacular, but until they do I’m just gonna keep grinding away.  And even though I still love drinks with friends and you may even catch me with a beer at the table once in a while, I plan on leaving the majority of the in-game indulging to my tourist opponents.  As fun as that can be sometimes, these days it feels better to just pick up the pieces when they shatter themselves with Q7o vs your TT on 553T8:

(The shorter version of that story is “I went broke.”)

I was making too many mistakes away from the felt and living a lifestyle that just wasn’t sustainable on my “salary”. I definitely wasn’t going super crazy or ballin’ out of control by any means. But similar to the way a small preflop error can compound on itself and become a large, costly session-killer, smaller mistakes away from the tables can quickly add up and drain a poker player’s bankroll. This shouldn’t be news to any poker player, but when you live in a city like Las Vegas and you like being social and experiencing what the city and life itself has to offer, you have to constantly check yourself.

I look down at 6s7s for my first live hand in two months. Forget that I’m in early position, I can’t help it… the suited connectedness was overpoweringly sexy.

The two biggest realizations I had during my time away were my need to stay humble and my need to stay balanced. Humility has multiple benefits: you’re happier with less, you’re less wasteful, and you end up appreciating important things such as people’s company more than, say, an overpriced cocktail from a tourist-trap of a casino bar. Don’t get me wrong, drinks with friends remains one of my, if not my number one, favorite pastime. Have you been to the Mandarin Bar inside the Mandarin Oriental hotel at CityCenter? Phenomenal venue. But pricey. It’s for sure one of my favorite spots in town, but it’s just a bad idea to spend a large amount of time there drinking $22 glasses of wine. Although you do get complimentary Wasabi peanuts and other snacks with your cocktails. And the restroom is beyond tranquil. Anyway…

I needed the hiatus to show me how unbalanced my life was. I was spending too much time in the casino and around the Strip, putting in too many hours on the grind and draining myself of my alertness and my desire to play well… and my results showed. Balancing your “real” life with your poker life is more important than balancing your 3-betting range. I found a real appreciation for Summerlin, which for those of you who don’t live in Vegas, is a suburb with real grass and trees and, like, only a couple casinos. Just getting away from the madness is essential to staying fresh and keeping my mind interested in what I’m working on and want to excel at. I’ve also been hitting the gym much more regularly over the past couple months, and plan to continue that. I’ve always been a pretty slim dude and have no intentions of winning any lifting competitions, but just seeing some type of results in that department and feeling more fit in general can only help me be happier both at and away from the tables.

Another thing that I really want to start focusing on is finding a way to incorporate some sort of charity into my playing career. I have a couple different ideas and will probably write another blog with more thoughts on this and how it came about.

I don’t mean for this to sound preachy, and a lot or all of it I’m sure has been said before in poker forums and other players’ blogs. I’m not saying you, the reader, should be doing more of this or less of that. In fact I usually have a tendency to think that most people are better than me at all sorts of things in life. I’m just trying to better myself and hopefully putting it in writing will hold me accountable.

So with newfound poker/life weapons in my arsenal, and being super fresh, I was obviously going to crush my first session back from hiatus. I cruised over to Red Rock and got on the short list for $2/$5NL, and jumped in an open seat at a $1/$2 in the meantime. I was stoked to be back in action and my nerves reminded me of when I used to live in LA, when I had a “real” job, and would drive to the Hustler Casino with a gameplan in mind for that night (lol fish). I’m immediately dealt in and I look down at 6s7s for my first live hand in two months. Forget that I’m in early position, I can’t help it… the suited connectedness was overpoweringly sexy. I limp, and a middle-aged Asian fellow in middle position makes it $8. I call after the small blind comes along too.

Flop 8h5s4h.

Unreal. The poker gods had clearly foreseen my return to the ring and arranged a special ceremony in my honor. The small blind leads out for $10, I flat, and the original raiser makes it $32. The small blind calls and it’s time to jump out the window. I make it $90 with the nuts, to which the Asian man asks for a count, and decides on a call. The small blind practically flashes his cards to the entire table and does in fact tell the entire table that he guesses top pair is no good here, and finally folds.

After the dealer half-heartedly does his duty of reminding the $1/$2 players to not talk about hands in a multiway pot, he places the 2h on the turn. This is far from my favorite turn card, especially after the way the Asian man had asked for a count of my flop raise. But I only had a half-pot sized bet left behind, and after all, this was my ceremony, hand-delivered from the gods themselves. I waste little time in moving all-in and the Asian man wastes even less time calling with the nut flush.

And just like that, on hand number one after a two month hiatus, I am reintroduced to the ultimate emotional rollercoaster that is poker.

With @Donkeybomber so far my toughest potential competition … well, let’s just say I’m starting to get excited about the actual poker at hand in early August. And though TV exposure had nothing to do with my initial interest … that’s apparently now part of it, with Epic’s recently acquired sister company, the Heartland Poker Tour, coming to Vegas to film the tournament for syndicated distribution on its nationwide network of local TV stations, some of which are actually in HD.

(Yay!)

That might seem a little minor-league for the more-pro, less-am players in Vegas … but hey, this $1,500 event will be my second-biggest tournament to play in ever — so HPT coverage seems just about right for me and Tom Schneider at this point in my pro career. Having won my way into the August 5-7 tournament, I’ve clearly got game that’s ready for UHF.

Satellites running at 7pm on Saturday and Sunday in the Key West Room at the Palms.

Seriously, not lying when I say I’ve played virtually EVERY DAY of this Series, probably not going longer than 36 hours without logging on — at least to redeem a gift that expires in 1 hour. I’m too embarrassed to be seen playing at the Rio, which is why I stay home … But still, when I am playing, I can’t help but think about the World Series of Poker going on just down the road, on Twitter, on Facebook, on iPhones, via livestream … not to mention the personal text messages and deluge of PR emails … pretty much anywhere with wifi there is Zynga — er, I mean WSOP. To play Zynga you only need 3G.

How rich is this screenshot? To set up the hand, I’m playing Fast-Table 5-handed $100/$200 No-Limit Hold’em on my iPhone. It limps around and I call from the small blind, but fold when the BB makes it $1.9k to go. I probably shoulda called, because if anything Zynga is a workshop in implied odds … but dream flops for naughty hole cards aside, zoom in and you’ll see that Sasquatch gets around.

Meanwhile, to show you yes, I may have a problem but I can handle it …

I find about 9 things in this shot rather fascinating … some indicative of why Jack Link’s probably isn’t the only one paying attention to Zynga’s forthcoming IPO … and one because I have screenshots from when I’ve made quads.

I picked up KK in the first orbit of NL in late position, raised and picked up the blinds …

While at the dealership today I read through 944 magazine a bit.  If you happen to live in a city that 944 covers, and you like going out, doing stuff and checking out new things in your city, I highly recommend picking up a copy. I also highly recommend they pay me for this advertising I’m giving them but that’s probably not going to happen. There are always so many things changing in the city of Las Vegas–new restaurants, DJ appearances/residencies, happy hours, special events–that it is nearly impossible to keep up.  It’s fun to try though, and it’s obviously tough to get bored here.

After VW, it was that time: 7pm on a Thursday, which means Pokerati 1/2 PLO/NLH at the Palms.  When I got there around 8 there was a full game up and running and Danielle was already on the waiting list.  It took about 15 minutes before we had enough people to start a second table.  Pretty impressive, I must say, but not entirely surprising.  The half-and-half nature of the game is just so much more interesting and entertaining in my opinion, that I think you’ll eventually see it spread elsewhere more regularly.  This coupled with the fact that the WSOP is in full swing means there’s no shortage of players around.

I picked up KK in the first orbit of NL in late position, raised and picked up the blinds.  That was pretty much the only hand of note for me before this one: we’re playing PLO 9-handed and there’s a button straddle.  Danielle limps, Randy Dorfman limps, I look at Ac Kd 7c7d and limp along.  The pair is on the low side in this hand that I don’t love, but I do love the AK double-suited and want to bring in lots of players that I dominate suit-wise.  Pauly limps, Merchdawg raises in late position to 20.  I immediately put Merch on QQxx or JJxx or something similar at best, just by the way he raised combined with my A and K blockers.  All of us limpers plus the button call.  

Flop Ax7s3s.  

It checks to me and thinking back I kinda like leading in the hopes of Merchdawg bluff raising, but I checked and it ends up checking through.  I was definitely going to check-raise a c-bet from Merchdawg and go with it if he reraised, assuming he has a flush draw.  The turn brought an offsuit 8 and it checked to Randy who bets pot (120).  I took a quick look around the table to gauge other people’s interest and there didn’t seem to be much.  If there was I would’ve shoved for 130ish more.  As it is, Randy is never folding whether he has draws, a set, or two pair, and I figured flatting gives him a chance to bluff at a blank river, whereas I could possibly get away from a river spade based on my read.  I’m not sure, that could be flawed.  The river is the As which looks like gin to me.  Randy pots it and I call all-in for less.  AT98 is good, Mr. Dorfman.

I just decided to bail after that.  I’ve been getting pretty pounded for the majority of the past two months, with a couple highlights here and there in between.  It’s really not that much fun, I must say, especially now that we’re smack in the middle of the WSOP when all poker players hope to be reaching the peak of their run-good.  But what can you do?  I never have that moment of agony when the alarm clock goes off in the morning, and I get to play cards every single day, if I so choose.  So it could be worse.  I could’ve been driving a car with fewer safety features that one night in West Hollywood.

I had been trying to place him … was he related to the suit-wearing longhair we media types know as “the devil” (whom I had once sent into a tirade by stacking him at the Golden Nugget). No, no, not related (fingers crossed) … maybe he’s a performer in one a show around town? That would explain why he was playing in this game, but not why he would have $100k in cash (including some in out-of-circulation $500 and $1,000 bills). His business card says “Have Gun, Will Travel”, and lists his title as “Soldier of Fortune”.

Anyhow, it just hit me where I had seen him before, or at least why he looked so familiar. I was playing against not a real hitman, but quasi-legendary humorist Alibaster K. Abthernabther!

In the end, I’d get only about .009 percent of his stack, despite seeing AA, KK, KK, AK, and 77 twice (and flopping two sets) in our first three orbits … and then having him request a seat change and moving directly to my right. Turns out Mr. 50,000 Big Blinds was a ridiculously tight player … saw him (correctly) lay down a set of 4s to a $10 bet into a $25 pot, and chop the only all-in he faced with AKs vs. AKs.

I guess he liked to just sit there in front of money he knew he wasn’t going to lose?

They’re calling it Trash Talk Tuesdays, and indeed, have heard a teensy little buzz about it around town. Follow me on twitter for updates. My plan is to play tight and not get caught up in twittering.

As you can tell, this will be a big game for me — essentially $2/$5/$10 NLH that I hear grows even bigger as the night goes on. I’m a little nervous — am pretty sure it’s poor game selection to risk a third of your bankroll in a potentially wild, unfamiliar game playing at higher stakes than you’re used to. But sheesh, they’ve even got a bonus for playing the hammer! Go Dream Team money …

From Hard Rock Poker Lounge:

Trash Talk Tuesdays
Bad Sportsmanship Encouraged – ornery dealers, slow rollers & grown men crying…
Buy-in: $300-$3000
Mandatory “Hard Rock Straddle” on the button
Blinds: $2-$5
Seven Deuce Bounty

Warning: If you’re a whiny little baby who can’t take a joke about ginormously fat and disgusting your mother is, then this event is not for you. So stop reading this and MOVE ON!

More about this game from 2+2 here and Doc W (who took the picture from that game above) here.

UPDATE: You can see my results on twitter … but in a nutshell, this game plays WAAY bigger than 2/5 or even 5/10. Got my ass handed to me (twice) before dropping down to “Wacky 1-2″ … which is essentially the same game with 1/2 blinds and a forced $4 straddle.

It was a triumph for me individually — I’ve made the money with an about-average stack, and made my first Day 2 ever in any tournament. (Stop laughing.) But from a team perspective … that’s where the real money is, and Team Tao of Pokerati (Dan, Pauly, Lana) is the only team with more than one player remaining. (Pauly, Dan.)

We’re guaranteed a 5th place team finish, and would have to really screw up to not get at least 4th. We need a 15th and 14th place finish individually (or better) to win it outright.

Click below to see the full Nolan-esque official report.

DREAM TEAM POKER WSOP EVENT DAY 1 REPORT
2009 World Series of Poker
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada
Official Report
No-Limit Hold’em / Dream Team Poker Structure
Buy-in: $500 +60 per person / $1680 per team

Number of players: 366
Number of Teams: 122
Players Remaining: 27
Teams Remaining: 26

Total Net Prize Pool: $177,510
Top Payout Individual: $16,473
Top Payout Team: $33,017

Places Paid Individual: 36
Places Paid Team: 10

July 12-13, 2009

Tournament Highlights

Ø The Dream Team Poker Tournament started with 122 teams and 366 players. Play ended with 27 players remaining representing 26 teams.

Ø One team, Tao of Pokerati, has 2 players remaining and is the favorite to take the top team prize of $33,017 to split between the three team members

Ø There were 59 women entered into the tournament, comprising more than 16% of the entire field.

Ø There were 3 all-women teams in the event:

Kegslist.info (lead by Lacey Jones)
Tush Pushers (lead by Pam Brunson)
Wicked Chops Poker II (Lead by London Gallagher)

Ø There were 15 teams who played in the DTP WSOP event that also played in the DTP Caesars event in March 2009. These teams were:

Hellmuth Busters
Bluff Magazine
Wicked Chops Poker
Poker Road.com
Tao of Pokerati
Los Chingones
6Hands 4Nuts & a Rack (Jerry Yang)
The Maven VT (3 teams)
PicClub.com
West Coast Rounders
USA Rounders
BPC

Ø Chip Leader Rob Diaz, from Team Reckless goes into Day 2 with $332,000 in chips. Rob is a former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq in 2003 and 2004-2005. He learned to play poker while in Iraq. He is currently a full-time student at DePaul University in Sacramento, CA and a part time police officer.

Ø Rob was a last minute substitution to Team Reckless when fellow teammate Ryan Gray’s uncle could not make the trip. Rob flew to Las Vegas at the last minute to play in the Dream Team Poker Event. This is his first time playing a live tournament in a casino.

Ø More than 30 professionals played the Dream Team Poker WSOP Event including:

David Williams, Evelyn Ng, Justin Bonomo (Team Bodog)
Barry Greenstein, Joe Stapleton (Team PokerRoad.com)
Gavin Smith (Team Zurvive)
Pam Brunson (Tush Pushers)
Liz Lieu (ChiliPoker)
Jerry Yang, Christina Lindley, Eric Aude (Team Six Hands, Four Nutz, and a
Rack OnTilt)
Marsha Waggoner, James Worth, Young Phan (Team True Poker)
Barbara Enright, Paul Darden and David Levi (Team Bookmaker Poker)
David Chicotsky, Lauren Kling (Team TheMaven VT 1)
Kenna James (Poker Host)
Susie Isaacs (Team Simpletrak)
Bryan Micon, Dustin Woolf (Team Neverwinpoker.com)
Tom McEvoy (Magic Dragons)
Captain Tom Franklin, TJ Cloutier (Captain Krunch)
Lacey Jones, Christina Hall (Kegslist.info)
Maureen Feduniak (Jersey Girls)
Thor Hansen, Yosh Naknano (Team IPPA Tour)
Matt Savage (Slightly Above Saverage)
Men “The Master” Nguyen (MenMaster)
Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, Rick Fuller (Bike.com)
Amir Vahedi (team Picclub)
Jose Canseco ()

Player Quotes

Jerry Yang (2007 World Series of Poker Champion)
This was my second DTP event. I came back because I like the format and the excitement of the tournament. The competition is different in the DTP event, I get to play for my team rather than just myself.”

Lacey Jones (Professional Poker Player/ Model / Actress)
“This is my third time playing a Dream Team Poker event and I have had the most fun playing these events than any other poker tournament. I can’t think of any better way to enjoy the game of poker than to play with your friends and have them cheer you on!”

Side note: Lacey Jones captained “Team Lacey” to win the 1^st place team prize in the Dream Team Poker / World Series of Poker Media Event on July 9^th.

Tom McEvoy (World Series of Poker Champion)
“I love the Dream Team Poker structure! I played in March and finished on the final table. In a Dream Team Poker event, you want to try harder because you don’t want to let your teammates down. You try to stay alive as long as possible for them, its not just about yourself, you try to maximize your team’s result.”

Side note: Tom played the Dream Team Poker event at Caesars Palace in March 2009. He made the final table finishing in 6^th place

Eric Morris (Publisher, Bluff Magazine)
“Dream Team Poker is the most fun I have ever had with my clothes on! This is a great time, great people, why wouldn’t you play!”

Side Note: Bluff Magazine won the inaugural Dream Team Poker event in March 2009. His video editor Marc Rizzo won the top individual prize at the Dream Team Poker / WSOP Media event on July 9, 2009

Valerie Palermo – Member of Team Hellmuth Busters
“The first time I played in the Dream Team Poker Event in March I had so much fun that I had to come back again. I loved the team based atmosphere and the structure. I have found that the players are more friendly and fun, it seems less stressful and tense than a regular tournament.”

Side Note: Valerie’s team “The Hellmuth Busters” played the Dream Team Poker Event in March at Caesars Palace. The team finished in the money taking the 5^th place team prize for $6660.

End of Day 1 Chip Counts

Official Payout Structure

My latest Bluff column is now up online … in this episode I call out the Scandis for potentially causing a violent international incident:

Without a doubt, for low stakes players MGM cash games can be a test of nerves…. Little did I know it would be a test of my sanity, not to mention my criminal intent.

The villain in this story is a slowroller, so I’m sure most will understand. Before the night was over he had an entire table plotting revenge. The plan was to gang-tackle him in an elevator, beat him senseless, take his money, then beat him some more, and then, just to let him know we weren’t really crooks, roll up the cash and wedge it in his facial orifices. Or at least that’s what one of us was thinking… that’ll teach him proper etiquette!

Not sure when the change happened — presumably in 2008 — but I’ll be staying there for the next couple days, and not having to brush up on my base-3 mathematics makes the game that much more enjoyable.

(Played last night there for 2.5 hours … buy-in: $200, cash out: $268. Not bad, but I left a couple orbits too late, as my stacks were over $500 when I got that leaving feeling.)

Anyhow, as HH writes up his trip report, he spends a fair amount of digital ink discussing my atrocious bustout hand against my most kidney-jabbing new pal, PKPNF. Argh, for nearly five years now I’ve been trying to build up an “image” as a weak-aggressive player … setting myself up for a bigger, long-term win. But considering I have hardly made it past a break in a blogger tourney, I’m not sure that’s going so well for me. In Human Head’s (accurate) analysis … my play that day was clearly inspired by this.

[via Pauly]

I was playing really well — having a great chatty time, too, with my fellow poker blog-geeks, and was set to put in the long hours required to go deep in the 2008 Winter Bloggerfest Tourney (a $135 deep-stack at the Venetian), until I got into a hand with the above. Such a ass donkey in the truest sense … at least that’s how I felt when he called my all-in check-raise with third pair on a paired, straighty, and thrice-suited board. Went from being happy about seeing some random d-bagger wearing a Pokerati patch to thinking we need standards around this place, and by this place I mean the internet/earth.

My bad, of course, for walking through a war zone and kicking a shiny piece of metal really hard to see if it’s a landmine. Click below for hand details:

UPDATE: Neil’s “people” tell me he is not “Neil Fontenot the Professional Keno Player”, but rather “Professional Keno Player Neil Fontenot”, aka PKPNF. Pokerati offers our sincerest apologies for the error.

Blinds are 100/200 with a 25 ante. I have about 10,000 chips (below average but not even close to desperate with an M=19). A bunch of limpers — like four or five, I think — and I have AQs in the big blind. Hoping to draw in lots of money should I hit the flop nicely, and get out cheap if I don’t, I check.

Flop comes 9s-7s-4d, two spades. (I have clubs.) Check-check-check-check-check … all the way to Neil, who is on the button. He bets 500. I look coy and check-min-raise (for info, really) to 1,000. Everyone else folds. He calls.

Turn is the 10d. I check. He sheepishly bets 1,000. Hmm, seems very weak from a weak player. I call. River is 10c. I check, he bets 1,000 again — ooh, confirmation of the weakness I was looking for — so I move all-in for about 7,500 more. Fontenot has about 8,000 more chips and instacalls with A-7.

OK, maybe never mind … I can see about four separate mistakes I made in this hand, even if he did make a terrible call. I later asked him why he did call — “Did you just know I was bluffing?”. He said no, he just knew I was a donkey and figured there was so much in the pot that he had to call. He seemed sincerely shocked when I told him how big my final bet actually was — making me think he really didn’t see my 5,000 white chip in the mix.

UPDATE: I think some of my hand recall is off here … I might have fired out 3,000 on the turn, and he called. Yes, I think that’s what happened … I knew I had more chips than 10k when the hand started. I think. Never mind. Fuggit — I hate this hand. Puts me on tilt, still, every which way.

Total bullshit! Though I still for the life of me can’t see how this is any different from transferring funds via TD Ameritrade, it’s not cool to know these winnings are still at risk! I mean my goodness, an extra chunk of cash, right there just a few clicks away from games bigger than I usually play? How on earth could any reasonable degenerate be expected to resist?!?

The set-up below: I had been playing at this table for 15 or 20 minutes … started with $200, and my stack was at its session peak when the hand began. While my first mistake was probably even just being in the hand, this was 6-max NL, baby! Am I wrong to think this is a game of trying to out-felt each other? Grinding is for full tables, and limit … I knew what I was doing here.*

Ugh. So greedy. What’s even worse is pocket 9s is pretty much what I put him on … possibly the nut flush draw, but probably pocket 9s or 10s … even before the river hit. When it did, I quickly assessed the sitch and decided he didn’t have the straight flush, but then I just pretended that 99 also was unlikely. Pretending can’t generally be the right move. How hard, really, in wild-crazy shorthanded NL, should it have been to just call his first bet on the chance that he did indeed hit his two-outer?

* As I say this stuff, I really do believe it, but it really just doesn’t sound like it should be right.

Textual hand history below:

PokerStars Game #21824487276: Hold’em No Limit ($2/$4) – 2008/11/07 0:44:41 ET
Table ‘Grogler II’ 6-max Seat #4 is the button

Seat 1: StitzDogg ($400 in chips)
Seat 3: RiverDan72 ($355.50 in chips)
Seat 4: Sunking25 ($136 in chips)
Seat 5: MrteddyKGB ($470 in chips)
Seat 6: TheKaas ($887.40 in chips)
MrteddyKGB: posts small blind $2
TheKaas: posts big blind $4
arfur: sits out

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RiverDan72 [6h 8s]
StitzDogg: folds
RiverDan72: calls $4
Sunking25: folds
MrteddyKGB: calls $2
TheKaas: checks

*** FLOP *** [8h 6s 5c]
MrteddyKGB: bets $8
TheKaas: folds
RiverDan72: raises $20 to $28
MrteddyKGB: calls $20

*** TURN *** [8h 6s 5c] [8c]
MrteddyKGB: checks
RiverDan72: checks

*** RIVER *** [8h 6s 5c 8c] [9c]
MrteddyKGB: bets $20
RiverDan72: raises $52 to $72
MrteddyKGB: raises $366 to $438 and is all-in
RiverDan72: calls $251.50 and is all-in
Uncalled bet ($114.50) returned to MrteddyKGB

*** SHOW DOWN ***
MrteddyKGB: shows [9s 9h] (a full house, Nines full of Eights)
RiverDan72: mucks hand
MrteddyKGB collected $713 from pot

*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $715 | Rake $2
Board [8h 6s 5c 8c 9c]
Seat 1: StitzDogg folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: RiverDan72 mucked [6h 8s]
Seat 4: Sunking25 (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: MrteddyKGB (small blind) showed [9s 9h] and won ($713) with a full house, Nines full of Eights
Seat 6: TheKaas (big blind) folded on the Flop

I was playing very well on PokerStars this eve, so I decided to try my new-and-improving tournament game in their “Nightly Seventy Grand” — a $50+5, $70k guaranteed … with about 1,300 players, 198 get paid.

Though I made one mistake that cost me half my stack, and one fold that was correct but woulda worked out in my favor, I was still in good chip position (about 230thish with 735 or so remaining) and my head was in the right place. No tilt factor … knew to be patient and I’d get my hand.

I had already begun thinking about the glorious post I would write upon taking down the $12k first prize — and accepting in my mind that odds were still against my actual winning, so this would more likely be a battle to see just how deep I could get into the real money — but instead I got a reminder of why poker sucks “tournament pro” must be such a terrible way to make a living.

Click below for the complete textual hand history. I can’t stop thinking about it — about an hour and a half later. I’m pretty sure I played the hand itself as right as i could (pushing all-in preflop with Aces), so all I’m left with are regrets over the hand I misplayed an orbit or so earlier. Those extra chips (I was in the top 25 at the time) probably woulda been enough to push RoryClan83 and his 44 out of there, and even if not I’d still have been alive after my Aces got so painfully double-cracked.

Instead, I gave the dumbass my distinguished opponent from Del Boca the ammunition to kill me.

(He would go on to finish in 100th place, paying $105.)

PokerStars Game #21309953753: Tournament #113516614, $50+$5 Hold’em No Limit – Level V (75/150) – 2008/10/18 22:44:44 ET
Table ’113516614 44′ 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: DcHustlers (3618 in chips)
Seat 2: WALLSTREET1 (10040 in chips)
Seat 3: HamOnRye (3655 in chips)
Seat 4: JustAplayer2 (5990 in chips)
Seat 5: RoryClan83 (8417 in chips)
Seat 6: jackalteo (13340 in chips)
Seat 7: shaundeeb (3165 in chips)
Seat 8: RiverDan72 (5590 in chips)
Seat 9: .dfm.dfm. (1440 in chips)
shaundeeb: posts small blind 75
RiverDan72: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RiverDan72 [Ah Ac]
.dfm.dfm.: raises 1290 to 1440 and is all-in
DcHustlers: folds
WALLSTREET1: folds
HamOnRye: folds
JustAplayer2: folds
RoryClan83: calls 1440
jackalteo: folds
shaundeeb: folds
RiverDan72: raises 4150 to 5590 and is all-in
RoryClan83: calls 4150
*** FLOP *** [8c Th 7c]
*** TURN *** [8c Th 7c] [6s]
*** RIVER *** [8c Th 7c 6s] [5h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
RiverDan72: shows [Ah Ac] (a pair of Aces)
RoryClan83: shows [4d 4c] (a straight, Four to Eight)
RoryClan83 collected 8300 from side pot
.dfm.dfm.: shows [9d 9s] (a straight, Six to Ten)
.dfm.dfm. collected 4395 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 12695 Main pot 4395. Side pot 8300. | Rake 0
Board [8c Th 7c 6s 5h]
Seat 1: DcHustlers folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 2: WALLSTREET1 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: HamOnRye folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: JustAplayer2 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: RoryClan83 showed [4d 4c] and won (8300) with a straight, Four to Eight
Seat 6: jackalteo (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: shaundeeb (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: RiverDan72 (big blind) showed [Ah Ac] and lost with a pair of Aces
Seat 9: .dfm.dfm. showed [9d 9s] and won (4395) with a straight, Six to Ten

After much hemming and hawing, I decided to give the $1,500 HORSE a try, what I called “baby” HORSE when discussing it with Andy Bloch in the halls of the Rio. (I think he played it too. What must it be like to bust out of the $50K HORSE and then enter the $1,500 version?)

I had technically “won” the seat already through the Full Tilt Poker Battle of the Blogger tournaments, but I suppose I could throw that money towards anything I wanted (like a new stove that the wife really, really wants). But speaking of decorum, that wouldn’t seem like the right thing to do. So play I did.

My table included five guys I had no clue about, Mike Matusow and Mysterious European WSOP Bracelet Winner (otherwise known henceforth as Player X). Dan has pictures so maybe he will add them to this post. Hint, Hint.

When Matusow walked up to the table, he started counting the fish. He couldn’t find any until I raised my hand.

“Yeah, you look pretty fishy,” he said. “Just kidding, My name’s Mike. Nice to meet you.”

As per most WSOP events, the structure was fast. Either you catch some hands quick to double up and get some play or you go home. For the first two levels I wasn’t really doing either. I think I knew it was going to be a rough day when I raised from the BB in O8 with A-2-3-4 to see a flop of K-4-3, a turn of 7 that made my nut low and a 4 on the river that gave me a complementary full house. Of course, I got quartered by one player’s kings full and Matusow’s A-2.

Meanwhile, Matusow continued chatting up Player X every minute of every hour (they don’t call him “The Mouth” for nothing) with tales of 50K HORSE. He had invested in Mike Wattel, who was the $124K bubble boy in the event.

“He really needed that money,” Matusow said, adding that he saw Wattel in the hall after his bust out and he looked like he wanted to die. Apparently, Wattel had a few stacks shorter than his on the bubble and played a hand he shouldn’t have involved in, according to Matusow.

As for me, I wanted my $1,500 back after I got crippled in Stud. Sarting with split aces, I made aces up on fifth and got check raised by a player who started with a 10 showing and had added a K and Q to his upcards. Not sure if he had a straight, I called him down to try to fill up. I did not and he showed rolled up 10s.

I busted shortly later in Stud/8 when I missed both a low and flush draw. Matusow took the high with two pair and another played got the low (Mr. kings full).

In a nutshell, at the tables, not particularly well. (Especially compared to last year, whence I shocked myself by making more money playing during the WSOP than actually working during the WSOP.) I’ll see if we can’t whip up a visually compelling WSOP bankroll chart/graph … but in the meantime, it’s not like you have to be able to read music to get a sense of what the following — which is all the poker I have played over the past two weeks — would look like:

Day 2, 2/5 NL, Rio, 3 hours:
-$300

Day 6, 2/5 NL, Rio, 2 hours:
-$300

Day 12, 1/3 NL, Rio, 3.5 hours:
-$187

And then this weekend, I played at the Mirage … was stumbling out of the Thrillist Las Vegas JetVegas Launch Party Afterparty at JET (beer + scotch + vodka + random mystery shot)*dancing on table = not pretty) … was about to hop in a cab back to the Rio but decided I needed to sober up even to let someone else drive. So when a random Friday night reveler near the Mirage Poker Room came up to me and said, “Hey, you wanna play a $115 sit-n-go?!?” it sounded like a perfect idea. Upon taking my seat and sizing up the competition, I also paid into a $20 lasts-longer …

My strategy was to pretend I was the drunk guy at the table. I obviously smelled the part, and would pull a Shane with messed up chipstacks to appear really clueless. Ha-ha, they would have no idea what I was up to! It all was working perfectly until the third hand, when I forgot the part about playing differently than the image I was trying to project, and the pair I moved all-in with didn’t catch up against the re-raiser’s flopped straight.

Day 14, 115 SNG, Mirage, 5 minutes:
-$135

While the above may be a once twice-a-Series anomaly, all my Rio play is not. Those cash games are the start of what was supposed to be an easy part-time path to poker glory: Play some cash games and use those winnings to buy into satellites; chop often until earning my way into at least one bracelet tourney; get chips early and go deep; text with Tom for advice on getting to the final table/winning … smile for Flipchip as he chronicles WSOP winners; just don’t get ahead of yourself and even start thinking about Player of the Year …

So clearly I have run into some obstacles, but I still think it’s a workable plan until I run out of money/Harrah’s food coupons.

$2/$5 NLH
Buy-in: $300
Cash out: $0
Net: -$300

Argh … the cost of testing out our new little Twitteresque CSR.

Somewhere along the way to posting six losing sessions out of eight and after receiving a severe tongue-lashing from Robert G (with echoes of Tulsa in my head) I abandoned my soccer-shootout tally and quest for five wins in a row. Hadn’t given it a thought since then, really, until today, upon seeing the results of my past four sessions:

DATE — VENUE — HRS — GAME — BUYIN(s) — CASHOUT — EXTRA — NET
15-Mar – venetian — 5.5 — 2/5 nlh — 600 (2) — 776 — 2 — 174
21-Mar – paris — .25 — 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 249 — 2 — 47
22-Mar – golden nugget — 3 — 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 1709 — 0 — 1509
24-Mar – venetian – 2.25 – 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 1262 — 2 — 1060

I swear I won’t be thinking about it next time I play.