I arrived at the Rio around 3:30 PM on July 4th. I had $4000 in tournament lammers in my left pocket and $3400 cash in my right. My objective was to play satellites (they were running a bunch of $500 and $1000 megas, including one at 4PM) until I was up to $10,000, at which point I would register for the main event and then either pick up my gear from the Poker Stars suite at Treasure Island, or, if it was too late, head home and swing by TI the next day.
When I arrived, however, I found a tournament registration line stretching out the door and around the corner. I knew the sats were going to be soft, but that also meant they were going to be boring, and waiting in this line would crush my hourly rate. The line for single table sats didn’t look much better, so I decided to check out the cash game scene. 5/10 NL had open seating, so my mind was made up.
I bought in for $1500, and as I was stacking my chips, I watched a young Asian kid with a big stack, probably like $4000, get 100 BB’s all in with AK no flush draw against an old man on an A-high, monochrome flop. Yipes, this is live poker 101: don’t stack off to old men with top pair and no draw. Target acquired.
I was playing my usual game of raising limpers with position and firing at flops to chip up, but then lost a sizeable pot to a Brit who slow-played KK and found myself with about $1000. The guy who had limp-called KK before limped to a straddle, a loose guy who was Swedish by citizenship but not by ethnicity limped behind, and I made it $120 with KTo. They both called, and the flop came out KT8r. Checks to me, I bet $250, they both call. Turn off-suit deuce, they check to me, I shove my last $650 or so, and the first guy tanks. The Swede folds out of turn, which is pretty rude but actually helps me in this situation since I want the call. After like 5 minutes the Swede calls the clock on the Brit (they had played together before and the Brit thought it was funny) and the guy finally calls, telling me he has no pair. Whoops, maybe I didn’t want that call after all. Turn is another deuce, though, and I’m shipped a nice pot.
A little while later, this tool takes a seat next to me. He’s got the sunglasses, the hair gel, fashionably unbuttoned shirt, and a ball cap that reads “Philly” in what I guess was supposed to look like graffiti letters. He clearly thinks he’s hot [censored] as he takes a fat roll of bills from his pocket and peels off twenty. Then, in completely unballer fashion, he thinks better of it, puts half the bills back, and buys in for $1000.
Meanwhile, his girlfriend is pulling up a seat slightly behind him and to the right. Note that this still takes up some space at the table, as the guy is sitting considerably closer to me than he otherwise would be, and because he is lefthanded, he jostles me several times as he stacks his chips.
His lady didn’t have to be unattractive. She had blonde hair, blue eyes, and large breasts. But she was a thickalicious girl in a very short skirt that highlighted her thunder thighs. Her plunging neckline revealed quite a lot of cleavage, but her completely unsupportive bra gave her a bad case of pancake boob.
I was not happy with this guy for depositing his stubbly face and his busted girlfriend in my peripheral vision, and I resolved to make him regret it.
He posts $10 in the CO, and another new player at the table has already posted $10 as well. Action folds to the tool, who raises his post to $50. I resolve to pop him with any two from the button. I find 72o, but a deal’s a deal, so I make it $150. He glances at my stack, ponders a moment, and calls.
The flop comes 444, and immediately he asks me “Did you make a full house, too? I made a full house. I check.” I hate it when people run their mouths during a hand. After a few moments of thought, I bet $180, and he calls.
Turn is a T, and he checks. [censored] Zeebo Theorem can I really get this tool to fold whatever [censored] full house he has? If I really had a big pair I’d just price him in on the turn and river since he’s only got a pot-sized bet left in his stack and probably no understanding of what “pot odds” actually means. But that’s exactly why I can’t run a bluff that way, and if I just shove now, he’ll probably put me on AK like the live “pro” tool that he is. So after much thought I check behind.
The river is a K, and I get as excited about this as I would if I really had AK. “Damn,” he says with deliberately, conspicuously bad acting. “I let you get there. You got AK. I should have bet the turn, huh? OK, I check.” As I am pondering, he keeps mentioning AK, and every time he does, I have to wait a few more seconds before I can bluff. Finally he shuts his stubbly mouth long enough for me to announce a bet of $350. Dickface turbo-mucks and sneers at me with an intolerable air of superiority, “Do you think I’m an idiot?”
I flip my 72o, and his face drops like a rock as the implications of this hand become clear to him. Here he has taken his filly to come watch him own this “high stakes” poker game, and not only has he lost, not only has he been bluffed, but some kid took one look at him and decided that it would be profitable to play the worst hand in poker against him. It’s not like I missed a flush draw and had no choice but to bluff the river. Having never played a pot with this guy in my life, I took one look at him and decided to run a multi-street bluff from scratch with seven-deuce off-suit.
His girl starts consoling him with thigh stroking, but of course her pity is the last thing he wants right now. She is supposed to be in awe of him, not feeling sorry for him. “I wish you had flopped two pair. I would have taken all your money,” he tells me. 77 I guess? Yeah, if the case seven and a deuce had flopped, you probably would have stacked me. Congratulations. I kind of half shrug but still have not said a word to him.
Now he puts $1000 more in bills on the table and is on mega-tilt, limping into every pot, calling any raise, and firing at lots of flops. Amazingly, the table is letting him get away with it, and I can’t pick up anything to play against him. Finally a nice guy on my left cold calls a reraise from the kid with A’s in the SB, leads a rag flop, and shoves over the kid’s raise. The kid calls but mucks when the dude flips his hand on the river and storms away from the table with his woman tripping after him in her skinny heels.
Meanwhile, the guy who just stacked him, who was already up for the session, is now up quite a lot. He calls his wife to tell her the good news and starts racking his chips. We’d been friendly, so I tell him it’s been good playing with him. “I’ll play another round,” he tells me. Live poker 102: Always bluff a guy who has already bragged to his wife about how much money he has won.
Unfortunately, the guy is on my left, and I can’t get him to enter a pot. Finally, he raises $35 UTG in what is likely to be his last hand. A super-loose, short-stacked kid who looked half Japanese and half Filipino calls, and I call out of the BB with 93o. I would have reraised, but didn’t want to commit my stack against the kid. Flop K94. Hmmm, maybe I won’t need to bluff after all. I check, my buddy bets $60, the kid folds, and I call. Turn 5, I lead $120, and the guy folds. I was probably good all along, but I was ready to bet 2x pot on the river if called.
Now I’ve got a nice, wild image and nearly $3000 on the table. Time to run this table. My sights turn back to the young Asian kid who stacked off with AK. He opens for $30 UTG+1, a really loose and spewy older Asian man calls, someone else calls, and I raise to $160 with J9o in the CO. Only the older man calls, leaving himself a pot-sized bet left in his stack. I’m prepared to shove a lot of flops, but leads into me on an Ace high board that misses me completely, and I fold.
A few hands later, the loose Swede limps, a quiet guy in sunglasses and a black t-shirt with skulls on it limps, there was probably another limper in there somewhere, and I raise to $75 with QJo. The Swede and the metalhead call. Flop J45r, Swede checks, and the metalhead leads into me for $120. WTF is this? I call, and the Swede calls.
Turn is a blank, and now the guy shoves his last $360. Ugh, is he really shoving worse than QJ after getting called twice on the flop. Apparently he is, because after I fold, the Swede calls and his 67 is good when a 7 rivers. Bastard!
After like four limpers, I raise to $100 with Ac Kc and get called by the spewy old Asian man and by a very young, very quiet Swede. He was at the table when I sat down two hours ago and hasn’t played many pots since. From the little bit that I’ve seen, he plays well post-flop. He’s got about $2000 and seems to respect my play, ie he hasn’t tangled with me and has complimented me on a few hands.
Flop As Qd Jd, they check to me, and I bet $200, ready to get it in with the SOAM for $800 or whatever he’s playing. However, he folds, and the Swede calmly drops six $100 bills into the pot.
On the one hand, he didn’t seem at all inclined to force action at the table and in particular seemed to be staying out of my way. Plus, this seems like a pretty bad spot randomly to make a move on me. But on the other hand, what hands over-limp, over-call a raise, and then drill a flop like this? After much thought, I folded, and he showed me the 8h. I nodded with a thin smile on my face, and he said, “I had an A to go with it, of course.”
All this spewing has been expensive, and suddenly I realize I’ve only got $1700, barely what I started with. Time to rectify that situation. I open 4s 3s UTG for $35, and the action folds to the young Asian kid I targeted a while ago, who makes it $140. Everyone folds to me, and I figure with $1700 effective stacks and a good read I can justify this call.
Flop As 8d 6s. This development has exciting implications. I check, he bets $150, I call. Turn Qs, and I peel $400 in bills from behind my stack and drop them into the pot. He stares me down for a long time before calling. There are a lot of rivers I don’t want to see, including any spade and anything that pairs the board. Thankfully, it’s a harmless deuce. After a pregnant pause designed to invoke the memory of my big bluff against the tool from Philly, I shove the rest of my stack. The kid calls so quickly that I momentarily fear a higher flush, but instead he just looks disgusted when I table my hand, and the dealer ships me a nice pot.
After another orbit, I take a break to hit the restroom, get some food, and count my money. It’s 7PM, and I’m still $600 short of my goal. I don’t plan on playing poker tomorrow, and I want to play day 1A of the main event, so I need to get this [censored] taken care of tonight. I return to the table with a fruit salad and a mission.
Even thought I could come in CO-1, I decide to wait for my BB and enjoy my fruit. As I’m waiting, some guy in a Dead Money hat with a press pass around his neck takes a seat in the SB. He orders a beer, which the waiter spills across his chips. From what I saw, very little beer got on the guy, but he gets all pissy anyway. Jesus christ, these servers are delivering thousands of drinks each in a cramped, chaotic environment. Sometimes they are going to spill, it pretty much only got your chips, it’s nothing to get worked up about, so just sit back down you [censored] [censored] [censored]. People like this are what I hate most about live poker. New mission: bust this clown.
Two limps to me, I raise to $75 with black TT. The Japapino calls, the soggy journalist calls from the SB, and both limpers call. [censored] me, this is a big pot, please Lord show me a sweet sweet ten. Flop Ah Qh Td!!!!! And to make the moment even more orgasmic, the journalist leads out for $200. Folds to me, and after a moment of thought, I raise to $700. Folds to him, he insta-shoves, I call, he flips AQ YES YES YES YES THANK YOU GOD AND THANK YOU KARMA FOR STICKING IT TO THIS POS!!! Usually in big pots like this I sweat it until the river, but this time I know that my hand is going to hold. The universe will not let this guy suck out, the universe will not let this guy suck out.
The universe does not let this guy suck out. He walks away from the table without saying a word or finishing his replacement beer. It takes me five racks to carry all my chips over to the cage, and that’s after shoving like twelve bills into my pocket. Losing at live poker is way more frustrating than losing online, but there is nothing more rewarding than owning two live assholes and then carrying a mountain of chips over to the cage.
It’s official: I’ll be playing Day 1A of the World Series of Poker Main Event.