Part One is now live, and the rest should be going up over the course of the next week or so.

If you’re not yet a Tournament Poker Edge member, let this be your impetus to sign up!

My interview with Christian Soto provided all of that at a critical moment, coming just hours after one of the more frustrating poker experiences of the year. By chance, we’d been seated next to each other late on Day 2 of the WPT Main Event at Maryland Live! After crushing for much of the day, I made a critical mistake and lost more than I should have with AK vs AA, which resulted in a smaller cash than I’d anticipated. Talking through and laughing about the day’s events with Christian was great fun and great medicine, and judging from the audience response, it seems to have made for a great listen as well.

Happy new year everyone! Thanks for spending some of 2017 with us, and we look forward to sharing more great poker stories with you in the year to come.

To learn more from Christian you can follow @ChristianSoto08 on Twitter and sign up for his I’ll Name This Strategy Later II seminar.

It was a great experience in a lot of ways, but one that I want to highlight as to do with the Thinking Poker Podcast. One of our goals from the beginning was to showcase a much broader spectrum of perspectives on the poker world than one typically sees in poker media. We wanted to talk not just to famous players but also to recreational players, to “workaday” professionals, and to people who work around poker as dealers, journalists, etc.

It amazed me, when I stopped to think about it, just how many former podcast guests were at Maryland Live for this event. I hate to do this because I’ll probably leave one off, but off the top of my head: Sam Grafton, Olivier Busquet, Elena Stover, Chase Bianchi, Clayton Fletcher, Christian Soto, Matt Berkey, Christian Harder, and Ari Engel all played the tournament. Martin Harris covered the event for the WPT, Joe Giron was taking photographs, Nicole Rejiester was dealing, and of course Matt Savage was there running the show. So not only were there so many former guests there, but they represented so many different facets of the poker world, which made me feel like we’d really done what we set out to do.

Another of out goals – mine, anyway – was to make new friends and compel myself to spend more time interacting socially with more different people, which is the kind of thing that I know is good for me even though I don’t always make time for it.

Christian Soto is a great example of a friend I met because of the podcast, and it was a lot of fun playing with him on Day 2 of the event. We both busted around the same time, with good but not great results, and neither of us felt great about how we’d handled a few key spots. I know I, for one, lost a good deal of sleep thinking about what I could/shove have done differently with AK, and woke up this morning feeling somewhat morose.

Fortunately, Christian made time to record an in-person interview with me before his train back to New Jersey. Laughing and talking through hands with him was exactly the boost that my spirits needed, and an hour and a half later I was in a great mood (though sad to leave him at the train station!). Poker, especially tournament poker, really can be just brutally taxing, and I’ve found the best remedy is to talk about those feelings with someone who knows them himself.

So, on that front as well, mission accomplished. I can’t wait to share our conversation with you on Monday. Thanks Christian!

My Day 1A table draw was quite tough, I think, given the field. Not a lot went right for me, and I busted just a few hours in.

Day 1B went much better. My starting table was amazing, I was playing six-handed with five pretty weak players and a stack that was in play from the start of the tournament and whose owner never showed up to claim it. By the end of the day, it was blinded off, contributing probably $500 in equity to me!

Despite getting into a number of good spots, I didn’t come out ahead after the first two hours of play. It was only after two better players showed up at the table that I claimed a few big pots.

I didn’t recognize the player who landed on my immediate left, but he fit the stereotype of a twenty-something grinder. He was kind of reserved and aloof and played as though he thought he everyone else was clueless (which, to be fair, several of the others basically were). This also resulted, however, in him doing some extremely exploitable things against me that cost him two large pots.

In the first, blinds are 100/200, effective stacks 40K, and the BB is the dead stack. UTG is a really obviously amateurish player who fumbles his chips and tries to raise to 300 but has to make it 400 and is blatantly not too strong here. However, I also know that this guy doesn’t like to fold to 3-bets and will even make some wild 4-bets, so I’d rather just call him with my T9dd. Problem is I’ve got this kid on my left who I’m pretty sure is going to 3-bet if I just call. So I figure fine, let him do it, we’ll play poker, and I call. Sure enough the kids makes it 2000, UTG calls, and so do I.

Flop is K32 with one diamond. We check to the kid who bets 3000, UTG folds, and I call. I can’t rep any strong hands yet, as I wouldn’t check-raise if I had a monster, but I still don’t think he has anything, and I’m going to find a bluff somewhere if I don’t pair up.

Turn is a 5, which is great because now I can bet into him, which is what I’d actually want to do with a lot of strong hands to keep from taking a free card with Ax. I bet 4000, and he quickly raises to 12K which is just extremely implausible. I mean, I don’t think he’s playing Kx this way, so either he has two-pair or better (even then I’d expect more of an act) or he’s full of it.

Still, it wasn’t easy to force myself to move in for 35K here. I didn’t relish sticking in 200 BBs with T-high no draw, but I really had a lot of confidence that this was going to work. He tanked for a while, during which I had more trouble than usual keeping a good poker face because I kept thinking about how stupid I was going to feel if he called. He eventually, folded, though, after which I felt like a genius.

A while later, at 300/600, there was now another good player at the table, and he opened to 1500 from UTG2. I just called with JJ in the SB, and kid from before raised to 5500 from the BB. This time I was sure he was strong. He wasn’t going out of his way to pick fights with the two best players at the table, especially when he had the option of just calling and seeing a cheap flop. Still, I wasn’t going to fold Jacks, so I called.

The flop came 983ss. I checked, he bet 7K (half the pot), and I called. The turn was a 5, I checked, and he bet 14K, leaving about 60K behind. There was some chance he was barreling AK, but that seemed unlikely, and he definitely didn’t have worse for value. In all likelihood, Jacks were no good. However, I also didn’t think he would have re-raised any smaller pairs or suited connectors when he could so easily call them, so really he couldn’t have better than one pair, while I had lots of sets, two-pairs, and straights in my range. This actually makes it a pretty bad idea for him to bet the turn, unless he just assumes I’m not capable of bluff raising him, because opening himself up to a bluff raise is a disaster. So, I went for it. Again, he tanked a long time, and this time he folded QQ face up!

I came into Day 2 with about twice the average in chips, but with 40% of the field remaining, we were still a ways from the money. A few hours later, my table broke, and I still had roughly the chips with which I’d started the day.

With blinds of 1500/3000/500, a player in middle position opened to 6500. I raised to 16500 with QQ on the button, and he pretty quickly ripped it in for 140K. I wasn’t thrilled, but I called it off with QQ and lost to AA, busting in about 100th place, with 63 paying. I’m not sure it was a good call – Nate and I discuss it a bit on the upcoming podcast.

You can follow Gavin on Twitter @nhgg and read his column in Cardplayer Magazine.

Timestamps

:30 hello
7:57 fat harry potter
23:05 GG

Strategy

On the face of it, this is a complicated hand with a lot of variables. Three players, all of whom have shown some level of strength, still hold cards. There’s so much to determine: if BTN has AA we lose less than if BB has AA and BTN is more likely to call with QQ and what if HJ wakes up with a hand and blahblahblah…. Ian is right that this would be a good project for the Cardrunners-EV Calculator, but I’m too stupid to use that thing.

For the less mechanically inclined, Eddie offers an easy way of framing the problem: “We need their ranges to be wide enough so that if they are only ever calling with AA, we will get enough fold equity to win the 27k right away.” In other words, what if we turned our cards face up and shoved? Could we show a profit? If not, we can at least see how close we get and then decide how much slack there is in our assumptions and how likely various players are to make a mistake (ie call with AK or QQ). Of course we still have a bit of work to do putting people on ranges.

Although HJ is calling off more than 10% of his stack, I agree with the many commenters who say that he’s more likely a weak player than a sneaky slowplaying shark. For the moment I’m going to assume he never has a calling hand of any sort, including Aces. Later we can decide whether that’s an assumption worth revisiting.

As for the BTN, Kelley knows what he’s talking about when it comes to old nits. (Just kidding, buddy! But seriously let’s get that button 3-bet % up a bit!):  “The vast majority of 50+ men that like to play this price point are rocks. They know the concepts of squeezing and light 3Bs, but don’t usually work them into their games. In short, they always have it when they 3B, and by it I mean AA, KK, AK and sometimes QQ.” Hero has made if anything a suspiciously strong raise from early position (more on that in a moment), so I don’t see much reason to think BTN is anything but strong here. I’m not prepared to read much into the exact size of his 3-bet, but I think he likes his hand quite a bit.

Likewise, BB is extremely strong. We know he’s tight, he probably doesn’t expect BTN to be light, and he needs a hand to do this. Still, it’s hard for me to see him mucking QQ or AK, so I’m going to put those into his range.

For the moment, I’m putting both BTN and BB on {QQ+,AK}. Considering that Hero holds two of the Kings, BTN will wake up with AA 28.5% of the time.  If he folds, that actually increases the likelihood of BB having AA because it removes at least one if not two non-Aces from the deck. 71.5% (the chance of BTN folding) times 71.5% (the chance of BB folding ignoring the card removal effect of BTN’s fold) is 51%, so let’s say that Hero wins the pot of 28,400 uncontested.

The other half of the time, Hero is called by someone with Aces (we’re ignoring the case where both Villains have AA because it’s rare and doesn’t have a big effect on Hero’s equity since it’s already counted as a call from a single AA). If it’s BTN, which it will be about half the time, Hero has an 18% chance of winning 50K and an 82% chance of losing 25K. If it’s BB, Hero has an 18% chance of winning 63K and an 82% chance of losing 46K. That’s .5 ((.18*50000 – .82 * 25000) + .5 ((.18*63000) – (.82 * 46000)) ~ -19K, more than enough to outweigh Hero’s upside of 14,200.

Before we mess around too much with the BTN’s range, notice that Hero’s losses to BB alone are 13,190. Even if we give BTN a slightly wider range for his first raise, thus increasing Hero’s odds of winning without showdown, it’s not going to make a big dent in that number. The thing to see is that BB has Aces a lot, and Hero has a lot to lose when he runs into them. If you think both Villains have ranges somewhat wider than this, then Hero’s equity probably improves to the point where a face-up shove becomes slightly +EV, though when it comes to BB I think it’s optimistic to put JJ into his range.

The only way to increase Hero’s equity in a big way to have someone call a shove with a hand worse than KK. Personally, I agree with Ian that it sounds like, “the BTN is liable to shrug and make a bad ‘standard’ call, but that BB might be able to make a really tight fold preflop.” Even if BB does get away from QQ, Hero will show a profit as long as BTN does not. Considering that our assumptions on ranges were also a bit conservative, I’d shove here, although as you can tell from this wall of text it’s close.

What About Calling?

I’m not a fan. As Heffmike explains,

If you flat the BB’s 4-bet, what range are the Hijack/Button really continuing with? AA and maybe KK? They’re too shallow to do anything else otherwise. I can see where there’s an argument for cold-calling the 14K, if you think it’ll induce a shove from the short stacks and isolate you from the BB, who can really hurt you. But I just don’t see them doing that – plus, that kind of allows the BB to never put another chip in postflop unless he improves, and that’s not good for you – If BB is making a play with something worse than KK, will he give you more chips if he doesn’t hit one of his 2-3 outs on the flop?

This is a textbook case of reverse implied odds. Once you call the 4-bet, any more money that goes into the pot will go in bad for you. I don’t buy that a call will show weakness and induce any kind of shove. There’s nothing weak about putting that kind of money into the pot with no fold equity. If anything, a call may look even stronger than a shove. I discuss this concept in greater detail in an article entitled “No Such Thing as a Free Hunch.“

Hero’s Open Raise Size

Tyler3 over on the Cardplayer blog expresses my sentiments exactly: ” You made a raise that was a littler bit larger than the table standard which should send off an alarm right away. Not neccessarily that you always have a monster, just that something is different right away.” You’re not exactly broadcasting the strength of your hand, but you’re sending out a little signal that something is up. Particularly given that you’re an early position raiser, I think this could result in people being a little more cautious about raising you, which is just the opposite of what you want.

Results

This comes from Taddis himself. I spent like three hours writing all this up so I think I’ve earned the right to include his little plug at the bottom!

My feeling on the hand was that it was 50-50 as to whether BB had aces or not with only AK QQ and the last two KK as the only other possible holdings. I decided that because I had the biggest stack and because winning the pot would make me an overwhelming chip leader, to shove and pray that BB didn’t have the AA. The HJ folded, BTN called the all-in for less and, to my dismay, so did the BB. BTN had JJ and BB had AA. Board ran clean and AA held up and I was decimated and later shoved with JJ and lost to AA to eliminate me. Really interesting spot though and thanks for taking the time to post it and generate the discussion that has ensued on your site.

By the way, I played two other events in the wpt parx open classic series since the one discussed here. min-cashed (27th out 278) in one and made final table in another where a chop was negotiated and somehow I ended up with 4th place money even though I had the second shortest stack of the 9 final tablers. That one drew 242 runners. Your site has definitely made a marked impact on my results so thanks again!

It’s unfortunate that he ran into the AA but BTN’s call confirms our suspicion that he at least could make some bad calls with worse. Against a player capable of folding QQ here, this is a fold, even if his 3-betting range includes JJ!

Thanks for the kind words, Taddis, and for participating in the conversation about your hand. Thanks to all the commenters as well – have a great weekend!

Event 1 of a WPT series at Parx Casino. $200+30 entry with un-limited re-entry thru level 6. 20,000 starting stacks with 30min blinds. Level 9 (re-entry period over) 260 players remain from 535 total entrys for average chip stack of 41,000. Blinds are 600/1200/100.

Hero UTG + 1 60k. Table image is pretty tight-good and have steadily accumulated chips mostly through small-medium pots with one fairly large 3-way pot early in tournament with that went to showdown. Have showed down 3 times total on the day, losing with KK to 7-4 that rivered two pair and winning the other two with a good hand (TPTK) and top set. Haven’t gotten out of line, no pre-flop 3 bets to this point.

Hijack seat: 22k young loose-passive player that i have played with in the past. Routinely cold calls raises with less than premium holdings and gets himself into trouble playing less than premium broadway type hands.

Button: 28k Older 50ish, “know-it-all” type that likes to offer his analysis of every hand at its conclusion. guy who says things like ‘you have to fold xx there” or ‘the odds etc etc “. threw around a lot of poker terms but didn’t really use them correctly.

BB: 49k young player who was very tight thusfar. Didn’t enter tournament until level 5 and had only played 3-4 hands across 2 hours of play. Seemed like he made some disciplined folds when facing pressure and in the few hands he did play, made one squeeze play to isolate a weak opponent to get a heads-up all in situation that he won with JJ > AQ

Here’s the action:

utg: fold
hero: KK raise to 3200 (standard raise for table had been 2800)
folds to HJ
HJ: calls 3200
CO folds
BTN: re-raises to 6500.
SB: folds
BB: re-raise to 14000

What’s your play and why? Post your thoughts and analysis here, and I’ll be back to offer my own thoughts on Friday.

One word of warning: If you’re going to comment, please dig deeper than, “I’m not good enough to fold KK. If he has AA oh well.” I wouldn’t be posting this hand if it were that simple. Thinking through situations that you previously treated as automatic and looking for exceptions to rules is one of the best ways to get better. Whether you want to fold, call, or raise, put these players on ranges, explain your assumptions, and demonstrate why your preferred line is the best way to go against those ranges.

Although he sounds like a caricature of a marketing hack when he says it, WPT Executive Producer Tony Grimm describes Tony’s qualifications for the job quite well: “There were a number of tremendously talented individuals who auditioned for the Raw Deal, but Tony stood out for his candor, his knowledge and his delivery. He’s going to have a big impact on the broadcast. He may ruffle some feathers, but he wasn’t brought in to be Mr. Nice Guy.”

According to the press release, Tony was also selected for his cosmopolitan background (he was born in Wisconsin and has lived in China, Australia, and Las Vegas) and his knowledge of the game.

To be honest, I haven’t seen a WPT broadcast in years, but this might get me watching. Even for televised poker it always seemed particularly light on meaningful poker content. Tony really is the ideal combination of charisma, personality, and poker talent for a gig like this. Huge congratulations and best of luck, buddy!

Seat 1 – Elky Grospellier – 5,955,000
Seat 2 – Scotty Nguyen – 3,275,000
Seat 3 – Shannon Shorr – 1,130,000
Seat 4 – Yevgeniy Timoshenko – 13,300,000
Seat 5 – Christian Harder – 7,425,000
Seat 6 – Ran Azor – 2,525,000

As you can see, there a few other well-known players at the table. Nonetheless, my money’s on Christian to win it all. Good luck buddy!

Blinds started off at 500/1000/100- can’t say enough about the great structure tournament director Matt Savage put together! My 17K chips gave me the perfect stack for shoving over raises. The first time I was in the BB, action folded to one of the internet guys in the SB. I felt like he was probably going to raise any two, because most of those guys just cannot bring themselves to open fold. He made it 2400, which unfortunately told me he was probably good, capable of choosing just the right bet size. But I had 44, moved all in, and got him to fold quickly. “I’m gonna pump your stack up 2400 chips at a time,” he told me, with a hint of disdain in his voice.

“Feel free,” I responded.

My second BB, one of the weaker players opened to 2100. I hate calling raises with such a short stack, but with Q9 I felt like I had to. I check-folded to 4500 on a ragged flop.

On my third BB, action folded to the SB again. He opened to 2400 again. It’s hard to say what his range is here, given that I shoved on him last time. I could see him open shoving some hands that he didn’t want to raise-fold or raise-call, stuff like QJ and suited connectors. But I doubt he was open folding anything, so he probably had a lot of bluffs in his range anyway. I shoved with K3o, but he had AA and that was that.

I’d only wasted half an hour on the tournament that morning, so Emily and I took off for Santa Cruz, where we camped by the beach. There are worse consolation prizes!

I decided to play the Bay 101 because of the combination of a nice location, great structure/tournament director (thanks Matt Savage!), and interesting people I thought it would attract, both because of the area and the number of pros who play as “shooting stars” with $5000 bounties on their heads.

At the outset, they distributed the bounties evenly, with one or two at every table in the 5 and/or 7 seats. I was fortunate to get probably the single softest bounty in the field at my table: 2007 WSOP main event champion Jerry Yang was seated to my immediate left. He was very quiet, but friendly enough. To my surprise, he made a lot of hopeless bluffs, especially in the early stages of the tournament. That’s not exactly how I expected him to play, which is maybe what he was going for. I called him down correctly once with 8s 4s on a Js 8h 3s Qd 3d board.

I did some splashing around in the early going, got into pots with weak players but couldn’t make anything happen and bled away about 10% of my chips in the first hour. I lost about the same in the next hour, but then just before the first break I picked up 77 in early position. Blinds were 50/100, and because the table was playing very loose, I just min-raised to 200. Small pairs are hell to play out of position in big pots, so I was mostly looking for set value.

A young, boisterous Asian kid who seemed to be a local regular rather than an internet phenom re-raised to 650. It was the first re-raise we’d seen at our table all day, and I was very sure what he had. I called, and got a nice but not perfect Tc 8c 7s flop. There was only 1300 in the pot but 16K in the effective stacks. This guy seemed like exactly the sort to overplay a big pair here, trying to “protect” his hand, and I wanted to get the money in before a scare card came off. I was afraid that if I check-raised him he might just call, which I didn’t want. So I led out for 900, he raised to 2K, I moved all in, and he called so quickly that for a second I was afraid he might have TT. But he turned over AA, looked disgusted, and failed to hit his two-outer. I went into the first break with nearly 35K, well over the average of about 22K.

After the break, blinds were 100/200. I called a raise from a tight older Japanese guy who seemed not very good with Ah 7s in the SB. The flop came AJT with one heart, and we both checked. The turn brought the Qh, giving me a flush draw and the idiot end of a gutshot to go along with my top pair. To a more aggressive player, I check here, but against this guy, I decided to bet out 700 instead, thinking he’d call with a lot of draws and worse pairs that he wouldn’t bet.

Instead, he raised to 3000, leaving about 3000 behind, which was pretty much the worst thing he could do. Especially from this player, this was a very strong line. I didn’t want to shove, because I was sure I did not have the best hand. It was very close between call and fold. I ultimately decided to call, but in retrospect I’m not sure that was best. The river was an off-suit 4, and I check-folded. I’m still not sure whether leading out on the turn was actually better than just check-calling. Even if I also check-called the river, it probably would have cost me the same but I would have seen my opponent’s hand.

I ran into a few interesting spots against Yang where his bounty influence my decision. In one, I opened to 500 with KJs on the button, and he made it 2000 from the SB with 8000 behind. Ordinarily I would fold, but relataive to this many chips the $5000 for busting him is a huge overlay. I opted to call and fold to a shove on a T74 flop with none of my suit. He told me he had KK, and I decided that even with the bounty my call was a bad one.

A little later, he had position and a somewhat deeper stack and repopped my 500 raise to 1500. I called with QTs and again check-folded a flop that whiffed me entirely. That one I think was justified.

The guy I’d busted was replaced with Bill Gazes Edler in the 7 seat. Bill wasn’t actually a bounty, but because he was known to a lot of the dealers and sitting in the bounty seat, he had to keep explaining that he wasn’t actually a shooting star. I don’t think he actually felt snubbed at not having a bounty, but it would have been funny if he did since dealers kept assuming that and shouting for the floor when he was all in.

It was unfortunate for me that he wasn’t a bounty, because I ended up busting him. The last hand before our first break, blinds were 150/300/25. Gazes Edler, sitting on about 12K, raised to 1000 UTG+1. I called with 88 in the SB, expecting him to be very strong, and Maria Ho (who had replaced Yang on my immediate left) called in the BB. I had about 20K, and she covered me.

The flop came Jd 9d 8s, and I had to think about how I wanted the money to go in. If we check to Bill, he probably bets, then I have to raise and Maria folds probably every hand worse than mine. Instead, I led out for 1800. Maria called, and Bill moved all in. I put on a show of thinking about whether to call, hoping to entice Maria in with a wider range, but she was paying no attention at all, which was actually bad for me. Either she was already planning to fold, or she had a huge hand and was doing the classic Caro “weak-means-strong” pretending to have no interest in the hand. I finally shoved in, and she quickly folded.

Bill actually had TT, giving him something like 40% equity, but my set held up. He was very gracious about it, chatting with me briefly about the hand, then clapping me on the back and saying, “Use them well my friend.” Definitely left a very favorable impression with me.

There was a middle-aged Asian guy with bad teeth but a good sense of humor who initially seemed pretty fishy. In the early levels, he was playing almost every hand, often limp-calling raises out of position. As the blinds got bigger, though, he tightened up a bit, got a bit more aggressive, and started playing reasonably well post-flop. He still had his leaks, but for a while I was really overestimating how bad he was, and it cost me.

Blinds were 200/400/50, and he hadn’t limped in in ages. He called for 400, and a very tight/straightforward South Asian guy named Bobby (probably not how he spells it, but I didn’t ask) on my right made it 1600 on the Button. I was in the SB with AKo with 40K. The LAG had about 24K, but Bobby covered me and I didn’t think I could get AK in pre-flop profitably against him. I elected to just call the raise, expecting both of them to overplay top pair if they flopped it, such that my implied odds were very good.

The limper made it 6K. Even though he was pretty LAG, he’d only limp-raised once before, and it was with KK. I thought for a long time and folded. He showed me the 6h, and I kicked myself for an awful weak-tight fold.

Towards the end of the night, I was moved to a new, tougher table. There were three shooting stars there: David “The Dragon” Pham across the table from me, Annie Duke a few seats to his left, and Kenny Tran on my immediate right. If Annie recognized me, she didn’t give any indication of it, as she has in the past.

For her part, she was looking rough. It’s a popular assertion on 2+2 and other poker forums that Annie is unattractive, but when I first met her three years ago, I thought she was pretty good looking for a 40-year-old mother of four. Now, though, there were rings under her eyes and a darkness in her face, perhaps a physical manifestation of the slow corruption that affiliation with Ultimate Bet was exacting on her soul.

The first time that she raised my blind, it was 400/800/100 and she raised to 2200. Kenny Tran called in the SB, and even before I looked at my cards, I was thinking squeeze. I looked down at 85s, straightened in my seat a bit, looked around, capped my cards, did some mental arithmetic, and raised to 8000. They both folded very quickly.

Kenny Tran, as I’ve already said, was on my right. On my left was a big, kinda doofy Italian guy whom I’ve seen around at Foxwoods and the WSOP. He and Kenny got into a conversation about how many players would be left at the end of the day, and the Italian somewhat off-handedly said that he’d take the under on 50.

“Ten thousand dollars?” Kenny asked.

“Book it.” And just like that, a $10,000 prop bet was made. There was some quibbling over details, such as what would happen if exactly 50 players remained (technically, the Italian had volunteered to take the under, but they confirmed the accuracy of the posted number with the tournament director before finalizing the bet, and in that time they renegotiated that 50 would be a push), but there was no doubt in my mind that either man would pay if he lost.

“Cash only,” Kenny said.

“Bellagio chips?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. But just like, no check.”

“Check? You’re talkin’ to the wrong guy, check. I haven’t had a checking account since… I was born.”

“OK, good.”

“What about Circus, Circus? Will you take Circus, Circus chips?”

Kenny laughed, but then the Italian leaned over and whispered to him (though I could hear, because I was sitting between them), “Seriously, I’ll get you cash no problem. I won’t have it tonight, but a lot of people owe me money, and they will pay me by Wednesday. One hundred percent.” Kenny waved him away, no problem, and I believed him as well. Like I said, he was Italian.

Maria Ho was moved to the same table I was, and despite reraising me three times at our last table, had generally been staying out of my way. She went so far as to open limp her button when I was in the BB, but I found AKs and popped it to 4K. She re-raised to 9K and change, but I had only 30ish left, so I just shipped it in. She tanked for a long time, staring at me, commenting on the tension in my neck, etc. but eventually folded. Although that is what I wanted her to do, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have minded a call either.

Two hands later, the action folded to me in the SB, where I had 99. I raised to 2500, and the Italian called. The flop came KJx with two diamonds, hardly what I wanted to see. I checked and reluctantly called a 2500 bet.

Bink! The turn was a 9, and I checked again. Unfortunately, so did my opponent.

Even worse, the river brought a T, putting four a straight on the board. I bet 4500, which he hemmed and hawed and called, only to crow about the bad beat when I showed my set.

That table broke with only half an hour left in the night, and I got moved to a new one with Freddy Deeb, Joe Sebok, and Daniel Alaei. The first hand I played, I raised Deeb’s blind to 2400 with 44. He called and led into me for 5000 on an AQx rainbow flop. It seemed pretty unlikely to me that he had a super strong hand, so I called, figuring I’d turn my hand into a bluff if he checked the turn. He bet 13K, though, and I folded.

As for how the day finished up, most of you know how it went for me. There were exactly 50 players left, so the bet ended in a push. And there were more than 200 registered for Day 1B before the night was up, so I’m assuming there was good turnout today. Most likely we’ll need to play down from 140 or so to 36 tomorrow, which should take roughly the same 10 hours as yesterday. Hopefully I’ll still be among the 36, as tables will be 6-handed on Day 3!

Daniel Alaei was on my immediate right, with Joe seated to his right. The two had been openly joking about how ridiculously tight a youngish Asian player across the table from us was. That player caught the big blind on the last hand of the night. Joe made a joke about going all in blind pre-flop to steal from him.

Blinds were 400/800/100, and Sebok open raised to 2200 with 30K behind. I thought that especially on the last hand of the night with a super tight player in the BB he could have almost anything here. Alaei called, and I was pretty sure that since he knew Sebok knew he knew the guy was tight, he didn’t have a huge hand and didn’t want to get into a pre-flop leveling war. He was just calling to use his position and knowledge of Joe’s wide range post-flop.

Neither of them knew a thing about me. It seemed like a great spot for a squeeze play, especially since there’s a $5000 bounty on Joe, giving me an overlay in the worst case scenario where he has a hand. I make it 9000 with A3o, committing myself against Sebok but leaving room to fold to Alaei. Action folds to Sebok, who moves all in. Alaei folds, I call, and he shows me AKo.

The board comes out 7c 8c 9c Tc, and neither of us has a club. I have 15 outs to chop on the river and two to win, but it’s an offsuit 4 and I get busted down to 17,400 on the last hand of the night. There’s something like 50 left from today, and they are expecting close to 250 to play tomorrow.

The more I think about it, the more I like this play and think I was just unlucky that Sebok had a hand. I don’t know a lot about him, but based on the information I had, I don’t regret the squeeze.

Was a pretty fun day on the whole, got to play with Jerry Yang, Bill Gazes, Robert Williamson III, Maria Ho, David Pham, Annie Duke, Kenny Tran, and Freddie Deeb in addition to the guys I mentioned above. I’ll post a more thorough report tomorrow, then I play again on Wednesday.

Thanks for following along!

We flew into Oakland Saturday night and had a minor adventure at the airport. Our hotel offered a free shuttle, but the Colgate Women’s Lacrosse team was already waiting for the shuttle when we got to the depot. It looked like the driver was going to need at least three trips to get all of them, and rather than waiting half an hour, we went to find a cab stand.

Along the way, a woman who seemed like a helpful airline employee (suspicious combination, I know, but in my defense I was tired) told us we could take a commercial shuttle for “about $5 each”. We waited a few minutes for the shuttle to arrive, and then a driver with a thick Indian accent started to pick up our bags and ask where we were going. He had clearly never heard of our hotel, which was practically walking distance from the airport, and started his price negotiation at $20.

When I informed we were told $10, he grew irate, first at us, then at the woman who, it turned out, worked for the shuttle company and was aggressively recruiting customers at the airport. As best we could tell, she’d roped us in then called for a shuttle, but the driver didn’t consider it worth his time to come out to the airport for a $10 job and was angry at her for calling him. We slunk away as the man berated her, and she shouted a meak apology and directions to the cab stand at our backs.

Yesterday we drove from Oakland to San Jose, stopping in a park to hike through a Redwood canyon. They weren’t the colossal redwoods that are so famous, but they were still pretty big, and we saw some turkey-sized birds, so it was all good, though more than a little muddy. I’d upload some pictures, but this hotel internet connection is blazingly slow.

We stopped for lunch at a Chicago-style pizzeria called Zachary’s just outside of Berkeley. Having lived in Chicago for four years, I can say that it wasn’t a particularly authentic recreation, but it was quite good in its own right and came with one of the best mixed greens salads I’ve ever had.

Play starts in less than two hours, and I’m looking forward to starting the day with a big breakfast, so I better go. Wish me luck, and check back tonight for an update!

The raid occurred around 7:40 p.m. I was in the kitchen area which was just inside the front door when suddenly there was loud banging from the door. Within seconds, the room was full of Dallas SWAT officers yelling for everyone to put their hands in the air. Behind the Dallas SWAT team came many more law enforcement officers and several camera crews for the A&E reality show, Dallas SWAT. The camera crew’s chests were clearly marked as “A&E Film Crew.”

Bear in mind that, prior to police entering, the place was virtually quiet. There was the sound of poker chips in the air, but not much else. The players were essentially professionals and working stiffs having fun…there were doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other professionals. There was hardly anything “dangerous” about the place at all. In fact, the cops found no weapons in the facility or on anyone there. The show of force and weaponry brought by the cops was simply outrageous and unjustified, given the circumstances, but, then again, are they enforcing the law or making a TV show?

Among other things, I think this is an interesting comparison with the way decisions made by Harrah’s and the hosts of World Poker Tour events are driven by camera crews and the needs of the networks that broadcast poker.

Seat 1: Ralph Perry – 1,635,000
Seat 2: Luke “IWearGoggles” Staudenmaier – 3,495,000
Seat 3: John “The Razor” Phan – 3,495,000
Seat 4: David Benyamine – 4,860,000
Seat 5: Gabe Thaler – 1,550,000
Seat 6: Mike “SirWatts” Watson – 5,060,000

Watson won over $1.6 million for his first place finish. Sigh, I still recall playing with him at one of my first big final tables, a $10 rebuy on Poker Stars. I’ve had the privilege of meeting him twice, most recently during the WSOP main event when we were both in good shape on Day 2B.

I love this photo of Watson with all the people from 2+2 who were there to see him win it. There’s really an extraordinary collection of talent in this photo, including two other winners of earlier events in the Bellagio series: Tony “Bond18” Dunst, who won a $3K event, and Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, who won a $5K event just weeks after turning 21. What a huge couple of weeks it’s been for 2+2. I only wish I could have done my part by final tabling the main event.

Congratulations, Mike!

“In their original lawsuit, the players claimed that the terms of the WPTE player release would force them to violate other endorsement agreements and rights to images that the players and their sponsors had otherwise contracted for, and as a result, the players were forced to forego participating in WPT events. The action was framed in antitrust terms, alleging that WPTE and its partner casinos unlawfully conspired to eliminate competition and violated the intellectual property rights of these players. WPTE strictly denied that its standard player release was in any way “in violation of antitrust or other laws.” The modified player release, while not detailed by WPTE, likely addresses related concerns.”

Lacking the time, money, and inclination to play any WPT events, I never looked into the exact wording, but I trust that the players were on the right side of this one. Those are some pretty wise folks, and I would trust their judgment on an issue like this. Now that the release has been changed, I’m probably a bit more likely to play a WPT tournament in the next year. But first I need to remember how to be good at poker….

It is also worth noting that Chang is of Asian descent. Probably in part because of online poker’s uncertain future in the US, gaming companies are increasingly looking to Asia as an emerging market for gambling of all kinds, including poker. Macau has just surpassed Las Vegas as the gambling capital of the world. In light of their success, “Several Asian countries are easing restrictions on casinos, taking a bet that Las Vegas-style gambling halls will attract more tourists and create jobs. “ (BBC News)

LaunchPoker reports that, “China has a very active middle class with loads of disposable income. This fact, combined with the expansion of poker into China via ESPN, has created a situation that can resemble a new gold rush for the online poker industry. ” The first event of the Betfair Asia Poker Tour took place in November, and later this month, the Poker Stars-sponsored Asia Pacific Poker Tour kicks off in Manila. Though gambling is illegal in China, poker was recently declared a sport, paving the way for the World Poker Tour.

If only America were so liberal and enlightened…