A Good Day...

Well, another good day for me. I won the WSOP $30 rebuy on Stars for another World Series seat and pocketed $1000 cash and $10000 in tournament dollars.... and also I got third in the $30 rebuy on Paradise for $3800. (Losing three consecutive all-ins with KQ vs KT, 66 vs A9 and TT vs A9).

Again I'd like to say congrats to Carl Olson for finishing 7th at the Reno WPT Event. Congrats Carl and welcome to WPT-TV-Bubble-Anonymous.

Back Home

I'm back home, so I decided to play some 9pm tournaments. I busted quickly in all of them but one, the $30 rebuy on Paradise which I won for $18,252. Was a really nice way to ease the pain from the Reno bustout.

GL to my friend Carl Olson who is still in the Reno tournament with 27 players left. I tried to give him advice in preparation for the TV bubble but he didn't seem to want it from me, I wonder why? (heh)

Reno $5k

Well another quick WPT tourney for me.

We started with $10k chips and the only person I recognized at my table was Gavin Griffin.

I was down to 9100 (50/100) at the beginning of the second level when the following hands came up :

Tight player opens for 300, I call with 8s5s, button calls. Flop is 6s4s2c, checked to me, I bet 700, button insta calls, preflop raiser mucks. Turn is 6h, I bet 1500, button calls quickly again. I now have a bad feeling about my spade draw, the Ts comes off on the river and I check and the button bets $1k and I call, he has AsJs and I lose.

Down to about 5400, UTG raises to 300, I call with JsJc, we take the flop heads up. Flop is QdJd2h, he bets 600, I make it 1800, he calls. Turn is an A, he checks, I push in for 3200, he mucks KK face up. Damn turn card.

Gavin opens for 300, gets a caller in LP, I call in the BB with 9hTd, flop is KdQd4d, checked around, turn is Jh, I bet 600, Gavin calls, LP mucks. Turn is a low diamond, I check, Gavin checks, my hand is good.

A few hands later I limp utg with QQ, with the intention of limp-reraising. Two to my left makes it 575, Gavin cold calls, I make it 2100 total, initial raiser instantly jams, Gavin mucks (he said later he mucked JJ), I tank for a bit and finally fold, I'm shown AA. This is why you don't limp re-raise with queens in that spot, I basically turn them into a bluff when I limp re-raise because I figure never to be given action from a worse hand and only win when I'm ahead.

There were three limpers to me and I made it 600 to go with AK and all of the limpers called and I checked behind on the T66 flop and then folded to a bet on the Q turn card.

Finally, with about 5500 the following hand came up. UTG tight player makes it 300, Gavin calls, another tight player calls, I'm on the button and find red kings, I make it 1300, UTG calls, Gavin calls, and then the tight player who was on the short stack thinks about pushing (which would have been great for me) but he finally mucks. So there is 4500 in the pot or so and I have only 4200 behind. Flop is J63 rainbow and checked to me, I bet 3000, UTG mucks, Gavin pushes, I call, he has 33 and that's the end of me.

Take care readers.

Reno $1k and Foxwoods

The Reno $1k did not go well. We only started with 2000 chips and the blinds were 25/25. At the end of the first level I had about 1200... at the end of the second level (25/50) I had 725 chips and found AA and raised to 125. The button re-raised with KK and we obviously got it all in, board came 235KA and I doubled up.

During the third level I actually got it to 2500... and my final hand came with blinds 50/100 and I had about 1800 to start the hand. I opened on the button+2 with 44 and got called by the BB (active fairly aggr player). The flop came Q64 and he bet 300 into me. I called hoping he would fire again on the turn. The turn was a Q and he bet 300 again. I had about 1100 left but decided to just call again. The river was an ugly 6 and he put me in. I really wasn't sure what he had, but I didn't think he put me on anything but ace high so I thought he could be value betting like a middle pair or maybe it was a total bluff - my hand was now caca but I called and he showed 68o and I was out. (Actually he left me with 50 chips but I busted quickly after)

So I came back to my room, slept for a bit, then won a Foxwoods seat on Stars in a double shootout (seat is worth $10,000). So now, I guess I'm heading to foxwoods in a couple of weeks!

I may or may not play $2k tomorrow. The structure is still pretty bad (2500 chips, same levels) and there are some internet tournaments I'd like to play. We'll see.

Reno!

Wow Reno is great so far. I'm up over $10k since I got here and I haven't been to the poker room yet!

Decided to play a couple of tourneys tonight and made the final table in both of them taking 3rd in the $100 on Party for $4400 and 1st in the $30rebuy for $6600.

That's going to ease the pain of the buy ins here in Reno (if I don't win any satellites). The $1k tournament starts in about 8 hours so I better get some sleep.

What could have been...

Just finished up the Party Poker sunday tournament - took 8th place for $10k. First place was over $100k though, so I left a bunch of money on the table.

Blinds were 50/100k on my bustout hand, I raised from MP with KQo to 270k, I got a suspicious flat call from a big stack, I flopped a king and went broke against his aces. Once I bet the flop I am getting 3:1 on my money, and there's just too big of a chance he has the same hand or something like AJ or AQ of diamonds - hands that I would be making a horrible laydown against.

Anyway, can't complain, ran really well the whole tournament... hope that comes with me to Reno.

Brief Update

Well, what is an update without another huge WPT/WSOP bubble?

I do not disappoint. I managed a stellar second place finish in the $650 qualifer on Pokerroom to the WPT Championship. 2nd place was good enough for $2,000 instead of the $27,900 seat. Yet again I had the chip lead at some point heads up but was unable to close the deal. Three handed I had a nice lead then JJ couldn't beat 44 and Q7 couldn't beat K2 on a KQ7 flop. Both of those pots would have given me a huge lead heads up. Instead I got short stacked and had to win two coinflips to survive.

Finally, in the heads up battle I managed to have A3 vs AQ on an A22KQ board, 64 vs JJ on a KJ66x board (where my opp open limped on the button), I did manage to suckout twice for all my chips to go from completely dead to in front... but I just couldn't finish it. And so it goes, rinse/repeat.

I've played a lot of WSOP or Foxwoods qualifiers this week and gotten close a few times but haven't won anything. Had a couple of small tourney cashes this week also, but nothing special. Overall it wasn't a very good week.

I'm off to Reno on Thursday to play the $1k, $2k and $5k (WPT) tourneys. Hopefully I'll satellite into the $5k but if not I'll probably play anyway. Still trying to figure out my schedule beyond that, whether I go to Foxwoods or the Bellagio or both. Maybe I'll see if I can bubble in a live satellite, too!

Last few days (WSOP bound)

A quick summary of the last few days :

I made the final table of the Stars $10 rebuy on Wednesday and finished fourth for $4300+. Nice to make a final table in such a big tournament but I definitely had a chance to win, or at least make the final 3. But it takes a lot of running good to get through that many people.

Today I had another frustrating WSOP (almost) bubble. I made the final table of the $300+20 qualifier on Stars 2nd in chips and they were giving away 3 seats but I finished 7th. The big hand that I lost came when someone moved in for 13bbs utg with A7, I called with JJ and lost. With that pot I would've been in great shape.

I was pretty bummed so I decided not to play for a few hours and then came back and played two double shootouts, one for the WSOP and one for Foxwoods. I somehow made the final table in both of them (and the final tables actually started within a minute of each other). I got hit with the deck in the WSOP one and ended up winning it, so I'm headed to the WSOP! I went out third in the Foxwoods one, which was a little bit of a bummer but I can't complain.

The great thing about the Stars qualifiers is the number of qualifiers they run per day. I can now focus my attention on winning more seats and then use the money earned ($W) toward WSOP circuit, WPT, or even WPT prelim events. Through all of those close calls getting to the WSOP (and winning money for being runner up) I actually made more than $1500 in my quest for the WSOP. I'm pretty psyched about that.

Weekend Report

Another weekend, a couple of more WPT bubbles.

Yesterday I took second (read bubbled) for the LOQ tournament on Interpoker. (A seat or seats at major tournaments worth $15.5k). I was outchipped more than 2:1 to start and ended up getting it in with AJ vs 66 a little while later and losing. I did win $3880 for second place, which was enough to cover all of the other losses during the day.

I also managed to bubble for a Foxwoods $10k seat on Pokerstars. $30 rebuy that gave away two seats (and $175 to 3rd through 36th place , explain that) and I ended up third. As painful as normal. Looked great for awhile but ran AJ into AK three handed and that was that. There were three races between the other players that went the wrong way, each one would have lead to three people being left and me in solid second place. Each time, the wrong person won for me. When we finally got three handed I was in last place and quickly lost a pot to the second place guy and it was pretty desperate from there on out. Another pretty big disappointment.

Played in a bunch of tourneys as well today, only cashed in one... The $100 rebuy on Empire...I finished 6th for $3,000 and again roughly broke even for the day. I was second in chips with 6 left and went out in about 6 hands. I raised UTG with AJ and was pot committed against someone who re-raised with 77, the board came AJT98. Two hands later I was in the SB and got it in with 89 of clubs against QJ on a J96 two club board. I was a 51% favorite but bricked out. That left me with 2.5 bbs and I posted a few hands later and was pot committed against the SB and lost.

Now that's better...

I got back into playing some tournaments today and finally broke out of a slump. I took 6th in the Party $100 for $1600 and first in the Party $30 Rebuy for $11k. (as well as two other small cashes)

I've made the decision to move down to 15/30 6 max games and it has been going just fine so far.

Sorry for the brief update, but happy to be telling some good news for the first time in awhile.